Chapter 21: Ro-Bear-Berbils…?
The Thundercats had been traveling without obstacles for a few days before a forest they were passing through became flooded with rain. Normally it wouldn't be a big deal, but the water had flooded the engine and cracked one of the cylinders, halting their journey indefinitely.
Panthro and Leppria were quick to jump out and fix the problem, undeterred by the rain. While the massive panther pounded away at the main panel blocking him from the engine, Leppria was actually small and flat-chested enough to slip through an opening beneath the tank and reach the broken cylinder.
She was happy to do so, even if the reason why stung.
"The problem with a tank this old is that it keeps breaking down," Panthro said, Leppria barely hearing his annoyed mutterings from inside the engine capsule, twisting and contorting her body to fit between the exhaust pipes and wiring. She had a flashlight tucked in her mouth, both hands occupied disconnecting the cylinder before it did anymore damage to the rest of the engine.
Delicately removing the broken piece, she banged on the ceiling. "Fire it up!" she called, remaining in place so she could see any other problems.
Panthro nodded, having heard her loud and clear. "Let's see how this works."
Turning the key, the Thundertank hummed as it powered up, running smoothly until an unsettling rumble started whirring and clicking from within. Leppria's brow furrowed as she watched the drive train's connecting chain rattle before it snapped completely, whipping her in the face with a yelp.
Smoke quickly filled the tank, waking the others as they all rushed out into the rain, coughing and hacking among the black cloud.
Panthro joined them, scowling and scratching his head wondering what went wrong.
"I guess we're sleeping outside tonight." Cheetara wheezed, the twins both groaning uncomfortably.
Leppria suddenly kicked out a side panel, shimmying out from inside the tank, her body completely blackened by soot. She removed her welding goggles, pushing them up on her head and leaving stark gaps in the grime where her eyes were and holding up a burnt and partially melted hunk of metal.
"I think I found the culprit!" she declared proudly, turning her head to cough loudly into her arm.
The other cats didn't share her enthusiasm.
With the tank thoroughly uninhabitable, the Thundercats were forced to rough it in the rain. Leppria had the benefit of Kit, Kat, and Snarf acting as her personal heating pads, the small, fluffy trio all curled around her as she snored comfortably, Tygra and Cheetara huddled close together nearby.
Lion-O glared at his brother, envious of the extra warmth he was receiving, among other things…
"Things are looking up," he hissed sarcastically. "No transportation, nothing to eat, and no shelter… if the rain stopped it might be bearable."
The rain kept stinging against his fur like pinpricks of ice all along his bare arms, soaking into his clothes as the tree they rested under did a piss-poor job of keeping them dry. Lion-O was cold, wet, and hungry, but somehow he eventually fell asleep.
And if his ears picked up the small clicks and whirs of machinery moving around, he assumed it was Panthro and let himself fall unconscious.
When he awoke, he was still cold and hungry, but mysteriously found himself completely dry. Lion-O stood, cracking his back and rolling his shoulders as he did so. He spotted the twins still piled on top of a snoring Leppria, but Tygra and Cheetara were already awake.
"Did the rain finally stop?" he asked sleepily.
"No," the tiger replied, gesturing above them. "But Panthro must've built a shelter while we were asleep."
Lion-O looked up to find a large tarp-like sheet secured over them, the still falling rain tapping against the strange fabric in a steady drum as it shielded the cats from the weather.
Panthro stalked over from the tank, shoulders soaking wet and revealing what he'd been doing while they slept.
"Wasn't me," he assured, "I figured it was one of you."
He was speaking to all of them, but looked down at Leppria as if to say, it was most likely her, but if her muffled breathing beneath Snarf's fur and the cemented weight of the Wily siblings were any indication, it was safe to say the leopard had not moved in some time.
Cheetara hummed, "I don't think it was her…" she said, voicing their thoughts before Tygra gave the sleeping cat a rowdy kick to the side.
"Leppria, wake up!" he barked.
She practically shot up, throwing Snarf a good distance away with a yowl and startling the kittens along with him. They moaned in displeasure, rubbing the sleep from their eyes as their freckled source of warmth got to her feet with a yawn.
"Ugh… what?" she hissed, scratching her cheek and glaring weakly.
Her genuine annoyance at being rudely woken up was proof enough that she wasn't responsible for their sudden gain of shelter, which still left the question of who or what was.
They weren't given the chance to question it further as the twin began mewing and pulling on Leppria's arms. "We're starving!" Kit whined.
"Yeah, what's there to eat?" Kat added, nosing his way into one of the packs and frowning when he found it disappointingly empty.
Lion-O sighed, "We're going to have to do something about our food situation."
Something seemed to catch Tygra's attention, his nose twitching as he followed a particular scent beneath a nearby shrub. He pushed the leaves aside to find baskets of fruit, his amber eyes narrowing with distrust; there were no trees anywhere near camp with fruit like these, and they sure didn't roll themselves into perfectly crafted baskets for the cats to find by chance.
"Looks like someone already has." He said, picking up one of the fruits and giving it a curious squeeze. It was brightly colored and didn't smell of poison, but of something sugary like honey.
Panthro reached out and took one before Tygra could make an argument of distrust against the mysterious food, remembering the last time they'd blindly trusted a randomly placed feast and ended up in a net. The general bit into the fruit, juice dripping down his chin as he hummed, satisfied.
"Mm… candyfruit!" he purred, the kits already scurrying past him and stuffing their faces with the sugary fruit.
There were over a dozen baskets of them, but at the rate Kit and Kat were chomping and slurping, their tails flapping wildly, they'd be out of food again in no time.
"Hey, take it easy!" Tygra said, picking them both up by their scruffs. "We don't need you anymore hyper than you already are."
The tiger was ignored as they continued feasting, their eyes already wide from a sugar rush. Their manic wiggling forced him to put them down, the pair crouching over their food as they ate their fill until three of the baskets were already empty.
Cheetara looked at the baskets before glancing up towards the trees, "Seems like we have someone helping us out."
Lion-O nodded in agreement, "Question is, who?"
With a similar thought process to his brother, Lion-O questioned the mysterious gesture of kindness. The Thundercats didn't currently have many allies, living ones anyway, so to suddenly find such an obvious act of good will was suspicious.
Before conclusions about their benefactors' motives could be drawn, they first had to find out who was feeding them and sheltering them from the rain.
If helping them out was the pattern, the next move logically fell upon their lack of transportation.
The king smirked, taking a bite of candyfruit.
"I have an idea."
Following Lion-O, the cats hid in the shrubs and kept watch over the tank. Panthro was slightly argumentative about using the tank as bait to lure out their mysterious benefactors, but it was the only way to find out what was going on.
Leppria was crouched closest to the tank, the optical tech-lens she called her "spy-glass" perched over her eye. The plan was to continuously monitor the tank's electromagnetic output and watch for changes, either mechanical or biological. More simply, she was scanning the area for unfamiliar heat signatures.
Nothing happened for a while, until her ears twitched hearing what sounded like small parts whirring and clicking together.
What looked like balls of fur rolled out from the underbrush, swarming the tank and popping open into the form of small creatures that seemed to be combinations of flesh and tech. The little puffs started opening up panels and taking the tank apart, not to destroy or break, but Leppria's emerald eyes widened when she realized they were fixing it.
"What are they doing?" Lion-O whispered, leaning close to the leopard since she had the closest view.
She wasn't able to answer before a growl resonated from Panthro. "I'll tell you what they're doing, they're messing up my baby!"
"Panthro!" Leppria hissed as he leapt out from the shrubs towards the puffballs.
"What are you furry freaks doing to my tank?!"
The creatures heard him and immediately clammed up, quite literally, many of them curling back into balls and trying to escape, but Panthro was fast enough to grab one and hold it tight as it wiggled and struggled in his hold. "Gotcha!"
"Put me down… put me down!" the little… bear? said robotically.
"What is that?" Cheetara asked, the cats coming up behind Panthro. Leppria leaned in close to the creature, watching its little furry limbs click back and forth the way metal joints did through her spy-glass.
Whatever the little guy was he didn't look to be animal or machine, but some kind of combination of both.
"They look completely bionic…" she muttered, taking one of its hands between her fingers and moving it up and down, her eyes already sparkling as she poked and prodded him. "He's not an animal, but he's not all tech… I've never seen anything like it!"
"Ro-Bear-Bill, a Ro-Bear-Berbil!" when he kept wiggling, Panthro set him down, his mechanical body curling up before releasing again. "Berbils… animals and tech!"
"Did he say gerbil?" Tygra asked, brow furrowing.
"Berbil."
"Derbil?" Panthro added.
"Ber-bil!" the bear insisted.
"Herbal… derbilly… Berburl-urble…" Lion-O sneezed.
The bear, Bill, remained robotically stoic, nodding once. "Yes. Berbil."
Tails puffed and pupils narrowed into slits, the twins darted around the group's legs. "Nice to meet you Ro-Bear-Bill, I'm Wilykit, and this is Wilykat, and we're the Thundercats!"
Their faces were still smeared with candyfruit, Kat still snacking away while his sister talked as quickly as possible in order to return to the half-eaten fruit in her hands. It was probably best if candyfruit was kept as a treat instead of meals for them, the older cats didn't want to try and corral them when sugar was causing this much mania in them.
"Thunder… cats?" Bill cocked his head, the scopes that must've acted as his eyelids constricting and dilating. "Berbils help Thundercats!"
He wiggled his ears and waved his arms, making small beeps and several more clicks similar to an animal's call, and dozens of other Berbils began to emerge from the woods to greet their proclaimed new friends, all of them making clicks and beeps of their own.
"I've never seen anything so… cute!" Lion-O hummed, smiling as the little critters began climbing over the tank again and resuming their work.
Leppria beamed as she watched them use different arm attachments to work throughout the thundertank, wrenches, screwdrivers, one Berbil even had a blowtorch!
"They're amazing! Their technological knowledge has to be twice mine!" she turned to Lion-O with her hands linked together and her eyes wide and shimmering with tears of joy. "We have to stay and study them!"
Panthro crossed his arms and growled, "Well they'll be amazingly dead if they hurt my tank!"
The roar of the engine interrupted them, much smoother than it had been when he'd tested it earlier. Tygra smirked, "Looks like they fixed it, Panthro."
He scoffed, crossing his arms. "Just a patch… I could've done that easily."
Leppria was practically drooling, darting around Ro-Bear-Bill with a dreamy expression as she poked him and touched his fuzzy ears. The Berbil didn't seem to mind, letting the she-cat study as she pleased. He grabbed her hand in his small mechanical paw, leading her somewhere while the other cats followed.
"Come with Ro-Bear-Bill… Berbils fix machines… Berbils help Thundercats!"
Panthro remained in place, arms still crossed as he pouted like a cub. Cheetara paused, turning back. "You coming?" she asked, ears twitching when she heard Leppria squeal again.
He growled, finally following. "Fine, but I don't trust anything that adorable!"
The Berbils chirped and warbled happily, leading the Thundercats in a line through the forest, the cats smiling as they were briefly reminded of other small, plant-like friends from long ago. Snarf mewed, tail thrashing as he chased a few puffballs across the forest floor, the twins giggling at the display.
When the trees parted to reveal where the Berbils lived, the cats found themselves amazed.
They were surrounded by candyfruit trees, the Berbils using machines that stretched up and collected the fruit before distributing it down into more baskets, other machines tending to crops, the entire little village filled with tech and machines.
"I've never seen anything like this place," Tygra said, eyes wide with awe.
Lion-O grinned, scanning over each different machine, "It's like they have a contraption for everything."
He looked over to find Leppria positively beaming, if he didn't know any better he'd assume she also ate too much candyfruit and was suffering a sugar-high with how wide her pupils had grown.
"This place is… amazing!" she cried, her head darting around the village like she didn't even know what to start fawning over first. A few Berbils came over to her, taking both of her arms and pulling her towards one of the fruit-collectors, her verdant eyes glittering with glee all the while in an extremely happy daze.
Panthro didn't share the same sentiment. "It gives me the creeps."
Ro-Bear-Bill rolled himself towards a hollowed out mushroom, more Berbils inside purring and clicking happily as if welcoming him home. A pink one with a metal flower behind it's ear nuzzled into his arms while a smaller blue one leapt at them both. The cats immediately recognized them as a family.
"Meet Ro-Bear-Beebo… Meet Ro-Bear-Bella… This is Ro-Bear-Bill's family…"
The smaller bear gave a polite if now shy wave before scooting back behind his mother. Bill signaled to the Berbil driving one of the fruit-collectors, the scarlet bear dropping a net full of candyfruit at the Thundercats' feet.
The twins and Leppria all beamed, though the leopardess was excited for a different reason than Kit and Kat, the cubs grabbing more candyfruit while the older cat started rubbing her face on the machine.
"Yum! Candyfruit…" Kit mewed, her mouth not big enough to chomp on as much fruit as she wanted to, but she'd make do.
"Candyfruit… eat… good." Bill approved.
Smiling gratefully as he handed another fruit to Cheetara, she palmed the fruit as she turned back to the retired General. "Looks like you were worried for nothing Panthro."
He scoffed, giving the machine a skeptical onceover. "You really think these furballs are helping us and don't expect anything in return?"
"Have you considered that maybe they're just nice?" Lion-O argued, finding it hard to mistrust the adorable bundles currently hanging off his arms.
Panthro was about to throw a retort back, but was interrupted by a shrill alarm going off. A tower at the edge of the village was pulsing red and blinking erratically, the kittens quickly covering their ears with a wince.
"What's going on?!" Lion-O shouted over the alarm.
Ro-Bear-Bill began ushering the other Berbils into shelters buried underground, their rounded bodies easily slipping through the small openings. "Conquedor comes… Conquedor takes Berbils… sell Berbils as slaves…"
The lion bristled as the ground began to shake, mechanical rumbling vibrating in his ears as bombs went off nearby. Candyfruit trees toppled over in a growing haze of smoke, only to be crushed beneath the piked wheels of a thundering vehicle.
It was larger than the Thundertank, but built of shaking compartments like the train carts in the Thundrilium mines.
Someone who couldn't be anyone other than the Conquedor Bill spoke of emerged from the machine, his seemingly mechanical body moving with laughter as he surveyed the destruction he caused.
Leppria's verdant eyes narrowed, wondering if the Conquedor was completely biomechanical like the Berbils or if it was just an intimidating mask.
A metal arm stretched out from the side of the Conquedor's vehicle, quick to grab hold of an unlucky Berbil who had not made it to the shelters in time. "Help… Ro-Bear-Bob!" it begged, squeezing the leopard's stomach tight.
"We have to stop that!" Cheetara hissed, brandishing her staff with a flamboyant twirl.
The other she-cat was already by her side, her plasma canon humming as it charged. Panthro shoved the twins and Snarf beneath a shrub of brambles for safety, "What did I tell you guys?" he grumbled, "Trying to use their cuteness to get us to fight their battles!"
Lion-O's golden claws flexed as he pulled the Sword of Omens from his gauntlet. "Well looks like it worked."
I can't tell you guys how sorry i am for this long hiatus! But life after college is brutal my dudes! But worry not, for i am back! I will try to update as frequently as i can but unfortunately, i can't make any promises. However, i hope you enjoy the next few chapters with our furry friends the Berbils! Ciao!