Welcome back everyone! I hope you enjoy today's chapter!
Wizz-Ra… who is he? What does he have to do with Mumm-Ra?
Leopara couldn't deny the similarity of names. He was a powerful wizard and someone Mumm-Ra considered a genuine threat.
There was also no denying the magic that emanated from this man, as heat radiated from fire. A massive fire. She thought it should scorch them- she wasn't really her ancestor, in this moment or… any other moment, for that matter- from its intensity, but it didn't. To Leopara, at least, it felt like cool, refreshing water, and brought to mind soothing honey…
It was gentle, but held the promise of power.
Unlike Lepris's aura right now, which was agonising and terrible. It exhausted Leopara, mind and soul. She couldn't believe her ancestor subjected herself to such pain willingly and had done so before this…
Wizz-Ra didn't react to Lepris's sudden appearance until, after several long moments of waiting, she opened both hands and conjured two purple sickles of pure energy. At this, he opened his eyes and tilted his head down towards her.
"Ah." He didn't shout, but his voice carried across the distance with perfect clarity. His face craned down to stare at them with a very neutral expression, giving away nothing. Not his face nor his voice. "I was wondering when Mumm-Ra would send another lackey to try to claim the Book of Omens."
Lepris smirked and grunted. "I am no lackey; I am a disciple of Mumm-Ra, and I will claim the book for my master."
Wizz-Ra laughed. "Yes, I can sense the magic of the Ancient Spirits of Evil coursing through you. Mumm-Ra never did have the patience to learn magic on his own, let alone teach it. What you have-" In a smooth, almost unnatural motion, the man levitated to his feet and then higher, above the head of the sphinx. "-is nothing but an imitation of true magic." A growl rumbled from Lepris's chest. "Come then; you want your prize? Claim it with your borrowed gifts, if you can."
Thus far, Lepris had dealt with every emotion she had experienced in their short time together by repressing them. But now, rage swelled within her and threatened to burst out of her.
The insult to her master and her own prowess was too much for her ego.
Lepris rushed forward in a sudden surge of motion, and lept onto the sphinx with a running start. Leopara's mind swirled with disorientation as their perspective rotated. Gravity did not try to drag her down as she raced up the sphinx's face, closing in quickly on Wizz-Ra, but rather, in an act that made Leopara dizzy, it shifted to accommodate their new orientation. Lepris bared her sickles, muscles tensing with anticipation.
Without even a gesture, Wizz-Ra's body rotated to face them.
Lepris jumped and brought both blades over her head to slam them down. They crashed against a transparent barrier, sending an iridescent wave rippling for each point of contact. Rather than being claimed by gravity and plunging, Lepris stayed suspended there, struggling to push her sickles deeper into the barrier. Her arms trembled as she pushed with all her might.
Cr-aaaaaack. Small, opalescent chips broke off of the barrier, leaving behind small, white veins where the cracks had begun to form. Her blades pulsed with that opalescent magic, once, twice.
Wizz-Ra's expression shifted from complete neutrality into grim severity.
"So, you can siphon magic. I am impressed." He raised his hands, clapping once, twice.
Lepris's blades slid and sunk deeper into the barrier. She grinned manically, something Leopara hadn't thought possible-
One, two pulses of energy exploded, hurtling Lepris backwards through the air like a comet. She crashed into the soft, particular sands, shoulders first, and then flung herself upwards into a flip to regain her footing.
And then, the shock-wave of the second pulse hit. Lepris raised her arms in front of her, crossed. Her sickles morphed into a very solid, thick shield in front of her, dispersing the blast of sand around her. She jerked, abruptly, reacting to something Leopara couldn't sense and neither of them could see. She lept backwards, shield still in front of her, as a lance of light- BOOM!- thundered into the place she had just stood. With a sharp BANG, it exploded in place, sending arcs of lightning and shards of desert glass spraying in all directions.
Her shield protected her from the spray, blue lightning dancing on its surface before dispersing. But Wizz-Ra wasn't done. In the time it took for Lepris to regain her footing from his lance, and for the sands to settle enough so she could see, he had prepared an entire volley of them.
Leopara gaped. Lepris did not.
She dismissed her shield, her weapons, and instead summoned lightning to engulf her. As the lances, still without a single gesture from Wizz-Ra, launched towards her, she swung her hands forward in a thunderous, BOOM-ing, clap that hurtled lightning to meet the barrage head on. Her blast tore through the center of the volley, obliterating every lance in her way.
Lepris didn't miss a beat. As the rest thunk, thunk, thunkthunkthink, thunk-ed in the sands around her, she sprinted forward as fast as she could. With a simple gesture, she summoned her blades again and lept up to meet Wizz-Ra above the sphinx's head once again. Supercharged by the lightning she had just unleashed, her blades sliced through his shield-
A scream tore out of Lepris and she fell. A thousand, thousand sharp shards of glass had pierced her back. She tumbled from the skies, landing limply in the sands below.
Wizz-Ra levitated down in front of her.
Lepris struggled to push herself up. "I will claim the Book of Omens." she spat. Her blood splattered the sand at his feet.
"Of course."
There was almost a chuckle in his voice, as he reached down and pressed two fingers against Lepris's forehead-
With a pulse of magic rippling from Wizz-Ra and into Lepris, Leopara was pushed out of her ancestress. Flung free of her body, Leopara fell into the sands and tumbled backwards down the dune.
"So, I did sense two souls." While Leopara struggled to regain her bearings, Wizz-Ra stepped out of himself. A brilliant, silvery cord tethered his translucent form to his body. This new version of himself eyed Leopara with interest. "You do not wear the insignia of Mumm-Ra, nor do you seem to have much of his influence on your magic… Interesting."
Leopara snapped out of her daze and scrambled to her feet. She looked around, ready for Lepris to lunge at him or-
She paused. The plume of sand that was kicked up by Lepris's fall still hung in the air, exactly as it had when Wizz-Ra touched the ground. A drop of blood, just one among a stream from Lepris's back- ouch- stayed suspended mid-fall.
Time had stopped moving.
"What… how did you-?" Leopara cut herself off, looking around in awe. The more she looked, the more she found everything had crawled to a standstill, unmoving.
"How did I slow time? Or how did I sense you?"
She struggled for a moment. "Both?" she finally breathed out. "Magic that affects time shouldn't be possible! And I'm in the Book of Omens, experiencing events as my ancestor did, but you-" Leopara faltered for a moment. It really was incredible. "You ejected me from her body!"
"Hm. The concepts one must understand are a little… advanced for me to explain how this is possible. Simply put, for those that truly devote themselves to unraveling the secrets of the universe, all of reality-"
Wizz-Ra raised his hands up high. As he did, space around them warped and distorted, shaping itself into strange and foreign geometric shapes that spiraled into infinity, undulating and changing colors infinitely- colors that didn't even even exist- and then reassembled itself into the desert dunes it had been moments before. Her mind reeled, struggling to process what it had seen. Somehow, the memory was even more coherent than witnessing the display of magic had been. As her consciousness struggled to grasp and clarify what she saw, a dull ache blossomed at the back of her skull and radiated with pain.
With a hiss of pain, she brought her hand to her head.
Unbothered, Wizz-Ra concluded in that same relaxed tone of voice, "-is at their very command." His arms returned to his side.
Leopara swallowed hard. Her mouth and throat were suddenly very, very dry. A cold sweat, in addition to her headache, had broken out on her forehead and the back of her neck, and every hair on her body stood raised.
"S-surely reality is a little more… flexible in the Astral Plane?" she reasoned.
"It is." he agreed.
Oh, good. That was good, right?
A bead of cold sweat slid down her forehead, pooling on the curve of her brows. Nervously, her eyes glanced towards the scene of Wizz-Ra's physical body, and that of her ancestress. Along with all the sand and blood suspended in the air, they remained frozen in time.
She swallowed, hard. This man, Wizz-Ra, was so far beyond her capabilities as a sorceress it wasn't funny. Just…
Just terrifying.
I'm glad he's on our side. I hope so, anyway…
"As for your other question… I am the Guardian of the Book of Omens. As such, I am able to interact with you." He pivoted, still floating in the air, to look at Lepris. "Although… it seems your ancestor sensed you as well. The difference between the two of you was too great for the book to integrate you into her memory."
Leopara looked at Lepris as well. When Lion-O spoke of experiencing Leo's memories, he described it as living through his experiences, making the same choices and having to figure out what was going on as he went. Leopara had just felt like she was watching through Lepris's eyes, not experiencing her choices or anything like that…
She sighed and smoothed her hands down the front of her dress. She paused, blinking down at her hands. She hadn't noticed but…
Wizz-Ra wasn't the only one who was translucent; she could see through herself, too. She twisted to look behind her. There, anchored to the small of her back, was a dim, silvery cord that pulled taut into the air beyond her, where it simply faded from view.
My body isn't here to tether to, she surmised, grateful for something else to turn her attention to. But why is it dim? She grasped the cord with a small frown. It was smooth and cool to the touch. After a moment of inspecting it, she became aware of Wizz-Ra's presence near her. She glanced at him. His eyes were settled on her tether as well. As ever, his expression was inscrutable, and she still couldn't sense his emotions.
She doubted she ever would.
"May I?" he asked, gesturing towards it.
Feeling mute all of sudden, she nodded.
Wizz-Ra reached out to the tether with both hands, inspecting it carefully. It was a strange sensation… To her, it felt like something was touching her, but it had no texture and no origin; just the sense of being touched.
"Tell me," he said, "Why have you used the Book of Omens?"
"W-well, I was in the Astral Plane." Leopara began. Words threatened to fail her; her throat was tight, her heart was racing. Wizz-Ra did not say anything. Perhaps he could sense her struggle to calm herself. She placed a hand over her heart and took a deep breath. "I heard a voice… your voice, I think. You told me to find you, so that Mumm-Ra could be stopped."
"So you used the book to learn more about me."
Leopara nodded.
"Then, it is a pleasure to meet you…" he paused for a brief moment.
One, two- once she was sure it was a purposeful pause, she supplied, "Leopara."
"Leopara." He raised his hand to gesture to himself. "I am known as Wizz-Ra, but my name is Amun." Amun. His name rolled nicely in her head. Much more pleasant than Wizz-Ra. "I am a powerful wizard from ancient times. I've fought against Mumm-Ra many times. In our last battle, he cleverly banished me here." Amun gestured to the endlessly stretching lands with a sweep of his arm. "Now, I can only leave this prison for a single day every seven-thousand years."
"Seven-thousand years?" Leopara exclaimed, eyes bulging.
"Yes. It feels like an eternity since I last felt the light of a sun, or a cool breeze on the window." He closed his eyes for a long moment. "Mumm-Ra has robbed much from me."
Leopara couldn't help but gape at him. "That's… horrible."
Amun smiled. "I thank you for your sympathy, but worry not for me." His expression became serious. "You have more immediate things to worry about." He tugged at her cord. All at once, a sense of discomfort pulled at her. Her chest tightened, her heart pounded harder, faster, and her vision swam with black spots while the dull ache resting at the back of her head throbbed in time to her heartbeat, sending pulses of agony through her mind. For a moment, she even thought she would vomit.
"Wh-" she struggled to form coherent thoughts, let alone words.
And then, a soothing pulse of magic, not unlike the sensation when she healed herself, washed over her. Leopara gasped, gulping in air. Her gaze drifted towards her tether. It shone brightly now.
"What just happened?"
Amun brought a hand to his chin. "Hm… are you familiar with the silver cord?" When Leopara shook her head, he let out another, "Hm." That couldn't mean anything good. "Whenever you project your soul, a sliver of it remains connected to your body- a tether. Under normal circumstances, you may not even see it. Yours, however, is pulled perilously taut, and threatens to snap."
One heartbeat. Two. Thump-thump, thump-thump.
His words sank in.
"What?"
He placed his hand on her shoulder. His hand was large enough to completely cover it. "I have bolstered your soul with my magic. You will be safe here until the Book of Omens is restored to your body's proximity- but it must be soon. If your body perishes- and without your soul to nourish it, it will- then you will not be able to return."
A pause.
"WHAT?!"
The Necromechs destruction of the Thundertank was thorough. Most of the tank was smashed in, with white smoke spewing from its many broken pipes and torn wires. For fear of a fire, the cats retreated a safe distance in the scrapyard to plan out their next move.
There were two things immediately on Lion-O's mind:
Leopara needed to be taken somewhere safe, and they needed to track down those blasted machines to get the Book of Omens back.
Lion-O had no way of knowing the extent of how bad it would be, but he didn't have a good feeling about the book being separated from Leopara while her soul was inside of it. Besides that, there was the danger that Mumm-Ra would swoop in to steal the book or dispose of them. No matter what, they couldn't give him the opportunity to even try. It was just the three of them, Snowmeow, and Jorma. If Mumm-Ra's generals arrived, they'd be outnumbered and outmatched.
Tygra sighed heavily and lowered his scope. "I don't see any sign of them. How about you, Panthro?"
Hanging off of a tower of scrap much higher up, Panthro grunted loudly enough for them to hear. "No. Blasted wind's already covered their tracks."
"What do you want to do, Lion-O?" Tygra asked.
Lion-O touched the Sword of Omens where it rested on his hip, but his attention stayed on Leopara. Snowmeow nuzzled her arm and grunted unhappily when she didn't react. "I can use the Sword of Omens to find out where they're going," Lion-O answered. There was one small problem… there was no guarantee he would recognise the place, or that they could navigate to it.
Whiskers.
"I suspect they're returning to their master, a nasty fellow known as The Soul Sever." Jorma spoke up. He was running his hand along his chin thoughtfully. "I may have an idea to track the necromechs."
"What is it?" Lion-O demanded. The name made his skin crawl- and Leopara was in the book! "How do we find him?"
"Flicker can track the book's electromagnetic signature." Jorma answered. "He'll lead you to The Soul Sever and the book." Flicker trilled in reply. Lion-O held out his hand for Flicker to fly to him. The little bot did, circling his hand before landing in his palm. "I should warn you…" Jorma hobbled towards the arm of one of the mechs; the arm Panthro had torn off trying to catch the one with the Book of Omens. "No one has ever seen The Soul Sever, only his work." With a bit of difficulty, he bent down to pick it up. "While these machines are merely products of their programming, Sever is working to create robots with souls."
He tossed the arm to Panthro, who caught it while wearing a horrified expression that matched Lion-O's.
"Machines with souls? That's impossible."
"You know what else is impossible?" Tygra asked, grabbing at his arm. "A cat with robot arms."
Lion-O looked at him as if he'd sprouted a second head. It wasn't like Tygra to be anything but skeptical.
"Fair enough." Panthro threw the arm aside.
"We should get moving." Lion-O said. He didn't know what creating a robot with a soul entailed, but it didn't sound good- and he couldn't let someone like that keep Leopara and Jaga's souls.
Flicker whirred and beeped, taking flight. He flitted around them, his lightbulb flickering conversationally- and then, he was off, speeding into the distance.
Jorma chuckled. "Try to keep up. He's fast."
They nodded gravely. Panthro and Tygra took off running after the small robot. Lion-O hesitated, casting one more look at Leopara's limp form. Anxiety and worry twisted into a knot in his chest. Would she be okay?
Then, he shook himself. "Look after her, Jorma. Snowmeow can carry you both back to the shop; stay there and stay safe until we return with the Book of Omens."
Jorma nodded. "Good luck, Lion-O."
Thank you for reading! A special thanks to The Night Whisperer, Heart of the Demons, and Hestia28! See you in the next chapter :D