19

"Tygra, look out!" Lion-O called, unleashing yet another blast at the mummy priest. This one elicited a satisfying shriek of pain and anger as it struck.

There was a low growl that would chill the stoutest of hearts, and even Panthro paused. "You are very courageous when fighting three on one, ThunderCats," Mumm-Ra growled.

"Hey, five on one!' Wilykit protested. "We're here!"

Mumm-Ra favored them with a smirk. "You hardly count as warriors, brats." Leaving the twins fuming in resentment at the slur, Mumm-Ra turned back to lay his unsettling, unnatural eyes on Lion-O. "Are you too much a coward to face me yourself, you puling cub?"

Lion-O himself bristled, and was seriously considering taking him up on that offer. His grip tightened on the Sword of Omens.

"Forget it, Mumm-Ra. The lives and the safety of our countrymen are at stake here. I don't believe all that bullcrap about not being able to bring them back!" Panthro jumped forward without warning, and launched himself at the undead mummy. Taken by surprise, Mumm-Ra was knocked to the floor of his pyramid, and he and the mighty panther began to grapple.

Wilykat wanted to move in and help, but Wilykit tapped him on the shoulder. "No wait, Wilykat...let's go see if we can find the spell book Mumm-Ra used!" She spoke in a hushed whisper.

"But what if he didn't use a spellbook?"

Wilykit shrugged. "It's gotta be worth a shot."

The boy nodded. "Okay. The others can keep that miserable mummy occupied while we look." The twins dashed off.

As the battle escalated behind them, the twins crept down the dark, dust-dry corridors, kicking up skifts of the fine desert sand that always seeped in everywhere when you lived in the desert, no matter how tight you seal the place up. The unpleasant thought that it might not all even be sand, but that there might be the ancient dust of crumbles bones scattered about as well occurred to Wilykit, and she felt obligated to share this thought with her brother.

"Oh thanks a lot, Wilykit! That's something I really don't want to think about walking down a dark passageway in Mumm-Ra's pyramid!" Wilykit laughed, clamping a hand over her mouth. After a minute, Wilykat laughed too, and slugged her playfully. She laughed again. It was nervousness and fear, and both knew it. That was how they dealt with their fear.

"Okay, now which - man now I don't even know where we are!"

Wilykit looked at him strangely. "There haven't been any turnoffs."

"I know but I mean I don't even know where in the pyramid this is. I've never been this far before." The twins passed a row of what looked like ancient prison cells, sealed with ancient stone doors. "It's almost too dark in here for even us to see."

"I'll get out some light." Wilykit took a light capsule from her belt and broke it partly open, shining a light on the situation. "Wilykat! Look!"

"I see it!" At the and of the murky corridor was a lone door. "Let's go see what's in it!"

"Yeah and there are some other hallways here too, but let's get the door first." The twins crept along, listening to the rapidly fading sounds of the battle that was now above the adventurous twins. "What was that?"

"What was what?" Wilykat asked, not looking around.

"That!" Wilykit heard it again, a very low sound, like something running silently, but wearing clothing that flapped in the wind. Then there was a low growl.

"I don't hear anything, Wilykit." Wilykat snickered. "I think you're hearing things. You must be getting old."

Wilykit frowned then laughed nervously. "Well you're my twin, then what does that make you?"

Wilykat gave the same laugh and shrugged. "Well at least I'm not--" This time he did hear it, and shivered involuntarily. They edged closer together. "Boy it's spooky down here."

"And cold. You did hear it didn't you?"

"Yeah. Wilykit? Let's go back and wait for the others."

Wilykit needed little more coaxing, and started to turn around. "Good idea."

"GROWWF!!!"

Both twins screamed at the sudden loud growl of anger directly behind them, and at the hot breath at their necks, and spun around. Both had their lariats drawn and capsules in hand. Before them hovered a large, gray, drooling bulldog, snarling at the young ThunderCats. "Ma-Mutt!" they exclaimed at the same time.

"Jeez, he almost gave me a heart attack!" Wilykat said shakily. He had reason to fear and respect the dog, as he was a formidable adversary in his own right, but he was at least a known adversary. When Wilykat heard that enraged growl, he had been ready to turn and see anything. The boy's heart was still pounding, and he breathed fast. "Get out of our way, Ma-Mutt!" he said.

The canine only growled and leapt from mid-air at Wilykat's throat. With a yelp, he was knocked down, and able to knock the attacker off kilter enough to remain alive, but got a nasty set of tooth gouges on his arm from the trouble. He yelped sharply.

"Okay, you miserable mutt! No one does that to my brother!" The fiercely protective Wilykit leapt forward, ready to throw the dog through the wall if she had to.

***

On Thundera, when Lynx-O awakened from his much needed rest, he sensed one of their group was missing. He felt around on the bunk on either side of him, and his hand encountered the top of Snarfer's head. He awoke with a startled sound that indicated his mind was still stubbornly asleep, and his body had only awakened to chew the person responsible for waking it out so it could join his mind again.

"I'm sorry, Snarfer, but is Pumyra gone?" Lynx-O asked with a frown.

With a silent sigh, Snarfer's mind awoke, and at that moment, he wakened completely and looked around. "Yep, suuuure is, snarfer, snarfer. Maybe she went to find something to eat on the ship or went to the bathroom."

Lynx-O nodded and frowned a little. "Perhaps." Normally he would have assumed the same thing, but there was a feeling in the air, a scarcely tangible feeling of doom, and it was not just because of Pumyra's disappearance either. This much he could intuit. "Let's go look for her, Snarfer."

"Okay," the young Snarf said agreeably, and followed Lynx-O from the room. The elderly lynx moved slowly feeling his way along the wall. Every so often he would call Pumyra's name.

After they had been through the whole ship, he sighed. "Well now I'm a bit concerned. I hope nothing has happened to her." Then he frowned. "Snarfer! What is the date today? Do you know?"

Snarfer thought a minute then told him. "Yeah that's right, yessir!"

Lynx-O's frown deepened. He realized now that he had chosen a very poor spot on Thundera to land in. "Come on Snarfer!"

"Where are we going?" the puzzled youth asked him.

"To the Chasm."

***

Pumyra had never been to the Chasm, but has seen enough maps to know where it was. She had been too tired on their return to Thundera to notice, but Lynx-O had landed close enough for it to be less than an hour's walk in the rocky, desolate terrain.

No settlements had ever been made here; the ground was hard and unreapable. No vegetation would grow, and building foundations would be far too difficult and costly to make here to make building anything worth it. And besides, no one would want to live in the unpleasant area. Vultures and snakes denned here, not to mention other various wildlife, the kind that thrived in arid conditions, and these species somehow flourished, were even happy here. Pumyra never could be, that was for sure. But she went there now.

She had thought a lot in the hour or so it had taken her to get there, the wind increasing as she approached. It was a hot wind, one that made her want to shield her face and turn around and walk backwards if only to get a breath of cool air without it blowing in her face. But she didn't. She only thought.

Perhaps what Lynx-O said was true, maybe there was the chance of causing greater harm, but any way that the young puma thought about it, the more she could not see how it could be. She couldn't see what could worse than killing off thousands of innocent people. She just couldn't. Lynx-O would be angry with her, he would be disappointed, feel betrayed maybe, and these she could put up with. She would not like it, and she would cry a long time, but she would put up with it for this.

Finally, she was there, and finally seeing the source of the unpleasant wind. She didn't like wind. She didn't like hot wind and she didn't like cold wind, and the cougar grimaced as she approached.

She peered into the cavern, which was surrounded by rocks and sand, some of these former rising taller than she, even taller than Tygra, who was tallest. She peered in, fascinated, although the gales had become violent enough to turn her mane into a mass of tiny whipping tentacles that flew around wildly, stinging her face and generally getting in her way. "Sheesh!" Taking a piece of rawhide from her pocket, she tied it firmly back, which helped.

The wind was coming from inside the vast cavern, where the superheated air met the cooler air outside. There was a river below, a river of raging molten stone, far, far below. Even at the distance up that she was, Pumyra still felt that if she looked down there long enough, she'd get a sunburn, right through the fur. Still, she was fascinated. It almost reminded her of Fire Rock Mountain in Dark Side.

But then, another movement caught her attention, a movement that a bull in a bullfight might be angered by: the elusive movement of a cloth being waved, or blown back to whip in the wind. She looked up, moving away from the dangerous cavern when she got dizzy from getting up after leaning over on her knees so long to look. She raised an eyebrow.

There was a man several yards away, partially hidden by the rock Pumyra was behind, although he was out in the open. She moved cautiously to get a better look, but need not have worried about being careful. The man was far too occupied in what he was doing to see her. He was a Thunderian, what kind would not have been discernible normally had she not known who he was, as his head was covered by a spiked battle helmet. His powerful shoulders were covered with a long cloak, that was being whipped around by the wind, and it was this movement Pumyra had seen. He wore very little, only a deep, gold-colored uniform that covered his private areas, and came up in a narrow band over his chest to meet with his cloak. This cloak was held to the rest of his uniform by the insignia of a ThunderCat. "Is that..." Pumyra said quietly to herself, the words ripped from her mouth by the wind. "But that can't be right!"

The young man's face was handsome. His deep piercing eyes were accented by dark lashes and even darker brows. He was muscular, down to his thighs and lower legs, and he looked no more than twenty-five, maybe thirty. But it had to be him. He held what could only be the terrible Sword of Plundaar.

But Jaga was an older man not ten years later from then! Pumyra shook her head. Now was not the time to think about this, she had taken too much time already. But still she hesitated. What if he didn't believe her? She supposed she could fight him and take the blade, but Jaga was a high noble. She would be in much trouble for attacking him. Then what? She eyed the blade.

Though it was a dark and terrible weapon, used only for the purpose of killing and evil, it was a beautiful blade as well. Evil could be beautiful, just as good could be ugly, and this blade was beautiful. Shining in the odd red light that was a combination of Thundera's orange sky and the intense heat of the lava down below, the Sword of Plundaar took on its own glow, as if under its own power. The hilt was in the middle, and sprouting from it were the double blades that made it a somewhat unique weapon, and added to its beauty. It had many sharp edges that swept away from the hilt as they tapered to the ends. It did have its own power Pumyra realized. Even she could feel it. No wonder this was a weapon highly sought by the forces of evil.

And now as she stood behind the rock that was almost too hot to touch, Pumyra could also understand how this sword, having sunk into the lava and perhaps getting lodged in the core of their beloved home, could destroy an entire planet.

As Jaga raised the mighty blade above his head in one hand, Pumyra's eyes widened, and she began one desperate lunge...

It was Pumyra's fascination with the chasm, and then the man with the stolen blade, that had allowed this to happen. Pumyra yelped as a pair of hands grabbed her and pulled her back behind the rock. "Lynx-O!" Pumyra was both very surprised and very angry. "Where did you come from?"

Lynx-O was also angry, but he too had watched the blade, felt its power more than Pumyra had. He had also felt a great, crushing sorrow as he realized that now he would have to stand by, even watch perhaps, the one event that had caused Thundera to be destroyed occur. "Pumyra, listen to me. I know what day it is. I figured you would be here. I felt it." He sighed "I thought you had agreed. You must not interfere with this! Remember what I told, you Pumyra! Remember! If you prevent this, or even change it in any way, you could change millions of things across the universe! Many more could die than did originally, Pumyra, including Thundera."

"But Lynx-O! I could stop him. I could stop him!! Then we could save our people, Lynx-O, maybe even then you wouldn't have been blinded...well of course you wouldn't have, because you lost your eyes when Thundera was destroyed! Lynx-O, please!" She glanced desperately over to Jaga's young form.

"No, Pumyra. I cannot." He lowered his head. "You must try to understand." He had his hands lightly on her shoulders, and was ready to hold her back physically if he had to. It was a good thing, as she had tried to bolt. He grabbed he and pinned her as gently as he could without hurting her.

"NO!" She fought him with a strength she didn't know she had, but Lynx-O was the stronger, only barely. He held on. "Jaga! No!!" Pumyra yelled, trying to get the young lord Jaga's attention.

Standing on the brink of the Chasm, Jaga's head turned sharply at what he had thought was someone calling him, but he saw no one; Pumyra and Lynx-O were well hidden from view. He turned back, focusing his attention on the evil weapon whose destruction he intended to author. He himself felt a deep trepidation at what he was about to do, but fully expected it. When dealing with a blade of this magnitude of evil, it was to be expected.

If only he knew the real reason for his uneasiness.

Pumyra had managed to squirm enough to turn around and start beating on Lynx-O's chest. "Let me go, let me go Lynx-O!" she cried. Lynx-O only took the abuse silently, and finally Pumyra collapsed sobbing once more into her old friend's arms. "I'm sorry, Lynx-O...I'm sorry I know you're right, I know you are! but all our people...my family and friends, and all those innocents..."

"I know Pumyra." Lynx-O held her tightly, now not because he feared she would try and break away again, but because he wanted to comfort her, no matter how impossible the task may be. And he needed the comfort himself . "I know." He said no more, as words would have been useless, but only held her.

After a moment, as Snarfer finally caught up to them, huffing and puffing from running the while way, the two felines turned around to look at Jaga. They were just in time to see him hurl the accursed Sword into the Chasm and walk away, the deed accomplished.

Well he did it, Pumyra thought numbly. It's happened again, and now there's no taking it back. Thundera had another chance, and now it was too late. She could have saved the world, maybe, but she knew Lynx-O was right.

It didn't make it any better. It didn't still the screams of the Thunderians as the planet superheated, and then blew, leaving only small fragments of the planet to drift into space, and the escapees roaring through it. But even they had been destroyed mostly too, hadn't they? By the Mutants. She buried her face in Lynx-O's uniform.

Had Lynx-O been able to cry, he would have wept as well. But he could not. "Come on Pumyra," he said in a low voice. "Let's go." Heads bowed, they also walked away.

***

Many many years later, in the future, where a New Thundera now orbited more or less peacefully in space, Cheetara was being brought to a certain vulture's lab instead of the work yard. She knew she could count on good old Snarf. They would put their plan into action that very night.

Part 18

Part 20

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