Thundercats (with many elements of Star Blazers/Space Battleship Yamato)
The Future is the Past
A Crossover Tale by Frederick P. Kopetz
Chapter One: Many Journeys
It was about a week after LionO and Cheetara's joyful Bonding Ceremony that Tygra was found, near death at the edge of the Endless Steppes.
Tygra, half-mad with thirst and hunger, and barely able to walk, had been literally scraped up from the ground by the unholy pair of Sslythe and Chaniell.
The Tiger was barely conscious and still cursing the Fates at the beating that Lady Snowmane had given him.
"That Lioness…" he gasped. "That deranged thing. That maniac…"
"I saw it in Mumm-Ra's cauldron," said Sslythe.
"Why didn't either of you or he come to my aid?" whispered Tygra through bloody, cracked lips.
"I don't fight Goddesses," said Chaniell as she gave Tygra some water. "And neither does Mumm-Ra. Not yet, anyway."
"If the Reverend Ones hate you, you must really be a piece of animal droppings," sneered Sslythe. "Even we Lizards fear the Gods and Goddesses, you blathering egotistical idiot! How dare you fight a deity?"
"Because that's what I am on the way to becoming," said Tygra with a sneer as he laughed. "I'm going to be a God," he said as he began to sneer and laugh.
"By the Lady's Fur, you're losing your mind," said Chaniell in revulsion and wonder.
Tygra lay back on the ground and laughed some more.
He was still laughing like a madman when the Lizards came by with a Sky cutter and Chaniell and Sslythe helped him into the vehicle.
He was both laughing and crying when the ship set off. Where was it going?
It was heading towards Mumm-Ra's Pyramid.
The next morning, in Kievski, it was raining a little in the city as the First Earth Space Battleship North Carolina rocked at anchor slowly in the Dnieper River as its Captain walked down the deck near the rail, talking with Cheetara and with Admiral Wildstar.
"How can you walk in those open shoes all the time in this drizzle? It's colder out today with this rain," said Nova as she looked at Cheetara as she walked along in her usual Cleric garb and sandalboots.
"I have fur on my toes. You don't," said Cheetara. "But how can you walk in those oddball closed-up boots?"
Nova looked down at her closed brown dress boots below her skirt-clad legs. "They're just a usual pair of human boots. Humans usually prefer to have full closed shoes on in rainy or cold weather. I like my sandals when it's warmer or I have to be dressed up."
Derek leaned against the rail and rolled his eyes. "Nova, never did I think you'd be discussing your shoe collection with a Cheetah before."
"What's wrong with Cheetahs?" said Cheetara. "You have all breeds of those Ralkhens all around your ship. They're bigger, and more barbaric-looking even though we revere those Cats as our mighty ancestors."
"The biggest issue is getting your ship repaired again, Nova," said Derek. "So that when you warp again you don't end up in some even worse place, like some really strange dimension we don't even know about. Besides, now that I've found you again, it's our responsibility to keep at least this much of our Task Group together again until we get back to our time"
"The repairs are sixty percent complete, thanks to the parts you brought from the Argo's stores," said Nova.
"LionO says we need to be on the move sooner than that," ventured Cheetara.
"We're doing our best," sighed Nova. "Derek has some of his officers and men and women from the Argo helping us. I've even been crawling around on the deck in the engine room myself looking at some circuit boards, and soldering parts back into place."
"What's giving you trouble aboard ship again?" Derek asked.
Nova looked at him and said, " Derek, the Dimensional Stabilizer is the part that's giving us trouble. Six of its eight stages are burned out. It's burned out up to the part of the unit where only myself and Kotuku even can fit in the Jeffries Tube."
Derek nodded at her and glanced at her face. Her delicate features looked droopy and fatigued. "Cheetara, she's barely slept…just like the rest of us."
LionO then showed up. "I've been looking at the Book of Omens with Tygra. I'm picking up a very strong signal on the Fourth Stone, now."
"Can we see this Book of Omens?" said Derek.
"Not a problem; if you can both follow us," LionO said.
HALF AN HOUR LATER….
A meeting had gathered in the ThunderTank.
LionO and Panthro sat near the Book of Omens, accompanied by Cheetara, WilyKat and Wilykit, Bengali, Major Graulus, and the Wildstars.
"This is where the Book is telling us to go," said Panthro as he tapped a page in the tome.
"East," said WilyKat.
"But how far to the East?" said Bengali.
"Can you blow up the scan field?" said Nova.
"To my knowledge, this is the farthest I can make it go," said LionO.
"Allow me," said Cheetara as she was suddenly drawn towards the Book. She set her hands on the Book, shut her eyes, and after a few moments, a larger-scale map appeared over the regular map of the area they had been able to access.
The map appeared for only a moment, but it gave a greater blow-up of the Great Continent than they had been able to see before.
The blip that symbolized the location of the Fourth Stone shot eastward, passing over the interior of a vast land none of the Thundercats except for Panthro had even known existed.
The Eastward progress of the blip took it over a small peninsula, and settled for a moment on a chain of islands that Panthro gasped at. However, Derek just nodded, and so did Nova, as her finger joined Cheetara's, stopping in the mid-section of the largest island when it stopped.
The view held for only a moment, just long enough for Panthro to say, "It's far, far to the East of us, in Ni'phangyu!"
"Ni'phangyu?" said LionO.
"We know those islands well," Derek said. "Our home, back on Earth. We know the islands as Japan or Nihon."
"The blip stopped on the Kanto Plain, Derek," Nova said. "Right near Fujiyama."
"What's Fujiyama?" said Cheetara, confused as to what these two Humans from First Earth were talking about.
"The Mountain of Fire in the Tanuki Kingdom; and it's heavily guarded," said Panthro grimly. "If what the Book and what you two are telling us is right; it's hidden right near an active volcano."
"Once the North Carolina is working again," said Derek after Nova nodded at him, "We can form a convoy and we can fly East to Japan in a few minutes and then land there in force.
"We'd better do it fast before Mumm-Ra gets wind of this intelligence and lands his forces there," said Graulus.
"Or before Tygra gets there," said LionO.
"But then what do we do when we get to that volcano?" said Bengali.
"It'd be best if I help you speak with the Lord of that land, LionO," said Panthro.
"And the Argo can take us there," said Nova. "She's functional…right, Derek?"
Admiral Wildstar nodded.
"When can we leave?" said WilyKit.
"As soon as we can assemble a party," said Derek. "I can head back to the ship and I can bring our Cosmo-Hound down to act as a heavy-lift vehicle to bring the ThunderTank and a party of about twenty up to the Argo."
"How far up are you?" said Panthro, suddenly not liking the sound of this.
"In orbit; hanging up in space above our very heads," said Derek.
"Sir, I request permission to leave Rosstowski in command on my ship to oversee the repairs, so that I can lead an away team from the North Carolina," Nova said.
"Granted; get six of your best people," said Derek. "I'll bring six of mine to land in the interior of Ni'phangyu and escort your group. LionO, how many will you be bringing?"
"I'll be bringing myself, Cheetara, Panthro, Bengali, WilyKit and WilyKat, Major Graulus…."
"And four of my best Lizards," said Graulus. "That'll give us a group of twenty-five Humans, Thundercats and Lizards. When do we leave?"
"At first light tomorrow," said LionO. "Is that all right with the rest of you?"
The other Thundercats, the humans, and the Lizard Commander nodded their heads.
"All right," said Panthro. "Everyone…get a good night's worth of sleep, and ready your weapons. We've got a long journey ahead of us."
The group members saluted and the meeting broke up.
MIDNIGHT: MUMM-RA'S BLACK PYRAMID
"You failure! You scum!" Mumm-Ra yelled as he slapped Tygra across the face. "You have disappointed me yet again! You should not have taken on that accursed Goddess! You should have called ME for aid!"
"She was just a woman; a young cat in shape," groaned Tygra. "I had no idea she was truly one of the Reverend Ones."
"Silence! I've had enough of your excuses!" Mumm-Ra roared as he circled a Stone Table that Tygra was strapped down to in the middle of the Pyramid near Mumm-Ra's Cauldron. The Mummy was not in his Ever-Living Form, but even he moved faster than Tygra could.
Tygra had been stripped of all of his rags as Mumm-Ra's Generals and Chaniell had strapped him down to the table. Stripped of his garments, it could be seen that one of his legs looked somewhat atrophied compared with the other.
Tygra had been forced to endure an examination by Chaniell, Kaynar, and a demented-looking little hunchbacked Human Doctor known as Doctor Dometone.
The Human laughed at Mumm-Ra as he said, "The very leg is damaged. We can try two things, Lord. We can try physical therapy and stretching it, which will be painful, and which will give us a patient who can walk at sixty percent capacity. Or, we can just cut it off, and replace it with a cyborg part, which might give him ninety to one hundred percent capacity, and if I do this right, it would be even more painful," chuckled the Human scientist, who was an ally of Captain Shinar's.
"Let me help with the operation if we're going to hack his leg off!" laughed Kaynar, who was almost drooling with anticipation at the thought of Tygra writhing in agony.
"Why don't you have…the Ancient Spirits of Evil heal me?" gasped Tygra as he looked at Mumm-Ra's face.
"Because causing you torment, my liege, is more interesting," he said. "Kaynar; Chaniell, scrub and help Doctor Dometone prepare for the operation! I'm going to be magnanimous and give him a new leg!"
"Yes, Lord," said Dometone as he cackled.
Chaniell rubbed lewdly against Tygra and said, "No need to worry, dear. After we're all done, I'll kiss it and make it feel better," she hissed.
"Do I get any anesthesia?" said Tygra as he struggled against his bonds.
"No," said Mumm-Ra as he readied a syringe and jabbed the needle into Tygra's leg. Tygra gasped, and he struggled as Mumm-Ra injected him with some painful medicine that made the soon-to-be amputated leg twitch painfully. "And that's the best part of this whole thing, Tygra. I'm looking forward to this," he said as Chaniell, Doctor Dometone, and Kaynar, scrubbed and masked as surgeons, approached Tygra's Stone Table.
With an evil grin, Chaniell began to shave the fur around the amputation site while Kaynar and Dometone came forward with scalpels.
Rusty scalpels.
Tygra screamed when he saw the instruments of torture.
And he screamed more, screaming into the night in the darkness of the Pyramid, as he saw and felt what they were doing to him as blood began to spurt from his wounds.
Then, Doctor Dometone smiled as he turned on a high-pitched motorized saw.
"Don't worry," said Dometone as Kaynar and Chaniell poked hemostats into Tygra's leg. "This won't hurt…too much…"
And, Tygra's screams turned into roars….
….helpless roars.
TO BE CONTINUED…