Welcome back! I think you guys have been waiting for this one have fun!
When Leopara opened her eyes next, the ground was moving in long, loping strides. Her arms dangled down, the shackles on her wrists clicking with each step.
And then, the ground abruptly shifted to a metallic green. Like a sack of grain, she was hefted and then dropped onto cold, hard, unforgiving ground on her back. She groaned. Above her, the sky was blue and blurry.
It took her a moment to process what was happening.
Then, all at once, it hit her.
The ambush. That blasted collar around her neck.
Lion-O.
In an instant, she shot bolt-right up and started struggling against her chains. The white ape hooted. "Looks like she's awake now." His hand, which was easily larger than her torso, grabbed her by her chains and yanked her to her feet. She exclaimed from the sudden movement, then gasped as she was pushed backwards towards the middle of the platform.
"Careful, Addicus." Slithe hissed. "Mumm-Ra wants that one alive."
"You! Get back here, now!" a lizard shouted. Unwilling to completely turn away from Addicus, she looked towards the lizard from the corner of her eyes. Panthro, Tygra, Cheetara, and WilyKat were being led to the hovercraft, similarly halting to look back at the commotion.
WilyKit was lagging behind, crouched at a rock. She stood and tan forward to catch up to her brother.
Each of them was roughly shoved towards her once on the platform. "Eyes forward." Addicus commanded.
With a few growls and a lot of frustration, they turned to look ahead.
"That's all the cats, General Slithe." a lizard reported.
"Good. Take your squadron and find the stone!" he commanded with his characteristic rasp and hiss.
"Yes, sir!" The lizard scampered off onto a separate hovercraft.
The hovercraft they were on zipped forward with only a whir. The wind whipped at her face and dress, slapping her bangs in her eyes and pulling her braid back almost completely straight.
It raced into and through the labyrinthine corridors of the grey canyon. Leopara thought she could recognise a landmark here and there, but it all blurred by so quickly she couldn't be sure. All she was sure of was that they were speeding closer and closer to the heart of lizard territory.
"Lion-O can't be gone. I- I won't believe it." WilyKit stammered tearfully into her arm.
"It's okay, sis. We're gonna get through this."
Cheetara bent down next to them. "There will be time for mourning. As soon as we take care of them." she glanced over her shoulder. Leopara followed her gaze.
Slithe, Addicus, and Kaynar were watching them closely.
"But how?" Tygra asked.
"You always wanted to be king. Well, now you are." Panthro replied. "Just hope you got a plan."
Leopara frowned. What were they going to do? She couldn't use her magic with this collar, and trying would just make her a liability to the others. None of them could use a weapon while they were chained, and Panthro was probably the only one who could match Kaynar, Addicus, or Slithe in stature and strength anyways.
Frustration bubbled within her.
Leopara's eyes burned from rage. The longer they stood there, doing nothing, the more she burned to do anything.
She barely made out the approaching whir and hum of the second hovercraft joining Slithe's.
"Nothing?" Slithe hissed.
"No trace, General Slithe. Probably washed out to the Great Sea."
In front of her, WilyKit gasped in horror. Everyone else was putting up a stony front, with greater stakes to worry about at that moment than the lizards looking for a body.
Lion-O's body.
Rage raised her hackles and prickled at her skin, hot and painful like a fire poker.
"Mumm-Ra will not be pleased." Slithe said, troubled.
Kaynar circled around them to stop in front of WilyKit and WilyKat, who he looked at with a mad grin and hungry eyes. "But surely, these cute kittens will cheer him up." he made a point to show his teeth with his wild grin, each one a razor-sharp fang, as he giggled uncontrollably.
WilyKit and WilyKat shuddered, retreating closer to her. Leopara quickly stepped around and in front of them, and met his gaze with a burning glare- if looks could kill, Leopara would have one less problem to deal with.
"If there's anything left of them." Hoots bubbled out of Addicus uncontrollably behind them, while Kaynar grinned at Leopara and giggled, finding some excitement in her threat.
"I can assure you, Addicus…" Slithe said, aiming a rifle at them, "-there won't be. Yours will be the shortest and last reign of any cat king."
Tygra glanced away, mumbling quietly, "I'd rather die a king than live forever as a mindless lackey."
"What's that, cat?" Slithe snapped.
"I said, I'd rather die a king than live forever as a mindless lackey!" Tygra shouted defiantly. Slithe took a step forward and punched him square in the jaw. Tygra recoiled from the impact and briefly raised his hands to touch his face. Then, he smirked with smug confidence. She knew immediately what he was doing. He was doing what he did best: provoking people.
"Well, you got one thing going for you. You hit harder than the monkey."
And it worked.
Addicus descended upon Tygra faster than he could finish speaking. "You wanna see how hard I hit?"
He had barely finished speaking when he picked Tygra up, one hand engulfing his entire back and the other holding his left leg. Tygra had a moment to look concerned, and then he was thrown from the speeding hovercraft. Leopara grit her teeth. With an ape-ish scream, Addicus vaulted off the craft and landed atop Tygra and wailing punches at his face.
Whoever was piloting the hovercraft must have hit the breaks, because they drifted hard to a standstill.
Kaynar giggled at the edge of the platform. "Can I play too?" he asked.
He didn't wait for a reply before leaping down. In a few long strides, he reached Tygra.
Click.
Leopara looked down. WilyKat's shackle hung on only one wrist. Click. The other came off. With his deft hands, he made quick work of WilyKit's cuffs, and then Leopara's.
"Get this off of me too." Leopara hissed with urgency- her blood threatened to burn out of control. She could hear Addicus and Kaynar beating Tygra, hear his grunts and groans as he endured the pain.
"Got it!" WilyKat quietly boasted. With a few twists and turns of his flink, it too made a click and swung loose.
Leopara ripped it off of her neck and tossed it to the side with vehemence.
She stormed to the edge of the hovercraft and stepped off. Time seemed to slow all around her for the brief moment she was falling. Her eyes landed on Kaynar, winding up a punch. The air around her crackled with a shower of sparks that whooshed into licking flames that harmless danced up her arm and the heat of which whipped her braid up in a quick snap.
Then, she landed.
Kaynar gleefully giggled. "Seems he likes getting hit as much as we like hitting him!"
"No…" Leopara barely heard Tygra. "...just had to buy some time for Kit and Kat to pick the locks."
Kaynar gasped in shock and whipped around. His eyes caught on her and he froze.
Leopara took a step towards him, holding up a hand wreathed in the flames.
"Hi! Hey there!" WilyKit and WilyKat greeted them, waving their shackles; she could hear them clink and jingle.
"Now this is gonna be fun." Kaynar declared, licking his teeth with a disgusting slurping noise.
Leopara screamed and thrust her hand forward, letting the flames roar forth in a growing pillar of destruction. "This is for Lion-O!"
Kaynar and Addicus both lept out of the path of the flames. Addicus lept right into Panthro's path and found a knee digging into his back.
"Aww, was he your boyfriend?" Kaynar mocked her.
She screamed again and tore her hand through the air, as if she could claw him from there- and in a manner of speaking, she could. Her blaze raced through the air for him, like a tear in the air itself.
Kaynar nimbly dodged again and giggled. "Is that all you have, kitty-cat?"
Leopara growled, the kind of loud, guttural growl that tore itself from the lungs and forced its way out of the throat, and thrust both of her hands forward with pure blood-lust. The flames roared louder than ever as they spiraled towards him and scorched the stony earth. Kaynar jumped up again, aiming for her, and she dropped to a kneel to slam her hands into the ground.
They erupted around her in an all-consuming inferno, into which Kaynar had just jumped. He howled in pain and as soon as his toes hit the ground, he lept backwards away from her.
"What's the matter, Kaynar? I thought you wanted to play?" Leopara asked, standing back up and letting most of the flames flicker out except what was on her claws.
She was angry- enraged, but such displays of magic without her staff out were exhausting. She didn't want to tire herself out too quickly. Laynar still had to pay.
"No fair!" Kaynar whined.
"Forget the cats!" Slithe shouted. "The sword is all that matters."
With great reluctance, Kaynar and Addicus retreated. Leopara threw another streak of fire at them. It split into three, spinning towards the hovercraft before it could careen away. And then, having missed all three, she swung her other arm.
"None of you grabbed the sword?!" she shrieked.
"We were a little busy!" Tygra sprinted after hovercraft, firing his blaster.
"With what?! I had Kaynar, Panthro had Addicus, and Cheetara had the other lizards. Surely you could have gotten the sword!"
Tygra lowered his gun, defeated. Mumm-Ra's generals had escaped with the one thing that mattered at that moment.
"That's unfair, Leopara." Cheetara said gently as she joined the two of them.
"Unfair?! Lion-O would have gotten his sword back!" Leopara turned back to Tygra and jabbed her claw- no longer on fire- into his chest. "You're not King until the Sword of Omens accepts you, got it?"
"This isn't over yet." Tygra promised her. "We're getting that sword back."
Lion-O stepped through the portal, unsure what to expect on the other side. There were trials ahead of him- if he had to take a guess from the three he had completed already, the two ahead of him were Leopara and Tygra.
But which one first? What would their trials look like?
He took a deep breath and finally opened his eyes- whatever it was, he had to face it.
The elephant village sprawled out around him, lit only by the light of the three moons. They glinted on the lotus ponds around him. Across from the pond in front of him, Leopara was crouched at the water's edge, holding one of the pink blooms to admire. He half expected to see Snowmeow laying nearby as he did in life.
She looked so calm and relaxed, unlike the last time he saw her. Actually, she looked more relaxed than he'd seen her in weeks.
He missed seeing her like that.
"Are you just going to gawk?" she asked, looking up from her flower.
"Sorry. I was just… waiting." He rubbed the back of his head, embarrassed to be caught staring.
"For?"
He grimaced. "Well, the others all told me what the trial was…"
Leopara stood, still holding the flower. Water dripped from its stalk into the pond of water below. "I haven't been like the others though, have I?" she asked, cocking her head.
Lion-O thought carefully. "No… not really."
She smiled. "That's right. I challenged you when they silently followed. I learned to place my faith in you when they doubted. I defended you when they didn't." As she spoke, she circled around the pond with a smooth gait, skirt bouncing gracefully around her legs, to stand in front of you.
"You did and I'm grateful for that. You've been an amazing friend, Leopara." Lion-O replied cautiously. He didn't want to say too much when he didn't know what the trial was.
And… he had burdened her enough with his emotions in the physical world. He didn't want to burden her now.
"I'm not going to tell you what you have to do or where the key is. You'll have to figure that out for yourself." Leopara told him. "I'll be here, admiring the flowers."
Lion-O's jaw fell open and he stared at her in shock. She wasn't going to tell him what the trial was? He just… had to find the key?
"What's the catch?" he asked.
She smiled. "So you've learned something already~ you have to find the key before the last lotus dies." She held up the flower in her hand. And then, while making eye contact with him, blew on it with a gust of wind. The petals whirled in the wind while the heart of the flower crumpled like ashes in her hand. Its stalk withered and turned a dull, lifeless grey-brown, and slipped back under the pond's water. "Good luck, Lion-O."
His name snapped him back to reality.
"Whiskers."
How was he supposed to find the key? He had no idea where it was or what he was supposed to learn, or even how fast the lotuses died. Would Leopara be killing them all herself?
Lion-O knew enough to know he couldn't just jump into this- that hadn't gotten him nowhere with WilyKit and WilyKat, or Cheetara. He had to think about it a little.
What was the lesson?
WilyKit and WilyKat taught him to use his instincts and other senses. Cheetara taught him there was another way if he looked for it, but right now it seemed like there were infinite ways to move forward. Panthro reminded him that he was king. He was strongest when he was a leader.
He didn't know how much of a connection to their real counterparts the trials had. He couldn't see one between the twins and their lesson, but Cheetara and Panthro?
Cheetara had just told him that he always did things the hard way.
Panthro… Panthro was renowned for undying loyalty.
Those made sense, so maybe…?
Leopara… Leopara…
Wait, what was it that she had said to Tygra and Cheetara that morning? "I guess that's why I'm the advisor."
She always said she'd be by his side and tried to be a voice of reason, especially when he was being rash or reckless. That had to be it!
He had to seek out her advice!
"You'll wear a groove into the path pacing like that." she said, as if thinking about her had prompted her to speak. "You haven't looked anywhere yet." She looked down at a lotus that was shedding its petals one by one. "You should hurry."
"Well, where do you think I should look, Leopara? You know this trial better than me."
Leopara looked up at him. After a heartbeat, she smiled. "Have you looked in the hut?"
Lion-O groaned. Seriously? Then, he shook his head. "I'll check it out. Thanks."
"Of course, Lion-O." Leopara smiled at him. It was a soft, genuine smile. It made his gut twist. How hadn't he noticed how unhappy she was lately?
Lion-O took a deep breath. No time for that now, he had to beat these trials. If he didn't, Mumm-Ra would kill the others, including Leopara.
He jogged to the hut. In the physical world, it was completely destroyed when the Astral Plane collapsed. In front of him, it looked untouched.
He pulled open the heavy wooden door and glanced about, making sure to look up as well as down.
… nothing.
He frowned, stepping inside. "I must be missing something. Leopara wouldn't tell me to go to the hut for nothing." As he finished speaking, his foot scraped over a stone not all the way set in the floor. He crouched down to inspect it. It was a thin, flat stone. When he squinted, he could see something was scratched onto it. "Hello~" he purred, picking it up.
It wasn't the key- it was a clue!
It's left and bottom edge were perfectly flat and straight, but the right and top seemed broken. "Maybe there's more?" he wondered aloud. "Maybe I have to piece it all together?" He pushed the door open and walked out into the dim moonlit night. As he did, the scratches on the tablet changed shape. He stopped to watch it, growing more and more confused.
You've really given me a mystery, Leopara.
If he squinted, he thought he saw… a tree? And a large, rough circle silhouetted behind it.
He glanced up at Leopara in the distance- wait. The large tree. The largest moon was behind it. It was showing him where… something… was! He ran forward, following the path going through the pools, until he reached the base of the tree. "What else?" he asked, looking down at the tablet.
Lion-O furrowed his brow. There were more scratches. They looked like… they looked like him.
He didn't know how to interpret that.
He twisted around to look at Leopara. She was watching him. "There must be something around here." he reasoned aloud. He slid the tablet under his belt and started to look around, digging in the dirt around the tree's roots.
"What are you digging for?" Leopara called out.
"I don't know! Something. There's gotta be something."
"If there's something buried, don't you think it would have been easier to look for disturbed dirt?" she called out.
Lion-O stopped, feeling abruptly dumb. She was right. Of course she was right- he was doing things the hard way again. He stood, brushing himself off and clearing his throat. "Yeah." He took a deep breath and sighed. At least looking for disturbed dirt wouldn't take as long.
He circled around the front of the tree a couple times, frowning as he did. "I don't see any!" Maybe he messed it up by just digging without thinking?
"What made you so sure something was buried?" Leopara called back.
Lion-O paused. The tablet showed the tree, so something was around here, right? He assumed it was buried, but maybe it was up higher? He craned his head to look up, frowning. It would take forever to check the whole tree.
"I must be missing something."
He slid the tablet back out and looked at him, startling.
"I… I could have sworn it was showing a tree!" he gasped. He still saw a circle. Half of a circle, and it was… odd looking. Towards the center, he saw what looked like a lotus. A poorly scratched lotus.
He paced towards Leopara. "It changed! What does that mean?"
Leopara smiled. "What do you think it means?"
"Well, I… I thought I was supposed to find the key over there, but… wait, it's changing again. It's showing… me?" Lion-O asked, confused. It was definitely him, with his hair and armor. It was from somewhere low, angled up to look at him… rather like… Leopara was. He locked eyes with her, blinking. "Is this… is this showing what you're looking at?"
Leopara grinned. "There you go. I was wondering how long it would take you to figure it out."
"Do you know where the key is? Can you show me?" He asked desperately. All but three lotuses were dead, their petals covering the surface of the water.
She stood, brushing off her skirt. "Sometimes… all you need is a change of perspective, to try and see things the way others do." She gently grasped his hands. "If you can do that, you can find value in places you would never have thought of before."
Lion-O chewed on that for a moment. A change in perspective. See things the way she did.
See what she saw.
Lion-O's gaze fell towards the lotus pond. "I think I understand. You spend a lot of time watching and listening, but you don't just watch and listen to us." He leaned over, looking down at the pond. Carefully hidden in the petals of the lotus Leopara had been admiring, there was a golden glimmer.. "You take the time to appreciate everything around us, too." He crouched down and reached into the lotus. It's petals fell apart at his touch, but he had it. He had the key, and she had been admiring it the whole time. "There it is. I bet it's been there the whole time."
"It's important to pay attention to your surroundings. When you don't, you can miss something important."
He turned the key over in his hand to admire it while standing.
"Thank you." he said after a moment.
She smiled. "What are you waiting for? You only have one more trial."
I miss spending time with you like this.
"I'm just taking a moment to enjoy the night."
Her smile turned sad. "If you don't hurry now, you won't have any time to enjoy another."
"Right. Well…" he turned away and inserted the key into the air, then turned it. As the doorway crackled to life, he looked back at her. "Wish me luck?"
Leopara smiled and took a step closer to him. His brows knit as she placed her hand on his shoulder- his expression turned to shock when her lips, warm and soft, gently pressed against his cheek.
Her too? he thought, more confused than ever.
She withdrew her hand and took a step back, still smiling at him.
"Good luck, Lion-O."
Thank you for reading! I hope you all enjoyed the chapter~ Special thanks to The Night Whisperer, Heart of the Demons, and Frankannestein!
I had to do some serious shuffling of chapters 26, 27, and 28 to get them all to the length I wanted (at first it was two chapters because I wanted the trial to happen when Panthro's would, and for Panthro's to happen while the cats traveled, but that made Ch 28- 27 at the time- almost 5k without even finishing the episode. I thought that was a liiittle long and really, really wanted the episodes to be covered across three chapters. Also, the first two scenes were at the end of Chapter 26, making that 5.6k. Oof).