Chapter 12: The Lost Temple
They'd made camp beside a river, the bubbling water having been heated by the sun all day making it perfect for a bath. The boys rested in the warmth of the fire while Kit, Cheetara, and Leppria washed away the past few weeks.
It was truly a blessing, Leppria thought as she pulled her ponytail loose and started shedding her clothes. She'd only just finished repairing the Gauntlet of Omens from the Driller's damage, leaving her covered in soot and grease. She still couldn't believe Lion-O had been so careless with it, the Sword and Gauntlet of Omens were their greatest weapon against the lizards so he couldn't just whip it around without care until it broke from lack of care. I mean sure, she could fix it if it came to that, but iron ore didn't grow on trees!
He had to be more careful, and polish the damn thing himself once in a while.
The leopard sighed as she sunk into the warm water, Cheetara humming contently as she settled beside her. Leppria sunk a little deeper, feeling her cheeks warm when the woman's shoulder brushed her arm.
While she recognized Cheetara as a warrior and appreciated her company, she had to admit the golden woman was a bit… intimidating. Especially considering her… well… fullness, compared to Leppria. Her lithe muscles and wide hips completely opposing the younger girl's own flat chest. Don't get her wrong, it's not like she held it against her. It was just a little disheartening.
Flecks of water against her face interrupted her thoughts, Kit giggling as she kicked around the river.
"Kit, don't splash in the bath." Cheetara scolded, the cub pouting as she shifted back to them, sitting in front of the older woman and letting her brush her claws through her hair.
Free from the awkwardness she'd cornered herself with, Leppria sighed again, pushing her wet hair back. "Lion-O better be more careful from now on, repairing the Gauntlet took all the ore I had, and who knows when we'll be able to get more."
She nodded, "Things will get easier once we have the Book of Omens, and we have to have faith he will lead us to it."
Leppria shrugged, scrubbing grime from the fur on her wrists. "I mean, he's gotten us this far…"
"We have to have faith in each other as well, he is our king and we are his kingdom." Cheetara's smile was so warm, and she was so gentle, like the big sister Leppria had always wished she had.
She nodded, but her own smile disappeared when the two women heard the underbrush behind them rustling, too big to be a mouse. Leppria and Cheetara exchanged annoyed frowns and the cheetah rose from the bath.
"Perhaps the process of trust would be easier without the unbecoming behavior of you peeping toms!" Cheetara swung her staff and struck down their watchers with a painful smack.
Leppria parted the bushes ready to throw claws only to find Snarf lying on the ground, dazed and sporting a new bump on his head.
"It was just Snarf," she groaned.
She'd planned to finish her bath in peace, but those plans were dashed to pieces when Lion-O and Tygra burst through the bushes, worried expressions on their faces as they brandished their weapons.
"We heard a noise, are you guys okay?"
The pained screams of the princes echoed through the forest, along with the thwack of Cheetara's staff and the slap of Leppria's fist against someone's face.
Tygra smiled contently despite the swollen welt on his head, while his brother frowned beside him, sporting a nasty red handprint on his face as the two were sent licking their wounds back to the fire.
"Why did I get hit? I was actually worried," he moaned, wincing when he touched his face and felt the sting of Leppria's hand.
The elder of the two hummed, "I don't expect you to appreciate the sight we just saw, little brother."
Lion-O scoffed as Kat snickered, finding their suffering hilarious.
"Tch… idiots," Panthro muttered, going back to polishing his nunchucks and hoping that was the last ridiculous disturbance his peaceful night would have.
By the time the sun rose the next day Leppria had almost obsessively busied herself, taking scraps of metal and wires from Panthro's junk-drawer and not looking up from her work until the idea of the princes seeing her naked was completely sponged from her brain.
While her project started out as more of a mess than anything useful, once she'd gotten an idea of what could go where her claws started flying across the metal, the incident that painted her face a permanent red was already forgotten.
Now she sat beside Cheetara on top of the Thundertank, having paused in their journey so Lion-O could locate the Temple of Omens, hopefully, using the Eye of Thundera. Leppria's mind was admittedly elsewhere, her welding goggles snug over her eyes as she used Panthro's welding pen to fuse two wires together.
"Come on… work!" she heard the king curse.
It seemed like the harder he tried to use the Eye to see their destination, the harder the sword fought against him. Maybe he just wasn't doing it right? Like he wasn't saying the right phrase to unlock the correct program or something?
Panthro sighed loudly, "So, you're telling me our only chance of finding the Book of Omens is if his sword gives him directions?"
"It's about as hopeless as it sounds," Tygra replied, his smirk as cocky as usual. She'd probably never admit it, but Leppria snickered under her breath at his comment. Forgive her for being skeptical of the magic sword that somehow knew where to lead them. If it was a piece of tech she'd understand, machines always have a code-origin they can be programmed to return to, but calling it magic just sounded ridiculous.
Cheetara rose to her feet, her eyebrows furrowing as she gave the tiger prince a jaded look. "Lion-O just needs to believe in himself, it might help if we believed in him too."
She left to go talk to Lion-O, Tygra scowling as he watched her go, but Leppria wasn't paying enough attention to see the jealous frown that had marked his striped face. The prince turned his gaze onto the hunk of steel in her lap, watching as her expert claws notched two wires into what looked like a square of tinted glass.
"More garbage?" he teased.
The younger cat shrugged, flipping her goggles up and squinting at her work, "Not sure yet, ask me later."
Before he could repeat himself about how he thought all tech was essentially junk, the kittens left to go cause mischief. They succeeded when they snuck up behind Lion-O, giggling at his close proximity to Cheetara and effectively distracting him from achieving Sight Beyond Sight, if he'd even been close at all.
Pocketing her device, Leppria followed Tygra and Panthro as they joined their fellow cats, as if the older prince needed an excuse to make fun of his brother.
Kit came up next to them. "Why is this book so hard to find anyway?" she mewed.
"Did they forget where they put it?" her twin added.
"In a way, yes." She explained, the others listening just as intently. "You see, the Book of Omens wasn't lost, rather, it was hidden with the intention that it would never be found. Legends say the Book of Omens held both clues to our past and keys to our future, and because some believed it could be more valuable than the Sword of Omens, the other animals would stop at nothing to get it."
It was a story almost every cat knew, how the book was an invaluable treasure that the cats had been gifted with, and what the other species would fight for. It was often called the reason for the jealousy the other animals held for the cats, as the book had supposedly given them all manner of riches and power, that when combined with the legendary sword, would proclaim any who held it as king of all who lived on Third Earth.
"The king at the time knew it contained too much power to allow it to fall into the wrong hands, so he had the clerics hide it, far beyond the kingdom walls, and farther than any cat had ever been." Cheetara continued, "To keep it safe they built a temple, one made with magic, and the Tower of Omens was inaccessible to anyone but themselves, protected by ancient enchantments. They sealed themselves into the temple, and took its secrets to their graves."
Leppria snorted, unable to hold back the laugh that fell from her lips. "Ha… I'm sorry, magic? That's a good one." The others gave her unamused looks, but she just shrugged, "Come on, there's no such thing!"
The cleric's hand fell on her shoulder, "Magic has existed throughout Third Earth for centuries, just because we cannot explain it, does not mean it isn't real."
She scoffed, crossing her arms. "Cats called technology magic for centuries too, but they just didn't understand it… I believe in science, if I can see it and touch it, then it's real."
"The Temple of Omens is magic," Panthro interjected, "That's why Grune and I knew we'd probably never find it."
"So we have to hope we get lucky and somehow stumble onto it?" Tygra moaned, kicking the grass out of frustration. He wasn't alone, they'd been practically going in circles for weeks. If they didn't find the temple soon the Lizards would no doubt catch up to them.
The conversation probably would have gone on longer if Snarf had not dropped a hunk of forest fruit on Lion-O, the fruit bouncing off his head as the pet continued pulling on branches to get more. With a particularly rough yank he ripped the vines apart, revealing a smooth cliffside wall.
Only cliffsides didn't have lion's heads and torch sconces attached to them.
Lion-O cocked his head, approaching the wall covered in more vines. "I think we just did!" he pulled the vines down, revealing a stone door carved out of the cliff.
The entrance to the Temple of Omens had been hidden right under their noses.
"Okay, that's just a coincidence… not magic!" Leppria defended, a little flabbergasted (and embarrassed) that the hidden temple had literally been right beneath her feet the entire time.
The king smirked, pushing the door open. "You know, if you look too hard in one direction, you miss what else is right in front of you," he teased, "Nice work Snarf."
He exchanged a smile with Cheetara, like an inside joke, while the leopard girl gave him a glare with her hands on her hips, though it held no real malice. Snarf leaped out of the tree down into Leppria's arms, the group entering the darkness of the temple.
The light of day from outside made it easier to see, their path made up of a stone slab flanked by two gaping pits full of sharp stalagmites, each one resembling a deadly fang that could end your life with one wrong step. Kit and Kat took one glance over the edge, their tails puffing with fear as they stuck close to the others.
They came to a door, but it didn't move when Lion-O pushed it. "Think they left a key behind?" he asked, referring to the single keyhole in the center.
Tygra tapped his brother's shoulder, gesturing upwards. "Looks like they left a few."
Looking up, they blinked at the sight of dozens of silver keys dangling by strings from the ceiling. Leppria narrowed her eyes, noticing how each key looked exactly the same. "There must be at least a hundred, how are we supposed to know which one unlocks the door?"
Cheetara grabbed her staff, lengthening it to knock a few keys loose, the silver clinking against each other as they fell into her hand. "We'll just have to try them all."
When she slipped the first one in the door, Panthro grunted. "This could take forever!"
The lock clicked when she turned the key, but the door didn't open. A series of groans echoed out from the walls before their path started retracting from the entrance and rapidly approaching them.
"I don't think we have forever!" Tygra called.
Snarf shrieked in terror as more and more of the floor disappeared plate by plate, and Leppria felt her haunches raise as the twins latched onto her waist. They couldn't run or turn back, so when the floor finally vanished out from under them all they could do was cling to each other.
Panthro had latched onto the door with Lion-O and Tygra hanging onto him, the tiger holding onto Cheetara's hand as Leppria's arms were coiled tight around the older woman's shoulders. They were inches from being skewered, with the dozens of keys now feeling all the more impossible to sort through.
"Whiskers…"
"Find the key!" the General strained, his fingers beginning to cramp under their weight.
Letting go of her waist, the twins climbed up Leppria's back and onto Panthro's shoulders, Kat perched expertly on his arm. "Leave this to the masters!" he meowed.
"Hurry!" Lion-O grunted, "There are hundreds to pick from!"
Kit snickered from atop Tygra's head, "Why waste time picking out a key…?" she handed her brother one of Leppria's screwdrivers, the smallest one she'd swiped from her toolbelt.
Kat slipped the tool into the keyhole, "When you could just pick the lock!" pressing his ear to the door, he heard the lock click and grinned when the door swung open.
They pulled themselves up first, helping the others off the ledge before pulling Panthro to his feet, the general panting as he stretched his arms.
I guess Tygra couldn't help himself as he nudged Leppria with that shit-eating grin of his, "Was that science or magic?" he said, pointing his thumb behind them.
Leppria's cheeks puffed with annoyance before she continued on, following the others.
"Physics Tygra, not magic. The door was obviously rigged to trigger the floor if the wrong key was used, totally rational explanation."
The prince snickered under his breath as he followed, but for some reason, despite being completely right, she still felt like she lost something. Oh well, that was hardly the biggest problem right now. That trap could have killed them all if the kittens hadn't been quick with their paws, and who knew how many more traps lay ahead of them?
They'd have to be more careful, as something told her the Temple of Omens wasn't finished with them yet, but it was just getting started.
I know it's been a while, but with my summer schedule I wanted to keep up with all my in-progress fics, but not to worry as I'll be working on the chapter for Temple of Omens for a while. Also, I hope you enjoyed a little gang-shenanigans at the beginning. Something I wish the show had done was include more jokes and humorous moments like She-Ra or Avatar did. See you next time! Ciao!