Chapter 10: Enter Panthro the Deadly
Being around Panthro was… well… a little awkward. No one really knew how to approach the massive cat as he worked on his bulking machine, pulling out gears and attacking it with tools until smoke starting billowing out from between its metal plates.
"I thought he'd be… smaller." Lion-O commented, watching the panther pull apart two metal plates with his bare hands. Kit and Kat both flinched.
Cheetara hummed in agreement, "I thought he'd be less… spikey." The spikes on Panthro's vest and gloves seemed to gleam sharply in response.
With how stoic and cold he was, it seemed hard to believe he was the same cat who'd saved them the previous day. He seemed perfectly content to ignore them until they wandered off on their merry way, and everyone shared in the thought that maybe it was better to keep their distance for a while until they knew more about their rescuer.
Everyone except Leppria.
If she felt any awkwardness from the former general's presence she was quickly distracted, her green eyes practically glowing with joy as she watched him work.
"Oh my gods, oh my gods, this is heaven!" she trilled, bouncing on the pads of her feet as she zoomed from one side of the tank to the other, dead-set on admiring and drooling over every single piece of it. "Those are grappling claws! And that's a plasma cannon, do you use Thundrilium to power it? Oh! And these are Thunder-cycles right? They're made of a gold-titanium alloy right? That way they repel electricity and don't freeze even in sub-zero temperatures! Are they single-shooters or do they have guns mounted on the back too? Oh what am I talking about, of course they do! What do you use to power it? I thought Thunder-tanks ran on Thundrilium but it burns too fast, don't you need a lot of it?"
She was talking and asking questions so fast her companions couldn't keep up, only staring at her as if she were speaking in tongues.
Leppria beamed as she looked down at the engine, Panthro bent over it beside her. She was so excited in her flurry of questions that she didn't stop herself from reaching for the smoking engine, only to be harshly smacked on the hand by a screwdriver.
A yelp fell from her lips as she held her hand to her chest, suddenly feeling small under Panthro's glare.
"Paws off," He snapped. "Unless you want your fingers blown off, steer clear."
The leopard made a face and prepared to fire back but she was stopped by Lion-O. "Hey Panthro…" he greeted, and air of nervous friendliness all over him.
A grunt was all he gave him. "Go away. Can't you see I'm busy?"
Leppria almost snickered at the king's pouty frown. Almost. "Oh come on! You're really just going to ignore us forever? What are you so grumpy about anyway?"
Lion-O tensed his shoulders and tried to stand taller, trying to somehow intimidate the general into some form of respect, but he failed miserably as Panthro looked down at him like he was a bug he'd stepped on. He swallowed thickly but didn't look away, telling himself not to see the massive cat as the big scary guy he'd been too scared of as a cub, but as the general of Thundera who served the king. Him.
"You're standing on my samouflange."
He flinched, moving his foot off of the unrecognizable tool. "Oh, sorry." It didn't look as if the General had even heard him. Lion-O grunted, "Look, maybe Leppria and I could give you a hand, I've dabbled in a little tech myself and she… well she's kind of like our expert."
That grabbed his attention, the panther looking down to find a boy-king looking up at him with a cocky expression and the leopard beside him locking her fingers together under her chin and begging silently with her big green eyes.
He slammed the engine hood shut. "The Thunder tank is out of Thundrilium, now I have to risk my hide to get more at the Cloud Peak Mine!"
Cloud Peak Mountain was only a few hours away by foot, the towering spire scraping against the edge of the sky in the distance.
Lion-O's eyebrows furrowed at the thought of the Lizard army scampering around inside the mountain, scraping it clean of the life-giving energy crystals. "If you're going after Thundrilium we're coming with you."
His fangs peeked out from behind his lips. "Let me put this as respectfully as I can… No."
A growl began to form in his belly, but the young king swallowed it with almost every ounce of his will, his irritation only showing in the furrow of his brow. "I am the king now, General." The hiss of Panthro's former rank seemed to send ridges up through his fur along his spine.
He jumped down from the engine, his hulking form almost mocking the smaller cat. A silent battle of wills passed between them before Panthro folded, though anger burned behind his eyes.
"Fine." He said, "But if you slow me down or get in my way, you're on your own. Any questions?"
Leppria arched an eyebrow, finding it curious that the General's dismissive attitude sounded so familiar to her.
Tygra raised his hand, distracting her. "What's a samouflange?"
She gave him a look.
"A samouflange is a drill used to attach the snabgasket to the bleemseal's intake valves, I use it all the time to connect the plasma lines in my cannon to the blast mechanism, the basic principles of the two machines are the same, despite a few differences like the weight and distribution of energy…"
"Leppria for the last time, I don't care."
She scoffed at Tygra's attitude, turning up her nose. "Well you asked."
And he was sorely wished he hadn't, knowing now that it would make the spotted tomboy start spouting off a bunch of technology gibberish that made his head hurt.
Panthro scoffed under his breath, walking ahead as the group made their way through the forest. "You sure have a motely crew on your hands kid, it's a miracle you survived this long without any adult supervision."
"We've been doing just fine under my command." Lion-O defended, choosing to ignore the snicker that slipped past his brother's lips.
It was true they were still alive thanks to the king, but it was also mostly his fault they ended up in as much trouble as they usually did, using his pride rather than his head to guide his sword. Leppria and Cheetara exchanged knowing glances as they pushed aside vines.
As they walked towards the mountain, the twins and Snarf safe back in the Thundertank, Panthro took his place in the lead, and oddly seemed natural considering his size and status, not to mention the years of experience he had no doubt built while out in the wild. Compared to the rest of them he oozed leadership, something Lion-O sorely felt he was lacking.
He carried the Sword of Omens, his birthright, but he had to earn the respect that came with it, especially from Panthro.
"If you want to stay alive, you'll have to listen to me." The General commented, pushing aside a branch and snapping it in two with the barest movement of his massive arm.
"I'm the king now, Panthro." He repeated, as if trying to affirm it for himself rather than the stubborn mountain cat.
Leppria almost rolled her eyes but was stopped by the former General's laugh, a booming sound that made her ears twitch.
"Could've fooled me." He mused. "Now your father, he was a leader."
The mention of King Claudus was a sore one, the wound left by the death of Lion-O and Tygra's father much larger than the wound left by the death of their king. The princes would probably feel a bitter sting in their hearts when thinking of Claudus until the day they died.
Cheetara hummed, her grief much quieter when schooled by her gentle features that came from years in the clergy. "The king fought until his last breath trying to save Thundera, but in the end Grune's betrayal was too much to overcome."
It was something Leppria was glad she hadn't seen in the end, she decided early that the charred bodies and screaming children was more than enough when remembering the fall of Thundera. She was more than happy to not share in the memory of their beloved king and protector being cut down by Mumm-Ra, betrayal frozen on his face as General Grune stood over him.
A snarl formed on Panthro's face, although his voice was ice cold. "Grune… we'd been inseparable since that first day we met on the battlefield."
No one could say they hadn't heard the stories of Panthro the Deadly and Grune the Destroyer and their days in the Lizard civil war. How they had found each other in the hurricane of battle as foot-soldiers manning the catapults that defended the Thundercats' stronghold, two hearts thundering wildly in a sea of blood and iron, something that Panthro would not soon forget.
They were younger then, naïve despite the blood on their hands. Smiling at every new scar and slapping each other's backs whenever another scaled body fell. It was easier to joke around when Grune was there to laugh with him, easier to take the pain when Sabor was the one scolding him for his recklessness, her spotted cheeks blooming red with frustration when Panthro was the one being stitched up in her tent, Pardus almost always nearby with a laugh bubbling in his gut.
It felt foolish to call the throws of war the good old days, especially now, when his friends were dead and his brother stood across from him on the battlefield they had both once thrived in.
Panthro scolded himself constantly whenever he thought back to that moment, when they'd returned home from their first draft as heroes, decorated with shiny trinkets as rewards for all they'd sacrificed. The ambition burning in Grune's eyes while Panthro's had been dulled by the war. His friend had told him he'd wanted to be king.
He'd laughed then, thinking it a joke. How could it have been anything else? How could he have seen the madness that would grow from that one desire in his brother's slowly corrupting heart?
Their second draft was different, the war reigniting with a vengeance as the cats pushed the lizards deeper beneath their foot only to be met with poisonous bloodlust as a result. Violence breeds violence or so the saying goes, it didn't matter to Panthro or Grune, all that mattered was putting one foot in front of the other. Their blades stained red as they laughed that their compared body-counts, the competition between them being all that kept them from thinking about the fur, claws, and armor all painted that violent red.
Their second draft was also different in that while the four of them set out to continue to fight and work for their kingdom, Panthro and Grune were the only two to come home, the scarred panther able to look countless lizards in the eye as he took their lives but unable to face Pardus and Sabor's orphan.
Panthro mourned his friends while Grune's ambition burned brighter in the form of the two princes, Tygra no older than fourteen at the time yet already conquering his brother in every opportune way, pride and smugness shining in his eyes as Lion-O was helpless beneath his heel. The eleven-year-old cub biting his tongue to hold back his frustrated tears.
In retrospect, they were both far too young to suffer from such pride, knocking another cub to the ground in their scuffle and ignoring them when they rubbed at their scraped knees, consumed only in the prospect of besting the other.
The runt of a girl flinched when her viridian eyes met Panthro's, gathering whatever she had dropped in her arms and scurrying off without a word, the encounter quickly forgotten as Claudus called his Generals to his side.
What you cannot earn can always be taken, Grune had said that day. Something else he would never forget or stop blaming himself for.
Claudus would have never chosen Grune to lead the army, and whether it was because he saw the poison his ambition would wrought or simply because Lynx-O was better, Panthro would never know. He did know that whatever was left of his brother had been lost in the sands while searching endlessly for that damned book.
The Book of Omens.
Grune had believed it to be a fruitless mission, something that Claudus sent them both out to die looking for, and in a way he supposed they had, but back then he had trusted his king, trusted in what he and Grune were capable of when they were together.
What a fool he had been.
They crouched low in the underbrush, a ripped-off sniper scope pressed against Panthro's remaining eye as he stalked the entrance to the mine.
Two lizards currently guarded it, both of them armed, but more could be hiding in a number of places nearby. He pocketed his scope and turned to the others, pointing towards the concealed entrance.
"That's the access tunnel we need to get to, doesn't look too heavily guarded."
Lion-O's hand twitched towards his sword. "I say we take them now."
He didn't get a response as Panthro turned away, beginning to make his way back to a safer distance without so much as a glance to his new comrades. "We'll wait for darkness."
When the others exchanged looks before following, a frustrated noise rumbled out from the young lion's lips.
"Who's in charge here?" he hissed under his breath, looking over his shoulder at the pair of guards completely unaware of his presence.
It would be so easy to take the entrance without any difficulty, they could be in and out with all the Thundrilium they needed without anyone even knowing they were there. Yet Panthro the Deadly was not taking advantage of that opportunity.
Maybe if he couldn't, Lion-O would.
The General took the lead again as they made their way back to the Thundertank, and awkward silence once again settled over the cats.
Leppria shuffled up behind Panthro, fiddling with her claws behind her back as she glanced over at him, his steely eyes trained forward as she watched him. He'd changed since she last saw him, he had more scars and his frown was deeper, his right eye faded from blindness caused by an angry scratch across his face, but it was definitely him.
She didn't know how to talk to him, what to say to the cat that had looked at her with nothing but pity the last time they met when she was eleven, so she fell back on what she did know, something that was always easy for her to talk about.
"You know, if you reconfigured the internal fuel lines the tank would recycle its own power, and the Thundrilium crystals wouldn't burn out as quickly, a day's supply could be turned into a week's worth…" she chuckled nervously.
Panthro only gave an acknowledging hum, eyes fixed forward.
The leopard pouted, wondering if he remembered her at all.
Tygra, who had been guarding the rear, suddenly stopped.
"Wait." He said, looking around as the others stopped too, and they all noticed it at once. The realization of their leader's absence washing over them in a mix of concern and exasperation. "Where's Lion-O?!"
Panthro has entered the scene and is ruffling feathers! Something I wish the show had the opportunity to explore more is the parallels between Panthro and Grune and Lion-O and Tygra. Panthro is angry and feels he is a soldier without a war, a General but with no one to protect because it has all been taken from him, similar to how Lion-O is a king without a kingdom. Grune on the other hand made sure to instill his own toxic pride in Tygra, what can't be earned can be taken, Tygra will never be the king but he can make sure his brother will never feel like he's good enough because of what Grune taught him, something Grune himself thought he could use to get what he wanted. In the future I'll definitely be exploring this because I believe Tygra will never be weak to ambition like Grune was, he doesn't hate Lion-O, he just hates that he is also not good enough. Anyway, see you all next chapter! Your reviews are my life-blood! Ciao!