Ch. 4 Our First Rescue Mission

This is the part of the story that I am not sure I can tell, because it theses events that truly made the care bear family the great force of caring that it is today—and scarred it at the same time.

The underground stone cavern Dark Heart resided in was cold and damp, water trickles meandering down the rough-hewn walls. In the center of the otherwise empty cavern was a black cauldron full of some bright yellow liquid, gently boiling over a small bed of glowing coals. A column shaped boulder stood next to the cauldron, it's top boasting a small depression where Pure Heart rested. The soft black cub was shivering with cold, her teeth chattering occasionally, though her eyes never opened and her limbs twitched sluggishly in an effort to warm up. Her arms were bound at the wrist to the stone with short metal shackles.

"Almost ready," Dark Heart in human form murmured as he looked into the yellow mixture, glancing over at the drugged cub with a smirk. "And then the power of that cute little tummy symbol of yours will be all mine." His smirk turned into an evil, toothy smile when the boiling potion sputtered and turned a deep red. "Perfect." The redhead rubbed his hands together in excitement. He stirred the thickening soup several times, then turned toward the bear cub.

"Time to wake up," he hissed, shooting a small spark out of his finger. With a squall of pain Pure Heart woke up, whimpering weakly as her body fought the drugs Dark Heart had given to subdue her. Feebly the cub tried to sit up. "Stay still!" Dark Heart commanded, striking at her with the metal rod he had stirred the potion with.

Instinctively Pure Heart tried to roll away from the blow, but the shackles held her in place and there was a sickening crunch as the rod connected with her shoulder. The cub cried out, and her ice blue eyes shot wide open in pain. Her small arm hung awkwardly at her side, obviously broken or dislocated from the blow of the rod. The black cub began to wail, too terrified and hurt to speak.

"Shut up!" Dark heart roared at her, raising his weapon threateningly again. With eyes that were wide in terror Pure Heart managed to bite back the tears, shaking and hiccupping with the effort. "Hmph, fragile little thing" Dark heart muttered to himself as he turned back to his concoction. Deftly the red head uncapped a small crystal vial from his pocket and emptied it into the mix. Silently the red mixture flashed into a deeper blood color, thickening so that is bubbled slowly and with a deeper tone.

"Perfect." Dark heart hissed greedily, snatching a silver goblet from the floor by the cauldron. Cautiously he dipped it into the blood red mixture, careful not to touch the burning liquid with unprotected fingers. Maliciously he grinned at the shaking black cub, offering her the cup, "Drink up!"


"It'll be ok True Heart, we'll get her back!" Noble Heart patted his partner on the back as True Heart sobbed into his shoulder. She had gotten back to care-a-lot only minutes before, rushing to find Noble Heart before even getting the cubs out of the cloud car. The purple horse had somehow managed to deduce what had happened from her sputtering between tears as True Heart had confronted him at the playground where he had been watching the cubs.

"But we'll have to figure out something quickly." Noble heart said anxiously, gently pushing True heart away, silently telling her to get a hold of herself. Nodding the care bear wiped away the tears on her cheeks and took a deep breath to calm down. Through bleary eyes she suddenly caught sight of Lost Heart standing just behind Noble Heart. The tan leopard cub was frozen, green eyes open wide and mouth parted slightly in a halted gasp.

"Oh Lost heart!" True took a step forward to console the cub, realizing that he was in shock from the prospect of loosing his best friend. But the young leopard snapped out of his daze and put his paws on hers to prevent the coming hug.

"No! We have to go get her! We have to help her!" he exclaimed frantically. "Now!" The cubs wide eyed pleas struck something in True's heart, giving her the strength to completely control her tears.

"We will Lost Heart, we'll get her back." The bear's voice was now full of confidence as she squeezed the small paws. Standing up the cream colored bear turned to face Noble heart, "Let's go."

"But what about the cubs? We can't bring them with us."

"We'll be ok." Lost heart chimed in.

"Yeah!" "We can look after ourselves" "Let us stay here!" echoed the other youngsters.

"We'll be good!" chorused Playful Heart monkey and Funshine bear, the most mischievous of the band. Unsure Noble Heart and True Heart exchanged glances, silently acknowledging that they had no other choice. Dark Heart was their only enemy, no one else would have the power to come and hurt the cubs. Though still young they were old enough to stay out of major trouble and keep an eye on each other as well.

"All right." Noble heart's voice boomed over the playground to reach all the cubs. "But I want all of you to stay in the hall of hearts. Let's go!" The horse clapped his hands together to emphasize the command, and began herding the cubs and cousins to the heart shaped building.

Meanwhile True Heart checked the four cubs who had gone to earth with her, making sure they were ok and recovering from the shock. Though Grumpy bear would only shake or nod , he and the others seemed to be recovering and she breathed a sigh of relief when they all joined in a game of jump rope some of the other cubs had moved inside.

Deftly she and Noble Heart reminded the cubs not to play with or on anything they weren't supposed to and keep an eye on each other. The little star and heart buddies had all gathered in the hall of hearts as well and the older care bears relaxed a bit upon seeing them..

"Ready?" Noble Heart asked from where he stood by the main door. True nodded as she surveyed the room one more time. Already the cubs had settled into smaller playgroups, some hauling down the board games from the shelves, a few paging through the picture books. A small smile appeared on her face when she saw playful heart monkey shaking his finger at Loyal Heart dog. Apparently the puppy had wanted to do some finger painting and the 'responsible' monkey didn't want him to make a mess. They'll be just fine. True thought turning to follow Noble Heart, but a small tug at her fur made her pause.

Staring up at his guardian with moist eyes Lost Heart Leopard simply said. "Please come back soon."

"We will, I promise." She said to him. Nodding the care bear cousin walked quietly away and True Heart and Noble Heart strode out of the Hall of Hearts, closing the door solidly behind them. The leaders of the care bear family hopped into the cloud car and headed towards Dark hearts black energy.

Unable to resist stealing one look back True Heart turned her head as they took off. The rainbow equipment of the playground lacked something without playing cubs swarming all over it, and the pure white of the cloud ground looked bleak without the splashes of color from their fur. Her eyes roved over the hall of hearts and in one of the front windows True Heart caught sight of Lost Heart Leopard, staring forlornly out, awaiting their return.


Back in Dark Hearts cave he had forced the weakened cub to gag down the brew (though her struggles had spilled almost as much as she drank), and was waiting impatiently for it to take effect. "Soon all that power of yours will be mine." The young boy gloated, grinning cruelly at Pure Heart as she lay on the cold, bare stone with eyes dizzy from the potion and earlier poison.

"Ahh!" Dark heart suddenly exclaimed. On the cubs white stomach, amid the red speckles of spilled potion, the cut crystal heart of her symbol had began to glow with a black light. Dark heart and Pure Heart both watched, entranced, as it slowly became 3 dimensional and lifted off the white fur. "Yes!" hissed the ecstatic villain, reaching for the floating crystal heart with eager fingers. As his hand touched it the edges of the cut crystal blurred into a gray mist and began to flow into the boys body. "Yes! This is what I needed! This power!" Amazed at its strength Dark Heart could only whisper while he watched, mesmerized, as the entire heart symbol turned to mist and flowed into his body. No longer did he wonder how the care bears could create something from nothing, and now that same power was his! "Even my shadow has power," the boy murmured to himself, seeing it morph itself into different shapes and move on its own.

As the last fragment of Pure hearts' tummy symbol flowed into Dark Hearts body the cub gave a quiet sigh and her eyes closed, body slumping limply into the dish of the stone. A slight flicker of concern crossed Dark Heart's face when he saw she wasn't breathing, but he quickly recovered. "Fine, I've gotten everything from you I wanted anyways."

"True! I found a passage!" Noble Hearts voice echoed faintly down to Dark heart and he flinched involuntarily.

Damn it, of all the timing! He thought. I wanted to play around with this new power before facing those two…maybe I still can. A malicious grin split his face, and eyes glinting with the prospect of fun lit Dark Heart's red eyes as he transformed into tornado form. He spent a second marveling at the power he felt still in this form thanks to Pure Hearts tummy symbol, then whisked himself up and out of the cavern breaking an escape route through the heavy rock of the ceiling.


"I don't sense Dark Heart." True heart said to Noble nervously as they paced down the stone hallway, a small lantern they had created illuminating the rough walls.

"I did just a minute ago, he's probably hiding, come on." Noble Heat urged, and the two hurried down the corridor. Swiftly they searched each side passage they came to, all leading to dead ends or empty rooms. As True heart lifted the light, peering into the next off shoot they reached the light reflecting off all the water on the walls momentarily blinded her.

Coming up alongside Noble Heart was the first to take a good look around, exclaiming "Pure!" when his eyes fell on the beaten form of the cub. He rushed forward, terrified at the sight of their young charge. The black cub was covered in blood, though he couldn't see anything other than small cuts on her, and one of her arms lay at an impossible angle, swelled up far past normal size.

"Oh no!" True Heart cried as she raced over with the light. In the soft light Pure Heart looked like she was sleeping quietly, but Noble heart felt uneasy and looked closer.

"I don't think she's breathing…" his voice was wracked with pain as he gently touched the broken shoulder.

"Look! Her tummy symbols gone." True Heart pointed out, voice full of grief to see one of the cubs like this.

"Dark Heart must have done this!" Noble growled with conviction.

"Where is he?" True heart suddenly snapped out of the shock of seeing Pure Hearts body lying broken and bruised, remembering that they could be in danger. Both she and Noble heart looked around for the cause of their troubles.

"He must have escaped through there!" Noble pointed up to the hole in the shadowy ceiling. Night was setting in, and the patch was only slightly lighter in color than the rest. "But where was he going?"

"The other cubs! Oh Noble heart he's gone after the other cubs!" True Heart had a sudden clear spark of thinking, cursing herself for being so stupid. "He knows we'd come racing after Pure Heart! And now that he's done with her he's gone after the others! We have to go!" The light colored bear tugged urgently at her companions arm.

"One minute." He muttered, leaning forward to grab Pure Heart. "True I can't get her free!" his voice overflowed with helplessness. "We can't just leave her here!" Hurriedly True Heart examined the cuffs that held the little cub to the stone, she didn't see any way to get her out, short of breaking the stone which they didn't have time for.

"There's nothing we can do Noble heart. We have to go." Noble heart looked at her in surprise, True heart was a brave fighter but this was totally out of character. Yet in her own mind True heart kept playing over and over the image of the 4 terrified cubs in the cloud car as Dark Heart had taken off with Pure heart. She shivered at the thought of what Dark Heart could do to the cubs frozen in fear. True looked once more at the black cub she had been fighting so hard to save, and accepted the fact that there was nothing she could do—others needed her, and Noble Heart, more.

"We have to go." She repeated, and a sorrowful Noble Heart nodded in reluctant agreement. Quickly but softly the care bear bent over and kissed Pure Heart goodbye, not even trying to hide the tears spilling from her eyes.

Noble Heart reluctantly let go of the small paw he had been holding, getting a look of determination on his face. "One second." He told True Heart. The horse screwed up his face in concentration, and his stomach began to glow. Slowly a duplicate of Pure Heart's tummy symbol appeared in the air before him. The flawless crystal heart floated in the air, glowing for a moment, before settling into place on the cubs' empty stomach.

"I'm sorry that this is all I can do." He apologized, gently stroking the cubs tilted head. Then without another word Noble Heart raced out of the cavern, True Heart right on his heels. As they left the cavern returned to its gloomy state, the moon rising outside casting only a pale silver light in through Dark Hearts escape hole


A/N: Ok, another chapter up, hope you liked it. Thanks to Fauna Greywolf for being my only review last chapter, and for the 18 of you who read and DIDN'T review, shame on you! Hopefully I can finish this before I leave for the summer, and reviews would definitly help with that. Hint Hint.