A/N: I clearly noticed that I haven't mentioned that this story is intentionally darker than the original series was. This trilogy is also a fan continuation of the original series, kinda like a series 3, 4 and 5, or 5, 6 and 7 (depending on how you code it.)

Key:

Flashback = Flashback (Obviously)

Dream = Dream

Time Passage =...

- (BORDER) - = perspective change

Anyway, chapter information:

Genres: Adventure and Drama

Warnings: Scenes of violence, adult themes, character death and explicit language.

Date started (Chapter): Thursday 4th June 2015

Date finished (Chapter): Monday 15th June 2015

Song/s: Immortals by Fall Out Boy

Chapter 13: Immortals

"LION-O!"

I duck and roll out of the way as Mumm-ra's beam soars towards me; it hits the wooden pole that Cheetara is tied to and ignites the ropes, freeing her.

"You should have learned when I beat you last time!" I growl as I stand up then walk towards the ancient devil priest "And now you're going to pay for what you've done!"

"I've heard that millions of times before, and I'm still here, Lord of the Thundercats! I am the everliving, but your time is up!" he snarls as he grabs my wrist, twisting my arm fiercely, leaving himself open to a counter attack.

I swiftly kick him in the abdomen, stunning him as he loosens his grip on me. I slip from him and give him another swift kick to his feet, knocking him over. I just leave him lying on the floor as I run up to Cheetara.

"I'm getting you outta here." I say as I sling her right arm around my shoulders and help her out of the door. She's barely even able to hold on, and I know that she's struggling to stay conscious. What did Mumm-ra do to her? The second we're out of the Pyramid, I see the Thundertank speeding towards us. I help Cheetara down onto the ground as I say "What did he do to you?"

"I...I was...dr...dru...drugged..." she pants as she leans forward, and I can tell that she's about to collapse.

"Cheetara, just hang on a little bit longer for me! We'll be home soon." I say, but she's already unconscious.

When the Thunderstrike lands, I hoist my unconscious wife up and carry her towards the waiting craft. "Lion-O, what the hell happened to Cheetara?" I hear Tygra say as he, Pumyra and Panthro run towards me.

"Mumm-ra kidnapped her from Cats' Lair, which he set ablaze. He drugged her." I say as the tiger takes my wife from my arms and caries her into the Thunderstrike.

"I don't like the looks of this," Sebastian says as I climb into the pod that he's in "She doesn't look like she's in the best condition. We'd better get back to your Cats' Lair as soon as possible."

I sit down and close the hatch as I say "I know. Mumm-ra's smarter than we could have ever bargained for. He somehow knew that Cheetara is pregnant, and he managed to use that to his advantage. The Lair was ablaze when I saw it using the Sword's power of sight beyond sight, and Bengali, Snarfer and the Thunderkittens were all bound and gagged, apart for Snarf, who was stunned."

...

I look up at Pumyra as she walks into my office and stop pacing back and forth from anxiety.

"How is she?"

"She'll be ok, but she's got Thundrainium poisoning."

"That isn't possible. There weren't any traces of Thundrainium when I was at the pyramid; I didn't feel weak."

"There was a high amount in her blood stream the last time I checked, implying that she was obviously injected with the stuff."

"But I thought that if we're injected with pure Thundrainium, it will kill us instantly."

"Remember that it happened to you, and you were really sick for the next few days."

"Is that going to happen to Cheetara? I couldn't move from my bed for three days because I felt like shit."

"You were pretty badly poisoned, but the levels in her blood aren't as high as they were with you."

"Great Jaga! I guess that that's kind of a relief...for the time being." I groan, and then I start pacing back and forth again, cursing angrily and only stopping when Pumyra says "She and the cub are going to be fine."

"How can you be so sure of that, Pumyra?"

"Trust me. She'll be absolutely fine. C'mon, I'll take you to see her." she says as I stop pacing again.

I follow her out of the door then down the corridor to the infirmary.

"Now, Caitlyn and her mother are also in there and are currently being treated for their injuries. Caitlyn only has a fractured radius and fleas, but her mother has serious injuries. Now, about Cheetara..." she says as she pushes the door open. I see my wife lying on the bed, wearing nothing but a hospital gown, her breathing ragged. I can feel the anxiety rising in my throat as I walk up to the bed and sit in the seat by Cheetara's side. Her skin and fur are pale and she's soaked with sweat, the two main signs of Thundrainium poisoning.

I take her right hand in mine and gently stoke the back of her hand as I subconsciously place my other hand on her slightly swollen stomach. I can't believe that she's carrying a cub; my cub.

"She's nearly two months through; she's due in November. When she's 20 weeks gestation, you'll be able to learn what gender the cub will be. Not to mention that she'll also be able to feel him, or her, moving." Pumyra says as Cheetara groans in her sleep "You can sleep in here for tonight incase she wakes up."

- (BORDER) -

I groan as I open my eyes. My body is sore and I feel so weak. I try to sit up, but a soft voice that I recognise as Pumyra's says "You've got to stay lying down, Cheetara. You can't get up yet. Try to get some rest."

My eyes start to focus and I see that I'm lying in the infirmary. I can see a pumiger cub and a female puma lying on one of the beds, and I can see my husband lying in the next bed to me, his back to me, with Snarf curled up at his feet.

"Is he ok?" I ask worriedly as I start to fear that he was wounded.

"Yeah. He's perfectly fine. He's been lying there since eleven at night, and I think he's fallen asleep. I know for sure that Snarf is asleep. It's three in the morning now." Pumyra says as Lion-O rolls over then starts snoring. Loudly.

"Jeez," she laughs as she checks my vitals "I don't know how you can sleep in the same room as him. He snores like the Thundertank!"

"Ah well, you learn to live with it eventually."

"I'm surprised that you even manage to get any sleep. He really sounds like a blocked drain."

"Trust me, it's worse when he breathes in your face in the morning. Half of the time, his breath smells like fish."

"I can imagine that..."

She laughs slightly as the young lion rolls over and nearly falls clean off of the bed. "It's hard to think that he's mentally 10 years younger than he actually is. It's easy to forget because of how mature he is now." I say as he stirs slightly. He rolls onto his back before waking up fully, stretching as he yawns.

"Jeez...what's going on? Who left the lights on?" he mumbles groggily as he knuckles the sleep from his eyes before rolling over and falling off of the bed, making both me and Pumyra laugh as he gets back up again. "Well, thanks a lot, you two! You could have woke me up! Now I've gone and missed half of my shift, meaning that Tygra's going to be pissed when I get to the Control Room!" he says as he walks towards the door, but he stops at the end of my bed and says "It's nice to see you awake again. You'd been given shots of Thundrainium by Mumm-ra to knock you out, but it didn't work; it poisoned you."

Pumyra throws a warning shot at him then says "I wasn't going to tell her that until she was better!"

He blushes slightly as he runs a hand through his scruffy mane. "Well...I didn't know about that...so how do you expect me to not tell her?" he says as he starts to walk towards the door again, then he disappears into the darkness of the corridor. Snarf stirs then yawns, stretching as he digs his claws into the blankets. "Sneyarf, Sneyarf! Reowr, what a night!" he says as he jumps off of the bed, and the second he clocks me, he walks up to me and stands on his tail as he smiles at me. "It's nice to see that you're ok, Cheetara. Lion-O's been worried sick, poor boy. I can tell that he's gone to finish his shift. Well, he's a bit late for that. Either way, how do you feel?"

"Well, a bit better than I did when we got out of the Pyramid. One thing's for sure, though; we aren't as safe as we were in the past. Mumm-ra, the Mutants, and even the Lunataks have gotten smarter every time we fought them. They've finally found to learn from their mistakes, meaning that we need to up our defences if we want to survive, and for the generations of the future to survive."

Snarf purrs sadly as he says "And unless we can stop them soon, New Thundera will never be the perfect paradise that we always envisioned."

I sniff sadly as I recall on a conversation that me and Lion-O had one summer's night, before we came to New Thundera. Before we knew that the planet was reforming. Before our lives started to get crazier.

"Lion-O,"

The young lion turns around and watches me as I walk towards him. He's casually wearing nothing but his shorts, having taken off his shirt. "Hi, Cheetara," he says as he turns back to look out over the forest and countryside "It's a lovely, warm night tonight, isn't it?"

I sigh before standing next to him. "It would be even better if there weren't any damned mosquitoes. I'm being eaten alive, here." I say as I rub my right arm.

"It wouldn't be any better if we were still living on Thundera. It would be even hotter at this time of night, meaning that there'd be even more mosquitoes." he says as he turns to face me again.

"Y'know, I sometimes wonder whether there are still any Thunderian survivors out there in the stars, waiting to be told that there's a planet to call a permanent home." I say as I subconsciously cuddle up to the young lion. His clothes are damp, making me wonder exactly how long he's been out here. He slings an arm around my shoulders and pulls me towards him.

"I always think the exact same thing. There's absolutely no way that we're the only survivors of the catastrophe that destroyed Old Thundera. There were hundreds of escape pods, each carrying nearly two thousand Thunderians. The night after we rescued Pumyra, Bengali and Lynx-O from Fire Rock Mountain, I had a private talk with Lynx-O. He told me that there had been many more survivors. He told me that the Berbils that saved them also saved five others, who disappeared when the Berbils' ship crashed. He said that their names were Caspian, Lynxanna, Tigraie, D'mitry, and Casey. He told me that Casey was his wife, and Lynxanna was his daughter. Tigraie was just a few days old and her parents were supposedly killed when the first earthquake struck. They haven't been seen ever since."

He looks down at the wound on his chest that he received from Tygra after being struck in the chest by one of the tiger's fire bolts. I can remember that battle. Mumm-ra took control of the Sword of Omens and used it against us. Lion-O nearly killed Tygra and Bengali when Mumm-ra made him drink a potion that temporarily made him evil. The Sword started to control itself, but Tygra stopped him, nearly killing Lion-O in the process:

"Lion-O! Lion-O, don't!"

I watch as Lion-O struggles to let go of the Sword of Omens.

"I...I can't help it! It's frozen to my hands! I can't let go of it!" he cries as the Sword aims itself at Tygra and Bengali.

"Lion-O! Let go of the fucking sword!" Bengali screams as he struggles against the thick ropes holding him against the pole, the wood red with blood from his and Tygra's struggles.

"I CAN'T! HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO BLOODY TELL YOU?" Lion-O shouts as Mumm-ra continues to flood the Sword with ancient, evil magic. The blade of the mystic sword glows a deep shade of crimson, disturbingly similar to blood as Lion-O is dragged across the ground.

"Lion-O, you know that you can't control yourself. The evil desires in your heart are calling for you; they're overwhelming you." Mumm-ra taunts the young lion as he steps forward.

I can see Lion-O struggling against the effects of the potion that Mumm-ra forced down his throat. He seems to be fighting against the evil urges, but it doesn't stop him from walking towards the pair with the Sword of Omens brandished at the pair of bound tigers.

"Bengali, can you reach my whip?"

"I think so."

"Well, grab it, then!"

Bengali reaches for Tygra's whip then puts it into the Bengal tiger's hands, who turns it on our young lord...

"It still haunts you, doesn't it?" I ask the young lion as he turns to look at me.

He sighs heavily before saying "Not only that, but it's also because defeating the Mutants, the Lunataks and Mumm-ra means that we'll have to get bloody."

I feel my stomach churning at the thought of possibly having to kill some of our enemies.

"Well, let's hope that it never comes to that."

I sigh as Snarf jumps up on to my bed and curls up at my feet. "Well, I'd better leave you to get some sleep. You're going to need all of the rest that you can get." Pumyra says, then she walks out of the infirmary, switching the light off as she walks out.

I lie back on the soft pillows and find myself slowly falling asleep as the fatigue slowly takes over...only to be woken up what seems like milliseconds later by the alarms blaring at maximum volume.

Snarf wakes up in a shot and starts screaming in Thunderian, seconds before Lion-O comes running into the infirmary.

"What...What's going on?" I cry as he runs up to me.

"Mutants! They've got into Cats' Lair! You've got to hide somewhere. If Rataro finds you, god knows what he'll do with you." he says as he looks at me in the eyes "He's already done so much to you all," he looks at Caitlyn and her mother as he continues "It's 4a.m, which makes this one hell of a wakeup call, but you've all got to hide where they won't find you!"

He kisses me as I say "Just be safe. Don't let him get the upper hand of you. Good luck."

He smiles slightly as he says "Don't you worry, my love. I'll stay safe, Cheetara. And if he does anything to you..." he clenches his right hand into a fist as he growls "I'll make that bastard pay!"

...

I can hear voices shouting and the clash of steel upon steel, as well as the sounds of laser fire. Plus, I can hear Lion-O shouting orders from downstairs.

My heart pounds in my chest as I hear footsteps approaching at a fast rate. I press myself as far under the bed as I can, trying to calm down as Rataro stops before me, unknowing to the fact that I'm mere inches away from him.

"Come on out, Cheetara! Don't turn this into a game! I know that you're in here somewhere!" his harsh, grainy voice calls as he slowly walks away, checking the whole room.

I dare let my breath go and give a silent sigh of relief...

"GOTCHA!"

I scream as the mutant rat roughly seizes my ankles and drags me out from under the bed. He presses me against the mattress as he snarls "Oh, I'm going to have so much fun with you, she-cat!"

I shudder at the tone of his voice and scream "Lion-O! HELP!"

Rataro laughs cruelly before saying "Your precious husband is dead, you bitch!"

He drags a claw up my face then winds a lock of my mane around his finger.

"I never realized exactly how beautiful you are, Thundercat. You're coming with me to Plun-darr. If you're lucky, your master will treat you royally." He says in a voice that makes me feel sick.

He laughs like the sadistic bastard that he is, then suddenly stops with a gasp of pain. He looks as if he's been frozen, but he starts coughing violently; thick, sticky red blood spurts from his mouth as he chokes. He's pulled away, and I see that the blade of the Sword of Omens is sticking out of his chest, blood pumping from the wound as he falls to the floor.

I look up and see Lion-O standing above the mutant rat, looking horrified at what he's done. He puts a foot on the rat's chest then pulls the blade from his chest. As the young lion cleans the blood from the Sword's blade, Rataro says, with his dying breath "Why turn your back on your wretched code...Lion-O?"

"The exception is when a Thundercat's life is threatened, Mutant!" Lion-O snarls, then he drives the Sword of Omens through the rat's abdomen.

The mutant warlord dies in a pool of blood. I watch as frothy blood spurts from his mouth and onto his chest as he twitches. His eyes are glazed, and his skin is a pale shade of blue from asphyxiation.

"Lion-O! Why'd you kill him?" I say as he grabs the mutant's body before dragging it to the door, where the other Thundercats and Sebastian are standing, all wearing the same look of horror on their faces.

"I...I...He...He was threatening you! I was...I was just...just defending you!" the young lion says as he drops Rataro's body to the floor, but nobody responds to him. Sebastian looks distressed, and even I feel sick to my stomach from the scent of blood. Rataro was right; killing is wrong.

- (BORDER) -

What the bloody hell was I thinking? I've committed a crime to my people. Rataro might have been one of our old enemies, but I shouldn't have lost my temper with him so quickly. I was blinded with rage, and my heart told me to act before he harmed Cheetara. What I did is unacceptable. To me, to the other Thundercats, and to Sebastian. Oh Gods of Thundera! Sebastian! I've got to apologize to him for killing one of his people, even if he wasn't following Rataro.

"Lion-O, can I come in for a second? I need to talk to you in private for a minute."

I'm so deep in my thoughts that when Sebastian knocks on my door, he makes me jump. I run to the door and open it as I say "Y...Yes! Just...next time...don't knock the door so hard! Come in, then!"

The Wolfman walks in, his long tail swishing behind him, catching the many papers on my desk and sending them flying as he turns around, knocking the vase off of my desk. "Jeez! Be careful! That thing was expensive, you know!" I snap as I catch it then put it back on my desk before cleaning the dust off of it with my hand "Listen, I know that I'm probably the last person who you're going to want to see, but why do you need to talk to me?"

"I have a confession to make..."

I look at Sebastian as he looks down at his feet. I cross my arms over my chest as I say "Well?"

"Lion-O, I never meant to come off on the wrong side, but I haven't exactly been on your side for the entire duration of my time here at Cats' Lair."

I growl slightly then snarl "What do you mean?"

"Well, it's rather hard to explain, but as I said, I'm a Plun-darrian spy..."

"You've been spying on us?"

"Yeah. And this time, it's not my fault. I was sent here by Mumm-ra, and he threatened to kill my mate and my pups if I told anyone."

"How do I know that you aren't lying to me like you have been for the past god knows how long you've been here!"

"Lion-O, please, have mercy on me! If I didn't do this, then Mumm-ra would have killed my mate and my pups! They're on Plun-darr, starving because they don't have any food on their plates. That's the thing! They rely on me to get them food. My mate is too sick to work, and my eldest is employed by a landowner to make clothes for what equates to one Thunderian halfpenny a day! If you kill me, how can they live? I'm their lifeline!"

"You should have thought about that before you sided with Mumm-ra!" I snarl as I grab him by the back of his shirt and drag him out of my office "You're going back where you belong!"

I drag him down the corridor towards the stairs and continue to pull him after me as I walk towards the main doors as Sebastian pleads and begs, but it falls on deaf ears.

"Lion-O, what's going on?"

I turn around as I see the other Thundercats standing behind me, all looking confused.

Wilykit steps forward and asks "What are you doing to Sebastian? Why are you throwing him out? We like him! He's nice!"

"He's a vile, mutinous traitor! He's been spying on us and selling the information to Mumm-ra!"

"No I haven't!"

I kick Sebastian in the shin, making him cry out in pain, then I say "And he's going back to the prison to await charges!"

"Lion-O, please! Have mercy! As I told you, it's only because of the fact that Mumm-ra threatened to have my wife and my pups killed!"

"Lion-O, let him have a second chance! As he said, he was forced into it by Mumm-ra!"

I look at the Wolfman then scowl, but I can't face the thought of him losing his wife and children because of me. I let him go and say "Ok, this is your second and last chance. No more spying, no more eavesdropping, either!"

The Wolfman nods then says "Is there anything that I can do to thank you?"

"No. And I'm sorry. I shouldn't have cut to a solution so quickly."

"It's ok. I shouldn't have followed Mumm-ra's orders. He doesn't even know where my wife is."

I sigh, then start to walk back to my office. What a start to a supposed-to-be normal day. I just hope that there aren't going to be any more surprises.

Next time on Thundercats:

Trouble arises when the High Plun-darrian council demand an audience with Lion-O , months after Rataro's gruesome death. But as the due date of Cheetara and Lion-O's cub draws nearer, the Lair becomes a hive of activity as the Thundercats and the whole of New Thundera prepare to meet the new prince or princess. Will everything go smoothly, or will Lion-O collapse under the immense stress of his new life as a father?

Find out in the next chapter of Thundercats: Wake Up!