Draken was forced to adapt to the body of the heir of the gorilla shifter that killed him. He's a little resentful, but to him— a person who always played his many different roles to the utmost of his abilities— this was something easy enough for him to swallow.
He may be killing shifters for the sake of it in his first life, but he wasn't really that repulsed by them, and instead loved their kind during his troubled youth… it's just that... denouncing, massacring, destroying them was his duty as a human from the other side.
Improvise. Adapt. Overcome.
He lived by these three creeds. It may not be the most unique words to live by, however, in a dog eat dog world like this one, he had to set aside his convictions to survive. Surely it isn't the noblest way to live, but it worked for him as he rose up the ranks of the Legion in emphatic fashion.
The stories he heard from the snake woman were a parallel to what he knew before he died, which was just yesterday it seemed… as he annoyingly found out as some sort of a rude awakening. King Harambe I's Ubwiza has fallen under the hands of Duke Uhuru, the Lion of the Southern Territories, and one of his supposed closest confidantes.
He found out with glee that his final opponent was dead, from the wounds he himself inflicted.
Gotta focus on the little victories, Draken thought.
If only his new persona was a little bit better than his killer's son. Any other young, true noble son would have sufficed.
But oh well, no point harping on about it anymore.
"Mistress Cleo, our scouts have spotted a swift moving force coming from the direction of Ubwiza!" A muscular, bull headed man entered the room with alarm in his eyes. "Must be that lion sicko's troops!"
"Tell the scouts to tail them in their animal forms, and relay the situation back to me. We'll evacuate the area immediately. Tell the vanguard, to not spread out and to not engage. The plan is to find out what they're here for, and evacuate." Cleo was decisive. She doesn't have any idea on who exactly their opponents were, but since it could move with haste under the World Tree's confines, anyone would be able to deduce that it wasn't humans.
"Your Majesty, we have to go. Can you transform into a gorilla right now?"
Draken sighed. He wasn't ready to be a gorilla shifter just yet. "I... don't remember how."
"Hmmm. It really doesn't matter though, you're plenty strong as is. Let's go." Cleo took several things from the tent as she escorted Harambe out. To her and everyone here, saving Harambe is the number one priority.
To be honest, Harambe still doesn't have any idea if the map shown to him earlier was real. Because even as a Legion Commander, he's never been this far inland of the World Tree's territories. On the maps, they were around equidistant to the World Tree itself, and the outer reaches where the human and Ani-shifter kingdoms meet. The original Harambe's memories also don't have any recollection where this place is.
Because for thousands of years, no human had ever reached this far inland.
While alive at least.
"Where is the rendezvous point?" Harambe asked as the duo ran using their human forms in haste.
"Just follow me."
Roars, howls, and the sounds of fighting entered the fleeing duo's ears after a few minutes of running. It was then that Cleo received some grave news.
"Mistress, our vanguard is engaged in close combat with King Uhuru's troops. One of our evacuating scouts saw the silhouette of what could be that bastard Uhuru himself at the rear of the enemy army. Please don't mind us and focus on your escape. I hope you and Your Majesty come out of this unscathed, in the World Tree's will."
Harambe heard the report with his excellent ears, and he gritted his teeth. That Uhuru was pretty savage to have come for the survivors of his coup this quickly. He must've wanted to consolidate his power quick enough to not be thrown out himself by the other forces wanting a piece of the royal pie.
"Do you want me to flank them?" Harambe stopped in his tracks, noticing the indecision written all over Cleo's face. One of the biggest intel about the Ubwizan Crown Prince that was an open secret to everyone was his natural brashness stemming from his supreme confidence about his transcendent fighting skill and physical gifts. It would be a waste to not use it here. "I can handle those snakes now that I can't feel any pain anymore."
Cleo's eyebrows knitted at the statement. She was a snake shifter, so those remarks were both a little strange and insensitive. But there was one more thing she found strange about the statement…
"No, let's continue running. To keep you safe was always the plan."
The two delved deeper into the woodlands, passing by several streams and ravines, in the dark of the night. As they got further and further away, the sounds of battle slowly erred.
Cleo took note of the darkness beside them and hissed. She doesn't feel any safer than she was before. She hoped for the best of the skirmish for the troops that remained.
"Hercule reporting." A man's ragged, exhausted voice entered her radio's receiver, making her stop on her tracks. "Some of us have escaped. However, most of the vanguard have been… wiped out… all of us that escaped were… insect types, and small types… I saw that damned Uhuru… he dealt the last blow…"
"Don't finish your report. You know where to go, Lord Hercule. If there are others alive, they'll find their way back. The mission… was a success." There was a tinge of suppressed regret and sadness oozing from Cleo's last words. It was almost callous however, to receive such words of success after their main troops had been annihilated. But the receiver caught the intention of the mistress.
"We'll come back stronger, mistress Cleo. Hercule, out."
With the sound of static, the radio transmission was cut off. Cleo breathed a forlorn sigh of relief. Her hatred of the usurper King Uhuru rose again as events continued unfolding. First, he schemed behind the scenes like a coward. Second, he stole the throne for himself. Now, he's taking out the survivors without mercy.
"Our brethren's sacrifices weren't in vain, Mistress." Harambe put his hand on the older woman's shoulders in assurance. "I'll put that lion's head to the sword if I get the chance."
Cleo then looked up to the sky, closed his eyes, knelt on one knee, and placed both her hands in an X position on her chest.
It was a gesture of good faith and devotion to the World Tree.
Harambe didn't know what this particular ritual meant to shifters, since he never cared about their rituals, but did the same as well. Maybe it would just be better to do it too.
"Please keep them safe." Cleo uttered some final words as if in prayer, and stood up in resolution. "If my predictions were correct, there would be a pond not that far from here, let's stop and drink water there."
"Please keep them safe." Harambe now realized it's some sort of a symbolic ritual for the shifters, so he repeated Cleo's words. "Let's go."
He didn't believe that the World Tree is anything more than just a massive, primordial tree, but who cares?
What awaited them at the pond was something else entirely beyond their expectations.