Emmanuel_Capricorn
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TLK : Chapter 129
🕑 Added 2025-09-12 20:31:01 +0000 UTC[3rd POV]
The researchers watched as the first battle between hyenas and lions unfolded. It was a scene unlike anything they had ever seen before, and it would surely stick in their memory for the rest of their lives.
Since the battle took place near the gorge, they could hear the sound of the battle. The occasional roar that Leo would release shook their nerves every single time.
They would describe it as camping next to the pits of hell.
It was a total bloodbath. The researchers, those who had sharpened their minds for years, felt their minds stop working. The scene was too much, too brutal, too extraordinary that there was absolutely no room for thought.
So many things were happening, their eyes didn’t even know what to look at, and their drones didn’t even know what to capture.
In such a soul-gripping moment, they could not even appreciate or be shocked at the coordination displayed by the pride. The main focus was Leo, and they thought their lion had died more than once.
They would surely have many sleepless nights from here on out just trying to analyse and understand the battle.
It was a huge-scale war between animals of different species for reasons they did not yet know. It was a battle taken straight out of a fictional story and made real.
They became clueless witnesses to everything. Ramirez and Joseph did everything to capture that moment so that they could share it with the rest of the world.
The part where Leo made his last stand against the horde was especially intense and gripping. They even forgot how to breathe and blink, not willing to miss even a fraction of a moment that would be remembered forever.
And when the battle finally ended and Leo came out victorious from the gorge, the researchers finally came back to reality.
By that point, everyone expressed their reaction through the only way they knew how.
Silence.
Utter silence.
There were no words as the two drones covered the aftermath. The hyenas ran back to the Pridelands while Leo and his pride retreated further into the forest.
Vultures came down from the sky and began feasting on all the corpses.
But still, there was only silence among the crew. It was silent, not from the lack of speaking but also from the lack of movement altogether.
No one moved.
It was like every single member of the crew was experiencing a life-changing moment, which they all did in their own way.
"No words can describe what we just witnessed," Dr Tonson said after everything had settled.
The two women among the crew finally began rubbing their tears, which had been streaming down nonstop. Why were they crying? They didn’t even know. It was just a natural reaction from the intense emotion they all were feeling.
"I think we all need time to process everything," Dr Tonson said. The others simply nodded; their thoughts, which were coming back, were nowhere near the present or the reality at the moment.
Maybe it was because of that that they noticed it so late.
"Dude, I can feel your hot breath on my neck-" Ramirez said absent-mindedly, while pushing away the head so close to him.
But when he looked back, he paused mid-sentence.
Because the face he saw was not the stupid-looking black man who had become his best friend, but the colourful face of a monkey.
Ramirez blinked owlishly, his brain still processing what he was seeing.
But when the monkey flashed a smile and at the same time flashed his long fangs, Ramirez screamed like a bitch.
"KYAAAAA!!!!!"
With that scream, he had cemented a life of teasing from Malik, and his cool persona crumbled. But he was too surprised to care about that.
The other members of the crew immediately turned their attention to him, and it was then that they finally saw the huge mandrill that was among them all this time.
"What the hell?!!" Robert screamed, and the crew dispersed from the animal immediately. And when I say dispersed, I mean falling on their backs and quickly crawling away.
Right after witnessing the greatest cinema nature had to offer, they nearly lost their lives from a heart attack.
(Oh, such rude reactions. Okay, okay, okay, I get it, you don’t want an old monkey among you. I’ll leave now,) The monkey, Rafiki, said.
But to the researchers, it looked like the mandrill was displaying his fangs and acting aggressively towards them. That made them nearly shit their pants. All of them were educated in wildlife, so they knew the danger posed by the biggest monkey in the world.
(Anyway, thank you for giving me the perfect view of the battle.) Rafiki said, and with a bow, he left the camp and disappeared into the trees.
"What the hell just happened? That shouldn’t be there," Elena said. It was double correct because mandrills should not exist in this region, and it should definitely not have been among them.
"Holy fuck, I thought my perfect face was going to get rearranged," Ramirez said, still clutching his heart while lying on the ground.
The crew took another few seconds to calm their rapidly beating hearts and to scan their camp to make sure no other wild animal was among them.
The ice was broken by Malik. He looked at his friend and with a shit-eating grin, screamed softly and in a girly manner, " 'Kyaa' "
Ramirez groaned and collapsed on the ground with his eyes closed.
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"Did that monkey just bow to us?" Hana said.
A new question among the long list they all had in their mind. At this point, that was somehow not the priority.
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The researchers all dealt with what they witnessed that day through different means. Some took out their notebooks and began sketching the scene of Leo fighting hundreds of hyenas, some re-watched the footage many times over and over again, some wrote in their journals, others articles, while a few just stared at the horizon, having an existential crisis.
They were supposed to be some of the most educated people on the planet, especially when it came to animals and wildlife.
So how come they knew so little? That was a question that plagued them all. That was a question that pushed them and gave a new purpose to their lives.
Every member dispersed into their own spaces. There was no discussion or gathering among them since their minds were enough to keep them occupied.
It was only when Malik and Ramirez made dinner and called every member of the crew to eat that the researchers gathered back in one place.
It was fully dark by this point; it was early in the night. The crew sat around a smouldering campfire, and they ate in their own space. And even still, silence reigned supreme between them.
It was unlike their usual dinner filled with banter and discussions of their new findings.
But after the long stretch of silence, it was Hana who broke the ice. She spoke out first because the things running through her mind required urgency, and she needed to share them with the rest of the crew.
"We need to help him," Hana said suddenly while putting her food down on her lap.
"???"
Her words immediately brought all eyes on her. The others looked at her with varying degrees of interest and reaction.
"Help who?" Dr Tonson asked with pinched eyebrows.
"Leo, he needs our help," she said, her voice firm like steel.
"You want to get involved in whatever war this is?" Ramirez asked, "What do you want us to do? Gun down the hyenas for him?"
"No, not that," Hana said.
"Then what?"
She took a deep breath and began her explanation, "I don’t know if you’ve seen the footage again, but I did, multiple times over the last few hours. And I know that Leo needs our help with his injuries."
"Directly interfering with the wildlife like that is prohibited by the ASM (American Society of Mammalogists) and the ASAB (Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour) guidelines. I know you feel for our research subject, but we can’t pick sides in nature," Robert said immediately.
He had experience and he had been in the fields many times. It was nothing new that a researcher wanted to help a sick animal or an abandoned cub. But they had codes; they should not interfere where they shouldn’t.
Humans were not gods; they shouldn’t act as such.
"He is not just a research subject, he is Leo," Hana said, a bit defensive of her take.
"I know your feelings, Hana, but Robert is right. Besides, Leo has come out of worse injuries," Dr Tonson said.
"No, you don’t understand. The wounds that Leo suffered today are not just simple wounds; they are wounds inflicted by multiple hyenas, perhaps hundreds of them," she said.
And right then was when it finally clicked for the others. Their eyes widened, Elena visibly gasped. They had so much to think about, so much shock and surprise in one day that they missed one crucial detail.
"Hyenas are scavengers that regularly eat decaying meat. Their mouths are crawling with bacteria, and each wound inflicted by their bite has a serious risk of infection. Usually, when Leo fights hyenas, they are not strong enough to inflict such wounds, but they had the chance today. And it’s not just one hyena but multiple that managed to leave a mark on him; the chances of infection are very high," she said.
Now that was an angle that the others had not considered before.
"And the blood..." Elena said suddenly. Now all the eyes looked at her as she explained.
"Leo was completely bathed and drenched in the blood of hyenas. That blood probably went into his open wounds, and hyenas are known to carry many diseases, CDV, rabies..." she said.
And right then, the horror and concern that Hana had been holding all this time was finally shared by the crew. They realised the gravity of the situation in an instant.
"Leo has the habit of washing himself in the water and keeping himself clean. That could reduce the risk of infection, but there are no watering holes nearby here," Dr Tonson said.
"So he is probably still drenched in hyenas’ blood even now, and all those open wounds," Elena said, finishing Dr Tonson’s worry.
The thoughts that the other researchers had previously seemed not so important when faced with this grave reality and the possibility of danger for Leo that he himself probably never realised or considered.
"But what are we going to do?" Ramirez asked.
"For starters, we could help him clean his wounds properly, unlike what the pride is doing by grooming," Hana suggested, "We have antiseptics and antibiotics with us."
"But we don’t have a vet with us, we don’t even have a tranquilliser since none of us has a licence," Ramirez said.
"We could go to him; he’ll understand we are trying to help," Hana said.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on a second. You want us to go to him? Are you insane?" Elena asked.
And so, the researchers began discussing how they were going to help him deal with the risk of infection from the wounds he suffered from the injuries.
"Perhaps we should wait a few days to see if the wounds are really causing an infection. Maybe Leo will be built differently like that too and shrug off all the diseases," Ramirez suggested.
"We know there is a very high chance of infection happening with the scale of the battle he just had. Hundreds of hyenas and at least ten of them, are bound to carry serious disease. It’s better to address the issue immediately," Elena said.
Robert finally put a stop to the conversation again, "I think we are all getting ahead of ourselves. We have not even decided whether we are going to interfere or not."
"Doctor?" Robert said while looking at Dr Tonson. He was the leader of the crew so what he said goes.
Dr Tonson grew quiet for a while. He had a thoughtful look on his face before, eventually, his face hardened into a decision.
"According to our guidelines, we should not interfere," Dr Tonson started.
"But the guidelines also state that human intervention is permitted in case of an endangered species. Leo is not just a lion, we all know this. Perhaps he could be said to be even more important than any other endangered species in the world. He is a specimen unlike any other," he said.
"So, just how many antibiotics do we have with us?"
His answer got the smiles of all the crew members. Even Robert sighed helplessly before revealing a small smile.
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Comments
Isabel Guillermo R.
Where is the promised double chapter?
Tarlock
Damn this is just getting better.
