Path Into the Darkness

Part Six: WilyKit

Chapter Four: Tense Homecoming

**New Thundera**

Tygra sat alone at the circular table in New Cat’s Lair’s council room, scribbling notes onto a pad with a worn pencil while he carefully studied a passage in an arcane text, one of many that were spread out in a disorganized fashion on the tabletop in his immediate vicinity.  Cheetara stepped into the room, dimly lit now that the outside daylight was fading and he had not bothered to switch on extra lights, and turned on the overhead lamp above the table.  Startled, Tygra blinked and looked up at his visitor.  “Oh, hello Cheetara,” he greeted her before returning his attention to his work.

 

“Hi Tygra,” Cheetara answered, and sat in the chair beside him at the table.  “What have you been working on in here for all this time?”

 

“All this time?” Tygra repeated questioningly.

 

The cheetah nodded back to him.  “You’ve been in here since we finished breakfast and it’s nearly dinnertime now.  You spent a good part of yesterday in here too.  What have you been working on?” she asked curiously.

 

“Not so much working on anything as I’ve been learning about it,” the tiger replied, stretching in his seat.  Now that Cheetara had brought his attention to the amount of time he had spent in there in the same position, he could feel it in his muscles.  “I’ve been studying the texts and interpretations of the Ancients’ Star Scrolls,” he told her.

 

Cheetara blinked in surprise.  “You’ve been reading up on astrology?”

 

“Yes, why?”

 

“It just surprises me, that’s all,” the other Thundercat answered.  “You have to admit that studying lore commonly regarded as superstition these days is a little unexpected from a logical architect like you,” she said with a smile.  “Is there any particular reason you’ve been so interested it?”

 

“I’ve been looking for answers,” Tygra replied solemnly.

 

“Answers to what?” Cheetara inquired.

 

The tiger met her gaze seriously.  “What the Birth Hour of Darkness means.”

 

“WilyKit—the twins,” Cheetara guessed, and Tygra confirmed her statement with a silent nod.  Cheetara laid a sympathetic hand on his striped forearm and met his gaze.  “I’ve been worried about them too.  We all have,” she continued.  “It’s been almost two days since we’ve been able to get a clear transmission over to the Third Moon of Plundarr to find out how WilyKit and the others are doing.  It’s almost like the signal is reaching out to something that simply isn’t there.”

 

“I know, and I don’t like it at all,” Tygra said softly, casting a momentary glance at the notepad in front of him.  “I’m sure Ambassador Lushara is distressed by this news too.  Those are her people that are out of touch.”

 

Cheetara nodded.  “She hasn’t said much about it personally—I think she’s a bit more introverted than Ambassador Chamela—but I know she’s been asking for status reports on the communications to the Third Moon pretty regularly.”

 

“What about your sixth sense?  Have you had any luck with that, or Lion-O with Sight Beyond Sight yet?”

 

The cheetah shook her head in a negative.  “So far my sixth sense hasn’t told me anything concrete, and what it does suggest I almost wish it didn’t.  It gives me this terrible feeling that WilyKit is suffering intensely, and that wherever she is, she’s beyond our reach,” she told Tygra sadly.  “And when Lion-O looked with the Sword of Omens, all he could make out was her figure somewhere outside—it must have been nighttime, because he said it was dark all around her—screaming in agony.  When he asked it to show him more, it went blank.”

 

Tygra frowned and set his pencil down.  “How is Lion-O doing?  Last I spoke with him, he was very terse and distant.  I take it he’s still angry?”

 

“Not so much angry as he is hurt, I think, but yes,” Cheetara confirmed with a sad look in her amber eyes.  “I also think our inability to reach the twins is compounding his emotional stress at this point.”

 

“But you’re his wife, Cheetara,” Tygra said softly.  “Hasn’t he opened up to you about it at all yet?”

 

“No.  He’s barely speaking to me, aside from Thundercat business and where Chet is concerned,” she confided in Tygra in a low tone.  “He’s still sleeping in guest quarters, and when I approach him he just says that he wants to forget about it and not talk about it.”  Cheetara looked away for a moment, glancing out the window wistfully.  “There’s no point in forcing him to talk about it when he obviously doesn’t want to, or I’m just going to wind up alienating him further.  Especially when we do have more pressing issues to worry about, like the twins, Snarfer, and Leonora,” she finished with a sigh.

 

“Which we can’t do anything about without knowing where they are or how to reach them,” Tygra added with a frown.  “So what should we do now?”

 

The edgy Cheetara tapped her fingertips on the edge of one of the books in front of Tygra as she answered.  “Panthro said that if he doesn’t hear from the MoonTower by tomorrow morning that he and Bengali will take the Feliner I to the Third Moon of Plundarr to investigate it firsthand.  Lion-O agreed to that so the plan is set.  That’s what I came in here to tell you, actually.”

 

Tygra let out a low and tired laugh.  “And you came in here to find me sitting around reading about the stars,” he said, shaking his head.  “I’m sorry, Cheetara.  I should have been there with the rest of you.”

 

“We’re all dealing with this in different ways, Tygra,” the cheetah replied with a reassuring smile.  “I know you would have been there if we really needed you.”  She glanced down at the book her fingers rested on.  “Did you find what you were looking for?”

 

“I located the twins’ birth records, and with them was a star chart drawn by the Thundercat Sibera shortly after they were born.  It’s actually quite helpful as I really don’t know enough about it to draw a chart myself, but with what I have here and some of what I’ve read in these texts I’ve been able to interpret it to a degree.  I’ve also read a lot about the Birth Hour of Darkness in general.”

 

“What’s so important about it?” Cheetara inquired.  “I thought the hours of birth and what they meant were for the most part superstition from the mists of antiquity.”

 

“I used to think that too, until I remembered what Sibera said all those years ago when Grune left the Thundercats, and when Snarfer told us about WilyKit and her pregnancy and the Lunatac responsible for it.  The parallels to Grune and Scarlette were startling enough that some things that were said back then started coming back to me,” Tygra explained to the cheetah, and pushed his notepad towards her so that she could see it.  Then he reached for another paper and placed it on top of the pad.  “First, this is WilyKit’s birth chart.”

 

Cheetara glanced at the document, which was a diagram with some numbers, and geometric designs and symbols she did not recognize well enough to interpret.  She looked up at Tygra with a questioning gaze.  “This is a bit over my head, Tygra.  I don’t understand this.”

 

Tygra smiled.  “It’s over mine too, somewhat, but with some research from these texts I was able to learn a few things.  See this point here?”  The tiger gestured to a spot on the paper that had a small symbol and a numeric value next to it.  Cheetara gave a nod, and the striped Thundercat resumed speaking.  “That refers to her hour of birth and how strong an influence it is.  This symbol represents the Hour of Darkness, and from my understanding, the lower the number, the more powerful the influence.  Her number is 002, on a scale of 001-999.”

 

“Wow,” Cheetara breathed.  “That is pretty low.”

 

The tiger nodded.  “Only two other Thundercats in recorded history, aside from WilyKat—who has a number of 067—have been born on that hour.  One was Felidian of the Jaguar clan, four generations past.  His was a higher number, somewhere in the 600’s.  The other was Grune the Destroyer.  His number was 014.”

 

Cheetara’s eyes widened in alarm.  “Wait a minute… you’re saying that WilyKit’s number is even stronger than Grune’s?”

 

“WilyKit’s is one of the strongest on record,” Tygra confirmed.  “Granted, I don’t have access to all of the birth records on Thundera and even if I had, I would not have had the time to go through them, but odds of being born so closely on the hour of any hour are low, as they would be for any exact minute and second.  In Sibera’s notes, there was a listing of Thundercats of several generations, and she included some other important political figures such as clan leaders, and sorted them by hour.  The Hour of Darkness had no numbers as low as WilyKit’s,” he told Cheetara before he stopped to take a breath.

 

“What makes that even more significant is that this birth hour,” the tiger continued, “is that the Hour of Darkness, as well as its’ linked hour, the hour that falls directly opposite it in the standard day—the Hour of Light—both occur at times of the day when statistically there are fewer births than any other hour.  The reasons for that could be explained by biology and metabolism, and that bodies tend to be more active at other times of the day and hence the labor process tends not to occur then unless other factors are in play, but regardless as to why it is backed by statistical fact,” Tygra explained. 

 

“It has also been noted and backed up with census information both from Old Thundera and our considerably shorter records from the registry we established when New Thundera got back on its feet, that those born on the hours of Darkness and Light have a higher infant and youth mortality rate than any of the other hours,” Tygra went on to the interested cheetah, who sat quietly as he gave her the information.  “Some of the old scholars called it a curse, saying that particular pair of hours was touched by the hand of death.  Of the children of Darkness and Light that survive and thrive, it is said that they often suffer great losses in their youth, usually in their immediate family and most often their parents.  There is one gift bestowed to those born on these hours though…”

 

“What is that?” Cheetara asked.

 

“They have greater inherent reserve of power, will, and strength than those born on any other hours.  Those born on the Hour of Light have it a touch easier, because their personality does not tend to be destructive by nature.  Children of Light are often introverts, and more likely to use their natural gifts of strength to adapt to the environment around them—perhaps they learn that coping with the adverse circumstances it’s said that they endure growing up.  Children of Darkness, on the other hand, have more of a hedonistic and indulgent streak to their nature.  Intentionally or not they draw souls that would feed that desire to them, and often become selfish, self-destructive, or in the most extreme cases, abusive and dangerous.”

 

Cheetara frowned.  “I have a little trouble believing that as absolute truth,” she said cynically.  “To tell a child that because of the time of day he or she was born that they’re destined to become evil?”

 

“No, nothing says that the hour itself is evil, or that those born on it necessarily will be any of those things,” Tygra corrected the cheetah.  “Of course individuals of any hour can be evil, and someone born on the Hour of Darkness could be good and noble.  The Thundercat Felidian was an example of that.  Nowhere in any of the records have I heard his name associated with anything but honorable deeds.  But it does take a strong will and the right environment to keep the destructive tendency in a Child of Darkness in check, according to these texts.  I would like to think that WilyKit has had that most of her life.”

 

“As would I,” Cheetara agreed.  “But what does all of this mean now though, Tygra?  That this birth Hour of Darkness has something to do with what happened to her during her disappearance?”

 

Tygra sighed.  “I’m not sure, but I think it could be.”

 

Cheetara glanced down at the paperwork on the table and shook her head slightly.  “Poor WilyKit,” the cheetah said softly, before the two Thundercats lapsed into a pensive silence while they pondered the unsettling implications of what Tygra had said about the birth hours.  After several moments, Cheetara looked over Tygra once again.  “Considering what you told me, and especially if WilyKit has the potential to become as… destructive,” the cheetah could not bear to use the word “evil” in reference to the Thundercat she had once helped to raise from a child, “as a soul like Grune the Destroyer, then it only makes it that more urgent for us to find her and reach out to her.”

 

“That’s another thing that concerns me, Cheetara,” Tygra said quietly.  “I’m sure you noticed it too that she did not seem like herself the last time we saw her, before she left for the Third Moon.  Remember when she first returned from her disappearance?  She was withdrawn, edgy, and she just didn’t look well.  I don’t know if she talked to you much in those couple of weeks, but I know she didn’t seem right to me.”

 

Cheetara paused thoughtfully for a moment before she answered.  “She seemed stressed, but we have to keep in mind that she lost several weeks of her life, Tygra.  That had to be wearing on her.  I know she wasn’t feeling well, but any time that I tried to talk with her in more depth, she either brushed me off with an excuse or said that she was run down because she wasn’t sleeping well.  She wouldn’t open up more than that.  She may have to WilyKat, but if she did, he didn’t confide in me.”

 

Tygra set his pen and notepad back down and leaned back in the chair.  “There’s something else.  You know how we told Lion-O the truth about Claudus and Scarlette and the twins the day that we found out about WilyKit’s pregnancy?”  The cheetah nodded an affirmative and Tygra continued.  “I don’t know if I told you this, but shortly after she returned from her missing time, she and WilyKat came to me and asked me who their parents were and why they were trained so young as Thundercats.”

 

Cheetara blinked in surprise, as that was news to her.  “What did you tell them?”

 

“I told them the truth, or much as I could tell of it and still honor our word to Jaga.  I said that their mother was a young woman who died shortly after their birth and that their father was someone who loved them but because of circumstances couldn’t raise them.  I hoped that would be enough to satisfy them, but it wasn’t, especially in the case of WilyKit.  She became very pushy and emotional—not that I can really blame her, I suppose,” he said with a sigh.  “If I were in her shoes, I wouldn’t want to hear vague answers either.  But I do remember thinking at the time how WilyKit looked almost like she was at her wit’s end.  Even WilyKat didn’t seem to be able to calm her down easily.  It was very unsettling, and it fits something I read about the Birth Hour of Darkness.”

 

“What’s that?” Cheetara asked.

 

“That Children of Darkness will often reach a point where they become so bogged down in their personal issues that they feel so alone they will shut out everyone and allow their troubles to consume them.  We all do that to some extent, of course, as no one likes to deal with their problems, but those born on the Hour of Darkness especially are most likely to isolate themselves emotionally and the least likely to be proactive enough to help themselves.  More often than not it’s that sort of behavior that allows their negative feelings to fester and it winds up leading them right into the very sort of self-destructive urges that they should fight.”

 

“There must be something we can do,” the other Thundercat argued.  “I’m sure we can get through to her somehow if she needs us.”

 

Tygra reached for one of the books in front of him, opened it to a bookmarked page, and skimmed for a passage.  “I saw something in this book that might be of use to us in getting through to her—when we find her, that is.  Remember how I said that all ten of the birth hours fall into linked pairs?”  When Cheetara nodded a yes, the tiger continued.  “Each linked pair has a unique tie to the other that gives an added depth of understanding their polar opposite’s personality.  In the case of the Birth Hour of Darkness, that is the Birth Hour of Light.  It does say that a soul born on the Birth Hour of Light is one—and sometimes the only one—that can reach a child of Darkness in his or her pain and keep him or her from surrendering to those destructive tendencies.”

 

“That’s promising,” Cheetara said with a note of optimism.  “Who do we know that’s born on the Hour of Light?”

 

The tiger sighed again.  “Unfortunately, no one here in Cat’s Lair.  Remember how I said earlier that statistically it’s one of the rarer hours to find?  That seems to be true.  None of the Thundercats of this generation were born on the Hour of Light.  I was born in the Hour of the Dreamer, and you and Snarf upon the Hour of Empathy.  WilyKat was the same as his sister, of course, the Hour of Darkness, and as for the others, Panthro hails from the Hour of Force, Lion-O the Hour of Nobility, Bengali and Snarfer both the Hour of the Builder, Pumyra the hour of Wisdom, and Lynx-O the hour of Justice.  Not a one of us was born on the Hour of Light.  In fact the only Thundercat of recent times born on the Hour of Light was Claudus, but even he had a very late number in it, 826.”

 

“But we don’t need this Hour of Light person to reach her, I’m sure,” Cheetara argued.  “The book just said that they have an easier time getting through to them—not that no one else possibly could.”

 

“I hope so,” Tygra said, setting the book back on the table and standing up.  He stretched for a moment, his body reminding him that he had been in the chair in practically the same position for hours.  Cheetara stood when the tiger did and pushed her chair back under the council table.  She looked back over at Tygra when he spoke again.  “Unfortunately before we can even begin to apply any of this we’ll have to get in touch with her first.  By Jaga, Cheetara, I hope she’s all right over there,” he said with a worried look out the window.  “The Third Moon of Plundarr is so far away…”

 

Their conversation was halted when Pumari came into the room.  “Cheetara!  Tygra!” the child called excitedly.

 

“What is it, Pumari?” Tygra asked of the girl.

 

“You gotta come downstairs now,” Pumari told the two adult Thundercats.  “WilyKit came home!  Panthro saw her walk up the steps to the Lair a few minutes ago and he went to get her and told me and Chet to go find everyone and to have them all go downstairs,” the child said breathlessly.

 

Cheetara and Tygra exchanged glances, and started for the door.  “We’re on our way,” Cheetara said, and Tygra echoed her with a silent nod.  The three of them then quickly made their way downstairs. 

 

When they arrived at the sitting room in which WilyKit had been taken only moments after the other Thundercats presently in the Lair were notified, Snarf was already there pouring the distraught-looking WilyKit a cup of hot tea, and the other Thundercats present bombarded her with questions, talking all at once.  The two ambassadors, the reptilian Chamela and the darkling Lushara were also there, but standing to the side to allow the Thundercats to speak with WilyKit first.  Lushara’s luminous red eyes were fixed intently upon the newly arrived Thundercat, though, and it was clear that she was awaiting answers about what was going on back on the Third Moon.

 

A few moments into that chaotic mess, Pumyra went to WilyKit’s side and asked everyone to ease up and talk one at a time.  As a healer it was clear to Pumyra that WilyKit was severely stressed, and she did not want anyone present to inadvertently add to that.  Although everyone’s curiosity was burning, they did respect the puma’s request and backed off a bit.

 

WilyKit remained silent through everything, and sipped at the tea Snarf handed her before replacing it on the saucer he had set out on the end table beside her.  Pumyra addressed the returned Thundercat gently.  “WilyKit, can you tell us what happened?”

 

“Where’s your brother?” Snarf added.

 

“Why aren’t you still on the Third Moon of Plundarr?” Panthro asked once Snarf was finished.

 

When the questioning began again, she glanced up at the concerned faces of her friends—or more accurately, WilyKit’s friends.  Torlei, still in full control of WilyKit’s body, would hardly call them her friends.  “I’m so tired…” she murmured in a halting and exhausted tone that knew would garner their sympathy.  “Such a long story…”

 

Pumyra frowned with concern.  “Well, maybe you should tell us after some rest, then.”

 

The Lunatac Ambassador Lushara frowned and finally spoke up, her eyes still fixed upon WilyKit.  “Not to be pushy, but I would appreciate at least a brief status update on the MoonTower.  We can’t reach them via transmission and we haven’t been able to for some time.”

 

And you won’t, the silent Torlei thought nastily.  Consider yourself lucky you weren’t home, darkling, and consider yourself unlucky that you’re here now.

 

Lion-O nodded in agreement to the visiting Lunatac’s words.  “Yes, and we need you to tell us where WilyKat, Snarfer, and Leonora are.  We’ve been worried sick about all of you.  What happened over there?”

 

“They’re still there,” Torlei told them, making sure that WilyKit’s voice was suitably strained and exhausted, with a note of hopelessness thrown in for good measure.  “They might be dead.  I don’t know.  They were out to kill them all.  They destroyed the place.  I didn’t see WilyKat before I—I—” Torlei then faked a fainting spell for dramatic effect.

 

The act worked like a charm.  Almost immediately Pumyra and Snarf were tending to her and trying to wake their beloved WilyKit up.  “WilyKit,” Pumyra said, giving the younger Thundercat’s body a gentle shake.  “WilyKit, can you hear me?”

 

“What do you mean, they might be dead?” Lion-O asked, visibly alarmed.  “Who wanted to kill them all?”

 

“Wasss this political?” Ambassador Chamela questioned, her yellow reptilian eyes watching the Thundercat carefully as her tail flicked back and forth.  “Like the terrorist attacks at my home Plundarr?”

 

Ambassador Lushara meanwhile was at WilyKit’s side in a flash.  “Are you telling me that someone killed Queen Selene and all the others?” 

 

That’s exactly what I’m telling you, fools, Torlei thought maliciously.  Although the ever-living was relatively sure that the twin of her host and their wretched snarf companion were not dead, she was comfortably assured that she had at least sealed her arrogant nephew’s fate as well of that of the foolish Lunar Queen, and that Mumm-Ra had disposed of the lioness.  She was also confident that even if they were not all quite dead yet, everyone would be soon enough, when she and Mumm-Ra finished settling their score with the residents of Cat’s Lair.  Torlei took a twisted delight in the shocked and grieving faces of those gathered around her when she delivered the news.

 

But as enjoyable as that was for Torlei, she had no desire to continue playing twenty questions with them.  What she really wanted was the chance to escalate things a bit more and do her and Mumm-Ra’s loathed enemies some real harm, first psychological, and finally physical.  “Lion-O, I—I’m so tired,” Torlei had WilyKit murmur, making herself look as exhausted and pathetic as possible. 

 

“Snarf snarf, I think we should let her get some sleep,” Snarf said, his voice shaky with emotion.  “She’s told us enough already, and she could tell us what happened after she rests.”

 

“But what about the others?” Panthro argued.  “If there’s a chance that they could be alive—”

 

Torlei had WilyKit face Panthro tiredly.  “There’s nothing we can do for them now,” she murmured, and closed her eyes in a way that implied she was going to lose consciousness altogether.

 

“No, there is nothing we can do right now if they’re all the way on the Third Moon of Plundarr,” Tygra said somberly, hoping against hope that WilyKat, Snarfer, and Leonora were all right and WilyKit was somehow mistaken.  “It’s too far and we have to know all the facts before taking a risk like that.”

 

Pumyra stood and pulled Lion-O aside, talking to him in a low and concerned tone.  “We can’t be sure that WilyKit is rational enough right now to tell us what’s actually going on.  Look at her, Lion-O,” the puma said, gesturing to the younger Thundercat.  “She’s obviously been through something very intense.”

 

“We have to do something,” Lion-O said, his voice rising.

 

“Get me to your control room,” Ambassador Lushara said authoritatively to the Thundercats around her, not bothering with any form of diplomatic politeness.  “We need to get in touch with somebody on the Moons now.”

 

Panthro walked over to the Lunatac and nodded agreeably to her.  “Come with me.  I’ll get a transmission of some sort through to someone over there,” the panther told her determinedly.  “Even if all we get is a damned space taxi, I’m going to get in contact with someone who can get us in touch with someone who knows something about what happened.” 

 

“Rrrrowl, count me in for helping too, Panthro,” Bengali volunteered.

 

“I will alsssso join you,” Ambassador Chamela said, joining the panther, white tiger, and darkling.  “If ssssomething is happening that Ratar-O should be aware of, I want to notify him of it.”

 

“Of course,” Panthro told the reptilian.

 

Lion-O sighed as he looked from WilyKit, to the concerned and upset faces of his fellow Thundercats, and finally to the agitated ambassadors.  The Thundercat Lord hated feeling so powerless in such a dire circumstance.  “I’ll be up there in a minute too,” he told those who were already leaving for the control room.  Bengali acknowledged the lion with a nod, and the four of them departed immediately afterward. 

 

Meanwhile, Lion-O sat beside the semi-conscious WilyKit.  As he looked her over, he had to admit that Pumyra was probably right about her being too out of it to give any sort of reliable account of anything.  The younger Thundercat—his sister, he realized as he looked at her for the first time in that light—was indeed a sad sight.  WilyKit’s clothing was tattered and battle-worn, her scarlet and black striped mane was wild and out of place, and her face looked lost, haunted, and defeated to a degree that he had never seen before.  Had he not known it to be physically impossible, he would have thought from her exhausted appearance that she had aged another ten years in the short time she had been away.  No, WilyKit was certainly in no condition to be questioned about anything at present. 

 

The Thundercat Lord stood and looked to Pumyra and Snarf.  “Take her to her room, and I’ll let you know if we find out anything.”  Lion-O then left the sitting room in which they had all been gathered for the control room.  Pumyra and Snarf, with a sweet offer of assistance from young Pumari, eased the tired WilyKit back onto her feet and took her to her bedroom, leaving only Cheetara and Tygra remaining in the room.

 

“You were very quiet through all that,” Tygra remarked to the cheetah after a few moments of thoughtful silence.

 

“I—I didn’t really know what to say,” she told the tiger honestly.  “I don’t know if it was just me, but I could swear that it didn’t even seem like the same WilyKit sitting there.  I don’t know how to explain it, but it… well, it felt almost like we were gathered here talking to a stranger.  Like it just wasn’t her.”

 

Tygra glanced at the empty couch upon which WilyKit had been resting.  “She’s been through a lot.  I guess it’s not much of a surprise that she doesn’t seem like herself.”

 

“It felt like more than that, Tygra,” Cheetara said with a concerned frown.  “It’s hard to explain, but I got the impression of a very… dark feeling about her.  It reminded me of what you described about the Birth Hour of Darkness earlier, and it frightens me.  Something is very wrong with her, Tygra.”

 

“From what she said, she was the lone escapee of some sort of assassination or massacre, one that WilyKit, Snarfer, and Leonora were also at—and are now not accounted for afterwards,” Tygra said grimly.  “That could push anyone over the edge.”

 

Cheetara buried her face in her hand and fought back the urge to let out a frustrated cry.  “And who would do such a thing?  Gods, poor WilyKat,” the cheetah choked back a sob of grief.  “What if he really is gone?  My sixth sense didn’t tell me that anything happened to him, but—”

 

Tygra put a comforting arm around her shoulders.  “Then that might be a good sign.  I don’t know who might have done what WilyKit said happened, Cheetara, but we will find out, either when WilyKit is strong enough to tell us or on our own if necessary.”  He drew the cheetah into a friendly hug for a moment.  “Come on.  We should see what we can do to help the others.  Maybe if we can somehow get to the bottom of this—”

 

“Yes,” Cheetara agreed, regaining her composure and straightening.  “I’m going to go to my quarters.  Maybe if I go somewhere quiet and free of distraction and concentrate hard enough, my sixth sense will yield some real answers.”

 

The tiger smiled as confidently as he could given the circumstances.  “Good luck.  If the others don’t have any better ideas, I think I’ll go back to the council room.  Now more than ever, I think we should find out all we can about the Birth Hour of Darkness before it’s too late.”

* * *

 

Once she was finally alone and snuggled all cozily in WilyKit’s bed, Torlei let out a giggle of wicked glee.  Manipulating the felines had proven far more entertaining than she initially expected.  The look on Lion-O’s face when she said that she thought WilyKat was dead had been priceless.  Not so unshakably heroic now, are you Lion-O? Torlei thought with a nasty smirk.  Eventually she supposed the game would become less amusing and more tedious, but for the time being there was an element of thrill to it, and she intended to toy with them until the novelty wore off or Mumm-Ra wanted to step the mayhem up a notch—whichever came first.

 

When the undead Lunatac was certain that the female puma and the snarf were far enough away that they would not hear her rise, she climbed out of bed and stared in the mirror above WilyKit’s dressing table.  At first she was startled to see the Thundercat’s form there, for the last time Torlei had actually witnessed her reflection it had been her natural Lunatac form.  The shock wore off quickly, though, and she ran a finger through a tangled lock of her host’s red mane as she evaluated her appearance.  My, my WilyKit certainly is a mess.  No wonder the Thundercats were so concerned.  How very touching, she thought with a sneer. 

 

After a few moments of consideration, Torlei decided that she wanted a shower before anything else.  She had forgotten about such mortal necessities in the years since her first death, but now that she was in a mortal body again, she did not consider them to be optional.  The ever-living psi wondered when the Thundercat’s last shower had been, anyhow, and guessed that it was probably before she and Mumm-Ra had attacked the Thundercat in the bathroom a few nights earlier.  The poor Thundercat had been too afraid to be alone for long ever since that.  “Oh no, it simply won’t do to kill off my enemies looking like such a slob, now will it?” Torlei said aloud in a sarcastic tone to the mirror.

 

She glanced around the room and saw one door aside from the one through which she had come in.  When she pulled it open, it turned out to be a closet, so she began thumbing through the Thundercat’s clothes.  Clean clothing was a good idea too, although Torlei frowned at most of the selections in WilyKit’s wardrobe.  Most of the Thundercat’s outfits were brightly colored, tight, and revealing, a look that hardly matched the undead Lunatac’s more subdued style of choice.  Torlei wondered what WilyKit intended to do once her belly started to swell noticeably from the child she carried and her tight clothing no longer fit.  Of course, as far as Torlei was concerned, that was a moot issue.  Given her personal distaste for bearing a hunter’s child after her mortal experience at Demlin’s hands, Torlei had already decided that she would make certain that WilyKit and Darkail’s child would die in the womb long before it ever had a chance to be born.  Impatiently Torlei continued to rummage through the available choices of clothing, until she settled on a cream-colored two piece outfit that she found to be at least halfway tasteful.  She plucked it from the hanger and stepped into the hallway.

 

No one was there, which was fine by her.  Torlei used WilyKit’s awareness to determine which door was the bathroom, and then went inside and locked the door behind her.  She stripped out of her dirty clothing and turned on the water in the shower.  How many years had it been since she had been in a shower, anyway, she wondered?  Fifteen?  Twenty? 

 

She slipped her fingers into the warm water to determine the temperature, and found it surprisingly soothing, and let them linger there a moment.  It was only then that she realized just how different and how much more strongly mortal bodies could feel physical sensation than their ghostly counterparts could.  She took it as an added incentive to make all those mortals that she loathed suffer intensely.

 

Once the water temperature was to her liking, Torlei stepped into the shower and embraced the hot rain of water.  The ever-living psi was so caught up in envisioning how much pain Lion-O would feel while she telekinetically fried him into a crispy corpse that she literally jumped when she heard a familiar and undeniably evil chuckle behind her.  Startled, Torlei whirled around and glared at the offender, the nasty look on her face totally incongruous with the WilyKit the Thundercats knew and loved.  “Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s rude to barge in on someone in the shower, darling?” she snapped sarcastically at the intruder.

 

The amused face of Mumm-Ra the Ever-Living leered back at her.  “Just enjoying the view, heh heh,” he replied, glancing over her curvaceous and bare feline body. 

 

Torlei turned back toward the showerhead and dunked WilyKit’s unruly mane of red and black hair under the direct stream of water.  “Why am I not surprised,” she muttered.

 

Still grinning, Mumm-Ra handed his partner’s host body the shampoo.  “Ah, we both know you have nothing to hide from me, my bride.  Can you blame me for being curious?  It has been some time since you’ve had a physical body.”

 

“Yes, thanks to a few individuals whom I plan to torture into a slow and painful demise,” she replied in a low hiss, massaging some of the shampoo into her hair.  Torlei winced as a drop of it unexpectedly made its way into her host’s eyes and stung them.

 

Mumm-Ra stepped closer and caressed the side of the Thundercat body’s face with his hand.  One cold blue finger wiped the offending stream of bubbles aside so that Torlei could open her eyes.  “Ah yes, I remember that soap stings,” he murmured.  “Unfortunate, but you do seem to be enjoying yourself otherwise, from what I’ve observed.”

 

“From what you’ve observed?” Torlei repeated irritably.  “Don’t tell me you haven’t done anything this whole time?  We had a plan, Mumm-Ra.”

 

“My dear, I’m hurt,” Mumm-Ra replied with a sarcastic frown.  “Of course I did my part!  I just finished casting a few, heh heh, spells on Cat’s Lair that will sabotage all of their communications in and out of the building.  It should also wreak havoc with their power grids and equipment shortly.  But I did not want to set it off immediately, in case you wanted to have some fun first.”  His scarlet eyes glowed with malicious mischief.

 

Torlei leaned her head back beneath the shower head to rinse the soap out of her host’s mane.  “Fun, hmmm?  You want to pull a few ghostly pranks like we did back at the MoonTower?  That was a bit childish, but it was entertaining,” she conceded.

 

“We could,” the undead mage said deviously, “although I had something else in mind.”  He stepped closer to his eternal partner, nearly pinning her smaller feline body against the wall beneath the steamy stream of water. 

 

“Such as?” Torlei inquired with a raised eyebrow.

 

At that moment elsewhere in the Lair, one of the residents either flushed a toilet one time too many or ran the sink for a moment too long, because the water temperature changed abruptly from comfortably hot to ice cold, causing the startled Torlei to let out a loud shriek at the shock of the chill and spring back from the shower stream.  She glared at the water stream enraged.  “When I find out who’s responsible for that, I’m going to tear them limb from limb,” she hissed angrily.

 

Mumm-Ra chuckled amusedly at her undignified reaction and caught Torlei’s Thundercat body in his powerful arms.  “It would seem you’re still a bit sensitive to these mortal sensations, my dear.”

 

Still scowling, Torlei bent over and shut off the water.  “I’ll get used to them.  It’s inconvenient, but it is refreshing in a way.  I had forgotten just how deeply a living body can feel pain.  It makes inflicting it that much sweeter,” she added darkly.

 

The cold hands of the Ever-Living Source of Evil crept across the warm and furred skin of her host’s back.  “There is another advantage to it,” he whispered.

 

“Oh?” Torlei inquired suspiciously, catching an edge of suggestiveness in her undead partner’s tone.

 

The demon priest licked his lips and eyed her intensely.  “A mortal body can feel pleasure equally intense as its pain.  Perhaps you’d like a reminder of that as well?” Mumm-Ra’s hands boldly, but expertly, caressed the curves of her host body’s breasts.

 

A responsive purr instinctively started deep within Torlei’s new feline body in favorable response to the undead mage’s touch.  Although Torlei had never been exactly thrilled with the dark arrangement that bound her to Mumm-Ra for all eternity—and the feeling was certainly mutual as far as the demon priest himself was concerned—the bonding spell the Ancient Spirits of Evil had cast over the two of them all those years ago did make the elder ever-living attractive to her in a way.  The attraction was not so much aesthetic, or even overtly lustful.  During her mortal life, especially after her experience with Demlin, she wanted little to do with most men and what contact she did permit was strictly on her terms.  Torlei’s attraction to Mumm-Ra in the afterlife was altogether different, it was a compulsion to join with him in a partners-in-crime, linked-soul sort of way, and at that moment the undead psi would have been lying if she had said she did not find Mumm-Ra’s suggestion arousing.  Torlei knew from experience—on the rare occasion that she and Mumm-Ra were not sparring—that his skills in pleasure were among the ones that were not merely empty egotistical boasts of his prowess.  A teasing smile formed on the host Thundercat’s features as Mumm-Ra’s touch grew more seductive, and she flexed her fingers against his muscular blue arms.  “But darling, you don’t have the advantage of mortal sensation,” she murmured back to him.

 

Torlei’s unusually swift agreeability to the suggestion fueled the ancient ever-living’s drive further.  “Oh, I’ll manage,” he assured his partner with a lecherous grin.  Simply because he could not feel sensation as strongly as living flesh could, it by no means meant that he could not feel carnal pleasures at all or enjoy them—quite the contrary.

 

“And what of our enemies here in Cat’s Lair?” Torlei asked, shifting in his arms so that they faced one another.

 

“Oh, not to worry, we will dispense of them shortly.  But for now, my dear…” Mumm-Ra finished his sentence by pressing his undead lips to those of Torlei’s Thundercat body in a lusty kiss.  Fortunately Torlei did not find the overwhelming stench of death and decay that surrounded Mumm-Ra, enhanced tenfold by WilyKit’s mortal senses, to be offensive as the dead mage’s mouth invaded and devoured hers in dark passion.  As Mumm-Ra proceeded to have his way with her against the tile wall of the shower, she in fact found his attentions quite the opposite.

 

Some time later, Torlei emerged from the bathroom with her borrowed Thundercat body wearing the cream-colored outfit she had selected and a devious smile, originating partly from the afterglow of her encounter with Mumm-Ra and partly from the anticipation of the havoc she and her partner about to wreak on the unsuspecting felines.  The undead psi cast her gaze up and down each direction of the corridor and considered where to begin.  Without a reason to choose otherwise, she randomly chose left, and strode down the hall.

 

At first Torlei did not see anything of interest.  Most of the doors in that corridor were shut.  She did not have the impression that there was anything of real importance to her behind them, so she moved on for easier targets instead.  It was then that she noticed one of the doors in the hallway was slightly ajar.  Intrigued, she walked over and peered inside.  What she saw in the room made her grin with delight.  There was the perfect target—a young Thunderian boy.

 

Had the ever-living cared enough to take notice, she might have recognized the child.  He was one with whom she had crossed paths with five years ago prior to the Battle of the Swords.  Back then Chet had been but a toddler, and a pesky one at that.  Now the lion-cheetah boy had grown into a seven-year-old, tall for his age, with long and skinny golden-furred, spotted limbs and an unruly mane of red hair.

 

Chet sat upon the floor, acting out an imaginary battle scene with about ten different plastic action figures.  He had a green monster in one hand fighting with a felinoid-shaped warrior in the other.  Predictably, the warrior-cat was winning.  “Typical,” Torlei muttered under her breath.  “Seems they indoctrinate that ‘good wins over evil monsters’ philosophy in their cubs young.”

 

Her quiet mumbling from the doorway caught Chet’s attention, and he looked up, surprised.  “Hi WilyKit,” he said with a toothy smile.  “Are you feeling better?  Mom said you were sick.”

 

“I’m feeling much better now,” Torlei assured the child with false sweetness.  She took the boy’s greeting as an invitation to join him, and as she entered, she inwardly shuddered at the bright, cheery décor of the playroom.  Pastels.  Disgusting.  “What have you got there?” she asked once she stood directly over him.

 

Chet did not understand why, but he felt a nervous and threatening feeling when WilyKit approached him, and he shifted nervously where he sat as he looked up at her.  “Toys.  The Thunder-Warriors are kicking the alien’s butt!”

 

“So they are,” she remarked, kneeling beside him.  “You like ‘kicking butt’, don’t you?” she questioned, fixing her gaze intently on the child.

 

“Yeah, I’m gonna be a Thundercat someday like you and Dad and Mom,” Chet answered.  He shifted again, unconsciously, as she came near him, but he kept talking to her anyway.  “I can’t wait to use the Sword of Omens!”

 

Torlei struggled not to show her distaste at that thought.  “Oh I’m sure you will.”  So the boy is Lion-O’s cub, she realized.  She searched WilyKit’s awareness for a quick confirmation and learned that Chet was the child’s name.  Ah yes, she thought, Chet.  The brat I took to the pyramid all those years ago.  Oh, I definitely should have killed him when I had the chance the first time.  But, better late than never, I suppose, she thought malignantly, and reached for his arm.  Chet instinctively shrank back from her touch, suddenly overwhelmed with fear.  Torlei was faster than the cub, however, and grabbed his forearm in a grip of iron.  “Are you afraid of me?” she hissed at the child accusingly.

 

“N-no, WilyKit,” Chet answered shakily.

 

“Then why don’t you like me?” she pressed, tightening her grip to the point where it would cause the boy pain.  “Tell me.”

 

Growing panicky, Chet squirmed in her grasp and tried to break free.  “Leggo!  You’re hurting me,” he cried fearfully.

 

Torlei twisted WilyKit’s features into a displeased frown and squeezed harder.  “You’re being very rude, Chet.”

 

“Stop!” Chet whimpered. 

 

“And giving orders too… how insolent,” she hissed, reverting back to her own voice instead of WilyKit’s.  Torlei stood back up, still holding Chet by the arm, and yanked him off the floor roughly, making him cry out in obvious pain.  “I think you need to be taught to respect your elders.”  Torlei then raised WilyKit’s free hand, now sparking with her own telekinetic powers.

 

The terrified boy let out a shrill shriek.  “Mommy!”

 

“Oh no you don’t,” Torlei hissed, and she threw Chet onto the floor.  Before the cub could move, she hurled a blast of telekinetic energy at him.  The force was enough to stun him silent for a moment, and she used that to her advantage by strengthening the hold of the force field around him, placing him under enough pressure that the boy had to gasp and struggle for every lungful of air.  “Call for your mommy now, brat,” Torlei snarled contemptuously, and then turned on her heels.  “I’ll be back to finish you off after I’ve taken care of the important ones.  If you haven’t choked to death by then, that is.”

 

With that she left the playroom and shut the door behind her.  Once she was back out in the hallway, Torlei decided to take no chances that the boy might be found too soon, and electrified the door with a charge of dark energy.  “Someone will have fun trying to break through that,” she remarked with smug satisfaction, envisioning an entertaining scene of a Thundercat electrocuting him or herself trying to save poor, innocent little Chet.  Pleased with the start of her and Mumm-Ra’s destruction, Torlei walked her host body calmly down Cat’s Lair’s main stairwell, seeking victim number two.

 

 

Continued

 

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