Chapter 15: King of the Past

Finding out that the Book of Omens, the book the Thundercats had searched for months and believed would be the key to destroy Mumm-Ra before he took over the entire planet and enslaved every animal on it, was blank had been a real kick in the bolts.

The others had drifted off eventually to make camp and figure out their next move, while Lion-O and Leppria took turns examining the book and trying to figure out why it was blank. Snarf napped in a sunbeam between the two pacing cats, ears twitching once in a while as he listened to them.

"All these years we believed the Book of Omens was magic… maybe it's technology." He mused, running his claw along the spine and tapping the red gem that shimmered in the center of the front cover.

Leppria rubbed her chin, staring at the book through squinted eyes, as if it would reveal its secrets if she glared at it hard enough. "If that's the case, maybe it takes a special code or key to power it up." She walked closer, flicking the gem and watching as it glinted in the light. "We need to get it open somehow."

"I'm open to suggestions," the lion replied.

She scratched her cheek, tapping her foot as her mind raced, Lion-O could practically hear the high-pitched whine coming from her brain. Her ear suddenly flicked, "Cheetara said that the old king believed the book was too powerful for any one man… maybe… the king is the only one who can open it?"

Lion-O's brow furrowed, looking down at the book in his hands and giving it an experimental shake.

The leopard girl didn't notice, "The only thing that links every king is the Sword of Omens, the sword could be the key to opening the book!"

Snarf let out a distressed meow as she grabbed the sword from Lion-O's belt, examining the Eye of Thundera and comparing it to the gem on the book.

"Whoa!" the king said, looking between Leppria and the empty gauntlet on his belt. "What are you doing?"

"Testing my theory," she replied simply, holding the sword close to the book and purring when she saw the Eye begin to hum and glow lowly.

Lion-O nervously held up the book, not knowing what would happen if the Sword of Omens reacted negatively to it. Leppria didn't look nearly as concerned, eyes bright with curiosity, and that didn't exactly make him feel better.

"Please be careful, we don't know what this could do." He pleaded.

Her upper lip twitched into a playful smile. "Relax, I won't break it… and besides, no harm ever came from opening a book…"

They inched the sword and book closer, the gem and the Eye both glowing a bright red as spiderwebs of electricity were exchanged between them. Leppria was about the purr loudly that it was working, but bit her tongue when the book suddenly sent larger legs of lightning out from the red gem, throwing the two cats back.

Leppria mewed in pain on the ground, the Sword of Omens still grasped in her hands. Her breath had gotten knocked from her body, but otherwise she wasn't injured. The freckled girl pushed herself back to her feet, spotting Lion-O lying on the other side of the room, arms spread out with the book laid beside him.

"Lion-O?" she asked, becoming worried when he didn't answer her. "Lion-O!"

Running to his side, careful not to drop the sword, she touched her hands to his chest, horrified to find that he wasn't breathing. "Lion-O wake up!" she shook him but it did nothing, and when she pressed her ear against his chest his heart wasn't beating.

Snarf yowled as her head whipped up, claws gripping the roots of her hair. "Oh my god! I killed the king!"

A strange feeling fell over Lion-O as he woke up, his limbs felt as if they were made of lead, yet at the same time an eerie lightness spread throughout his body.

When he opened his eyes he was definitely not in the Tower of Omens with Leppria and Snarf. He didn't quite understand what he was looking at. Darkness surrounded him, along with wisping flashes of blue light, forming numbers and letters out of the fog before dissolving again.

"You have entered a strange realm, Lion-O."

The lion whipped around, disbelief freezing his features as he looked at the dead cat in front of him. The cleric looked exactly as he had when he was alive, wise and somehow teasing at the same time.

"Jaga… you're alive!"

He tried to approach his father's advisor, only for his image to dissolve and reappear behind him again. "The rules of life, death, and reality itself are different within the book, Lion-O." He explained, "The Book is neither magic, nor technology, but rather a fusion of both."

The letters of mist swirled around him, the young king realizing they weren't letters at all, but living data. This was how the Book of Omens contained the keys to both the past and future, by cataloging and recording everything around it for centuries.

"Can it tell me what Mumm-Ra is after? How to stop him?" he asked.

Streams of data moved around him like a river around a rock, "The answers lie in the Book's all-seeing record of the past, but to truly understand them you must re-live the events that led us here, long ago." Bringing up his knotted staff, electricity licked out from it, agitating the data and making it swarm behind them. "Far beyond Thundera's skies, and the reach of your imagination…"

Lion-O watched as letters and numbers combined to form a doorway, an empty black void acting as the entrance to whatever lay on the other side.

He stepped closer, coming face to face with himself in the void. His claws twitched and he flinched, realizing it wasn't a door but a mirror reflecting his own image back at him, but his reflection was different from him. His mane was longer and his clothes were tighter, more advanced.

"From within the body of your ancestor, Leo, you will face the same challenges he did." Lion-O waved his hand, the image of Leo copying him. "But if you fail, the Book will be closed to you forever."

Steeling his nerves, the lion stepped through the mirror, feeling the static pops of the data against his fur as Jaga's voice faded to the back of his mind.

When he opened his eyes again, he was in his body again, but he also wasn't. He could move his fingers and wiggled his foot, but Lion-O felt older, stronger.

This was Leo, the first king.

Being in someone else's body was weird enough on its own, but it hardly compared to the world Leo had lived in. Lion-O's eyes widened as he took in his surroundings, every inch of the room he stood it was covered in technology, to the point he believed the room itself was technology.

He stepped up to a podium, the panel covered in buttons and keys written in letters unfamiliar to his eyes, but his claws knew them as if he'd typed codes dozens of times from this very spot. It seemed to connect to a massive screen across from him, its surface reflecting the image of some kind of red stone.

"I never thought the past would look so much like the future…" he mused, thinking about how Leppria would probably fall apart from happiness if she saw any of this. His smile fell as he observed the red gem, finding it incredibly familiar. "That looks like the Eye of Thundera."

"Beautiful, isn't it Leo?"

The distinct shiver of ice through his flesh had Lion-O whipping around to face the hulking form of Mumm-Ra, his stance relaxed instead of battle-ready, his expression trusting of the cat beneath him instead of burning with rage and hatred.

Mumm-Ra trusted him, Leo was his comrade.

"I serve… Mumm-Ra?"

The confusion in his words drew the massive creature's gaze to him, eyes narrowing with suspicion that had the cat wary of his next move.

"And you would be wise not to forget it." He stood beside the cat before the podium, turning his blackened eyes to the red stone on the screen. "Once I have the War Stone in my grasp, I will amplify the power of the Sword of Plun-Darr, making it the most powerful weapon in existence!"

Lion-O watched him as he held up his arm, a gauntlet larger than his upper body clinging to Mumm-Ra's arm. Metal as black as oil with veins of scarlet running throughout it, spreading power like blood through the unbreakable iron.

A sword rested inside the gauntlet, startlingly similar to the Sword of Omens, only this sword had an eye in the hilt that was left empty. It was waiting for the Eye of Thundera to fill it, or as Mumm-Ra called it, the War Stone…

"Tell me, Commander, has the Book of Omens pinpointed the stone's energy signal?" he rumbled, still holding up his empty sword as if it would grant him his every desire.

Lion-O cleared his throat, only understanding a handful of the words Mumm-Ra had used; he didn't know the Eye of Thundera could give out an energy signal, or that the Book of Omens could track it… but now that he thought about it, if he could figure out how to do so, it would come in handy.

He stepped forward to the podium, buttons and switches blinking mockingly up at him as he attempted to decide which one to push.

If only Leppria was here… he thought regretfully, knowing the manic leopard would probably know exactly what to do while explaining each and every function of every button on the panel.

Lion-O shook his head, watching Mumm-Ra out of the corner of his eye and he finally pushed a button on the far left side, then another on the opposite side, going back and forth between buttons until an icon appeared on his screen. It displayed a planet along with bars of data for who knows what.

"There!" he exclaimed.

Mumm-Ra hummed, swiping his hand and bringing another screen to life above them.

The tiger before them looked kind of like Tygra, at least Lion-O thought he did, but then again he had not met many tigers. This tiger's right eye was covered by some sort of mechanical prosthetic, and his angular face was framed by a long orange and white mane, but the shape of his nose and his seemingly permanent disapproving scowl reminded Lion-O a bit too much of his brother.

"Captain Tygus,"

"Yes, Lord Mumm-Ra?"

"Prepare your pilots and the rest of the invasion force to move in once the stone is located, to that aim Commander, see to it that the animals are deployed for the initial planetary sweeps."

Lion-O, or Leo, it was hard to keep track, bowed his head. "Yes, my lord."

It was honestly a bit difficult seeing such a version of the monster that had taken everything from the young king. This Mumm-Ra was indeed a vicious tyrant, but he was also strategic and almost surgical in his movements and actions. Everything he did was for the sake of his end goal, whatever that was. He had not yet been consumed by vengeance and bloodlust, and Lion-O wondered when that day would come, and if it would come because of him.

He let his eyes wander over the black steel walls, red lanterns buzzing slightly as technology powered them all. The entire system of corridors hummed with it, tingling in the back of Lion-O's eardrums and adding to the eerie tension he felt in his shoulders. The glow of the lanterns brought his mind back to the Eye of Thundera, how its shapeless form glowed with raw, untapped energy as the Book of Omens locked it in its sight.

"So Mumm-Ra used the Book of Omens to find the Eye of Thundera…" he voiced aloud, "and the cats helped him? This is strange…"

Lion-O's ears twitched when the mechanical doors before him opened automatically, leading him into a much larger room.

The walls were checkered with enclosed cells, each of them sealed by charged purple forcefields. They actually somewhat resembled the plasma bullets from Leppria's cannon, so Lion-O assumed one touch would send some poor sap flying.

The cells were all filled to the brim with animals, their orange jumpers marking them as prisoners. The apes were fidgeting and pacing in their cell, the elephants crammed together so tight it was a wonder no one had touched the forcefield already, and the dogs whimpering as the shrill electric frequency sent waves of sharp pain into their skulls.

Lion-O clenched his fists at the sheer volume of cruelty but had no time to dwell on it as footsteps approached him from behind. He prepared to school himself and not show any signs of disloyalty, but his worries turned out to be for nothing.

"Took you long enough." They mewed, Lion-O turning and swallowing his tongue as he took in the tall pantheress.

Her fur was jet black and her eyes a searing amber color, she towered over him in both stature and presence. Her well-fitted armor and the swaying movements of her long tail gave her an air of strength and superiority Lion-O could only compare to King Claudus.

"S-sorry…" he stammered. "What did I miss?"

Her heart-shaped face pulled into a smile as she laughed, the warmth and familiarness between her and Leo taking Lion-O slightly off guard.

Though he kept describing her as beautiful and almost ethereal, Leo's memories only supplied him with the name Panthera.

Panthera lead him to another podium on a platform overlooking the prison, the image of the War Stone blaring beside an enlarged planet.

"This is our invasion target," she said, pressing more buttons and summoning more data. "The planet is 73% water, so we'll need every Tigershark we've got."

Leo briefly glanced over to a cell filled with water, various shadows darting around inside.

"As usual, we'll get the dogs and monkeys to work the ground, and the vultures will search from the air, I assume Tygus and his men will be ready to move in once the stone is located." She looked to Lion-O as if waiting for his agreement.

"You… could assume that." He quickly said.

The she-cat nodded and closed the screen before the two of them descended to supervise the prisoners. Other cats dressed in armored suits pulled the animals from their cells, corralling them into lines and collaring them one at a time.

Lion-O watched as they all shuffled along in their chains, reminded of the lizards he had set free so long ago, how they'd told him the cats took everything for themselves and left other animals to fight over scraps.

"All these animals, enslaved to search for a single stone." He muttered.

Panthera looked at him, her brow furrowed as she turned her gaze of contempt away from the prisoners. "What do you think they hate more? The cages? Or the security collars that will blow them to pieces if they take a single step in the wrong direction?"

He watched an ape bite his tongue and fight back a noise of pain as a collar was locked tight around his neck, the light panel changing from blue to red signifying it had been activated.

"I'm going with the collars."

The clinking of chains filled the silence that followed, one of the dogs in line pausing to glare at one of the cat guards. The guard growled beneath his helmet before jamming the end of his staff into the dog's back, an electric shock forcing him to his knees.

A vicious bark tore from his throat as he punched the guard, "Watch it, cat!"

The lizard the guard bumped into hissed angrily before throwing him aside, and before anyone could blink mayhem erupted amongst the prisoners. The guards struggled to control them as they too were dragged into the mess of teeth and claws, their batons taken as they were each wrestled to the ground.

Panthera scoffed as alarms blared to life, "Just what we need, a riot."

She didn't hesitate to leap into the fray, claws bared as she grabbed an ape by his hair and kicked him in the sternum before swinging her leg into a lizard's head. Lion-O stared in awe, feeling his cheeks burn with embarrassment when she gave him an amused look.

"Are you just gonna stand there looking pretty, or are you gonna fight?"

The lion was not given the chance to answer as he felt the claws of a massively fat lizard enclose tight around his neck, lifting him up and slamming him into the nearby wall. The reptile hissed lowly as his hands squeezed, Lion-O feeling like his head would burst.

"Whiskers…"

Oops! I'm soooo sorry I haven't been updating, college and all, ew. But fear not! Anyway, enjoy this lack of Leppria screentime because next episode she's gonna get a lot of it! Stay tuned!