Vito vs Lion

"What?"

"What did you just say, Vito?" John turned his head to face him.

"I am going to beat it up and it will submit, it is that easy," Vito replied confidently.

"Do you not remember what just happened to you 2 minutes ago!? I found you being mauled!!" John complained.

"That is only because there were 6 of them, I can handle the alpha, I know I can, he is not that strong," Vito replied.

"This was a mistake, we should go back," John said as he was walking towards the tree again.

Vito came in between him with his arms spread out to block his path, "You said you would let me, You said you would give me another try!"

John stuttered, "I-," but couldn't even finish his words before Vito replied, "Let me."

Vito's eyes were sharp and full of confidence, it was almost impressive too. John couldn't tell if this boy was full of determination, Petty, or simply a gluttony for pain but one thing was certain, this boy was not going to leave until he tried again.

John wanted to bite his tongue for even entertaining this idea of his, "Fine, But don't forget that I will be watching, if this gets too dangerous then we shall leave, understood?"

"Yes sir," Vito said happily as he looked towards the lion with glee.

He thought to himself, 'That lion bit into my shoulder, My Shoulder of all places, and scratched my tattoo. This is personal.'

The assessment for Vito was starting up again and this time it was John who released the lion, 1 lion.

The alpha of the pride stepped out and flexed its mane, each step with each paws carried a weight with it, the weight of a hunter preparing to hunt down its prey. It had its eyes set on Vito and since John was not intervening it knew it could attack its prey without slowing down.

Vito was waiting patiently for the lion to make its move, it took a few more steps, one leg in front of the other and then suddenly it leaped two steps and then pounced on Vito with the third.

Vito sidestepped to the right dodging the beast, it didn't take long for the lion to attack again, after its legs hit the ground from the first jump using the momentum it had, the lion sprung itself back at Vito only for him to dodge to the left this time.

John watched this scene in horror, "He really is one of those maniacs who think they can take a lion in a fair fight. I have the most unusual students. Still, it is very impressive how he is dodging those attacks, where did he learn those moves from?"

So far Vito had dodged every attempt that the lion had made to try and get a hold of him and this very scene reminded him of a certain time he was the one trying to get a hold of somebody. Right now Vito was using the same tactics Terra used to dodge his opponent's attacks.

He would read the lion's course of path by focusing his eyes on its feet and would then readjust his focus to its arms and mouth to dodge any further attempts it made mid-air to try and claw at him.

This was working very well in his favor as he would not spend too much effort on dodging and weaving and evidently, the Lion was getting worn down and decided to stop jumping at him.

The lion now followed one straight path and tried to use its paws to claw at him from the sides but even those attempts failed, it tried using its mouth to bite at his legs but Vito placed his hands on its head and jumped backwards to dodge it.

"So this is how Terra did it, not bad. I'll be sure to keep this for myself," Vito smiled.

The lion ran straight forward and this time Vito decided to block and not dodge its attack, he wanted to test his strength.

The lion opened its mouth wide to take a bite of his face but Vito placed his hands on both its upper and lower jaw holding them apart to keep its mouth wide open, he had successfully kept the lion in place but then it started to claw away at his arms and shoulder now that it was within close range of him.

As it did so, part of Vito's strength felt lost as his arms were regenerating from the attack, "So we lose strength in order to heal at a time? That might be problematic," Vito said as his arms were starting to hurt, he chucked the lion to the side and allowed his arms to fully heal before his next move.

Thinking he would grab at it again, the lion quickly pounced back at him, Vito was still allowing his arms to heal which had almost recovered, so he ducked underneath the lion, narrowly dodging its blows as he went behind it.

By now his arms had fully healed so he grabbed the back side of the lion, "I watched this one in a show where a wrestler had transmigrated to another world and would only use this move to finish his fights, it was super effective!" Vito lifted up the lion from behind and threw it as far as he could behind him.

He had launched the lion at a nearby tree and its face had planted itself into said tree. Vito got up from the ground, the move had caused him to fall down, "Ouch, I was going for a German suplex but that thing is harder to do than I imagined so I just threw it."

"Vito, are you okay?" John said as he rushed towards him.

Vito was getting up on his own but John had decided to help him, "Yeah I am fine, that lion put up much of a fight though, that was unexpected," Vito said with a smile growing on his face.

"Unexpected!? You surviving for this long is unexpected! How are you still alive?" John asked in disbelief of what just transpired.

"I guess I'm just lucky, ha ha ha," Vito started laughing cheerfully. He was smiling to himself like a fool at his accomplishments, he actually beat a lion, even though he had some doubts at first but they were all gone now.

"This isn't a situation to laugh at," John said smacking his shoulder.

"Ow, ow ow, I think you broke something," Vito said rolling over.

"You don't have a single scratch on you! Stop faking!" *Haaaa* John let out, he was getting worked up over nothing. It had been a while since someone had given him this match of a heart attack, usually, it would be Ariel.

As the two of them were talking the lion stood up on its feet again and Vito instantly got ready to fight again but when John saw it, he placed a hand on Vito's shoulder signaling him to stand down.

"What?" Vito asked but John didn't answer, when Vito looked at the lion again it became apparent why John stopped him, the lion was limping. It could only walk on 3 legs as its right leg near its head had been sprained from the throw Vito used on it.

The lion looked as though it was approaching Vito and Vito wanted to comfort it but when it saw Vito's hands it let out a cry and then shrunk away in fear, it wasn't going to them, it was going past them back into its cage where it was safe.

When Vito saw this he was devasted, "I-I'm sorry!" but when he tried to get near the lion's cage it let out another fearful cry. Even the female lions caged up wanted nothing to do with him.

Vito looked at John tearfully, "John, am I the bad guy?" And John couldn't help but want to say, "Yes."

*Sigh* "Come on, we are going back to get bandages," John said.

"But I am not hurt," Vito said.

"Not for you, for the lion. You broke its trust and its leg so now you are going to have to fix it. I'll help you patch it up, I have experience in the medical field," John said.

And with that, the two of them walked through the portal together and came back with some medical tools.

After a while, they had finished patching it up, John used some NSAIDs on its leg and put a cast around it, the lion felt better when it was around him but was still avoiding eye contact with Vito.

"Will it get better?" Vito asked.

"In two weeks it should recover, it wasn't a serious injury but let this serve as a lesson that you can't solve every issue with violence," John said.

"Yes John," Vito replied in a very low tone, he was saddened by the fact that he hurt the lion.

"Hey, John?" Vito asked and John was listening intently, "Let's not tell the others about what happened here today. Please?" Vito said trying to imitate puppy eyes. It didn't work.

"Alright, alright I won't. You are frustrating but you are also my responsibility, I have with me some new clothes for you to change into so that you don't have to walk around with those torn ones, they are more revealing than anything I have ever seen," John said as he handed him over the new clothes.

This was when it hit Vito that he was still wearing torn clothing, "Aaah! Why couldn't you have given this to me back when we were at the base?" Vito asked.

"I guess it slipped my mind," John smirked as he waved his hand goodbye, "I will be taking my leave now, I have left my other student unattended for far too long, don't hurt any more lions while I am away."

As John was leaving the alpha of the pride brought its face towards the cage and let out a sad roar, it did not want John to leave it here with Vito.

"Wait, do you expect me to change into these out here in the open!?" Vito asked flabbergasted.

"Goodbye Vito Gotti," John said before he left.

As John went through the portal he was determined to find Dawn and help him, he had been away for far too long, and knowing the way Dawn was he assumed not much progress had been made but when he reached the site where he had left him, no one could be seen.

Then he heard the sound of someone eating an apple not too far off, when he followed the sound it took him a little away from where he was to a more crowded area with trees, and past those trees there was Dawn and... the zebra?

Dawn was feeding the zebra apples and brushing its fur all by himself, this scene had left John stunned, his eyes were wide, and his heart felt like a small weight had been lifted off, he was proud.

"I guess you didn't need me after all," he muttered from behind a tree not revealing himself to Dawn.

"Well, since you are fine and Vito has somehow worked things out with the lions... somehow, I guess that leaves me to wonder just how the other three are fairing right now."