Hey guys! You all gave me such great reviews, it encouraged me to write even more! I want to give a big thanks to all the people who reviewed the last chapter: FoxDemonGrl, pokemonjkl, G. U. 3. S. S., Crystal-Wolf-Guardian-967, yummi gummi, Heart of the Demons, ironfire13, Hotaro Kitsune, Ali, and finalfan21. Thanks for all your support!
7
WilyKat circled around his sister with a sly smirk, "Well, you don't have to if you're scared."
"I'm not scared!" WilyKit snapped at him, she looked away, "It's just…"
"Scaredy cat! Scaredy cat!" WilyKat taunted, pointing at her.
"FINE! I'll do it!" WilyKit shouted, getting him to be quiet. WilyKat stepped back as WilyKit looked down at the froog, a creature that resembled a normal frog in only the way that they were both amphibious. It was a tall creature with big, yellow eyes, six sticky legs, and covered in orange bumps. WilyKit grimaced as she picked it up and, mustering up her courage, put her lips to the creature's mouth. The froog let out a croak as its long tongue shot out, and WilyKit let out a shriek, dropping the creature and quickly wiping her mouth to get rid of the slimy residue left behind.
"I knew it!" WilyKat said with a smile, before singing out, "WilyKit loves the froog~! WilyKit loves the froog~!"
"No, I don't! You dared me!" WilyKit snapped at her brother. She started to chase after him, and he ran away with a cackle, going past where Leanne and Lion-O were resting by the fire they had made.
"In the blink of an eye…" Lion-O said quietly, watching them run around.
"Hmm?" Leanne looked up at him.
"Nothing." Lion-O said, looking down at the ground, "It's just… I keep thinking about my father." Leanne looked at him sympathetically, "I know it sounds dumb, but I… I thought he'd live forever. He gave his life, and for what? We have nothing left."
Leanne reached over and put her hand over his comfortingly, "That's not true, Lion-O. We have the sword, we have the jewel, we have each other, but most importantly, we have hope."
"Do we?" Lion-O asked, Leanne gave him a soft smile in return.
"Yeah, we do." She said, "You're the one that gives us hope, Lion-O. You're our fearless leader."
Lion-O chuckled, "I wouldn't say 'fearless'." He said, trying to sound modest.
"Yeah, me either." Leanne agreed with a sly grin.
"Hey!" Lion-O said in offense. Leanne laughed at his reaction. She laughed even harder when Snarf suddenly jumped up on Lion-O's head, and made him fall back. Lion-O got back up, "Are you kidding me? Now?" His smile betrayed the annoyed sound of his voice as he looked up at the little creature resting on his head, "This better be very important, Snarf." Snarf jumped down in Lion-O's lap, and kept trying to pull him to something, but stopped when a loud boom was heard. Leanne, fearing the worst, used her abilities to get her up onto a tree branch that over looked the forest they were hiding in, and saw green lights of various technological war machines cutting their way through the trees and bushes. A moment later, she was joined by Lion-O, Tygra, Cheetara, Snarf, WilyKat and Kit.
"It's the entire lizard army." Cheetara said, recognizing their machines from their distance. She looked over at Lion-O, "Just say the word, Lion-O." Lion-O looked down at the sword resting in his gauntlet, then looked up.
"No. If we stay here, we die." He said. He stood up, getting ready to leave, but Tygra jumped up.
"ThunderCats do not retreat!" He growled at him.
"With a situation this hopeless, I'll make an exception." Lion-O retorted.
"Hope comes from action!" Tygra snapped, "Isn't that what father told us?"
"And look what happened to him!" Lion-O snapped back. "Now, come on." He jumped down from the branch and the others followed him as he led them away from the lizards. Eventually, they came to a huge briar in a dome-like shape. Leanne looked at it in awe, never having seen anything like it. "They won't be able to follow us in there."
"You're asking us to, what? Hide among the brambles until the lizards go away?" Tygra asked, "This is not how we're going to win this war."
"I'm not asking." Lion-O said, he jumped down and headed to find a way inside the briar.
"You may be king," Tygra said as everyone started jumping down, "But I'm still older than you!"
"And, what, that automatically makes you smarter?" Leanne asked sarcastically as she jumped down, Snarf resting on her shoulders. Tygra growled low in his throat at her words, but followed her down. Lion-O directed them to a small entrance they could go through and went in first, his sword cutting through the brambles to make a pathway for them to go through. As they walked through, they heard a soft, lulling sound.
"What is that?" Cheetara asked, as they seemed to get closer to the sound.
"…It's music." Leanne said, hearing a soft, beautiful tune among the sound. When they got close enough to the source, Lion-O looked through a small hole in the thorny briars and saw a large circle of tiny people dressed in leaves that were singing a song to a small seed sitting in a basket in the center. Each one was singing a sweet tune, and the seed was quietly listening, a content look on its tiny face. Lion-O cut through the branches so he and the others could get through. The small people heard them, and stopped singing, all of them looked up in fear at Lion-O and the others, while they looked stunned to see them. One of the tiny people, who seemed to be pretty young, with a little purple, flowery head and leaves for his body, came crawling through the crowd, and started firing off excited questions.
"What are you? I've never seen people like you before! Are you from here in the briar?" He quickly walked up a briar branch, talking a mile a minute, and he pointed to Lion-O's sword, "What's that in your hands? Did you make it?" He climbed up to the top of the branch where he could make solid eye contact with Lion-O, and happened to catch a glimpse of Snarf, "You're not the same as the others, are you some kind of pet?" When Snarf didn't reply, he fired off more questions, "Do you grow from seeds like us? What's that red crystal? How tall are you anyway? Why are you covered with hair? What kind of—" Lion-O cut him off by putting his pinky finger to his tiny mouth.
"Okay, slow down." Lion-O said with an amused laugh, "You sound like me when I was your age." Leanne couldn't help but giggle at his words. It wasn't hard to imagine a young Lion-O that always asked questions to everyone he met. The little people, seeing that Lion-O and the others meant them no harm, smiled and welcomed them. They asked them to come and sit, and tell them about themselves, if only to satisfy the young one's questions. When he noticed that Leanne wasn't like the ThunderCats, he started firing off questions at her, and she answered each one as quickly as he asked them. They all introduced themselves to the people, and the little one looked up at them with wide, awed eyes as one of the people of the village came forward.
"Well, since you've already met young Emerick," He said, introducing the little curious one, "We are the Petalars. We come from a far-off paradise called The Garden. One day, long ago, a great disaster befell our people. A terrible wind, like none recorded in all our history, whipped through our homeland, and swept up the entire Petalar race. Carrying us across the sky, and bringing us here, to Briar Woods, and here we have remained, stranded, for generations."
"Generations?" Tygra repeated, "Is this place so big that you couldn't find your way out in all that time?"
"But, we've got a map!" Emerick said as he and his friend held up a leaf that was their map, "It's very, very old. And it will lead us out of the briar to the Cliff of Winds. If we can find it, we'll be able to ride the winds all the way home." Lion-O reached down and picked up the old leaf, looking over the map.
"We'll help you." He said, "And together, we're both gonna find a way out of here, Emerick. I promise." The Petalars all cheered loudly as Emerick jumped up and grabbed onto a piece of Lion-O's hair, swinging back and forth on it, and because he was so light, it didn't cause Lion-O any pain. He only laughed as he started cheering, "Hooray for Lion-O! Hooray for Lion-O!"
Cheetara smiled, "Seems like Emerick's found a hero."
"Hmph. He's too young to know better." Tygra said, Leanne shot him a look.
"At least he's not following a pompous, arrogant guy who thinks the entire world revolves around him." She said with a grin. Tygra shot her a look, and she laughed as she got up and avoided his swipe at her. "Good try, but no." She stuck her tongue out playfully at him as she turned away, walking over to where some of the Petalars were getting ready and she wanted to offer her help. Tygra looked away from her, but glanced back once or twice when she laughed when some of the kids decided to hitch a ride on her fingers, grabbing onto them and swinging around as if she were a fun ride.
They started at a small cliff, a little ways away from where the Petalars had made camp. Cheetara was looking over the map, and then around them. Bringing up the rear of the group, Lion-O and Leanne were watching over Emerick, who was using one of the briar needles as a sword.
"I can't recognize a single landmark on this map." Cheetara said, not knowing where they should go.
Leanne and Lion-O watched in amusement as Emerick was practicing with his sword. He looked up at Lion-O after a couple swings, "When I grow up, I want to be like you, Lion-O."
"Enjoy your childhood," Lion-O told him, "Trust me, you'll miss it when it's gone."
"But I want to be a hero!" Emerick said, "Can you give me sword lessons?"
"Well, first, you can't just wave a weapon around like that." Lion-O said, he took out his own sword to demonstrate, "You need to concentrate. Be more precise."
"Be more per… preh… pre-size." Emerick repeated, having a little trouble pronouncing 'precise' as he copied Lion-O's movements, "Right." Leanne giggled and held out her hand for the little Petalar.
"You can't wait to grow up, can you?" She asked him. Emerick smiled at her and she smiled back. She looked up when she heard a loud squawk, and a huge, six-eyed bird came down and snatched Emerick up in its claws.
"Help me Lion-O!" Emerick shouted. Lion-O and Leanne ran after the bird.
"Emerick! Fight back!" Lion-O shouted up at him. Emerick jabbed at the bird's feet, and it dropped him. Leanne used her powers to blow the bird away so Emerick wouldn't get caught by it again. They ran to where Emerick had fallen, looking for the little, purple-headed Petalar. Finally, they spotted him a few feet away, and they both sighed in relief.
"Emerick, you scared us half to death!" Leanne said with a relieved smile as she and Lion-O ran over to him. When they got closer, they noticed that it wasn't Emerick. He was taller, leaner, and looked a little more mature than he was supposed to be.
"Lion-O! Leanne!" He said happily when he saw them, "I thought I'd never see you again."
"Who are you?" Lion-O asked him, "Where's Emerick?"
"What are you talking about, Lion-O?" He asked with an amused smile, "I'm Emerick. Don't you recognize your old friend?"
"But… Emerick is just a child…" Leanne said, looking at him.
"Maybe the last time you saw me." Emerick said, "But, I suppose I was lost in the woods a long time."
Leanne and Lion-O shared a glance, and then looked back at Emerick.
"Uh, not that long." Lion-O said. Emerick smiled up at them.
"You never gave up trying to find me." He said.
"No problem." Leanne replied. Emerick jumped over a briar branch and started walking back to the main group of Petalars as Cheetara came up to them, holding a small Petalar that was just a child, much younger than Emerick was when they first met him.
"As the ancient Thunderian philosopher said, 'Time is relative'." Cheetara put the child down on the ground, where he instantly began running around, chasing after a low-flying butterfly.
"Funny, there's a guy in my world that said the same thing, but he was a scientific genius." Leanne mused. She looked at the child curiously as he ran around.
"This child was just a baby hours ago." Cheetara said, Lion-O and Leanne looked at her in surprise, "The Petalars entire existence seems to pass in the course of a single day." When she mentioned this, one of the older Petalars fell, his body turning to old, colored leaves that floated around into the air, "But from their perspective…"
"It's a lifetime." Lion-O finished.
"So… when they said they were here for 'generations'…" Leanne began, "They might have only been here for a few days." Cheetara nodded in agreement.
"That's right." She said. Leanne looked down at the little race of people in amazement. They only live for a single day. What did they think of someone who lived a little longer than that? What would they think of them, who lived for years and years? Did they think they were some kind of gods? Or angels? It was hard to picture, but she assumed that, if she met someone who lived for much longer than the average human, she would think they were some kind of supernatural creature. She couldn't help but wonder if the Petalars saw her and the others this way, or if they knew that everyone else lived longer than them and they were fine with it. It was a hard thing for her to completely understand.
Leanne looked at Tygra, who was leading the Petalars with the map they had given them.
"Are we making any progress?" She asked him, getting tired of walking around.
"If the map is meant to lead us into every single thorn bush in the briar, then yes! We're doing great!" Tygra said sarcastically. Leanne rolled her eyes. She looked up at the top of the briar, where a small bird flew over her head.
"Maybe we'd get a better idea of where we're going if we had a bird's eye view." She said.
Cheetara looked at her in shock, "You're not thinking of flying up there, are you?" Leanne shrugged.
"Why not? I'm the only one that can, anyway." She replied, she went up to Tygra, "Gimme the map."
"Leanne, no." Cheetara said sternly, "You're going to hurt yourself!"
"What are you, my mother?" Leanne asked, rolling her eyes at her and snatched the map out of Tygra's hands.
"Hey!" He tried to snatch it back, but Leanne held it just out of his reach, sticking out her tongue at him. WilyKat and WilyKit, who were watching the little exchange, giggled at her.
"Look, I'll be fine." Leanne said to Cheetara as she moved away from Tygra, "I won't go all the way to the top, just high enough so I can see where we're going." She created little whirlwinds under the arches of her feet, and she flew up into the air, not seeing how the Petalars looked at her in awe as she went up higher and higher. When Leanne got to a good point, she looked at the map, then at the path in front of them. She hummed thoughtfully as she tried to figure out the tiny map, turning it on its side and upside-down to try and make it match the path in front of them.
"What do you see?" Tygra shouted up at her, she looked back down at him.
"I think we just keep going straight!" She shouted back as she started to come back down and handed the map back to him, "At least until we get to a particularly curly briar branch, then we go right."
"Not much help, are you?" He asked as he kept walking. Leanne scowled.
"At least I'm trying!" She snapped back. Tygra ignored her as he kept walking. Leanne sighed. "Even after he has no reason to suspect me, he still hates me." She crossed her arms across her chest, glaring at his back.
"I don't think he hates you." Cheetara said, coming up next to her, "I think he's just… getting used to you. Give him some time."
"Time?" Leanne repeated in frustration, "Isn't a whole week enough time?" She threw up her hands in defeat, "This place is insanity!" Cheetara sighed as she went over to where Lion-O was bringing up the rear of the group, where he was watching Emerick practice with his thorn sword. "Hey, Lion-O."
"Hey," He replied, smiling at her as she started walking next to him. He turned his attention back to Emerick as he kept swinging, his movements more precise than when Lion-O had first given him advice on the subject. "You're getting pretty good, Emerick."
"I hope so." Emerick replied with a smile, "I've been practicing since I was a kid." He looked up when something caught his eye, and they saw that it was the bird from earlier, coming down to try and snatch up some more of the Petalars. Emerick ran towards the bird, "My old nemesis… We meet again." The bird landed and he quickly started jabbing at where it landed, its wings had a special, claw-like quality to them, so they acted as arms for the creature. Emerick attacked them again and again, until the bird swung out his clawed wing and knocked the needle sword out of Emerick's hands. He started running for it, not noticing how the bird was about to chomp down on him because he wasn't watching his back, so Leanne blew the bird away with a gust of wind, and when that didn't get it away, Lion-O came up and sliced at the bird, hitting its beak once and scaring it off. Emerick saw this and scowled at Lion-O, running up to him.
"What are you doing?" He demanded, "I had him!"
"That was dumb, Emerick!" Lion-O scolded him, "You could have gotten hurt!"
"You're not the boss of me!" Emerick snapped, "So don't tell me what to do!" He ran off to join the other Petalars.
"Teenagers…" Lion-O sighed, shaking his head. Leanne giggled a little at him, and he turned to her, "What?"
"Nothing." Leanne replied, "Just thinking of the irony of those particular words." Lion-O looked at her curiously, "I mean, you're a teenager, aren't you?"
"Whatever." Lion-O said with a small grin, and they kept walking.
It was dusk, now, and everyone was exhausted from walking around all day. Leanne and Lion-O caught glimpse of one of the older Petalars, who was just a young man when they first met him, fall to the ground, his body disintegrating into tiny leaves that floated off into the air. Lion-O looked at where he had fallen sadly.
"What's the point of it all?" He asked quietly, "Kingdoms rise and fall, lifetimes come and go. Are any of us here long enough to even make a difference?" Leanne looked at him sadly.
"You sound like an old man, talking like that." A voice said. They looked to see one of the adult Petalars was the one who said it. His purple, flowery head having a familiar face to it.
"Emerick?" Leanne asked in surprise.
"With so many great adventures ahead of us," Emerick said, coming up beside them, "We still have a chance to make our marks." Lion-O smiled.
"Yes, my friend." He said, "Many adventures, I hope."
"It can't be…" Emerick breathed, looking ahead of him. He ran up and jumped up high enough to get the map out of Cheetara's hands, and looked it over. He smiled when he looked at six, curling branches in the briar that formed an archway, "This is it! The gateway to the Cliff of Winds!" He turned to the other Petalars, "Once we get through this pass, we'll be free!" The Petalars cheered loudly and all started running towards the archway.
"Then let's go." Lion-O said to the others, following the Petalars inside. Leanne heard a strange noise and turned to look back at what it was, and cried out when she was shot down by something. Lion-O ran to her, but was shot down as well.
"Lion-O!" Cheetara exclaimed, she and Tygra got ready to fight the opponent firing at them, who appeared as a lizard with incredible camouflaging abilities, but were stopped when a second lizard came down from above, knocking them both down. A third lizard shot out a pair of electric weights at WilyKat and WilyKit, tying them together as they fell to the ground. The lizards laughed at their catch, one of them putting his big foot to Lion-O's face.
"You were fools to try and outrun your fate." One of the lizards said with a smirk.
"Outrun this!" Emerick shouted as he ran towards the lizard, needle sword at the ready. The lizard easily knocked him away with his tail and he went back to where the other Petalars were. One of the lizards hissed as they leaned down, looking curiously at the Jewel of Omens around Leanne's neck.
"I think Mumm-Ra will be very pleased with this one." He said. Leanne gathered up all of her courage and spat in his face. The lizard snarled angrily and flinched back, wiping the saliva from his eye. "Why you little brat!"
He was about to crush her head under his foot, when they heard battle cries, and the Petalars ran towards the lizards, Leanne watched with wide eyes as they jumped up, suddenly turning into some kind of golden dust that resembled pollen. The lizards began to hiss in pain as it filled their eyes and clouded their noses. Seeing the chance, Cheetara got up and knocked one of the lizards out with her staff. Tygra got up and knocked his head against one of them, knocking that one out. Not wanting to hurt the Petalars flying around her, Leanne kicked one of the lizards in the gut and pushed them back into part of the briar.
"You can't fight what you can't see!" The camouflaging lizard said, blending in perfectly to the area around him.
"We can take care of that!" WilyKat said as he and his sister threw two pieces of fruit at the lizard, the juice of it exposing him.
"I can see you now." Lion-O said, he raised up his sword and knocked the lizard down. Emerick climbed up on his body and pointed his sword towards the gateway.
"Charge!" He shouted, all of the Petalars ran towards the gateway, going through it, Cheetara, Tygra, WilyKat, WilyKit, Snarf, Leanne and Lion-O following. It was too small for them to walk through, so they had to crawl through. Lion-O was just behind Emerick as they went through.
"You were great out there, Emerick." Lion-O said to him, "You've really grown into quite the young man."
"Well, I had a pretty good role model." Emerick replied with a smile. He ran forward, needle sword high, "Now, the Cliff of Winds awaits!" Excited shouts came from the Petalars as they kept running through it. At the end of the tunnel, though, their smiles fell, and it wasn't hard to see why. It was a dead end, with only one of the briar branches curling up from under the ground.
"Uh, there's no cliff here." WilyKat said.
WilyKat quickly put her finger in her mouth, then pulled it back out, holding it up in the air, "Or winds," She said, "Just more woods."
"I… I don't understand." Lion-O said, looking around them.
Night had fallen, and it was too dark to travel anywhere in the briar, so the group decided to stay at wherever it was they ended up and get some rest, and figure out where they went wrong.
Leanne and Tygra looked over the map, trying to decipher it.
"Maybe I misread the map." Tygra said.
"There are a lot of places we could have gotten confused at." Leanne said, "Maybe we took a wrong turn somewhere."
"Or maybe there is no Cliff of Winds." Lion-O said from where he was sitting beside Leanne, "Maybe the map is a lie."
"No, when I looked over it, the Jewel of Omens never gave me any indication that it was a lie." Leanne said, she looked down at the red jewel around her neck, "Or… does that only work with people…?"
"Perhaps our forefathers wanted to provide us with hope." Emerick said, "Hope so we'd never stop looking for our way back home."
"Is that all hope is, then?" Lion-O asked sorrowfully, "An illusion?"
Leanne suddenly had a strange scent fill her nostrils. She sniffed at the air, trying to figure out what it was exactly, but could only decipher one particular thing about the smell.
"Is something burning?" She asked.
Emerick gasped, and they all saw that the briar was burning, the fire was spreading slowly, not fast enough to kill them right away, but it was no sudden burst of flames around them. They saw small embers from the fire falling carefully over them.
"Things are about to get a little more hopeless." Tygra said, seeing the fire.
"We have to retreat. Again!" Lion-O said in exasperation as he turned and headed for the exit. Emerick stepped out in front of his feet, stopping him.
"No, we must go toward it!" He said.
"Toward the flames?" Lion-O asked in shock, "Are you crazy?" Emerick stepped closer to where one of the briar branches had curled up.
"Can you feel it, Lion-O?" He asked with a smile, "Do you know what this is?" They watched as the branch slowly uncurled, going up higher and higher until it was completely unfurled, going as high as the briar itself.
"The updraft from the fire…" Leanne breathed when she saw it, then she smiled, "It's making wind!" The Petalars all began to stand up and looked at the Cliff of Winds in awe.
"This is why you never give up hope!" Emerick said, he raised his sword up high, "We're going home!" The Petalars all started running towards it, picking up leaves, flowers, and other various things that would help to keep them afloat if they needed it. Leanne helped gather up some of the larger leaves that rested at the top of the briar branches by using her powers and handing them out to multiple Petalars. WilyKat, WilyKit, and Snarf all helped with some of the others, and helping the youngest ones to get going up the branch. Leanne came over to Lion-O when she was done handing out different leaves and smiled at him. He smiled back.
"I think that's everyone." Leanne said, watching as the steady train of Petalars walked up the branch to the top, floating away at the top and riding on the winds.
"Not quite everyone." Lion-O said, pointing to one of the elder Petalars who was sitting still, watching the others leave. His petals were a pale, faded shade of purple, and he was simply being still, doing nothing. Lion-O knelt down and picked the old man up in his hands. "Hurry, there's not much time. Literally." The old man fell onto his back in Lion-O's hands.
"This, I'm afraid, is the end of my journey…" The old man said quietly. He shifted slightly, and a small needle sword fell from his hands. Leanne gasped as she looked back at the old Petalar.
"Emerick?" Lion-O gasped, looking at the now old and withered Petalar.
"It's all right… old friend." Emerick said.
"In the blink of an eye…" Lion-O murmured sadly, knowing Emerick was dying.
"In the end, what matters isn't how long we've lived," Emerick said, "But how fully we've lived." The other Petalars gathered around, singing, "The good we've done, the friends we've made… the love we shared along the way." Lion-O's eyes began to fill with tears at the sight of him, and Leanne had tears of her own streaming down her cheeks, but she did not sob.
"I'm sorry I couldn't get you to the Garden." Lion-O said.
"It's the journey, Lion-O." Emerick said, "Remember that…" He let out a soft sigh, and his body went limp in Lion-O's hands. They watched as his body disintegrated into small, purple leaves that flew up into the air. WilyKit began to cry, and WilyKat comforted her, even though he was crying, too. Leanne, as she wiped away her own tears, saw that Lion-O was on the verge of crying himself. She knelt down beside him, and embraced his shoulders in a hug. Lion-O instantly took her comfort, putting his hand over her arm, taking a deep, shaky breath in and out. After a moment, he stood up, and Leanne let go of him as she stood up as well.
"It's time to go home." Lion-O said. They went up on one of the risen, unfurled branches and watched as the Petalars floated up into the air on the wind. The Petalars waved and shouted their goodbyes as they floated up into the air. Leanne watched them leave with an awed expression. Seeing them fly away into the night was like watching a group of stars move across the sky. It was a beautiful sight to behold, even if she hadn't known the Petalars, she would still be amazed by the sight of them floating away from them. She listened as WilyKit played a melodic tune to say goodbye to the Petalars, and felt her heart swayed by the music. She wiped her eye when a tear began to fill it. Lion-O saw this and knelt down, putting a hand on her shoulder. She smiled at him and scooted in, leaning on his shoulder, watching as the new friends they had made flew off to their home.
Once they were finished, they went back down to the ground, the fire still spreading around them.
"So, what now?" Tygra asked Lion-O.
"We can find another way out of here." Leanne suggested.
"Retreat?" Lion-O asked, turning to them, "ThunderCats never retreat. I say we face the lizards," He smiled at them, "And hope for the best." Everyone smiled back at him, glad to see that Lion-O had his hopefulness about the situation again, "We're all leaves passing in the wind, here and then gone, but while we're here," He reached up and grabbed the hilt of his sword, "We live to the fullest!" He drew out his blade, a battle cry sounding, and the crystal in the sword lit up into the sky, making the ThunderCats crest on the smoke from the fire. Using the sword, Lion-O carved a path for them through the briar straight to where the lizards were. They all ran in, ready to fight. Lion-O cut down every lizard that stood in his way. Tygra used his gun and shot down one soldier after another. Cheetara, using her staff, knocked away five lizards at a time. Leanne, using her powers, blew back ten lizards at a time, and using those extra quick air slices to wound them. Despite all their work, though, they were all soon surrounded by the lizards, with all of the weapons pointed right at them. They all stood in a circle, back-to-back, as they waited for the lizards to fire off at them.
"There are too many of them." Lion-O said to the others.
"Father would have been proud of your bravery, Lion-O." Tygra said.
"A glory I'm honored to share with all of you." Lion-O returned, smiling at the others.
"My service to the crown has always been a cherished privilege." Cheetara said.
"I gotta say, this isn't quite how I pictured the end," Leanne said to him, "But it never hurts to go down fighting." Lion-O nodded once at them and they turned to face the lizards.
As one of the lizards' robots fired up its huge gun, a shot came at it from nowhere, causing it to explode. In the distance, a loud engine could be heard as another shot was fired, causing a second robot to explode, a third was fired, and a third one exploded. The lizards began to run away in fear.
"Hold your position!" The lizards' general, Slithe, shouted at them, "I said hold your positions! You miserable cowards!" The machine that was taking them all down came closer and closer to them.
"What is that thing?" Leanne asked as it came closer. It easily avoided one of the shots coming from the last robot standing. It fired back, and it exploded like the others. The lizards, terrified by this new enemy, ran away from it in fear.
"Hope that thing's on our side!" WilyKit said as the machine came to a stop in front of them. The top of it opened, and a huge, muscled form stepped out. One of the braver lizards who had stayed behind ran towards him, and he easily knocked it away with a pair of nun-chucks. They all looked up at this newcomer in amazement.
"Who are you?" Lion-O asked him.
"Name's Panthro."
I live off your reviews. :3