9

As the ThunderCats were discovering that their adversaries were tougher than they had thought, Ram Bam meanwhile had made it...all the way to the other side of the moat. He landed, skidded, and just kept right on going.

Even as he fought, Lion-O had time to marvel at this act of idiocy, realizing he was going to hit the door headfirst. He did not know that hitting the door headfirst was the strange man's intention. Ram Bam did hit the door, and going quite fast. As his armored helmet struck the heavy doors, the top blew, literally blew, and blasted a hole in them. At the force of this assault, they sprung open, one of them nearly off its hinges. The raider himself careened off to the side and sat on his rear end for a moment, dazed and dizzy. Then he shook it off, as he had done this many times, and laughed, kicking in the door. "Where are you, you, you?!" he called, his tone mocking. "Hide and Seek is it? I were the Hide and Seek champion of all me mates when I were young! Ready or not, here I come, come, come!" The man's strange, strong accent made the words sound more like "hoid an' seek"

Up in the control room, the Thunderkittens fired furiously. Outside it was a full blown battle, and Wilykit kind of wanted to be down there fighting, but still she was one of the better shots, and was of more use in the control room in this instance.

Wilykit was fighting to help the others, Wilykat was fighting for a completely different reason: he was mad. He was infuriated. When she paused once to look at him, what she saw was not pleasing. The young ThunderCat was thin, thinner than usual, as he'd not been eating, and the dark circles under his eyes made him look like he was on some kind of drug. The blaze in his eyes scared her too, because she'd never seen her usually somewhat mild- mannered brother act like that before. Never. In those eyes she saw fear, paranoia, anger...hate.

Then the Lair was rocked by a sharp blast from the Fistpounder, and Wilykit once again had to focus all her attention on firing, but then she saw the skinny invader gain entry.

He was looking in the rooms he passed, but he had seen the shots were coming from the top, and figured to be able to see that well, they had to be firing from there as well. He headed up the stairs, still calling in his jeeringly playful voice for them to come out, come out, wherever they were.

Wilykat turned around. "Who the hell is that?" he growled, a dark scowl across his kitten's face.

Wilykit also spun around. "Great, he's inside, Wilykat!"

There was a polite knock at the door, a mockery of etiquette. "Can I come in and play?" There was a high pitched titter, and then silence for a minute.

Having seen what he had done a minute ago to the front doors, Wilykit's eyes widened, and while Snarf dove to one side, she tackled her brother, who had not realized. "Look out!"

The two kittens fell to the side, just as the skinny Berzerker burst through the control room doors, which *had* been locked. Now they were a twisted ruin. They still were locked, but that no longer did any good.

"Ah there you are!" he cried, getting up a little unsteadily. He looked a little goofy and clumsy, but no less dangerous. In fact his slightly off-kilter personality made him seem more sinister.

"Get off me!" Wilykat yelled angrily, shoving his sister off of him. "I knew he was coming in!" he lied. "I'm not stupid! you don't have to protect me all the time!" His voice was both angry and frustrated, but there was a slight pleading sound to it. He didn't like yelling at his sister, but more and more it seemed she didn't care, she didn't care what he wanted!

"What! you couldn't have moved in time I didn't want you to get hurt, you...creep!"

"Aw, so you be fighting each other," the skinny invader sneered. The kittens stopped their quarrel long enough to face him. "Now, my captain wants me t' secure this place, an you two catlings are in me way! Now, you can go, an' leave me t' do what I'm supposed to, or you cin fight and die, die die!!"

Before anyone could say anything, Wilykat snarled, and clutched an explosive pellet in his hand. "ThunderCats never surrender!" he cried, and leapt lithely at the stranger.

"Yeah!" Wilykit agreed, fully with her brother for the first time in many days.

"Good!" the pirate cried. "I've not spilled blood in too long!" He ran to meet their attack head on.

Snarf was no use in this fight, as with the kittens' pellets, and the all out brawl between the three, he couldn't see to strike! Instead, the worried Snarf kept firing on the fighters outside, hoping they'd just leave, and call this...this...ruffian off!

But that was not to happen. Ram Bam was skinny, as skinny for his height as the Thunderkittens, but this strength was deceptive. His thin, abnormally long arms had tendons like steel, and there were mechanical enhancements besides the wheel, in his chest and legs. He was not just a skinny pirate, he was partly machine. Mostly human perhaps, but enough machine to pose a serious threat.

As the three tussled on the floor amidst the smoke from the pellets, Wilykit suddenly yelped as someone hit her in the arm. She had assumed at first it was the pirate, but realized it was Wilykat. In his all out attack, he wasn't watching where he was striking! "Wilykat, watch i-" she began to say, but then the invader did strike her, with a large fist made of bony fingers, he struck her solidly alongside the head, sending her sprawling several feet away to lie dazed on the floor.

Wilykat roared. His voice was high and strained, but there was force behind it just the same. "No one does that to my sister!" he shrieked. But then he too was thrown from the intruder.

"Ha!" he gloated. "Looks like I already did!" He ran forward. "An' now, I'll be disposing of you pests, pests, pests!"

But Wilykat had simply been thrown, not struck, and he had jumped to his feet as soon as he hit the floor. "I don't think so!" He was out of pellets! He searched frantically, and spotted on the far console, a pair of Panthro's nunchucks. They were broken, the chain between them having been severed in battle by a high powered laser. Panthro had been lucky he wasn't hit, or he'd be very dead. As it was, half the chain nd three fourths of one of the claw tipped dowels had been disintegrated. Wilykat grabbed the surviving rod. It was heavy, even being hollow. It was made of a dense metal, and Wilykat definitely understood how strong Panthro had to be to handle them in long battles, so effortlessly every time. But he was strong enough to handle one rod...

He whirled around, just as the strange visitor lunged at him, and struck with the heavy rod as he did.

The small kitten struck chest height, and the weapon bounced off the thick rubber wheel in the freak's chest. It sprang back, taking Wilykat by surprise, and as Snarf helped a recovering Wilykit up, the rod struck Wilykat across his own face, making him stagger back, and gaining him a split lip and a couple of cracked teeth.

As Wilykit and Snarf winced, and Wilykit moved to help him, the pirate burst out laughing. He clutched his belly and howled with high pitched laughter at the dazed kitten that had nearly knocked himself out. "Oh, you be a clown, you be! You're no warrior! Pathetic!"

Pathetic... An echo of his dreams came to him, and he shook his head, a slow burn of anger heating his cheeks, making him not feel the deep ache of his damaged teeth, the sting of his split lip. "I...am...not...pathetic..." he said in a low growl. but the pirate only kept laughing. It was a mistake. "I AM NOT!!" Wilykat shrieked, and having learned the first time, he changed the angle of his attack, striking for the pirate's face with the rod.

The laughing pirate had been caught off balance. He stumbled backwards and tripped over his large boots, falling to the floor. Before he had time to recover, before even Wilykit could reach them to help her brother, Wilykat was on him, swinging wildly with the heavy half of Panthro's nunchucks. The cut chain even struck him a couple of times, but he didn't notice. "I'm NOT worthless!" he screamed, even though the pirate had not said that. He was reliving his dreams.

*WEAK!*

"I'm NOT!" Wilykat slammed the rod against the explosive helmet the pirate wore. It went off, blasting a flame four feet from its top, and nearly searing Snarf's fur off, had he not jumped from the way.

*UNPREDICATABLE!*

Another blow to the face, and another. Wilykat had already struck the pirate enough times for him to want to surrender, but with the boy straddling him and swinging the rod, he found he couldn't get away in time before he was struck, once again leaving him stunned.

*DISHONORABLE!*

Wilykat was not usually strong. But adrenaline that could allow a slim, slight statured Wollo mother lift a heavily laden cart off her pinned child, that let Panthro lift the ThunderTank if his friends were trapped underneath it, that let average beings perform feats far beyond their normal scope of strength and endurance out of love, hate, anger, or frustration, gave Wilykat power.

*CLUMSY!*

*INEPT!*

*WORTHLESS!*

"Shut up, shut up, shut up!!" Wilykat's voice was a childish treble, tears streaming unheeded from his eyes.

Wilykit had only been able to stare, horrified, at Wilykat's viscous attack. As the shock began to wear off a little she also saw the pirate was no longer fighting back. "Wilykat stop!" she yelled, crying herself now in fear as Snarf shakily paced back and forth, wringing his hands, unsure of what to do. "Wilykat, he's out, he's out, stop hitting him!"

When her brother didn't answer, Wilykit darted forward, and grabbed her brother's shoulder.

Wilykat spun madly, and swiped, striking his sister full across the face, and opening a gash on her cheek from the clawed end. He blinked, panting heavily, shaking, clutching the rod, his eyes wide.

Wilykit was knocked to the floor, holding her cheek, and staring, just as shocked at her brother. The room was very very silent, even as the outside attack still afforded a strike every once in a while, shaking the Lair down to its foundations. It still was quiet for those within. She stared, hurt, both inside and out, although inside she hurt worse. "W-Wilykat, you..."

As he realized what he did, Wilykat threw the rod (the blue side that now had a disturbing coloring of red on its end) across the room with a cry an anguish and anger, and scrambled to get off of the downed would-be assassin. He was mad, he was mad at Wilykit for trying to protect him and making him feel so frustrated all the time. He was mad for her trying to interfere, and see what happened? It wasn't his fault, it wasn't!

"Wilykat wait!" Wilykit yelled. "Please!" She started after him as he bolted from the door, but staggered, that second blow to the head area having hurt her more than she'd thought. Putting a hand on the door, she watched her brother until he turned the corner, headed for their room. Still she stared.

"Brrrr," Snarf said quietly. He gently took Wilykit's hand and led her from the door. "What's happening to him, Wilykit?"

"I-I...I don't KNOW Snarf! I-I just don't know him, I don't know why he's like this! I-I-I mean everyone always thinks I should know, and I don't, not always!"

"Shhh, all right, it's okay, we'll figure out out, snarf snarf..." but Snarf did not sound confident of this fact.

Wilykit gulped and bravely tried to wipe the tears, but for once in her life, well perhaps not only once, but since she had been on Third Earth, she could not stop the new ones from coming. "S-Snarf...look...look at what he- he..." She didn't have to finish the sentence, as it was apparent. The Berzerker's face was a bloody mess, and even Wilykit could see that his left elbow had been shattered by her own brother's enraged attack. Blood seeped from the pirate's nose and his pummeled mouth, and even from his ears, and people just were not supposed to bleed from there! "H-he's unconscious, right?"

"I don't know, Wilykit.." It was Snarf's uncertainty that scared Wilykit the most. Gulping himself, Snarf cautiously touched the Berzerker's arm; he didn't move. biting his lip he knelt, went to place a hand on his chest to check for breathing, realized the wheel prevented this, and checked instead his wrist pulse.

Even behind his white whiskers, Wilykit could see him pale. He checked the throat's pulse...then he quickly withdrew a shaking hand from the pirate. "Oh, Wilykat, what've you done?" he murmured.

"What?!" Wilykit demanded. "What, what did he do?!"

"He...he's not unconscious, Wilykit," the kindhearted Snarf told her. "There's no other way to say it...I'm afraid he's dead."

Wilykit only stared at first, then it was if her knees unhinged. She sank against the wall, and even as the tide in the outside battle slowly turned, she put her head in her arms and sobbed like a kitten of four.

Not knowing what else to do, Snarf went to her side and drew her to him, even though she was bigger than him. To the loyal Snarf she'd always be a child, as Lion-O would. He held her, and smoothed back her mane, whispering over and over that it would be all right.

But both of them knew that it was not.

Part Eight

Part Ten

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