Chapter 11: Brothers in Arms Reunited
They ran back to the mine, Panthro leading the charge as they rushed to rescue their king. The former general was the first to break through the bushes, the Lizards all surrounding Lion-O with their guns humming, but Panthro was faster.
His weapon was gripped tight as he swung it into the first soldier's skull, and one by one they fell in rows after that until he had rendered them all unconscious in a pile at his feet. Lion-O and the others could only stare, in awe of his battle prowess only talked about in stories.
Holstering his nunchucks, the panther growled, and, embarrassingly, the lion lowered himself slightly in a display of instinctual submission to the stronger cat. "What is wrong with you?" he demanded.
In a desperate attempt to regain some form of dominance, Lion-O growled back, yet it was nowhere near as deep or intimidating.
"Me? I gave an order! You ignored it!"
The two did nothing more than glare at each other, but you could cut the tension with a knife. If they were in their more primitive states, they would have torn each other to shreds by now, and Leppria didn't doubt who the victor would have been.
Breaking their challenging stares, Cheetara stepped between the two while Tygra and Leppria flanked Lion-O's sides, either to back him up or hold him back depending on what he would do. The golden she-cat held up her hand in submission, but still stood tall before the General. "He is the king now, Panthro…" she said.
"So that means I have to listen to any idiotic order he gives me?" he scoffed, turning his back on them.
He tried not to let those words get to him, but they already had, Panthro's dismissal of him like a knife in his gut, burning almost as bad as it did when his father dismissed him for Tygra for the thousandth time. "I guess all the stories about your undying loyalty were exaggerated."
"You'll have my loyalty when you show me you can do more with that sword than just carry it around." Panthro sneered at the boy king before making his way into the mine, "Come on, let's find the Thundrilium and get out of here."
An icy awkwardness hung in the air as the others reluctantly followed him, leaving Lion-O behind. Leppria felt a stone of guilt settle in her gut at the idea of the young king being pushed aside by Panthro for sheer experience and authority, both of which he lacked compared to the General, but there was really nothing the others or herself could do. As sour as it was, following Panthro was the smartest decision, even if Lion-O's pride was preventing him from admitting so.
Although, she wasn't too worried about him, after all, it was exactly as the panther had said, he just had to prove himself as a leader. He had already done so to his other compatriots, he just had to use his brain as well as his sword. When he would realize that was another issue Leppria tried not to think too much about, lest she trigger a migraine.
Her thoughts were interrupted as the tunnel around them began to vibrate, pebbles falling from the ceiling as the cats froze in place. "What is that?" Tygra asked.
Panthro sniffed the air twice before signaling for them to keep moving, "Nothing good, let's move."
He didn't say anything more, despite the unsaid question hanging heavily in the air.
They came to the end of the shaft, the tunnel opening up into the larger network of mines and machinery. Lizards worked and operated the tools used to pull the crystals from the stone and harvest them into their purest form, the vibrant geodes practically glowing with energy.
"Thundrilium…" she heard Lion-O whisper.
Panthro nodded, "Enough to power a thousand Thundertanks for a thousand years." His gaze scanned the mine, passing over every Lizard until finally falling on the one cat among them. His single sabretooth glinting in the minimal light. "Grune…"
This was the first time Leppria had ever been so close to Grune the Destroyer, and she decided that he more than lived up to the title, with his grizzly appearance and golden armor that showed he no longer fought for Thundera, traitor that he was. The smirk on his face and the rejection of Thundera's colors made the fur on the back of her neck stand up.
"We move on my lead, got it?" he said, more to Lion-O than anyone else. They all nodded regardless, falling into the position to strike one by one per the General's command.
Leppria's cannon hummed as she powered it up, switching the safety off with a satisfying click as she waited for Panthro's signal. It came when the grind of a cart on the tracks rang out as it inched closer to them, the Lizards inside suddenly crying out in surprise and pain as Cheetara's staff made contact with their heads, knocking them aside easily.
Hissing filled the cavern as more Lizards charged towards her, but they too were stopped by the hailstorm of plasma bullets that emptied out from Leppria's cannon, effectively blinding the reinforcements and keeping them at a safe distance. It was easy for Tygra to then take them out one by one as his vanishing ability deactivated with the crack of his whip.
They branched out from there, knocking each Lizard unconscious with blows to the head or blasts to their bullet-proof chest plates, Lion-O protecting them all as they fought, slicing through the Lizard's guns as he kept them from getting too close.
Grune was quick to react, looking down at them from a higher platform as his lip curled into a snarl. "Thundercats!" he growled, his lips falling into a smile. "Oh you fools, you've brought the sword right to me! Now, you'll never make it out of here alive!"
His arrogant purr was soon interrupted by a voice he never thought he'd hear again. "They will. I just can't say the same for you."
They stared at each other, brothers reunited, growls building in their throats and claws flexing at their sides, nothing but anger, hatred, and regret passing between them. However their battle would turn out, the result would surely include bloodshed.
Grune chuckled, smiling as if they were still friends. "You've always been hard to kill, Panthro."
"I can be stubborn when it comes to dying." He replied, his eyes ice cold, the opposite of Grune's mocking warmth.
Cheetara leaned towards the others, her hand cupped over her mouth. "This isn't gonna go well, is it?" she whispered.
"Nope." Tygra was quick to respond.
Panthro didn't even acknowledge them, he was focused completely on the cat before him who he used to call his brother, the cat he thought he knew so well, but looking back now, looking at Grune in that moment, he was a stranger.
"Now let's see… when was the last time I saw you…?"
Countless nights he had lain awake, nightmares about that day laying just past the darkness of his closed eyes, but even in his waking moments he couldn't escape the hell Grune had inflicted upon him.
By the time they'd found that damned pyramid, black a coal and protruding from the whipping sands like an island in a stormy sea, Grune's eyes had become white with madness, shouting about how he was calling for him and stumbling through the desert, aimless yet somehow guided by a voice Panthro couldn't hear.
It's just the sun, he had thought. He's tired, we both are, if he rests he'll be back to normal again.
Those were the words Panthro desperately wished were true, he wished that pyramid had been nothing but an illusion caused by the heat, but once his friend had plunged his hand into its walls, it began to pulse with electricity, veins of scarlet energy spiderwebbing out from it as a door opened to them.
"We shouldn't be here…" he remembered pleading so clearly, but it was not his voice his brother headed.
It was then that Panthro finally heard him.
"RELEASE ME!"
That voice was like thousands of knives stabbing into his ears and his heart all at once, and in all his life, of all the death and destruction he'd seen and caused Panthro had never heard something so wrong, but by then it was already too late. He could not raise a hand to stop his friend before the doors had been pried open… and Mumm-Ra walked free once more.
He had still been naïve, believing Grune had been manipulated somehow, the madness in his eyes and the tremble of glee in his spine could not have been the cat he knew…
But this was the cat he knew, the one who would swear loyalty to the decrepit thing that they'd cowered from as cubs whenever it was mentioned, who would smile as he rose his weapon to Panthro, and laugh as he fell from the ebony pillar down into darkness, all for the sake of power.
That was the cat he remembered as he nursed his shattered bones, dragged himself from that place, and forced himself to survive, not his friend, not his brother, but the real Grune he had never known at all.
The same cat who stood before him now as his enemy.
"We sure had some great memories together." He spat, disgust filling his eyes when he saw the hint of a smirk play on Grune's lips. "You betrayed me Grune! You betrayed your brothers! All those deaths… and you're still not the king!"
"Don't lecture me Panthro!" he roared, "If it's revenge you seek, then come take it!"
It was a bait, a taunt, and Panthro knew it, he just didn't care. He had waited years to wipe the smirk off his face and he would not lose the chance now. His nunchucks whipped against the air as he swung them, "With pleasure…"
As he lunged, Grune grinned wider, and the ground began to shake beneath his paws. No. No, it wasn't just the ground, the entire mine was trembling around them.
"What is that?!" Leppria hissed as dust fell from the ceiling, the whirring of metal gears and electric pulses building in volume as if something was coming closer to them.
The saber-toothed cat laughed, arrogance and pride burning behind his eyes. "The only thing you can trust…" the rock above them split then, as multiple drills bore through into the open mine, it's robotic body clicking as its scarlet eyes glowed with energy, waiting for orders. "A machine!"
Leppria had only ever seen drawings of the Driller but never knew it was actually technologically possible to build one, yet the proof stared her right in the face as its drill-attachment arms and body spun lazily as it listened to Grune's every command.
"Destroy them Driller!" instead of facing the cat he left to die, Grune ran like a coward. "Until next time, Panthro!"
"Grune!" Panthro shouted, running after him but stopping dead in his tracks when the Driller blocked him, swinging one of his massive arms into the cat's chest.
He tried to block it with his nunchucks but the sheer weight behind the machine was overwhelming, tossing the panther aside like a broken doll, descending into the ground as it began to cut off every possible exit, trapping the Thundercats in its midst.
It moved faster than they could track, but Leppria managed to focus on it long enough to spot the battery panel on its back, its internal wiring and power source lying just beneath it, but she'd never get close enough to touch it without help. Without wasting a breath, she ran to Lion-O, having to shout over the rumble of the Driller.
"It has a panel on its back! If I can open it up I can turn it off!" she explained, squinting behind the falling dust and debris.
Panthro growled beside them, "That thing won't hesitate to slice you to bits and you want to play mechanic?!"
Annoyed and full of adrenaline, Leppria hissed loudly towards the General, but Lion-O pulled her attention back before she could waste her energy on cursing out the deadly cat.
"What do you need?" he asked, hand already on his sword.
The Driller tunneled through the mine again, Leppria pointing to the panel she needed to get to. "I need you to hold it still long enough for me to get behind it, at least a minute."
The lion nodded firmly, pulling the Sword of Omens from its sheath and lunging for the Driller when it emerged from the earth for its final attack. The machine's drills ground loudly against the ground as it raised its arm against Lion-O, the point of the drill acting as its own blade, but while the machine obeyed its programming, Lion-O acted with his heart as he raised the Sword of Omens to protect his people.
"Thunder… Thunder… Thundercats ho!" he roared as the Eye of Thundera awoke to his battle cry. The sword clashed against the steel of the drill, sending sparks throughout the cavern, the Driller charging again as Lion-O blocked his every strike with a strike of his own.
The drill atop the Driller's head began to spin as it backed up, tilting its head down as it lunged for Lion-O one last time, but the boy king was ready for it this time, holding up his sword, the Eye of Thundera glaring brightly against the darkness of the mine, the drill clashed loudly against the crimson stone. Cracks of electricity launched out in every direction as the sword cried out against the onslaught of the Driller's attack. Steel against steel in a thunderous battle of wills between cat and machine, but Lion-O did not waver, he did not break, and he provided the perfect opening for Leppria.
Swallowing her fear, she leaped onto the Driller's back, her wrench gripped with white knuckles as she brought it down hard against the metal panel. It left a dent in the steel so she hit it again, and again until she could dig the pronged edge into the opening and pry the panel open, revealing the array of colored wires and glowing chips.
Beads of sweat slithered down her back as she latched her claws onto the battery heart and pulled, the circuits coming undone as each of them snapped free under her strength.
Lion-O and Leppria both roared from deep in their bellies with one final push and one final pull, the young blacksmith yanking the battery clean out of the Driller's back as the king knocked the machine off-balance, using his blade to slice his head off in a single swoop.
"Now that's what I call impressive," Panthro muttered, watching in awe as the boy-king won in the battle against the machine.
The Driller fell, but as it hit the ground one of it's arm attachments caught against the Gauntlet of Omens. Lion-O raised his arm to block the onslaught of weight, but the drill had already pierced the golden iron, gnashing an ugly crack through the center of the gauntlet.
The lion still stood tall, sword still raised as Leppria jumped down from the now-dead Driller's back, its battery heart still in hand. They exchanged nods, confirming they were alright, but the time for pleasantries abruptly came to an end as the mine began to violently shake once more.
Rocks fell from the ceiling as each tunnel collapsed on itself, the cats watching in horror as the mine began to cave in on top of them.
"The Driller weakened the mine!" Tygra cried out.
They needed no other incentive as they ran, Leppria quickly tucking the Driller's heart into her bag. They made it into the entrance tunnel when Cheetara suddenly stopped, Tygra quick to make sure she was keeping up. "We need to go, now!"
She ignored him as she turned around and ran back, glowing like a streak of sunlight before she stopped, grabbing a handful of Thundrilium shards from a minecart.
"Not without this stuff."
By the time the Thundercats had escaped Cloud Peak Mine, the entire mountain had completely imploded, leaving the once towering pillar as nothing more than a smoking pile of rubble.
They watched from the safety of a nearby cliff as the Lizard army licked their wounds and fled, not a shard of Thundrilium among them.
It was a victory, despite Grune's escape, so they took comfort in that.
Apparently, the Driller's heart had been a perfect fit as a replacement for the Thundertank's engine, and Panthro had even taken Leppria's advice about reconfiguring the engine to recycle power. After all, who knew when they'd be able to refill their Thundrilium supply now that the mine was done for.
After seeing her handiwork against the Driller, Panthro thought the leopard would be a useful addition as a mechanic, however, he didn't account for her level of dedication when it came to tech.
Leppria screamed when Lion-O deposited the Gauntlet of Omens into her arms, the obvious huge crack in the metal standing out as the young king awkwardly rubbed the back of his head.
"What did you do to it?!" she hissed. "This gauntlet was said to be forged in the light of a dying star… and you broke it?!"
Lion-O laughed nervously, backing away from the manic leopard. "I mean it's just a scratch, right? You can fix it…" he wasn't able to finish talking before the she-cat lost her temper and punched her king square in the face, Lion-O falling to the ground in a heap of fur as she continued yelling at him.
"A scratch? A scratch?! I'm going to have to slave over this Lion-O! How could you be so reckless?! Iron ore doesn't grow on trees you know!"
She dissolved into yelling obscenities and scolding the already wounded king, waving her finger and cradling the Gauntlet of Omens like a mother cradles a cub. Panthro watched with the others, an eyebrow raised as he observed the blacksmith's apprentice tear into the king like he was a kitten who misbehaved.
Tygra smirked amusedly while the twins were already snickering loudly into their hands, Cheetara knowing she couldn't intervene even if she wanted to.
Panthro chuckled lowly, smiling at the motley crew he had found himself in.
As much respect as Leppria has for the royal family, she has a no-tolerance policy when it comes to breaking tech. Break shit, get hit. Anyway, I'm glad Panthro found a family again, something to protect despite losing the family he had with Grune and his fellow soldiers. Hope you liked this one! Stay tuned for the Temple of Omens and some gang-shenanigans! Ciao!