This is a story starring my favorite ThunderCat, Lynx-O, although Cheetara and Pumyra both play surprisingly large roles towards the end, and most of the ThudnerCat characters have a part heheh. Also surprisingly, there aren't any Lunattacks...
1
"LYYYYNX-OOOO!" came the screeching, harried, I-am-a-second-away-from-panicking voice from the lower level of the Tower. A little startled, Lynx-O turned away from his Braille board at the sound of four small feet running up the stairs. "Lynx-O!" Snarfer wailed. "The pipes broke down there, and the lower level's flooded!"
Lynx-O let out a breath he had not realized he had been holding. He turned his sightless eyes to where he normally would have been making eye contact with the young Snarf. He had been without his eyes for a long time now, but had gone many, many more years with it, and was still in the habit of making eye contact, even if he could no longer do so. "Easy, Snarfer, it can be fixed," he said to his young friend. "You can't overreact so much over little things, Snarfer, you had me worried. I thought we were under attack, or that you had gotten badly injured."
Snarfer's ears folded down. "Sorry, Lynx-O..." he said in a quieter tone. "But there's a foot of water down there! I mean all the plumbing just...busted!"
"All right, did you turn off the water?"
"Well yeah."
"Then let's go down and fix it." Lynx-O smiled and started for the stairs. Lynx-O knew the Tower of Omens better than any building he had ever been in. He knew every turn, every distance, every doorway, every piece of furniture, all by estimation and touch, as well as hearing and smell. It was something he had learned to do since he lost his sight. He had had to in order to survive, and not be hopelessly dependent upon the others.
Once down there, Lynx-O sighed. "All the plastic pipes," he said, feeling the damage. "I thought they were a bad idea. Snarfer, don't we have a bunch of metal pipes in the supply closet down here?"
"Yessir, suuure do, yep! I'll get 'em, Lynx-O!" Snarfer ran off and returned with the pipes. "But we're short three of them."
"That's all right. I can turn those off, and we can make a trip to Cats' Lair to see if they have any. If not, we'll have to go to the Wollo village perhaps to see if they have some for sale in their shops."
Snarfer and Lynx-O finished their task in companionable silence, and when they were done, headed to the hangar, taking a towel on the way to dry off their feet. Snarfer had to dry off his while body, since he had been down there when the pipes blew, and was soaked.
Lynx-O piloted the ThunderStrike out of the hangar, after asking Bengali to look after the Tower of Omens. Pumyra was visiting at the Lair. As they landed, Wilykit, who was on watch duty in the Control Room with her brother, lifted the Cat's Paw to let them in. "Hi, Lynx-O, Snarfer!" she said as they came in.
"Hello, Thunderkittens," the elder ThunderCat replied. "Where's Lion-O?"
"He's at the Berbil Village, negotiating for some candifruit for Snarf's pie!" Wilykat replied with a grin. Boy, was he anticipating that!
"Oooo, we'll be sure to come over here for dinner tonight, sure will!" Snarfer said with equal eagerness..
Lynx-O chuckled. "I came to see if you had any spare pipes here in the Lair. We had a slight plumbing problem."
"I think so," Wilykat said. "I'll go see."
***
While the ThunderCats were dealing with their minor crisis, they were not aware that they were being watched with a large degree of disdain. "Look at them," the ancient being growled to the slobbering gray canine at his feet. "Idiocy. Their despicable cheeriness and abhorrent good will sickens me."
The old priest waved his bandage covered hand in disgust over the cauldron, dashing the image away as he turned towards his sarcophagus. "How I wish I could eliminate them forever, Ma-Mutt. I can not begin to count how many times they have humiliated me, and thwarted my most evil plans." As the dog whined sympathetically, Mumm-Ra's hateful ruby eyes narrowed in fury as he leaned back against the far wall of his crypt. "The myth of the felines having nine lives, I am beginning to think, is true, for I can not seem to destroy them." Mumm-Ra stopped suddenly, frowning in thought. Who said he had to destroy them? Why could he not simply banish them, so that they could not return? Either way they would be out of his hair.
Hmm!
"That's it, Ma-Mutt!" Ma-Mutt barked and jumped up onto his master's leg. Mumm-Ra bent to pet him. "I will not destroy them, my horrid hound. I will simply create a rift in space and time, it would be a simple enough spell, and one that is least likely to backfire on me. And if it is random, if not even I can control where they end up, then how could they return? And I will cast them in; or better yet, set it up so that they do it themselves!" His spirits returning, he let out an unpleasant cackle that echoed off the walls of the chamber, walls scoured clean of moss and sterilized by eons of existence in the arid desert, with its sand and its heat. "Yes, this will be a day to be remembered, Ma-Mutt!"
Mumm-Ra raised his arms and called out the incantation, his voice gaining strength from its sheer evil and power. "Ancient Spirits of Evil!" he commanded. "Transform this decayed form to Mumm-Ra! The Ever-Living!" As the huge monoliths that embodied the spirits of the Evil that roamed earth so many centuries ago drew together, and shed their dark light upon the mummy priest, Mumm-Ra began to undergo the changes. The bandages that wrapped around him all but shed away, and his body grew to that of a strong warrior. His armor formed, and the seared image on his chest was revealed, the image that struck fear into the hearts of those who knew whom it represented.
Mumm-Ra cackled, a sound not quite sane, perhaps. "Now, Ma-Mutt, to find my incantation..." Mumm-Ra summoned from the catacombs below his abode a dusty old book of conjurations, that had seen scores of owners before Mumm-Ra, and had outlived every one of them. He began to search.
Part 2
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