I hope you guys end up enjoying this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it~ I will take this moment to reassure everyone I have plans for the Tygra vs Lion-O love "triangle" over Cheetara, and how Lion-O and Leopara's relationship will grow. In the meantime... have a new chapter!
It did not take the cats long, now that they had the Thundertank, to follow the setting sun to the place it laid: a jungle, with seemingly no way forward.
Beams of sunlight dappled the jungle floor. Wind rustled the canopy above, making the light and shadows dance around them.
The jungle was far warmer and more humid than Thundera had ever been, filled with the sounds of nature; birdsong, the distant croaking of froogs- Leopara loved it. Every little sound made her ears perk and flick about to hear all the better. The Thundertank was warm from the sun's rays, and the gentle breeze that reached them tickled her fur, and kept her cool.
Leopara sighed softly, basking in her peaceful little moment.
But that was all it was: a moment.
Frustration was not an unusual emotion for her to sense, now more than ever; she liked to think that since… that day, she had learned to hone her ability to sense others' emotions to be precise and thorough when she wanted, and to slowly block out the ambient 'noise' when she didn't want to.
Yet, Lion-O and Tygra's frustrations, Panthro's disbelief, intruded upon her peaceful, calm moment.
"Come on, work." Lion-O pleaded with his sword.
"Are you telling me our only hope of finding the Book of Omens is if his sword gives him directions?" She opened one of her eyes to peek at Panthro, head turned towards Cheetara.
Between him and Cheetara sat Tygra. "And it's about as hopeless as it sounds." he replied smoothly.
Leopara scowled at the back of his head.
"Lion-O can get us there." Cheetara reassured Panthro. "He just needs to believe in himself." With a pointed look leveled at Tygra, she added, "It might help if you believed in him too."
Tygra held eye-contact with her for just a moment, before turning to stare directly ahead at Lion-O.
"Sword of Omens, give me Sight Beyond Sight." Lion-O commanded again.
Peaceful moment over, she stood and leapt down from the Thundertank, to speak with Lion-O- and immediately stopped in her tracks.
There it was… that… foreboding feeling… Like something… someone was watching them with dark, malicious intent.
Feeling shaken, she looked around- as if she would even be able to see…
To see him.
Mumm-Ra… Her fur stood on end with the thought, with an almost-electric jolt. Is he watching us? Her gaze slid towards Lion-O. No. It's… Lion-O.
Like the end of a trance, the feeling ended.
Was that… real?
Leopara took a deep breath and steadied herself. I must have imagined it.
"This is dumb!" Lion-O exclaimed, snapping her back to reality. "I don't even know what I'm looking for."
Cheetara was already approaching them. "Sometimes when you look too hard, you miss what's right in front of you." She rested a hand on his shoulder in a gesture Leopara could only describe as pressing against him. It made her stomach twist in a knot. "If you can master Sight Beyond Sight, it will show you what your eyes can't see."
Whatever words Lion-O and Cheetara exchanged after- they were too soft for Leopara to hear. A heavy feeling pressed down on her shoulders.
Leopara looked away.
Why do I… feel like this…? she wondered.
"Whatcha doin'?" WilyKat asked with a teasing lilt.
"Ooh, I know what they were doing~" To accentuate her point, WilyKit imitated kissing noises.
"No," Lion-O began defensively, but Leopara still felt… she could only describe it as vaguely sick- an ugly twisting of her insides. "We were just trying to get, uh, my sword to work."
Leopara dared to glance back at him. WilyKit stood in front of him while her brother flipped down from the vine he had been hanging from, she supposed, while Cheetara stood a little distance to his side- not pressing against him or even touching him.
"Why is this book so hard to find anyways?" WilyKit asked him.
"Did they forget where they put it?" WilyKat continued.
"In a way, yes." Cheetara answered. "You see, the Book of Omens wasn't lost, rather it was hidden with the intention it would never be found. Legend says the Book of Omens held both clues to our past and keys to our future. Because some believed it could be even more valuable than the Sword of Omens, the other animals would stop at nothing to get it." Cheetara explained.
The twins stared at her, riveted. Leopara watched Lion-O, entranced with her.
"The king knew it contained too much power to allow it to fall into the wrong hands, so he had the clerics hide it far beyond the kingdom walls, far beyond anywhere the cats had ever been. To keep it safe, they built a temple, one made with magic. The Tower of Omens was inaccessible to anyone but themselves and protected by ancient enchantments. They then sealed themselves into the temple forever."
Cheetara turned to face the three listening to her intently. "Its location would be a secret they took to their graves."
"That's why Grune and I knew we'd probably never find it." Panthro added, surprising Leopara.
"So we have to just get lucky and hope we stumble onto it?"
She hadn't even noticed he or Tygra approach Cheetara. She stepped forward, shaking her head. "No, Jaga already gave us the clue. With Sight Beyond Sight, Lion-O can take us the rest of the way."
"Maybe we just did." Lion-O said, pointing towards an opening in the twisting vines of trees. A stone wall with the head of a lion carved into it, its mane like the blazing sun. Lion-O led the way, followed closely by Cheetara, to the stone and grasped the few vines growing on it, pulling and tearing them to reveal a dark opening.
Cheetara walked up beside him. "How did we not see that?"
"I guess sometimes when you look too hard, you miss what's right in front of you." Lion-O looked up into the tree' Leopara followed his gaze to Snarf, holding a golden fruit. "Nice work, Snarf."
One by one, they followed Lion-O inside- Cheetara, then Tygra, herself, the twins, and finally Panthro. Snarf leapt down onto her shoulders with a "snya!"
The path leading to the temple- she hoped it led to the temple- was dark and narrow. She shuddered at the feeling of brushing against its damp walls, and her fur stood on end from unease, never knowing if there was a scorpion or a snake in the darkness.
When the path led through a large, open archway, she felt relieved- but her relief would be short-lived.
The walls of the cavern were gray, and oddly flat and reflective. The only path through the cavern was a walkway suspended in the darkness, leading to another stone door- as if they had passed through one already, this one engulfed by yet another blazing lion's head that towered over the pathway.
It was imposing and ominous, especially in such dim conditions. She raised her hand, conjuring a little orb of light so that they could see their surroundings all the better.
Dozens of little objects above and below caught and glinted in her pale white light. She glanced at them while following Lion-O.
Keys?
Spikes?
Leopara frowned, troubled. This… wasn't going to be good, was it?
The lion head loomed even more, what felt like a portend of judgment, up close. Lion-O pushed against the stone door in its maw, to no avail; it was locked. He looked back towards them and cheekily asked, "Think they left a key behind?"
"Yeah, I think they did."
Tygra patted him on the shoulder. "Actually, they left a few," he said while gesturing with his thumb upwards.
The keys jingled softly above them as Lion-O finally looked.
"We'll just have to try them all." Cheetara claimed, drawing her staff and using it to knock a few down. With more grace than keys ought to have, they fell into her open palm.
"This could take forever." Panthro groused.
"Cheetara, I don't thi-"
It was too late, Cheetara already put in the first key and turned it.
The room creaked and rumbled at this action, in a distinctly unpleasant manner.
"-nk… we should…" Leopara sighed softly as they all turned to look at the far end of the path. It was shaking. "...do that."
"I don't think we have forever." Tygra declared.
And no sooner than he did, the path began to crumble, and it did so at an alarming rate. "WilyKit! WilyKat!" she exclaimed, holding out her arms.
They panted and whimpered as they ran to outrace the crumbling path.
Just before it reached them all, they jumped. She caught WilyKit in the chaos, and latched onto Tygra's leg with as much strength as she could. Her orb of light extinguished, they hung in relative darkness- the spikes below seemed to loom all the closer for how little of their forms she could make out.
Tygra held onto his brother's ankle and held Snarf in one arm, while Lion-O, Cheetara, and WilyKat clung to Panthro.
"Whiskers." Lion-O swore.
"Find the key!" Panthro, who was holding them all up by the strength of his scarred arms alone, strained to say.
WilyKit quickly scrambled out of Leopara's arm and up the chain of cats, joining her brother on Panthro's back. "Leave this to the masters." WilyKat declared.
"Hurry! There's hundreds to pick from." Lion-O warned them.
Panthro groaned as they both climbed up. "Why waste time picking out a key…"
"When you could just pick the lock?" WilyKat finished, with a loud click.
The doors slid open, and the twins leapt inside, followed by Snarf and Cheetara. Tygra helped Leopara climb up, then leapt up himself with Lion-O, and together the brothers helped pull an exhausted Panthro into the new hall.
It was… surprisingly hexagonal, and suspiciously spacious.
"The Book could be just beyond that wall." Lion-O said.
They stood, staring down the path- wondering what could be next- before Panthro, feeling confident, took a step forward.
A single step was all it took to answer their questions.
He gasped as dozens of blades sprung from the walls of the hexagonal hall, the nearest one a hair's breadth from his face. The blades did not stop with a single surprise; they began to spin in place, like the drill of that machine they encountered in Cloud Peak Mine.
Before he, or anyone else, could properly react, Cheetara reached forward and pulled him back by his shoulder.
"Legend says the ancients rigged a series of obstacles near the temple meant to keeo outsiders away."
"Then this whole place is a death trap." Panthro observed grimly.
Cheetara didn't say anything for a moment, studying the pattern of the blades. Leopara knew what was going to happen before she even moved; she had seen the clerics train in obstacle courses like this hundreds of times.
Cheetara was going to make her way through those blades.
"Gotta move fast." Cheetara dashed and leapt forward, quickly becoming a golden blur through the spinning blades. Just as quickly as she bobbed through, the blades clanged to a stop, retracted, and the far wall rolled to the side to reveal a small doorway.
The hall now safe, they hurried through.
"Nice work!" Lion-O exclaimed as he passed Cheetara, holding up her staff extended to hold two pressure plates.
"Jaga would be proud." Leopara added.
Once they were through, Cheetara quickly followed them, and the doorway slammed shut behind them.
If not for the threat of death, the next room would have been refreshing. It was a simple room with a fountain in its center, and two lion heads carved onto the walls on either side. One projected a beam of light, which was reflected off the calm surface of the water and onto the other statue.
When WilyKat disrupted the water, well… then the room flooded.
It was Panthro, who could not swim, that saved them from drowning; a secret passage in the pool itself that allowed him to climb to safety, and open the only path to freedom they had seen: a grate in the ceiling.
"Guess not being able to swim has its advantages." he told them cheekily. Well… as cheekily as Panthro was capable of.
"Who wants to bet that," Lion-O pointed towards a sealed stone door, "-leads to the temple?" He ran forward ahead of anyone else, eager for the tests to be over.
"How does it open?" Tygra asked, looking around.
The room itself was very plain, with all its light coming from the water below them; the lion statue was still producing its beam of light. There was only the grate, the opening Panthro had entered through, and the doorway. Leopara wandered the room, meandering towards Lion-O.
Lion-O pushed on the door then looked back over his shoulder. "Do you, uh, think they left another key?"
She examined the door. "No… this one doesn't have a slot for a key. There must be something we're not seeing." She held up her hand and conjured her orb of light once again.
The room lit up brightly, for the room itself was altogether rather small and the orb was unobstructed.
"Maybe it's another pressure plate." Cheetara suggested.
"No… I don't think so." Tygra said, looking above Leopara pointedly.
A bit puzzled, she looked up.
Her orb… specks of its light were… floating away?
No, not away. They were falling onto the door, which itself had begun to faintly glow. She lowered the orb. "The touch of magic…" she murmured.
Leopara snuffed out her orb and placed her hand on the stone slab, closing her eyes and feeling her magic pulse into the stone.
It rumbled softly and began to move, sliding up into the wall.
She stepped back, waiting beside Lion-O as everyone else joined them. As it lifted up, sunlight flooded in under it, until finally it was up high enough they could walk out, even as it continued moving.
They stepped out onto a jutting cliff looking over a lush jungle valley with a beautiful, tall waterfall opposite them.
Lion-O guffawed for a moment before angrily snarling, "There's nothing here. All those traps just to protect… more jungle? Maybe no one can find this temple because it doesn't exist!" His clenched hand trembled with fury.
Leopara frowned.
"Or maybe it takes more than getting past physical traps to find it." Cheetara said. Somehow, Lion-O calmed. "Believe in yourself." She reached out and gently grasped Lion-O's hand, and Leopara's gut felt like it was twisting again.
Leopara snapped her attention away, finding herself looking at Tygra who…
His expression looked twisted and shadowed as he looked at their hands. Leopara reached out to gently touch his shoulder, to feel his emotion and…
It was what she felt, but much stronger… laced with hints of the old anger he held towards Lion-O, and this new, twisting feeling.
He looked at her hand before shrugging it off.
That didn't stop her from feeling his emotions.
So caught up in trying to understand this feeling was she, that she hadn't noticed Lion-O draw the Sword of Omens until he was speaking. "Sword of Omens, give me Sight Beyond Sight." he commanded. The sword came alive with a faint red glow, matched only by the blue glow of Lion-O's eyes. When the glow faded, he sheathed his blade. "There's a switch." He knelt down and reached down the cliff face, grunting. "I can't reach it."
With a crack of his whip, Tygra smoothly stated, "Allow me."
Somehow, with the single swing of his whip he hit the switch- he must have, for there was a quiet rumbling.
And then, a roaring cat head not dissimilar from the palace's began to emerge from the water, connected to an arch with two smaller heads, one on either side of it.
As it slowly emerged, they hurried to climb down the cliffside, and eventually did. As they arrived at the cliff overlooking the river, three stone platforms emerged from the river, forming a path to the base of the temple.
As they finally drew near, Lion-O murmured, "The Tower of Omens."
"I can't believe I finally found it. Guess all it took was the right partners."
The ominous feeling she experienced earlier returned, weighing on her like a blanket. She paused. "Wait." They paused, looking back.
"What is it?" Cheetara asked.
"Lion-O… you remember your ceremony… how when you looked through the sword… you saw… him, and I felt him?"
Lion-O blinked at her confused. Not nearly as confused as the others. "Yes… why?"
"I… felt that… again earlier. When you were trying to use the sword to find the temple." she explained, glancing down. "I think he was watching us."
Lion-O frowned. "He must be trying to find the Book of Omens as well… it must be inside, come on."
"Indeed, I am." the raspy voice of Mumm-Ra claimed, chilling Leopara to the bone. She leapt forward and whipped around, cold sweat beading on her arms. His cruel visage seemed to mock them as his lips- if they could be called such- twisted into a smile and he held up a black lantern. Inside the lantern, she could see the face of Jaga. "So… you could sense me, apprentice of Jaga?" he rasped on, amused. Her heart pounded in her ears, threatening to deafen her.
"I led him right to you. I'm sorry." Jaga apologised.
Jaga.!
"Jaga, you're alive." Cheetara said in shock. The emotion echoed Leopara's own, and quickly tangled with grief.
Mumm-Ra chuckled darkly. "Hardly. He's nothing but a vapor in a jar, and I have little use for him now." With this, he callously tossed the lantern.
"No!" Lion-O exclaimed.
Cheetara was faster, darting forward and leaping to catch Jaga, curling up around his lantern to protect it.
As she lay on the ground, Mumm-Ra growled and aimed a stream of his purple lightning at her prone body, using it to throw her into the central pillar of the temple. Cheetara exclaimed in pain, before falling to the ground with a groan.
"Cheetara!" Leopara and Lion-O called in unison.
Tygra caught Lion-O's shoulder. "We have to get to the book."
"Go!" shouted Panthro in a deep voice. Leopara hesitated, while Lion-O and Tygra ranHe drew his nunchaku and twirled them. "Mumm-Ra's mine."
"Panthro, you can't fight him alone…"
"Ha! This bag of bones is no match for Panthro." he boasted, dashing forward to press the offensive against Mumm-Ra. Even old and withered, the servant of evil dodged around Panthro's many of Panthro's quick blows.
Leopara drew Jaga's staff, waiting.
A crackle of purple lightning filled Mumm-Ra's ghoulish hand as he struck out at Panthro. His hit found its mark. As if caught in a net, the lightning coiled around Panthro and seemed to restrain him for a moment.
Now! She swung Jaga's staff at him, unleashing a torrent of wind. Careful and quick!
Mumm-Ra leapt away from the strike, with such unnerving grace it was almost as if he were carried by a breeze.
"You shouldn't be deceived by appearances." he calmly rasped. "My true form is far more powerful." Darkness enveloped Mumm-Ra.
Leopara ran forward to stand by Panthro, slowly collecting magic in her staff. Whatever he was about to unleash would be powerful- her barrier had to be concentrated and well-timed.
"Ancient Spirits of Evil, transform this decayed form into Mumm-Ra, the Ever-Living!" Mumm-Ra's voice boomed. In a flash of purple lightning, Mumm-Ra the Ever-Living emerged. In this form, Mumm-Ra was giant, dwarfing Panthro in sheer height and muscle, with large bat-like wings with a large spur on the main joint of them. His red cloak was gone, replaced bu a dull, golden helmet and an emblem on his chest. His bandage wrappings were greatly reduced, just ribbons around his forearms, a scarf around his neck, and a sash around his abdomen and hips, helping secure a dark blue sword belt.
Purple lightning continued to crackle all around him, casting eerie and dancing shadows around the temple.
And then, he flared his wings and raised his hands.
Beams of lightning began to rain down, steadily falling closer and closer.
With all her might, Leopara shoved her barrier forth around herself and Panthro. The beams of lightning danced on the barrier, pushing back. With bloodlust, they sought to pierce through.
"Huh, not bad, kid." Panthro remarked, looking at the barrier with… what, awe?
Focus! she berated herself.
So, of course, it was no sooner than that thought did two things happen concurrently.
First, she spotted Snarf hiding behind a pillar, WilyKit and WilyKat not far from him… completely out in the open, as if they were paralysed by the sight of Mumm-Ra.
Second, Mumm-Ra the Ever-Living opened his mouth, and another burst of his magical power bombarded her barrier.
But he needn't have bothered; the concern and fear she felt spotting the twins shattered her focus, and the full devastation of his electric storm rained down upon her and Panthro. She screamed in pain as the electricity tore through her body, an all-too familiar feeling- and then his burst of power slammed into her, knocking her across the temple until she slid to a stop near the twins, feeling battered and weak.
It was all she could do to hold onto Jaga's staff. She could hear WilyKit cry out her name, but the kitten's voice sounded far away, distant… a distant… concern…
Her vision swam and multipled as she looked towards Panthro.
Another blast of magic, too bright a flash, sent him hurtling through the air towards her, and crashing into a pillar beside her.
She was barely able to recognise when the twins ran in front of her and Panthro's prone forms to put themselves between Mumm-Ra and, well, them.
Oh, you silly kittens… she thought hopelessly and deliriously.
Mumm-Ra, all three of him, sized up the six kittens. To her extreme gratitude, the Mumm-Ra's found them all unworthy of his time or effort, and instead beat his wings to take to the air in search of more worthy targets.
Panthro recovered first, standing. "Get on my back, kids." he commanded WilyKit and Kat gruffly. He crouched down, looking her in the eyes. "Can you still use that staff?"
Leopara blinked at him, and slowly pushed herself up. Her head pounded with an alarming amount of pain; she grimaced and reached up, holding her head for a moment. A deep breath in, and a deep breath out, and she let her healing magics flow through her.
The pounding stopped and she looked Panthro in the eyes, nodding. "I can and I will. Move on without me."
Panthro studied her for the briefest of moments before nodding gruffly.
With the kittens on his back, he ran towards the tower priper and began t69o climb.
Leopara stood and sized up Mumm-Ra's location- which was easy to do as he was screaming in rage as he soar higher and higher- and began to spin Jaga's staff. He was chasing Lion-O, but she didn't see Tygra.
She sliced upwards with a yowl of anger, putting all of her rage and grief for Jaga into the motion. It was reckless, but she wanted as much power as she could get. A torrent of wind, so solid it was white, raced towards Mumm-Ra.
Her yowl must have given it away, because he looked in time to shift to the side, only being buffet by part of the blade instead of all of it. With a growl, she brought the staff down, using all of her will to drag the wind back towards the ground.
Anything to slow his ascent. To give Lion-O a little more time.
To her immense self-satisfaction, Mumm-Ra plummeted a good few feet. He looked down, irked. A blast of green light bounced off his helmet, and Mumm-Ra spat a beam of magical energy at his… foot.
Tygra flickered into view, his invisibility falling from him. Mumm-Ra began to shake his leg until the tiger lost his grip.
Tygra was not to be deterred, lashing out with his whip to catch Mumm-Ra around his other ankle.
"You won't shake me that easily!" he taunted Mumm-Ra.
Mumm-Ra continued shaking him for a moment, before spewing another beam of lightning at Tygra, this time not abetting until he lost his grip and began plummeting.
Leopara's heart raced for him, beginning to spin Jaga's staff again. An upward sweeping wind could save him-
Panthro reached out and caught him by the ankle, holding him easily.
She glared at Mumm-Ra and unleashed another cutting wind at him, this time growling to herself to fuel her anger. "No time to stop, Lion-O!" she screamed up at him.
Mumm-Ra darted, if flying could be described as darting, around the otherside of the temple pillar, evading her. She hurled another towards him, but… it was too weak.
It dissipated long before it reached him.
Whiskers! He's too far away now!
She needed to get up there! Now!
Mumm-Ra roared as he reached the top of the tower, so loud she could still hear it. "The Book of Omens and its power belong to me!"
"Thundercats, ho!" Blue lightning crackled from above, casting blue light across the temple. With incredible speed, the yellow blur of Cheetara began to circle the temple's outer walls, climbing higher and higher.
She ran as fast as she could, leaping from wooden 'step' to wooden 'step,' praying the peg wouldn't break under her weight.
The battle between Mumm-Ra and Lion-O thundered above, interrupted by a loud crack as Cheetara arrived. Not a moment later, she let out a cry of pain and nearly fell from the tower, which she clung to so as not to fall. "I got you!" Lion-O called. Not a moment later, the sound of his screams filled the air, followed by a dark chuckle.
"You are much like your father." Lion-O must have replied to him, something she couldn't remotely hear with her heart pounding in her ears and he so far from her, because Mumm-Ra viciously retorted, "Only that I killed him." Mumm-Ra let out another roaring growl, purple lightning flashed, and-
And Lion-O screamed in pain once more.
A brilliant white light flashed from the top, engulfing the whole temple- so bright she was blinded. She paused, sheltering her eyes as she strained to look up above.
It tore a scream from Mumm-Ra the Ever-Living. "The light!" he shrieked.
Leopara was the last to reach the top, breathless and exhausted, she all but collapsed on the stone floor when she arrived.
The only thing that gave her pause was the broken lantern cradled in Cheetara's arms.
She stared, broken-hearted. "Jaga…?" she asked shakily.
Cheetara shook her head. "He sacrificed himself for all of us."
Leopara's eyes burned with fresh, welling tears. Again, he sacrificed himself… and again, it saved them. That wasn't- it wasn't fair. For all their effort, for all her effort, they had barely managed to inconvenience Mumm-Ra, and Jaga, just a soul, had to save them.
A tense silence fell over the cats, faces turned away and eyes closed; but the little light that escaped the lantern did not go unnoticed.
"Look." said Tygra.
The little green light danced around in front of each of them, hovering near Cheetara's face and nearly resting in the hand Leopara reached out with, as if to say, "It is okay, child," before flitting up towards the book. It flew into the book, and with the faint clanking of gears, the cage it was suspended in slowly lowered itself. The book's glow faded as it hovered in place, waiting for someone to pick it up.
They turned to Lion-O. Cheetara offered him an encouraging smile, and even Tygra mustered one. Leopara stared at it, feeling numb all over again.
After a moment, their king strode forward and reverently claimed the red book, looking over its cover before he turned and addressed them.
"At long last, we have all the answers." He opened it.
"Well, what does it say?" Tygra asked eagerly, stepping forward.
"It says… nothing." He lowered the book in disbelief. "It's blank."
Thank you to everyone for reading, and a special thank you to Frankannestein, The Night Whisperer, Heart of the Demons, and to MercifulGoon! I always appreciate your guys's reviews!