From the Past of Third Earth, Part Two:

Lost Prince, Chapter Two

Wily Kit and Wily Kat were playing an elaborate form of patty-cake by the time the messenger came back, both of them having long since run out of ideas to try and get responses from the two guards at the gate. The messenger, rather than say anything to the twins, opted to give the written orders to one of the guards. "So… did he say if it was okay to let us in?" Kat asked, freezing in mid-slap to watch the guard read the slip of paper.

The guard sniffed indignantly, crumbling the paper in his hand before glaring at the two of them. "King Tork says you are allowed into the kingdom to make your purchases, but only until the sun sets."

Kit glanced up at the sky. "Five hours then. We should be done long before that."

"As for the price he insists upon," the guard cracked an evil smile, "he says blow jobs from both of you can be considered appropriate payment—"

Wily Kat felt his body seize up in horror as his lungs attempted unsuccessfully to intake enough air for a protest. He did not want to see his sister in any sexual situation.

"—or you can leave all of your weaponry with us and collect them upon your departure."

"You can totally have our weapons," Kat insisted before his sister could open her mouth. Without a moment's hesitation, he immediately handed over his lariat and pellets. "You can even hold onto our spaceboards as well; after all, you wouldn't want us accidentally smacking someone in the head with them."

Kit rolled her eyes as she, too, handed over her lariat and pellets to the second guard. "See you guys before the sun sets," she told them as they walked passed and entered the kingdom. "Don't have too much fun with the boards, they've gotten twitchy from overuse!"

They followed the solid rock path without deviation, soon coming across a small town with an equally small marketplace. Even though the twins acted as if it were perfectly normal for them to be here, it was all too easy to see the inhabitants were extremely nervous around them. "I just realized," Kat whispered to his sister, pretending to count out moongems into her waiting hand, "it's going to be hard for us to check the radar without looking suspicious."

"Don't worry," she told him with a smile, "I've got it covered."

She headed straight for a small booth offering whole cooked animals and proceeded to bargain on an acceptable price for four small birds and a rumpa. Taking his cue from her, he stepped over towards another seller offering loaves of bread. Before long, the two of them had their backpacks full and were each carrying an additional bag of fruit and vegetables.

"Ah, you two!"

Kat glanced up in surprise, not immediately recognizing the young Rock Man who addressed them. Luckily, however, his sister did. "Why, hello there Prince Pek!"

"I'm surprised you were allowed into the kingdom," he told them, reaching out to shake their hands in a friendly manner. "My father is very strict on preventing another misunderstanding."

"We asked to stop by long enough to get some supplies as this was the closest place. Both the Berbil village and the Lair would've taken us way off course if we'd had to go back there for food."

"On a mission are we?"

"In a manner of speaking," Kat answered. "We're looking for the friends of a friend."

The young man's eyes lit up. "Oh? I assume it's the pink-haired woman your spotted acquaintance was asking about last year."

"Yeah, she finally regained most of her memories. Now we're just trying to reassure her that her comrades are alright, too."

"Are we having any success?"

The twins glanced at each other. "Not really, no. We keep coming up empty handed."

Pek considered what they'd said for a moment. "Well, if you don't mind giving me some of your time, I might be able to help you."

"That would be nice." Kit glanced up at the sky. "Hopefully it won't take long, though. We were told to leave before sunset, so we've only got a few more hours."

"I should hope it won't. Follow me." They did as he requested, glancing around only a little as he led them down several side streets and into a residential kind of area before stopping at one of the larger stone huts. Gesturing for them to stay put, he entered the hut alone, disappearing into the darkness in seconds.

"This should prove interesting." She stuck an apple in her mouth and rummaged around in her backpack while they waited for the old man to return. "Here, Kat." Handing him a leg of bird, she whispered, "We might've lucked out. Our blips look like they're in the house here!"

He gnawed on the meat, enjoying the flavor even if it was a little chewier than he liked. "And if we're not, we'll be told to leave before we can so much as say, 'Pretty please'." He pondered the odd situation for a moment. "Do you think it's the pair of strangers the prince mentioned to Cheetara last year?"

"Your guess is as good as mine at this point."

Before too long, Pek returned, smiling pleasantly at them. "My two guests will meet with you; however, I have some strict requests they would like you to adhere to. They're somewhat xenophobic, and you are offworlders."

"We'll comply if we're able to," Kit told him, "but I'm not killing anyone just to meet some strangers."

"Nothing that extreme. They merely wish for you to stay on the opposite side of the room from them, and if you want to hand them anything, you need to give it to me to bring to them. They also reserve the right to flee if they feel threatened."

"We should be able to oblige," Kat agreed after glancing at his sister. "We're not armed, anyway; we left all our weapons with the guards at the front gate."

The prince smiled. "Then if you wouldn't mind stepping inside…."

They didn't have far to go; they'd barely stepped through the doorway before stopping in their tracks. Pek's visitors were standing on the opposite side of the room, clutching each other's hands tightly and standing so close together they almost looked like they were joined at the hip. The taller of the two appeared to be a young man with bright blue hair, his slender frame fit snuggly inside an athletic outfit in shades of blue and white, barely visible under his traveling cloak. The shorter was a thin and wiry woman, long emerald and mint-green hair tightly braided into long pigtails, and under her own cloak wore a short-skirted dress dyed in various hues of green. The lovers—they were way too close to be "just friends"—whispered to each other briefly before turning to face the twins.

The prince waved towards Kit and Kat as he looked at his visitors. "They've agreed to your terms; these are the youngest Thundercats, Wily Kit and Wily Kat. Thundercats, allow me to introduce you to Buddy Blue and Patty O'Green."

Patty seemed more suspicious of the twins than her lover, but nonetheless it was she who continued the conversation, holding out a holo-image of MoonGlo happily running down the stairs at the Lair. "Where did you find MoonGlo?" she asked sternly, her freckled face scrunching up with dislike. "We spent millennia looking for her."

"It wasn't actually us," Wily Kit replied, her tone soft and gentle to try and put the pair at ease. Her brother watched the holo-image with some mild amusement, having forgotten precisely how tiny MoonGlo's waist had been at first. "It was our leader, Lion-O, who found her and freed her. Mumm-Ra had quite literally buried her deep inside the planet before First Earth ended, and Lion-O stumbled across her while mining Thundrilliam for Cats' Lair last year."

Patty looked at Buddy in horror. "Oh, Buddy…it never occurred to us to look below the surface for anyone…."

"Is she okay?" Buddy inquired, his voice a surprisingly deep baritone for his size. "She didn't—um—"

"Lose her mind?" Kit shook her head. "No, she managed to fend it off by concentrating solely on a myriad of ways to escape; she'd manage to break three of her chains on her own before Lion-O found her. She did have difficulty remembering anything for a while, and was quite sick for at least a couple of weeks after we brought her back to the Lair, but she's long since made a full recovery and… oh, how to put it… um…."

"She gets along very well with Lion-O," Kat finished for his sister as she started to stumble over her words. At the confused expressions of the pair, he clarified, "She's nine months pregnant with their first cub."

The couple looked legitimately astonished. "She's having a baby?" Patty looked at Buddy, who merely shrugged. "We've never even managed that, how did she?"

"Trust me, I doubt you're as surprised as we were. Thunderians aren't known for being able to interbreed with alien species, unlike the mutants of Plun-Darr. It was quite a shock when we got the news." On a hunch, he pulled a video communicator from his backpack. "Would you like us to contact the Lair so you can speak to MoonGlo directly? That way you can confirm for yourselves it's really her and ascertain she's doing alright."

Patty seemed to shrink uncertainly into herself, but Buddy smiled slightly at the twins. "That would be wonderful."

"By Jaga, I hope something happens soon," Cheetara sighed, folding her arms on the control board and leaning her head against her them. "I hate it when there's nothing to do."

"The most I can offer is a potential kitten-sitting job," Lion-O told her apologetically, clicking through the camera angles to see if anything unusual was outside the Lair. "Assuming the cub decides to make an appearance, that is."

"One, I don't do diapers. Two, the cub will come soon enough." She shifted herself, looking very much as if she wanted to take a nap. "Still nervous?"

He felt a flash of anxiety shoot down his spine at her simple question. "I think 'nervous' isn't a strong enough word for it. I keep thinking of everything which could go wrong, everything I could do wrong—and that's just my concern for MoonGlo, let alone the cub! A month after it's arrived I'll probably have convinced myself I'm insane."

"No. By that point you'll be wistfully dreaming of a full night's sleep."

He smiled slightly, mildly amused at her lack of concern. "So I heard." He glanced over at her. "Speaking of, you don't look like you've had a full night's sleep for a while already."

"No, the nightmares have been keeping me up. When there's nothing to do, I can't work myself into a dead-tired state, and that's when dreams mixed with Thundera's destruction decide to come crashing down on me." She twisted her head so she could stare longingly at the screens. "I suppose if nothing else happens before bedtime I can get an anesthetic from Pumyra. I'll feel like crap the next day, but at least the sleep will be dreamless."

He frowned; he'd only had to suffer through one of Pumyra's tranquilizers once, and he'd decided a sleepless night was preferable to the total darkness of drugged unconsciousness. "My nightmares can get frightening, but I'm guessing your dreams are really dreadful if her sedatives are looking attractive."

She smiled sadly at him. "I lost my whole family when Thundera was destroyed; my parents, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, all my nieces and nephews… I'm the only one left. It's a horrifying realization to wake up to in the middle of the night after dreaming of the feather meadows and singing rains being annihilated. Even Pumyra's drugs seem wonderful after that, rotten side effects and all."

"Well, when you put it that way—" He turned around at the sound of the door opening, jumping to his feet when he saw who came in. "MoonGlo! Shouldn't you be lying down?"

"I got sick of staring at a blank wall," his mate answered as she walked into the room, carrying three glasses of Snarf's homemade tea. Even with her bulging belly, she still looked beautiful to him with her long pink hair, sleepy blue eyes, and lengthy limbs. Rather than wear her usual outfit, she'd opted for a stretchy blue tube-dress starting just above her breasts and stopping mid-thigh. How she was able to still move around in those heels, though, he had no idea. "I can do some things around here," she continued, handing him a glass. "I'm only pregnant, not an invalid."

"Doesn't matter," Cheetara told her without moving as the young woman placed a glass next to her. "You're carrying the first cub we've seen in years, we're entitled to fuss over you all we want. Come sit down, Lion-O's been keeping the seat warm for you."

"I'm still concerned for you, my Star," he told MoonGlo, putting down his glass without tasting the drink and taking her hand to help her sit. "Can't I show it?"

"No," she replied facetiously, holding her own glass close to her face as she sat in his abandoned seat. "I don't like you anymore, you did this to me."

"Oh, don't give me that," he quipped back with a smirk, "the cub didn't happen in a vacuum. I had help."

"I do recollect helping." She put her free hand on top of her abdomen, adding, "Though maybe I wouldn't if I'd known I'd end up in this state. My insides rearranged themselves, I'm often uncomfortable and hot, my back hurts, I'm constantly tired, the baby enjoys dancing on my bladder when he or she isn't kicking my ribs—" She suddenly winced as a lump appeared briefly on her belly. Frowning, she pressed against the lump with her hand. "Oh, stop that!"

"Would it help if I told you I still think you're sexy?" Lion-O asked her, quickly crouching beside her and gently placing his hand over hers.

She blinked in surprise at him as Cheetara smothered her laughter in her arms. "I'm just going to have to take your word for it, Thundercat Lord."

An idea popped into his head as he felt a slight bump against his fingers. "How about an gift for the cub? I'm sure I could dig up a toy—"

"I told Snarf you still had Doofle stashed somewhere," the cheetah interrupted. "He didn't believe me."

He felt his face grow hot from embarrassment. "I didn't say it was Doofle."

"You don't have to. You were still sleeping with that bear when you were twelve, I knew you'd never throw it out."

He glanced up at MoonGlo, smiling when he realized she was trying very hard not to laugh. Feeling a little less mortified, he stated, "I think you can attest to the fact I don't sleep with stuffed animals, my Star."

"I know," she spluttered, still trying not to laugh. "But… Doofle?"

He was quick to answer her. "Snarf named him."

"That's not what I heard," Cheetara teased. "From what I understand, you were two-years-old when you stubbornly insisted on its name."

Before he could reply, one of the indicators on the control panel lit up and a familiar beeping rang through the room. He stood, momentarily concerned. "That's Wily Kat trying to contact us."

Cheetara sat up and stretched. "My sixth sense isn't bothered, Lion-O, I think he just wants to check in. Either that, or complain about the phantom blip on the tracker they're using. He keeps irritating Panthro about it."

Mollified, he reached out and pressed the necessary buttons to activate the video and audio. Wily Kat's face appeared on the screen in only a few moments. "Wily Kat to Cats' Lair, can you read me?"

"We've got you on visual," Cheetara replied firmly. "Are you able to see us?"

"Not—ah, there it goes." The young male grinned broadly. "And MoonGlo is already there, too! That's perfect. I'm just going to hand this over to someone, if you don't mind giving them a moment—"

MoonGlo glanced up at Lion-O in confusion. "Why would he want me to—" Two completely different faces appeared on the screen, and her reaction was almost immediate. "Patty!" she yelped in shock, trying to leap out of the chair unsuccessfully. Lion-O quickly grabbed her hand to steady her as she almost lost her balance. "Buddy! You're alright!"

The female with green hair smiled in relief, tears streaming down her face suddenly. "MoonGlo, it is you! We weren't sure, especially after all this time—we tried looking for you and the others, and failing that we attempted to track down the Sphere of Light—"

"I got caught trying to rescue Rainbow Brite from Mumm-Ra's Pyramid," she told her friend. "He's still furious with me for evading him as long as I did, even now."

"These two did tell us he'd trapped you far below the planet's surface."

The blue-haired man looked deeply concerned as Patty took a moment to compose herself. "Mumm-Ra knows you've escaped?"

MoonGlo glanced at Lion-O before replying. "Unfortunately, yes."

"He won't come after her anytime soon," Lion-O said firmly, hoping to reassure his mate's friends of her safety. "We learned how to handle him years ago, and he knows he'll have to get through the rest of us before he can get to her."

Buddy looked resigned as he sighed. "I suppose it can't be helped. I guess you're the Lion-O who saved her?"

"I think 'helped' might be a little more accurate, but otherwise yes."

Patty seemed to only just notice Cheetara. "And you must be the spotted lady who was looking for us last year."

The cheetah shrugged. "I was looking for answers, not necessarily you two in particular. I found them with your friends Indigo and Shy Violet." She raised her hands to forestall any inquiries. "They're fine, but under someone else's protection. Would you like us to start from the beginning, or are you fine with just asking specific questions?"

"It might be a good idea to start from the beginning."

"Please try to keep it brief," Wily Kit shouted from off-screen. "Kat and I have to be walking out of the Rock Men's realm before sunset or else King Tork will have our hides."

Tygra knocked gently on the infirmary door. "You can come in, Tygra," Pumyra called out from inside. As he stepped through the portal, she looked over her shoulder as she rummaged through her storage cabinet to ask blandly, "Let me guess: having trouble sleeping?"

"No, I'm here to check on Wisp." He was temporarily distracted by a movement near the back of the room. Wisp was sitting in a chair by the window, and had fully turned around to face him but not actually look at him. He felt sorry for her: a beautiful blond human with dark blue eyes, healthy, curvy, strong, but with a blank slate for a mind. He suspected the only reason her hair had even been pulled into a pigtail at the top of her head was an earlier visit from MoonGlo.

Sighing, he patiently walked over to her and sat in the chair opposite her. "Mumm-Ra must have done something to you," he muttered, reaching out to gently take her chin in his hand and study her face, taking in the smooth skin and odd lavender star tattooed on her left cheek. For a brief instant, her eyes seemed to focus on him, but he wasn't certain about it. "This isn't any form of mental trauma I've ever seen."

"Have you tried any of your illusions on her?" Pumyra asked him.

"A couple small ones. I've gotten bigger responses from rocks." He noticed her hesitate, as if she wanted to say something but wasn't sure if she dared. "I'm guessing you've tried a few medical tricks to see if you'd get a response?"

"A couple of hallucinogens," she admitted, pulling out a bottle and popping the top off to look inside it. "She's currently doing a wonderful imitation of her reactions to them, and one of those was a pretty powerful drug."

"In other words, no reaction whatsoever." He let go of Wisp's chin to take her hand, and as he'd thought, she immediately stood up and allowed him to lead her to the other side of the room. "We can't even classify her as comatose; she's capable of moving under her own power, we've seen her feed herself—"

"—she knows to use the toilet properly and even gets herself dressed," Pumyra added, putting the bottle away and taking out another one. "I came in this morning in time to see her pulling those pajamas on. If she were having monthlies, I wouldn't put it past her to deal with those properly, too. I agree with you: Mumm-Ra had to do something to her, but I'll be damned if I know what."

"And the only ones she seems to acknowledge to any degree are myself and MoonGlo." He pinched the bridge of his nose between his eyes in exasperation. "Maybe if we can figure out why that is—"

"It's been over a year. I seriously doubt we'll ever figure it out." Pumyra took Wisp's hand and led her to the bed; the young woman crawled into it, but instead of lying down, she sat in the center of the mattress and pulled her knees up to her face, wrapping her arms around her legs both lazily and childishly. "I feel like we've tried everything. Last night while you boys were working on your machine, Cheetara tried taking her to what're-their-names there—Violet and Indigo? Wisp had no reaction to them, and they have even less of an idea of what's wrong with her than we do."

"We still have at least one option: the sorcerer who's trapped inside the Sphere of Light might be able to see something the rest of us can't."

"Panthro has to get him out of the Sphere first."

"So, while you're fine, Rainbow Brite isn't," Patty said, looking quite miserable. "I wish Buddy and I had some sort of miracle cure to give you—"

"We'll figure it out eventually," Lion-O reassured them. "We've managed to solve worse situations than this."

Buddy sighed. "I hope so. At any rate, she's safer with you than she is with Mumm-Ra."

"Well, now you've heard what happened to Shy Violet, Indigo, and me," MoonGlo told them, "but what happened to you two?"

"Nothing special, not really. I don't know what happened between you trying to break Patty and I out of our comatose conditions and when we woke up; all I can say for certain is when I did wake up, in was in the middle of an underground catacomb, complete with hundreds of corpses. I nearly went insane trying to get out; I think the only reason I managed to keep my head was because I found Patty in there, too, but she was still unconscious. I picked her up and concentrated on nothing else but getting us both out of there. She only came to after I finally found a way out.

"For the next several centuries, we wandered from place to place, working what small jobs we could to get the money we needed to survive, trying to find everyone else, to come to terms with the reality we were slowly aging. When the Galra empire attacked… it was awful. I mean, we'd seen people die over the years, but nothing like the massacre that ensued during that war. It left a very, very bad impression of offworlders on us."

"The only peoples on Third Earth we stay in contact with are those rare few that existed before the fall of Second Earth, including the Rock Men here," Patty added. "They remember, even if only in legend, the horrors we saw. They understand our fear.

"After Second Earth fell, we mutually agreed the odds of anyone else having survived was too slim, and concentrated instead on trying to find the Sphere of Light. I'm sure you can guess how much luck we had." She smiled slightly. "It's kind of funny to think the sorcerer of the Kingdom of Lovely Locks had it; I'd be curious to ask him how he got ahold of it."

"According to him, Mumm-Ra has a tendency to misplace things," Cheetara answered. "It does sound right. We're constantly finding objects and people he'd thought forever lost."

"I hope you don't mind if I say this," Patty told them, "but I really hope you find our home dimension. I don't like it here in this universe."

Lion-O felt a sad smile cross his face. "We'll do all we can to get you home. We'd do the same ourselves if Thundera still existed."

"I suppose asking to stay in contact with you might be too much for you," Cheetara mused. "If we do find your dimension, how do you want us to tell you?"

"Tell Prince Pek," Buddy stated firmly. "His father's advisor knows how to get ahold of us. It would only take a few days."

When Stormy opened her eyes again, slowly coming back to her senses, it was to the relief of the pain ebbing away from her body. Looking up, her heart fluttered uncontrollably as she gazed up at that morbidly handsome visage. He's carrying me back to the treasure chambers, she thought, her heartbeat pounding a fast-paced rhythm against her chest. He became powerful just to carry me back to where I belong. Overtaken with emotion, she reached up, hoping to be allowed to touch his face. "Master—"

He dumped her ingloriously on the floor of her assigned rooms. The bruises the stone would no doubt leave against her skin were nothing compared to the agony of the curse he'd put upon her, and secretly delighted—him wasting his powerful form for her meant one thing—she scrambled to her knees and bowed before his might. "You," he said, his tone deep and brimming with accusation, "let them escape."

Only through millennia of practice was she able to withhold any immediate reactions, remaining frozen on the floor before him. Which escape is he talking about? she pondered, quickly running through every memory she had of someone breaking into the Pyramid that she'd chased down for him. There were very few who had gotten away. Does he mean MoonGlo getting Tickled Pink out? Shy Violet and Indigo stealing the Sphere of Light? The three separate times Rainbow Brite managed to escape on her own, only for us to recapture her every time? Or last year when MoonGlo successfully got out of here with that tiger carrying Rainbow? "I don't understand, Master," she replied, hoping he might offer more information.

"Look at me, Slave."

She obeyed, bracing herself for what was to come. As expected, he backhanded her without a moment's hesitation; his strength knocked her to the floor, a move which would no doubt add to the growing number of bruises she would be nursing later. "What have I done, Master?" she begged, pushing herself up. "Please tell me."

He glared down at her, crossing his arms. "You let MoonGlo and Tygra escape with Rainbow Brite."

She winced, more for his benefit than for hers. "Yes…."

"It's taken me over a year to put my sarcophagus back together and regain my strength from that ordeal," he chastised her. "More than an entire year! The amount of time it takes for this planet to rotate around the sun! Wasted, all because of you!"

She bowed her head, ashamed. "I'm sorry, Master…."

"It's through sheer luck alone I thought to give the remedy for Rainbow Brite's condition to one who'll hold onto it for eternity! As long as the Thundercats have no idea what I did to her, she'll continue to be a vegetable taking up space in their Lair."

Unsure of where he was going with this, she remained quiet rather than risk further wrath from him.

"But MoonGlo—MoonGlo! Of all the things that tramp could've managed, she had to go and get herself knocked up by the Lord of the Thundercats! How she regained her powers while playing slut to the cub is beyond my understanding; as soon as she spread her legs open for him, that should've been the end of her control of the night sky!"

She continued to let him rant, keeping her thoughts to herself. Or, she pondered, MoonGlo figured out what her true nature is to regain those powers… just as I regained mine when I figured out what my true nature is. She surreptitiously peeked through her lashes to look up at him, admiring the way he paced back and forth and brandished his fists. Not that I would let you know, Master. You have enough control over me as it is.

"And Tygra—well, he's just a pain in the neck, like the other Thundercats. Much as I hate to admit it, he was probably destined to escape anyway. He usually does."

Hoping his tirade was nearing its end, she looked up at him once more. Seeing his glowering expression aimed directly at her, however, made her realize her mistake. "Master—"

"WHY?!" he screamed down at her. "WHY DID YOU LET THEM ESCAPE?!"

She stared back at him in sudden fear, her jaw clamping shut in terrified defiance. No. No, I will not tell you that! I will not reveal the illusion the tiger showed me! NO!

"Answer me, Slave," he threatened, "or you will regret this day more than when you sold yourself to me!"

Despite her intentions, she couldn't hold back her feelings. Throwing herself at him, she grasped tightly onto his leg, shrieking at the top of her lungs, "No, I won't let you replace me with that pink-haired pussy! She can't have you! You're my Master, mine, MINE!" She wasn't entirely certain what kind of a response she'd get from him; this was the most open she'd ever been around him. So, when he started chuckling, legitimately amused at her outburst, she continued to embrace his leg, blinking up at him in bafflement.

In a rare show of affection, he reached down and gently petted her head, just as if she were a pet. "Well, well—my little Slave, jealous her Master would choose someone else over her! I didn't know you cared so much about me!"

He was mocking her, but the words still filled her with warmth even as they stung her painfully. Unable to help herself, tears slipped from her eyes. I will do whatever you want, Master, she thought at him, closing her eyes, degrade myself in whatever manner you choose, as long as you never leave me.

"There's no need to worry about being replaced, Slave," he continued, proudly standing up straight as he crossed his arms again. "I wouldn't dream of touching someone else's leftovers; all that whining of, 'but so-and-so does this or that so much better,' would get on my nerves in a matter of seconds. Besides, I'm far more fond of a woman who knows her place in my Pyramid."

Recognizing the turn the conversation was taking, she finally released his limb and bowed down before him once more. "I am yours to do with as you wish, Master."

Notes:

1. Yes, Lion-O's teddy bear's name is Doofle-thank you, comic books!