Panthro looked up. His eyes bored through the leaves like they'd shot twin laser beams.
"Uh, oh," Kat said. "Sis, I think it's time to make our exit."
"Brother, I couldn't agree more," she replied.
Together, they swarmed headfirst down the tree like a couple of skirlls, circling the trunk to throw off Panthro's aim. One after the other, they landed on the dry, dusty ground. Kit leaped after Kat.
With the hiss of hydraulics, a huge metal hand clamped around her midsection. WilyKit squeaked. A second hand squashed WilyKat flat in the grass, and then scooped him up. It flipped him upside-down as it retracted. WilyKat squawked.
The kittens came to a halt six inches from the general's thunderous face. Snarf perched on his shoulder, grooming sticky goo out of his fur with nimble claws.
"Uh. Hi, Panthro," Kat said, still upside-down. His feet and his tail waved stupidly in the air.
Kit couldn't speak. Panthro was squeezing her too tightly. She could have sworn she saw a fanatical gleam in his good eye, but that could have been the fact that the sun had just disappeared behind the mountain range.
"You have some time on your hands, I see," Panthro said in a chillingly quiet purr, smiling in a lock-jawed, manic-eyed kind of way. Kit's tail puffed up to twice its normal size. Wow, was a panther ever scary in the dark!
"Uh, yeah, see, about that." WilyKat made a ptttbbth noise. The high collar of his tunic kept slipping into his mouth. "We were just –" pfffb – "testing –" ptooff "a theory we had – woah-oah-OAH!"
He hollered like a dog with its leg caught in a snowmeow's jaws as Panthro shook him vigorously up and down. Everything came cascading out of WilyKat's pockets, including the tubes of gel on which they'd worked so hard.
"Hey!" and "Ouch!" the twins cried at the same time, because Panthro had dropped them on the ground. He unhooked a small lantern from his belt, clicked it on, set it at his feet, and then knelt, sorting through Kat's possessions. A rather spiky-looking Snarf hopped off his shoulder and circled around to watch.
WilyKat rubbed his head. "You can't take that stuff. It's ours."
Panthro picked the tubes of goo out of the pile, along with a small candyfruit Kat had been saving for dessert.
"Yeah, Panthro," Kit put in, rubbing her backside. Her gaze followed the candyfruit. It was their last one. "It was just a prank. It's so boring here."
"We don't have anything to do," WilyKat added. "We should be out there! Helping!"
For a moment, Panthro looked as though he were chewing on what he wanted to say, rolling the tubes in one large hand. He popped the whole candyfruit into his mouth and chewed on that, instead. Kat pouted.
WilyKit scooted closer to her brother. She took hold of his sleeve. When he leaned closer in response, she was comforted. Getting caught by Panthro for a bit of mischief was nowhere near as bad as getting cornered by a pack of angry, armed dogs for stealing the entire stock out of a jewelry store. The raccoon, Tookit, had used them as a cover for his thievery and had abandoned them once they had refused to keep stealing for him. Still, she couldn't escape the feeling that this was somehow worse, because Panthro was their friend. She and Kat huddled together under the triple moonlight, inside the circle of yellow light from the lantern, waiting for Panthro to explode.
Except he didn't. He swallowed, smacked his lips a few times in apparent relish, and then crossed his arms, tucking the fist holding the tubes against his side. "You know, you're right," he said in a tone of mock revelation.
WilyKit glanced sidelong at WilyKat.
"Uh . . . we are?" Kat asked.
"These are yours. You can have them back," Panthro said.
He held out his hand, showing them the tubes. And the holes his metal claws had punctured in them.
He squeezed. Smelly, sticky goo squirted full in Kit's face. She shrieked. So did Kat, who seemed to have caught the ricochet.
"Blech." Kat coughed, holding up his dripping arms. "It feels like I just got licked by a tongue-a-saurus with a cold!"
Ewwww. Again, WilyKit couldn't speak. She was afraid the stuff would get in her mouth, and no part of her was dry enough to wipe it clean.
Panthro threw back his head and burst into laughter, long and loud. So did Snarf.
WilyKit turned to Kat, expecting to share an aggrieved look and maybe formulate a plan for revenge, but he looked so ridiculous with his hair plastered to his head by what appeared to be a deflated jellyfish and a mustache of goo quivering from his lip that she, too, burst out laughing. And so did he, pointing at her.
This was all right, Kit supposed, as her stomach started to ache from her giggles. There were times she missed home, Mother, and her younger siblings so badly that she couldn't sleep. If he heard her whimper in the night, Kat always crawled into her bunk with her. Sometimes he would let her cry for Father, who had been killed during a storm, which also hadn't left enough of the harvest for his family to sell. Other times, Kat reminded her that someday they would find the legendary city of El-Dara, and that they would fill the Forever Bag with its treasure. Kit loved to imagine her poor mother's sad, tired face lighting up when they dumped the wealth of lions in her lap. She and Kat had agreed not to use the treasure already in the Bag, because they hadn't gotten it themselves. They needed El-Dara. It was their secret, their promise. They had sworn to do this themselves on the night they ran away so that their mother would have two fewer mouths to feed.
On the other hand, there were times that Kit knew she and her brother were where they belonged. Like now.
All laughed out, Kit braced herself, and Kat did the same. Together, they shook themselves dry. Gel splattered everywhere, sending Snarf hightailing it behind the boxes. Panthro threw up his arms, yelling for a cease-fire.
"Ew!" Cheetara's startled voice came out of the darkness. "What is this?"
..::~*~::..
Kask got hit by flying goo, right in the eye.
He stumbled back a few steps before regaining his balance with his thick tail. He squinted, one-eyed, into the circle of lantern-light. Three more ThunderCats greeted his captors – maybe four, but that little one was even weirder-looking than the others. The biggest one produced a rag and wiped his face before passing the rag around. The whole area smelled a bit like the swamps.
Steggs leaned close while the cats were distracted. "Leave the talking to me," he said from the corner of his mouth. Their rifles had been confiscated. "You keep your lip zipped, got it?"
Kask's eye was swelling shut. He frowned at Steggs. He knew the other lizard didn't like him much, but somehow, he didn't think Steggs was going to be able to get them out of this with their heads still connected to their necks. Besides, Steggs was actually thrilled that General Slithe had arrived in the village, offering a cat prisoner as a bribe. And Water-Talker Hessith had actually taken the bribe. What had she been thinking? Didn't their leader understand that Slithe was responsible for the deaths of so many of their best soldiers?
And now here Kask was, plopped right in the middle of a cat encampment. The grotesque felines had to be here for something. Probably the unconscious cat Slithe had brought to the village. So why not give her to them and –
Interrupting Kask's suddenly feverish trail of thought, the cheetah gently pushed the two lizards into the light with her staff.
The big panther blinked at them, his square-jawed face as inscrutable as a stagnant pool of algae water. "Nice haul, but I don't think we can eat them."
"Yeah, Cheetara," piped up one of the cubs. "I've got a delicate constitution."
"You and me both, kid," the tiger said. He mussed the cub's mane, prompting a retaliatory foot-stomp that he ignored, and then he looked around. "Where's Lion-O?"
"Right here."
Out of the dusk strode the redheaded cat king. Kask shrank back at the golden sword held loosely in the cat's hand. This was the part where they said goodbye to their heads. If he'd only stayed back in the village! Even dealing with that mutant Slithe was better than dying here.
"We bumped into some old friends skulking around town," the tiger said with a smirk.
Kask scowled at him. Stupid, arrogant cat. The patched-up rifles dangled from one big white hand. He and Steggs had been minding their own business, is what they'd been doing. The cats had no right to abduct them like this.
"I see." Lion-O surveyed the prisoners. "What are you two doing way out here?"
"Wouldn't you like to know?" Steggs sneered.
"Yeah, I would," Lion-O said. He stepped closer. Lantern glow slid over the golden blade. "See, this can go two ways. You tell me what you lizards are doing here and maybe I let you go. Don't, and we keep you here. We can't afford to have you reporting back to your master that you found us. The choice is yours."
"Ssssome choice," Steggs hissed. Then he pinched his mouth shut. He glared belligerently at their ancient enemy, seeming to have decided that silence was the best kind of "talking." The whole clowder of cats stared at him with their big ears and their strange eyes.
"Did you follow us?" Lion-O asked.
No answer.
"Does Mumm-Ra know we're here?"
Nothing.
"What were your orders?"
Not even breathing.
Kask's tortured mind churned. Tell them, he thought as hard as he could. There was a way out of this, if only Steggs would connect the dots!
Lion-O shrugged. "If that's the way you want it, then –" He waved his hand and started to walk away.
Several of the cats let out disappointed breaths that Kask hadn't known they were holding. The tiger and the cheetah closed in, preparing to stuff him and his partner in a storage crate, by the looks of things, and drag them toward the black bulk of an airliner resting on the edge of the clearing.
He thought about spending who knew how many days squashed in a box with Steggs, and his scales began to crawl. What if the cats left the box in the sun? What if they dumped it in the river? Waves of hot and cold ran up and down his body. Would they remember that lizards needed to eat, too? How long would Steggs resist the urge to kill him once they were locked up? His anxiety swelled in his throat.
"Mumm-Ra doesn't know you're here!" he blurted. The anxiety blew out of his mouth with the words and left him short of breath.
The entire clearing stilled like a chib-chib who smelled the hunter.
Lion-O looked back over his shoulder. His blue eyes had turned silver and menacing in the triple moonlight.
"We're deserters," Kask went on. "Not under Mumm-Ra's eye. But Slithe is here, and he has a prisoner. One of you. Back in our village."
"What?" several voices asked at once. All the cats burst into indecipherable chatter, except for one. Lion-O seemed to have turned to stone.
"The lizard's home village is here?" the tiger asked incredulously, loud enough to be understood over the others. "On the prairie?"
"Can't be," rumbled the big panther. "They need water. The swamps are much farther north than this. We searched all over during the war. Burned a lot of the territory, too, trying to smoke them out."
"Panthro, that's horrible," said the young she-cat reprovingly.
"That's war," he responded. "Doesn't mean I'm proud of it."
"And you've gotten what you deserved," Steggs said venomously.
"Maybe," Panthro scowled down at Steggs and Kask. "You reptiles weren't exactly clerics back in those days either. Never found the village, anyway."
"That's because you cats are blind," Kask said over the pounding of his heart. The anxiety had ebbed, while a sort of savage triumph was taking its place; he pretended not to notice the signals a furious Steggs was frantically broadcasting. He'd never agreed to let Steggs do the talking, had he? He knew what he was doing, and Steggs could choke on it for all he cared. "Water flows south all the way to the Great Sea. The swamps stretch just as far. You have to know where to look. I can show you the way."
"Kask! Shut your traitorous mouth!" Steggs yelled.
"I am not the traitor," Kask shot back. His throat burned, just like the day the fire took his claw-mates from him. He didn't dare say more, but he didn't have to.
"Show us the way?" the she-cat wondered aloud. "Why would we go to your village?"
"Sounds too wet and sticky for me," said the other cub, Kat. "I've had enough of that for one day, thanks."
"Wait, what was that about a prisoner?" Lion-O broke in, a lot less calmly than before. "Who was it?"
It was Kask's turn to shrug. "I didn't ask."
"Pumyra," Cheetara breathed. "It has to be her. But why would Slithe have her as a prisoner? I don't get it."
"Neither do I," Lion-O said, perplexed.
"Should we go after her?" the tiger asked.
"Snyar!" said the littlest one.
Steggs looked at it as though it were a dancing trollog. A loaded silence rolled through the campsite.
"Why?" Lion-O asked in a dead sort of voice.
The tiger's dark eyes slid toward the cheetah, who shrugged in response. "She's still a ThunderCat?" he offered with the air of a neonate testing the water for the first time.
"I think she would say otherwise, brother, or didn't you see that fancy armor of hers?" Lion-O said bitterly.
"There's no telling what a village full of lizards will do to her," Cheetara said, her brows peaked in worry.
"Kill her," Kask said, and was satisfied at the way the cat king bared his fangs. This was working out better than he'd hoped. To what better use could he put the cats than to have them get rid of his enemy for him? Of course, the Water-Talker and her priestesses would then get rid of the cats, and he could finally relax.
"So what do we do?" the tiger asked. "I'd be fine leaving her there. Serve her right."
"Nobody deserves abandonment, Tygra," Cheetara gently chided. "Especially not twice."
"We didn't know she was there."
Panthro crossed his arms. "Can't undo what's done. None of this makes any sense. These lizards could be lying."
"Could be, but we're not." Kask almost laughed at the face the arrogant tiger made.
"Only one way to find out." Tygra turned to the lizards. "Take us to your village."
"Wait, Tygra. We can't go now," Lion-O interjected. "What about Felline?"
Cheetara exchanged a guilty look with Tygra, who said, "Uh, well, you see, we . . . kinda . . . left her back in town." His mouth twisted as though he were holding in a laugh.
"You did what?"
"It's fine! She found Ben-Gali and went off somewhere with him." Tygra wiggled his eyebrows. "She's probably recruiting him as we speak. Trust me, she's fine. This problem can't wait for her."
Lion-O hesitated unhappily. They all saw it. But then he said, "She's safe where she is. Tygra's right. We have to do something about this now."
"We didn't come out smelling like roses the last time we tangled with that cat. Are you sure about this?" Panthro asked.
"No, Panthro. No. I'm not," Lion-O said. He looked in the direction of town, almost wistfully.
"Ugh, go after Pumyra already. We'll go get Felline," the cubs chorused, looking disgusted with their elders.
A corner of Panthro's wide mouth twitched. "Good idea. Better take this. Catch up when you can."
"Got it, boss!" Kat caught the small device Panthro lobbed at him. Kat waved it, then he and the other one ran into the dark, followed closely by the four-legged cat-thing.
Lion-O turned steely eyes on Kask. He sheathed the golden sword. "Lead the way."
Kask grinned, showing that he had many more sharp teeth than these cats did. The tears that leaked from his swollen eye sank between his scales stung his skin, reminding him why he was doing this: revenge against his enemies. "Gladly."
Steggs, though shooting him suspicious glares, wisely kept his lip zipped.
A/N: My friends! I think I finally decided how I want this chapter to play out. Trust me, I have not forgotten you! Are you all still on board with the POV switches? Review and let me know!
Reviewer Thanks! Blacktiger93, AndrianaWarrior7, Heart of the Demons, KelseyAlicia, The Night Whisperer, Darwin, Seeds of Destruction, Hestia28, Lionessa, garzabg12, and allurasgrace. I can't tell you guys what it means to me to see what you think as you read. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
I have to thank allurasgrace specially in this update. It's because of her that I decided to leave the WilyTwins and their prank in the story (because I was really not feeling like it was the best choice I'd ever made, haha!). How does it go again? We are our own worst critics?
Until next time,
Anne
