Fall Of The Empire

Rating: T-17+

Disclaimer: I don't own this. . . or do I? Nah, I don't. So don't sue me. I'm already in enough debt with my student loans.

Author's Notes: Oh dear sweet baby Jesus I don't know how this ended up getting so long. Oh, well, mostly action anyway, so that's good, right? I'm finally starting to get to the meat of some things. We're inching to the finish line, people. Very slowly and surely, but it is happening.

I promised you another chapter, and I hope that this one does not disappoint.

Also, my life is undergoing some serious changes. I addressed 99.9% of them when I updated Dissonance. So if you want a long ramble about what's up, check it out (the latest chapter). Also right now I'm writing this to you from South Korea. I live and work in this country now. It is my home.

Yes, I am very serious. No, it's not a joke. I got a job here. This was only edited once, but if I kept it any longer, I was probably never going to publish it, so here it is. Also, Darkest Mind is still writing that wonderful gift fic - I love it so much! - and you'll be surprised how scarily that wonderful writer has managed to guess some future plot things. . . I'm not saying what, though!

Also, Saria, you're a saint. I love your reviews, and I hope you get to updating your story soon!

Also also, have you guys read Cat's Cradle by Anne? No? Well if you haven't, you should. And check this out - you can buy an actual book copy of the first part of her story for like ~ 7 - 9$ online. She does not receive money for it in any way, shape, or form. The only thing you're paying for is the production cost, materials, and labors cost. Check out her stuff to see links on where you can get it. It's got a super-pretty cover and yeah.

Lastly, thank you to everyone who reviewed. A few of those really helped me to get my mojo back. A lot - I mean a lot of stuff happened in my life and it just sucked my motivation dry. But I'm so happy ROOTA's been making you guys happy.

In any case, onto the story!

. . . To all of the Echo x Lion-O shippers. . . . *whispers* how d'ya like them apples?

Warnings: Nothing, except for stylistic things FF loves to om nom. Mild blood and gore. If you see anything with the first-person in it, it should be italicized. That is all.

. . . this text is here for a mysterious reason.

A lot of people didn't know it. . . But Lion-O could read English.

Echo had been with him for roughly a year, give or take, maybe a year and a half - from the start of his journey to the end of her own. But during that time, she'd been more than willing to read to him from her fairy tale book, explaining the silly (and sometimes very artistic) drawings in the corner. From her journal, she'd flip through the pages and start explaining what she'd written here or there. . . And Echo wrote a lot.

And he'd had plenty of time to listen.

He knew the mechanics of her native tongue, strange as they were to understand. They placed a different emphasis on words, and sometimes the grammatical structure gave him a headache. But slowly and steadily, bit by bit, he'd been able to read it. And sitting in the cargo bay of the Feliner, his knee jittering, Lion-O held Echo's journal in his hands. He painstakingly tried to piece together the English words and the Thunderian runes speckled throughout.

Easy enough task, one supposed. . . Until Echo got to blending both languages. And sometimes words didn't translate so easily from one to the other. Lion-O flipped through the pages, looking for clues, turning back in time. Before. Earlier. Back when they'd first met each other.

'. . . right with me. I'm different - too different. I can feel them all staring at me. I cry. I really do. I know they're judging me. I don't know what's happening - why me? Why this place? It feels too alien to be real. I wish my memories would come back soon. Sometimes I have dreams, I wake up in a cold sweat. . .'

Flip, flip, flip. Further, fast forwarding through her meticulous accounts. Sketches and doodles stopped him.

He saw an ink-blotch, covering a sketch of a mottled, moth-eaten hood. A hammer. A vial of poison. A knife. Oh, how his heart had sunk. That faithful night, when Pumyra had grabbed his hand. . . He remembered it all so vividly. Lion-O had felt like he'd been trapped in a nightmare he'd never remembered slipping into.

"She's the spy, and I can prove it - hear me, my king, before you protest. Mumm-Ra has been able to efficiently track our every move-"

"Pumyra! I won't listen-"

"-and today, she called him another name. And he did not kill her. She wielded Plundarr. She whispers to herself, argues vehemently to the air. I've seen this with my very own eyes, Lion-O. The human cannot be trusted. And today, one of my sources in Dog City. . . gave me this."

He'd tuned out at that point. He'd only gone with her to disprove her ridiculous claims - she'd listed a whole litany of reasons why Echo, his best friend, the human who had bled and nearly died for him, was the spy. But he'd been roughly pulled back to reality when the puma moved.

She slipped his beloved friend's journal into his hands. Understandably, Lion-O had been very confused. Echo had claimed to have lost it a few weeks ago, and had started a new one. But he held the well-worth leather, kneaded and frayed from months of her fiddling with the corners and fingering the pages. The entire thing was almost entirely filled with doodles and sketches and written passages. She was a messy thinker, and the ink marks all over the leather proved it. Lion-O almost tucked it away inside of his breastplate before Pumyra growled at him, forcibly yanked it out of his hands, and then turned to an entry.

The one that had ruined everything.

It had stopped him dead - he was staring at another human. A male. Lion-O had grown so used to seeing Echo's strange features, that time had eroded away the differences. But this man brought it all rushing right back. He had a different facial structure than his friend, different hair, different eyes - he was just different. The drawing, accurate and painstakingly detailed. . . it hadn't shocked him. What had terrified him were the words, "Mumm-Ra" and "is a human" were right next to each other. In shaking script, she'd written, "I serve Mumm-Ra."

He'd been in shock. To that day, Lion-O was embarrassed to admit that Pumyra had had to drag him back to camp. He'd just stared at the page in shock, reading it over and over and over again. Black Pyramid. Mumm-Ra. Markata Ra-Mes. I serve Mumm-Ra.

No, this is all a giant lie, Lion-O had thought. When Echo comes back, we'll clear it up.

It had been cleared, and in the worst possible way. Lion-O had felt a part of his heart wither when he saw the look on Echo's face. She'd just stood there, shocked and scared, when they accused her of being the spy. And then the tattoo. . . the desperate pleading. . . and he'd used Omens on her. There was no doubt that she was, indeed, Mumm-Ra's spy. . .

So why was he feeling doubtful?

Zig, Viragor, and the elephants had all said he had trouble seeing the larger picture. And though everyone was telling him that Omens was irrefutable evidence that Echo was the spy, he couldn't shake the feeling that he was missing something.

Kit and Kat ran by him, shaking him from his musings, and he watched as the kittens tittered, dashing to the back into one of their hiding spots. The kittens had secreted secret rooms all throughout the Feliner, and it had given them all no end of heartattacks and frights when the kitens decided to pop out from the floor or the ceiling. But it worked wonders for Panthro, who instructed them on how to fix the wiring of the ship. As the sound of the kittens clamoring through the ship faded, Lion-O set about to reading the journal again.

He turned the pages, deliberately skipping over the ones with those dreaded words (I serve Mumm-Ra) and moved to the end. The closer to the back cover he got, the more and more unraveled his friend became. Once, when he'd gotten the courage to pick up her journal and flip through it (ignoring the stabbing pain in his chest) he thought it was because of guilt that she went off on wild tangents.

But the more he looked, the more pained he was to discover it was insanity.

She was suffering. So much - and she never told me. . . Why? Was Mumm-Ra implanting these thoughts, false memories into her head? Maybe she believes she's the spy, but she just doesn't know she's not. . .

Everywhere, images of a phantom, her own personal ghost, were hastily drawn. A stranger wearing a hood, human, furless hands, their entire body swallowed by a menacing shadow. Always hovering, always watching. . . Fire. Burning.

'I keep having these dreams - these nightmares. I can't say anything, I don't want anyone to worry, but there's only so many times I can bite my tongue until I bleed. I'm wearing down, little by little, bit by bit. I feel my sanity slipping away-"

"Lion-O."

The lion startled, craning his neck back and looking at Cheetara. The cleric looked down at the journal in his hands, her eyes narrowing. Lion-O was sure his glare must have been showing on his face, because, wisely, the cheetah said nothing. She jerked her head to the cockpit. "We're about five minutes away from the Oasis. Are you ready?"

It was no large secret that the rest of the team agreed the traitor's journal should be burned or discarded. It did nothing but incriminate her. But Lion-O was positive that there had to be some clue they were overlooking. Something that he wasn't seeing, some secret that he just had to look for. . .

Stowing the journal protectively - and ensuring he gave Cheetara a very pointed stare - he nodded his head. As if on cue, Kit and Kat sprang down from the ceiling, laughing and giggling wildly, excitedly blathering about being reunited with their fish friends. They dashed ahead of the two Cats, and though the weight and seriousness of the situation had to fall upon them, Lion-O wasn't about to reprimand the kittens. After all of the revelations of the past day, he felt he was in need of somebody laughing and smiling.

Echo was always good at that. . .

No, no. Shut that thought down. He had to go into Mission Lion-O Mode. They had to get the. . . Guardian's Seal. . . Element. . . Thing. Whatever the hell it was. Walking up to the cockpit, he found Tygra at the controls, Pumyra sitting at a control panel, and both of the twins pressed up against the glass in glee.

"How far out?" Lion-O asked, standing to the side. Cheetara moved to a seat, but he remained on his feet. He felt too anxious to sit down.

"About another 3 minutes. Starting landing procedures."

Lion-O nodded, hardly feeling the Feliner tilt underneath him as Tygra guided it with expert ease. Six months of practice had seen him transform into a wonderful pilot. While it was true the tigers had betrayed animal-kind in the past, they were incredible pilots. Not that he'd ever let Tygra know that, of course. His brother would never let him live that down if it happened.

"Any reports from the Oasis?" Lion-O asked, turning to Pumyra. She clicked a few buttons, eyes flickering over the readouts, before she turned back to him and shook her head.

"All clear."

Lion-O crossed his arms over his chest. He had no doubt that Echo had taken the scroll back to Mumm-Ra, and Mumm-Ra had centuries of knowledge at his disposal. The foul bag of bones had probably known about the Guardians the entire time. Which meant they needed to be at the Oasis ten minutes ago. Again, that same prickling sense of wrong told Lion-O that there was just something he wasn't seeing about this whole situation-

"What's that?" Kit exclaimed.

"Smoke!" Kat replied, glancing at her brother, worry stamped on her face.

"Mumm-Ra's already here!"

Lion-O felt a sharp frown pull at his mouth s he dashed to the main cockpit windows and looked out. Pillars of smoke were already rising into the sky, thick and dark and black and ugly. Within moments the Feliner was drawing up parallel to it. Flames and embers glittered on the lake's surface, where numerous shacks, houses, and stalls were burning. Fish people were running in a chaotic mess, and Lion-O grit his teeth and turned.

"Mumm-Ra's already here! Let's move!"

Jumping out of the Feliner was a lot less terrifying than it used to be. Lion-O had fallen into empty air one too many times - he'd developed something of a phobia for it. But jumping out of the cargo bay and through a thick pillar of hot, searing smoke helped steel his resolve. The fish people didn't have time for Lion-O to be afraid. He had to be a Cat of action. He hit the boardwalk and surveyed the damage.

The fish people were running away from where the smoke was thickest - and the area looked fairly evacuated. Good. The boardwalk that he stood on quivered, and for a moment, he was fearful that the Ramlak would rise from the dead and try to murder them all. But no, it was dead. The fishmen had erected the Oasis on its corpse, using the Ramlak's body as a support to build the abovewater and underwater portions.

A part of Lion-O was pleased to see that the Ramlak was dead. He had no interest in being eaten by it a second time, but the fishmen and the fires stoked a sense of urgency in the cat king. Time to get moving. Tapping at his throat to activate his comms, he turned to the Feliner to see Pumyra jumping out of the cargo hold next.

"Tygra, put the Feliner on autopilot - Mumm-Ra's already here. ThunderCats, out! Hover over a solid area, then jump!"

The Feliner banked, and Pumyra joined him on the boardwalk. A golden flash disappeared out of the doors, and Panthro gripped at the door for just a second before he forced himself through. They were a well-oiled machine of war, but the frequent encounters between them and Mumm-Ra had ensured it. As the rest of the Cats dispersed, aiding the rest of the fishmen to safety. Looking up at the cargo hold for Tygra, he spotted the twins.

"Kit, Kat, no. Stay."

"But-"

"Stay."

He turned, cutting off the comm feed and not leaving them any time to argue. They had a soft spot for Echo, and this situation was just too dangerous for either of them to be meddling in. He was certain that they would encounter the white-haired human again, and the kittens were still just kittens. He knew, deep in his heart, that they would not be able to raise a weapon to her.

That or she might try to crush them with her brain. . . but Echo loved the kittens. She would never be capable of such a thing. . . right?

Tygra dropped, landed on the boardwalk, and smacked him on the arm. "Let's go!"

Lion-O nodded, taking off at a sprint, leading the Cat pack as they fell in line. The boardwalk was short - the Oasis was not very large above ground - and it took a pathetically short amount of time to reach the heart of it. Fire and smoke clogged the air, but he ran, ignoring memories of Thundera burning. The main body of the Ramlak marked the center of the Oasis, and he rounded a corner, ready to start climbing it-

But he promptly skidded to a halt when he recognized a familiar, cloaked figure standing on top of the body of the Ramlak. She was sitting, calmly perched on it, one leg crossed over the other, as though she hadn't a care in the world. It was stark contrast to the last time he'd seen her with the Ramlak, coated in her own blood, her white hair plastered on her face, babbling in fear and staring down at the water.

"Traitor!" Pumyra hissed, drawing her wrist-bow and firing a few rocks at the human.

"Pumyra, no!" Lion-O shouted, grabbing at her wrist in a vain attempt to stop her. As before, the rocks stopped, hovering in the air, before zipping into the opposite direction with a high-pitched whine, striking the ground by Cheetara's feet. The cleric had been just a second away from rushing forward to attack.

"Kid," Panthro rumbled, "You don't wanna-"

She laughed, lifting a hand and shaking back her hood. White hair spilled down over her shoulders, unnaturally bright in the firelight. She stopped, canting her head to the side, her eyes crinkling as she smiled - but there was no warmth to it. It looked hollow.

"No, General. I'm very aware of the fact that I do want to."

"Don't stand there, acting smug, human! We know how your brain works. We know your defenses!" Tygra snarled, drawing his gun.

"Maybe. It'd be an interesting test, don't you think? To see how long I can stand against all of you?"

"Echo." Panthro said, using a tone that had Lion-O's hair standing on edge. "I'm warning you." He pulled out his nunchucks, and the metal clattered softly against itself as Panthro held one.

Pumyra roughly shook Lion-O off, and the lion stood there, staring up at Echo, feeling his emotions churning. Spy? Or still his best friend.

She straightened, the smile morphing into a frown.

"There. That. That's what's been bugging me. You said-"

"Is there any scrap of humanity left in you, Echo? Look what you've done!" Lion-O called out, trying to get a rise out of her, something. Invoke her empathy, she'd certainly had it in spades.

The frown deepened, and Lion-O felt the air grow heavy. He could practically sense the anger in the air.

"That. I know what it is now. That's not my name."

"Echo, please-"

"Erica. Erica Riley. And you'd do best to remember it. Oh, god, I can't wait to hear it. I want you to wheeze it when I kill you. I want to see the blood bubbling over your lips-"

"Enough!" Tygra snarled, lining up a shot with her. Lion-O stared in horror as Cheetara raced forward, staff whistling.

Echo hardly looked fazed. She stood there, nodding her head. "You're right. I brought friends this time. You didn't think I could set all of these fires by myself, did you?"

Lion-O stiffened when the air rippled, and with an ear-deafening crack, several tears in the air appeared. He braced himself as a shockwave battered his skin, but an insane, off-kilter giggle drifted in the air, and in just a second, Kaynar tore through the air, tackling Cheetara to the ground.

"Oh no no no! Bad kitty, gotta play with me, kitty!" Kaynar wrapped himself around the cheetah, laughing, and with a shove, rolled the pair of them off of the Ramlak's body and straight into the water.

"Cheetara!"

"Tygra!" Lion-O shouted, "Slithe's-"

The lizard had dropped from the portal, and taking advantage of the tiger's distraction, whipped him with his tail and into a burning building. Concern and fear ripped through the lion as he watched the shack collapse on top of his brother, Slithe advancing, a sick smile on his face and his war axe in hand.

A white blur barreled past him, and stupidly, Lion-O thought, that's not the color of Cheetara's fur- but Addicus howled in victory as he bodily threw Pumyra had Panthro, sending both of them toppling. Lion-O drew Omens, a vicious snarl ripping through his throat. But a quiet shiik noise had him spinning on his feet, throwing Omens up defensively, and two swords impacted on his own.

Echo looked up at him with a grin, something that was less human and more animalistic.

"Ah ah. We both know who you're fighting. I own you, lion. Mind, body, and soul. Nobody - not even Markata - gets to touch you. I'm going to be the one to run that pretty little heart of yours through with my blade-"

Lion-O growled, and swiftly brought up his knee, striking Echo in the stomach. The blow connected, and she doubled over sharply - he gave her no reprieve. Lion-O was on her in a heartbeat, striking her with the flat of his blade, knocking her off balance a second time. And though he felt guilty for doing it, he spun around, delivering a brutal roundhouse to her head.

Echo went down hard, tumbling over in a messy heap. Lion-O stood there, holding Omens at the ready, the Spirit stone glowing in his gauntlet. A beat later, his suspicions were proven correct when he felt the air turn syrupy, and his eyes stung as energy flooded through him. He raised Omens and sliced through the energy in the air. He stood there, widening his stance, waiting for the second attempt, but it never came.

Echo pushed herself up, getting to her feet, laughing as she turned to him.

Blood dripped from her lips - he'd probably cut her cheek open when he'd kicked her. She lifted a hand and unclasped the cloak, letting it fall down in a messy pile at her feet.

She ran a finger over the blood trail on her lip, and making eye contact with him, grinned. "Oh, thank goodness. I thought this was going to be a quick fight. I'm so happy I finally get a chance to fight with you. I've been dreaming of it. . . Are you ready? You better be. I'm not going to stop until you scream."

Lion-O gripped Omens tightly, narrowing his eyes at her.

"Don't do this, Echo."

"Consider it already done."

She held out her hand, and her sword returned to her grip. She smiled at him, and that was all the warning he got before his world became war.

His world became nothing more than flashes of silver and red. He barely had time to concentrate on anything else before there were more sword strikes. She must have been playing with him in the cavern - she wasn't now. Lion-O could tell that she'd been practicing. He could see the muscles on her bare, scarred arms, and she was able to stand against his strikes. . . for a time. He was still stronger than her.

But her guard was tight. Tighter than it had ever been before, and fighting her was a challenge. In the past, she'd been too weak to effectively use her telekinesis in a fight. Her mind was always distracted, and she'd never had accurate control over it - half the time she ended up crushing the thing that she was trying to grab with her mind. But no. Echo apparently had been training in this department.

Whenever Lion-O moved to counter her with his swords, he either had to be supernaturally quick with parrying her strike and blocking her mental one, or the more common outcome was Lion-O blocking her physical strikes and turning too late to block the mental one. He could already feel bruises forming on his arms and chest. He glared at Echo, tired of the cat-n-mouse games, of the constant brain-punches.

He was irritated, but he knew, he knew that his friend was deep down in there. He just had to find some way to reach her.

Echo straightened, circling around him, twirling her swords in her hands, the firelight glimmering off of the blades.

Lion-O kept pace with her, circling the other direction, keeping her in his line of sight. In the distance, he could hear Tygra's gun firing, could hear Panthro yelling - he knew the others were alright. He had to believe it. They were trained, battle-hardened, and they had too much on the line to lose. Failure was not an option. He turned his attention back to Echo, his mind racing. He was approaching this from the wrong angle. Attacking her directly wasn't working.

So, Lion-O did what he knew he did best: he opened his mouth.

"So this is you, now? You turn into a mass murderer?"

She stopped circling, blue eyes boring into him. ". . . That's an oddly hypocritical thing of you to say."

That didn't make any sense, but she was talking. He pressed the opening - inwardly, Lion-O felt a twinge of guilt steal through him for what he was about to say. But it was the only way to get a rise out of her. He needed to see some part of Echo was still inside of this. . . this person.

"Look around you, Echo. This is Thundera, all over again - you killed innocent animals. Men, children, women! You've killed them all. And now you're siding with the worst monster this universe has ever seen. What happened to you, Echo? Why are you doing this? This isn't you!"

She stilled. Her eyes flickered to the fires, and Lion-O could see pain shimmering in her eyes, simmering alongside the darkness and the hate. There was a chink in the armor. Lion-O wedged himself into it, determined to crack it open all the way.

"Don't you remember the fall of Thundera? You cried. So many people died, Echo. Do you really want to repeat that all over again? The senseless death, the destruction. . ." He trailed off, watching as she lifted up a hand, closing her eyes. Her sword pressed against her neck, and Lion-O stiffened, fear outright flooding through him. The words, 'Echo, NO!' froze in his throat. Just a twitch, and it would all spill out. She'd finish what he started-

The hand moved, and the blade sparked as it slid through the air. Long, white strands fell to the ground, glowing in the light of the fire. Echo opened her hand, dropping the rest of her hair. The wind and heat from the fires sent most of it fluttering away. Lion-O stared in shock as his friend lowered the blade a second time, and stared at him, eyes cold.

"My name is Erica. Riley. This Echo? This pathetic shell you loved so much? She's dead. She was too weak to survive. I conquered my insanity, I killed my demons. Why don't you understand that that means I'm going to eviscerate you?!"

Lion-O heard a faint metal hiss, and his jaw nearly dropped in shock when two thin, flat metal rods jetted up into the air - another snick, and blades slid cleanly out of the handles. The two swords hovered in the air, and Echo resumed holding her original pair. His expression must have been obvious because she smiled at him smugly - and then raced forward. Lion-O brought Omens round to parry, but hissed when a sword came from the side, scoring into his fur.

"Faster! Faster! Show me what your true worth is, you liar!"

She unleashed a barrage of attacks, and it was all Lion-O could do to hold himself against them. His mind briefly flitted to Drifter, and he wondered if she'd somehow enlisted the rabbit to teach her, because there was no way Echo could wield swords with such accuracy-

A sword bit into his chestplate, and Lion-O growled, tiring of his friend. She needed to be stopped. Summoning up all of his concentration, he withstood her assault, reading the lines of her body, the movements that defined Echo as Echo, and in a heartbeat he preformed better. Sword clanged against sword as he batted her attacks away. Rage flared on her face, but he waited, knowing that she was impatient, and she'd move in for a strike.

He was right. He only had to wait a few seconds later. Echo tried to parry and strike through his guard, but Lion-O feinted.

"ThunderCats, HO!"

The War stone sparked to life, and Echo looked like a kitten with their paw stuck in the catnip jar - but then she was blown backwards, a sharp scream of pain leaving her. Omens sent her reeling, tumbling head over heels further up the body of the Ramlak, towards the head of it. And there she came to a stop on her back, shallow breaths moving her chest up and down, her swords out of her hands and on the Ramlak's body.

The sun was beginning to set, the firelight quickly becoming the only source of light. Lion-O approached her, the Spirit and War stones humming in his gauntlet, ready to pounce at just a moment's notice. He stood over her, Omens in hand, watching her breathe. Her hair, comically short and ragged, was splayed around her face, splattered with her own blood. He'd been able to get his licks in - her cheek was swelling up nicely from where he'd kicked her, too.

One strike. One blow from his sword, and he'd be able to end it. Her misery. His pain. Before, the angle had been all wrong - this time, he could get it right. And she wouldn't even know. She'd just stay asleep. Forever. With trembling hands, Lion-O lifted the blade, feeling his eyes getting wet.

He could do this. He had to. By Thunderian law, the King had to kill those who had tried to assassinate the crown. It was the tradition of his people. He had to kill his best friend. He swallowed, feeling his throat get tight, his heart pounding in his chest. He could do it. One strike. She wouldn't even know she'd slipped into the next world. He brought the sword higher. He could do it. He had to.

He felt the Spirit stone surge, humming, the War stone vibrating in response - and his vision shifted.

Ghost Echo knelt before him, clutching at herself and crying, her visage pale and her cheeks streaked with tears.

"Don't do it. Please. Please, Lion-O. I don't want to die. Please. Don't kill me. Don't do this. I loved you. I loved all of you."

Her hair shriveled, becoming the raggedy mess she'd just made, and Echo stared up at him with such fear and pity - gods above, Lion-O wanted to drop Omens and hold him to her and tell her it would be okay.

Omens dropped.

"I can't do it." He murmured, voice wracked with pain.

"I know." Echo responded, "But I can."

In a flurry of movement, the human rose, and Lion-O bit out a sharp scream as pain flooded through his senses. Disorientation stole through him, and he stumbled. Echo moved, knocking him onto his back, and she took it upon herself to straddle his chestplate, sitting on top of him. Lion-O felt his muscles twitching as his left arm tried to move, to unpin itself from the ground. . . He tilted his head to the side and saw the sharp tip of a sword sticking through his skin.

"I told you." She murmured on top of him, hands holding the hilt. "I told all of you, didn't I?"

"Echo!" A voice bristled - Pumyra. She had her wrist-bow at the ready, aimed at the human. She looked a little worse for wear, but scuffles with Addicus left any Cat looking like a pile of tenderized meat. "Release him."

"Or what?"

"Or I'll fire!" She barked.

"Outnumbered." Echo answered simply.

The sharp shew shew of Tygra's gun bit through the air, and Lion-O flinched when he saw several of the bolts streaking dangerously close to his head - but several flashes of light later, and his brother stilled, fangs bared in a snarl. Echo sat back, rolling her head to him boredly.

"Like I said, outnumbered. I have three sharp pointy things. You have one gun. My brain moves faster than your finger."

Lion-O couldn't quite comprehend what she was saying - she kept moving the sword in his arm, twisting it this way and that gently, igniting pain from the wound. But he somehow gathered his strength to himself and turned his head.

Oh.

Three swords were posed in an odd dome around him, two of them pointed dangerously close to his head. Echo was right - one mental flex, and he wouldn't have a head anymore. The human shifted, looking back down at him, and she wrapped her hands around the hilt of the sword in his shoulder.

"The Generals failed - but they always do, don't they? I can't count on animals in the end. Never could. Never will. But now? Now, I just want one thing from you. You're going to give it to me. . . Might as well be sooner rather than later. Say my name."

And she twisted the blade. It caught Lion-O off guard - he grit his teeth. "E-Echo."

"Wrong name."

Another twist of the blade.

"Echo!"

"Wrong again."

His head was swimming, and he was certain he was going to pass out any moment. What had she said?

"Ech. . . o. . . Erica!"

In a heartbeat, she released her hold on the blade, violently fisted her hands in his hair, bending his neck at a painful angle, and in a move that left Lion-O utterly confused and speechless, she covered his mouth with her own. His brain short-circuited. . . Both from the pain, and from this. She was. . . She was. . . kissing him. Lion-O was somewhat experienced in the field of kisses. He loved kissing Pumyra.

He knew there was eager kisses and heartfelt kisses. . . but this was something dark, possessive, and. . . and sincere.

As quickly as it had begun, it had stopped, and she separated from him, roughly jerking her sword out of his arm. Her eyes bored down into him - there was no love there, no anything. Just rage and hate.

"Don't forget it. My name. Who owns you. I was serious when I told you that I owned you, liar. Mind, body, and soul."

Lion-O wheezed as he stared at her, watching as Echo. . . Erica flipped the blade around, licking at the metal. She smiled, and then turned it down, digging the sword into the flesh of the Ramlak. The giant beast quivered, and with a low moan, a beautiful, bright blue light began to shine through the crack. The entire world began to convulse and churn as the Ramlak moved, tentacles ripping up the boardwalk, water sloshing and splashing. It groaned, life flooding its limbs again.

Lion-O, though some inanimal feat, rolled onto his hands and knees.

"Erica-"

"Oh, look. I'm so proud of you. You used my name this time. . . I won't be gentle with you next time, liar. Next time, I really will kill you."

The world erupted into a torrent of stormy air, and Lion-O had to dig his claws into the Ramlak in order to keep from being blown away. The Spirit stone responded, conjuring a shield, and the exhausted cat king collapsed behind it, watching through cracked eyes as the light coalesced into a small, beautiful glass ball. Several Cats attempted to attack, to retake the Essence, but another crack, and a red, moth-eaten cloak fluttered in the air.

Lion-O struggled to keep consciousness as he laid there, feeling his blood pooling around him. He heard dark, sinister laughter, saw flashes of purple energy. . . And then nothing.

It was quiet.

Lion-O finally let his eyes close, and he lost the battle to maintain lucidity.