Path Into the
Darkness
Part
Seven: Grune
The dark and lonely void in which WilyKit’s soul was trapped suddenly vanished from around the lost Thundercat for a fleeting second. One moment she clung to Psiarik, consumed by her despair, and in another flash everything in that realm was gone, replaced by the familiar surroundings of Cat’s Lair. Rage and hatred coursed through the Thundercat’s consciousness, but it was alien and detached from her.
It was then that WilyKit became aware of what was
happening around her. She felt her hands
clenching a blood-soaked knife, embedded in the heaving, gray-furred chest of
her friend and fellow Thundercat Panthro.
She saw the sad and betrayed look shining in his eyes as he looked up at
her, helpless and ailing. You killed him, some wicked voice
gleefully told her from inside. You plunged the knife into his heart and
killed him. You did it.
“No!” WilyKit’s soul screamed in agonized denial, but before she could gain enough control of her body to form a physical vocalization of the sentiment, Torlei resumed control of her host and cast her out of reality once again. The displaced WilyKit felt a sharp blow to her senses and went reeling through the ethers connecting the mortal and the astral, and when she opened her eyes again, she was back in oblivion, staring right at Psiarik’s edgy face. WilyKit could feel the psi backing slowly, still with his arms around her shoulders, and the Thundercat became aware once again of the presence of the malevolent ghosts around her.
The ghosts, however, were already quite aware of her presence as well as what she just experienced during her brief return to the mortal plane. Grune swung his mace at WilyKit and laughed mockingly. “So did it feel good to kill, kitten?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time you did it,” Kalin added dryly.
A feral grin crossed Grune’s lips, and the sabertooth glanced over at the spirit form of the hunter, remembering their night together on the Hunt. “Don’t distract me by bringing up old times.”
Still holding WilyKit and unaware of what exactly had happened to his Thundercat companion when she faded away for that moment, Psiarik shrank back farther and tensed, tightening his grip on her both protectively and out of a need of his own for reassurance. “Back off,” the psi snarled contemptuously at them in a tone that conveyed far more authority and confidence than he actually felt.
“Make us,” Demrock countered, his tone holding an equal measure of challenge and far more aggression. He, Grune, and Kalin had the pair of trapped souls surrounded and the evil ghosts knew full well that there was nowhere that they could go. The dead rislir grabbed WilyKit’s arm viciously, his long snakelike fingers wrapping themselves around her living astral form in a powerful grip, and began to twist. It seemed that the ghosts in that realm had the advantage of being material or immaterial at will, but souls of the living did not have the same ability, or if they did, neither she nor Psiarik knew how to make that shift.
WilyKit squealed and tried to wrench away, and while Psiarik tried to assist by pulling her back from Demrock, he was overcome with painful choking sensation. Kalin’s spirit had weaved its’ way behind him and caught the psi by surprise in a headlock. Psiarik struggled in her deadly grasp, but it was fruitless. Even alive, a hunter’s natural strength easily bested that of a psi, and as a weakened living soul against a dead and vengeful ghost it was even less of a contest.
The specter of Grune the Destroyer meanwhile grinned with malignant pleasure and raised his mace above the two souls once more. The dark Thundrainium metal gleamed ominously against the darkness behind him, outlining the shadows of each sharp spike upon the weapon as it hovered above them. “Hold them still for me while I bash their brains in.”
Grune drew back his arm and prepared to bring his mace down, when an unexpected rush of air came from behind the sabertooth. It breezed past the feet of the ghosts, letting out a screech so loud and shrill it could only have come from one type of creature. Then, all of a sudden, Kalin let out a shriek of indignant pain and looked down to see the angry form of Snarf Clarece sinking her sharp snarfen teeth into her leg.
“Augh! You miserable furball!” Releasing Psiarik in favor of the intervening snarf, Kalin tore the creature from her limb roughly and flung her aside.
Psiarik used the opportunity to stumble backwards, pulling WilyKit with him, just as Grune’s mace slammed into what passed for the ground in the shadowy realm. The sabertooth snarled furiously when he saw that he had missed his targets. “What the—”
Clarece scrambled back to her feet and glared at the evil ghosts. “Snarf, snarf,” she said in that self-important tone that all snarf nannies tended to speak in. “That’s what you get for harassing my charge.”
“You worthless, flea-ridden vermin,” Kalin spat angrily. “I’ll rip your striped hide off and stuff it down your throat piece by piece!”
Completely shocked and very grateful, WilyKit stared at the snarf who had once been her childhood nanny. “Snarf Clarece? But—but where… and how? I thought we couldn’t harm ghosts…”
Demrock found opportunity in Clarece’s distraction and slashed his hunter claws viciously at WilyKit, but fortunately for the stunned Thundercat, Psiarik caught the rislir’s motion out of the corner of his eye and yanked the Thundercat back sharply towards him so that Demrock succeeded only in scratching the surface of her skin. “But maybe ghosts can hurt other ghosts,” Psiarik guessed aloud. “She must be one.”
Ignoring the snarf and the chatter of the living souls, Grune swung his mace at the pair again. Both stumbled backward, but despite the situation, WilyKit still could not stop staring at Clarece.
Kalin’s attention was similarly focused on the snarfen ghost, although for a far different reason. The furious hunter lunged at the snarf, who let out a startled squeal and skittered under the Lunatac’s feet. “I’ve always tried to look after you,” Clarece told WilyKit breathlessly. “And when I couldn’t do it anymore, back at the time of the Exodus, I asked Tygra do it. But now, rowr, things have changed. That boy’s needed a bit of guidance lately, and lords know that Osbert’s too thickheaded to take care of it himself, so I had to come back and throw in my paw.”
“Snarfs always were stupid creatures,” Grune growled disgustedly at the furry ghost. “You should have stayed in your grave.”
“Snaaaaarf, and you should have stayed true to your code,” the snarf retorted angrily.
Psiarik’s eyes darted from Grune to WilyKit and then Clarece, who turned her attention from Grune just long enough to cast a stern look their way. “Don’t stand there giving me that stupid look, boy! Turn around and run!”
Kalin hissed menacingly and dove for Clarece again. The hunter’s nimble fingers managed to grab the end of the snarf’s tail, and she yanked the ghostly creature towards her, digging in her sharp claws as she did so. “That’s the first intelligent thing you’ve said yet, furball.”
Clarece howled in agony, struggling in the vicious ghost’s grasp. Her eyes were wide with panic and pain, and she shrieked desperately at WilyKit and Psiarik. “Go! Now!”
The Thundercat began to voice a protest, but Psiarik did not wait long enough to give her the chance to get it out. Instead he grabbed WilyKit’s hand and broke into a full out run, and then her own survival instincts kicked in and she followed suit, overtaking the Lunatac in speed a few moments later. Grune and Demrock chased after the fleeing pair of living souls in hot pursuit, while Snarf Clarece’s shrill screams of pain haunted their consciences.
WilyKit sobbed hysterically between gasps for breath as they ran for their lives. “We can’t just leave her to die like that!”
“She’s already dead,” Psiarik panted back. “There’s nothing we can do for her or against them.”
Grune’s hateful voice sounded from close behind. “And soon you’ll both be joining her.”
“No,” a new and authoritative voice broke in, causing all four of the astral forms to freeze in their tracks, albeit for different reasons, when they saw who it was that appeared before them in a flash of soft blue light. “Not this time, Grune,” he continued. “You’ve already hurt enough of the innocent, and I won’t let you destroy my daughter in your hatred for me.”
WilyKit blinked emotional tears from her eyes and turned toward the new arrival, whom she recognized instantly and saw for the first time as the parent he acknowledged himself to be, sealing in the younger Thundercat’s eyes the truth that Grune had alleged at and she had suspected but not been able to fully accept until that moment. Perhaps she had to hear it, from someone she trusted first—ironically, an individual that had perpetuated a lie about her true identity throughout her entire life. “Claudus?” she whispered. “Fa—father?”
“Ah, and so the magnanimous and noble Lord Claudus graces us with his presence,” Grune sneered contemptuously, turning toward the ghostly form of his former Thundercat Lord and friend. The old lion’s bearded spirit stared back at the sabertooth, stern and unwavering.
Then there was another flash of light, one that was warm and light, and a sharp contrast to the eerie and sinister aura that radiated from the evil ghosts of Grune, Kalin, and Demrock. The newest spirit visitor cast his ethereal robe to one side, sending a brilliant flash of light back through the ether toward the now distant Kalin and Clarece that momentarily blinded the hunter, enabling the torn-up snarf to scramble to safety nearby to nurse her phantom wounds. As the ghost’s robe settled back at his side, he faced the spirit of the sabertooth he had once called both friend and enemy. “No, it’s not just Claudus,” he greeted the former Thundercat. “Hello, Grune.”
“Hello, Jaga… old friend,” Grune snarled back, his sarcastic tone laced with unbridled hatred that burned far more fierce and personal than any he felt for WilyKit. “Still standing in blind loyalty at the side of your Lord of the Hypocrite Cats, I see.”
Jaga frowned, not so much at the insult but at the brief stab of regret and loss he felt upon seeing the hate that blazed in his former friend’s eyes when he encountered him. Although the jaguar had encountered Grune several times in the afterlife since that terrible day when he bested him in combat and sent him to exile, he still never failed to feel that unpleasant twinge when he dealt with Grune. “I stand for the Code of Thundera and those who uphold it, Grune,” Jaga replied evenly. “Not those who betray it.”
Unimpressed by Jaga’s moralizing, Grune snarled at his words and clenched his fists. “If you call turning against your closest friend in favor of the one who bedded his lover behind his back ‘loyalty’, then I’d hate to see what you call ‘betrayal’, Jaga.”
“And destroying countless lives, reveling in greed and bloodshed, making a mockery out of everything you once swore to uphold in your quest for revenge isn’t? Two wrongs have never made a right, Grune. It’s a shame you never learned that,” the jaguar ghost countered.
“And it’s a shame you never grew a spine and learned to think for yourself,” Grune retorted, swinging his mace aggressively at the astral form of his enemy. “It’s also a shame that you drilled those same teachings into that arrogant buffoon of a Thundercat leader Lord Lion-O, who’s led the ‘mighty’ Thundercats into the sorry state that they’re in today,” the sabertooth continued hatefully. “And it’s most definitely a shame that you let Claudus get away with hiding his two illegitimate brats in Cat’s Lair for years on end without sharing the tawdry little details of their origin with them or with the other people of Thundera.”
Grune cast a disgusted look in WilyKit’s direction again for a moment before he returned his attention back to Jaga. “And a fine pair they turned out to be, especially this weak-willed slut of a daughter of his. No, my path may not have been your ‘moral high road’,” he sneered, “but I lived and felt things you could and your cowardly kind could never even comprehend.” Grune swung his mace confidently in his hands. “Maybe it’s you who should live by my code, Jaga.”
Jaga sighed and shook his head in sad disapproval. “We had this discussion once already, Grune, thirty years ago.”
The sabertooth’s expression darkened and his eyes flashed with rage as the details of it all came back to him. “Yes,” he growled hatefully, “I remember.”
* * *
***Third Moon of Plundarr, Thirty-Some Years Earlier***
The imprisoned Grune lay stretched out on the cold, damp floor of his otherwise empty cell, staring up at the cracks in its ceiling. Thoughts of cold, hateful, and furious revenge consumed every fiber of his being. Never before had the sabertooth felt such complete and utter rage, and burned with such a powerful desire for cold and calculated vengeance.
Grune hated Claudus and Scarlette. He hated the unborn child that was the flesh and blood symbol of their betrayal of him. He hated Jaga for standing by his lying Lord rather than his closest friend. He hated the rest of the Thundercats for being weak, stupid, and for buying into Claudus’ lies. And that was just a listing of those he hated on Thundera.
Closer to his “home” if one could call a prison cell that, he had plenty of individuals to hate too. He hated Luna and her crew. The whole lot of them were nothing but self-serving, backstabbing cowardly bastards that had left him and Kalin to hang. He hated the Lunar Plundarrian government for declaring that group of which he had associated himself for a time a gang outlaws to begin with, and for raiding Luna’s club. And he intensely hated King Lunaro—for capturing him, for sentencing him to die, for being such a little arrogant and loathsome prick, and most of all, for his part in Kalin’s death. And in the darkest flashes of his rage, he even hated Kalin for leaving him.
The sound of footsteps approaching from down the hallway snapped Grune out of his hateful thoughts temporarily. The noise had caught his attention once he realized that what he heard were not the footsteps of any guardsman. They were light, quickened, and had the distinctive click-click of high-heeled shoes. Women’s shoes. More precisely, expensive women’s shoes.
His curiosity aroused, Grune got to his feet, but the sudden movement dizzied him. The cell the sabertooth was in was one specially designed for Thunderian prisoners, constructed with just enough Thundrainium lining the walls to keep any captive feline manageably weak. Grune had a hardy constitution and he was strong enough to walk on his own despite the weakening influence, but he still had no strength to run or fight. Awkwardly the sabertooth stumbled to the barred door of his cell, and peered down the hallway to see who was coming to see him. Out of habit—one he had picked up running with the hunters of Serilune—he sniffed at the air, and recognized the scent as one vaguely familiar, that of a female psi. His mind raced to place her identity, but before he could, she stepped into view and he saw her face.
“Lurella?” he said, more out of surprise than in any sort of greeting. Why in the name of the gods would Alluro’s lover be coming to see him?
The psi woman smiled faintly at the captive sabertooth as she approached his cell. “Hello, Grune.”
When Lurella drew closer, Grune noticed a subtle difference about the psi, in her general demeanor and the way she carried herself. The times he had encountered her, both in casual meetings at Luna’s club and that one time on his first visit to the Third Moon outside of Luna’s club, she had come across as friendly, warm, and bubbly even. That time she seemed rather subdued, cold, and withdrawn. “Why are you here?” Grune asked the psi when she stopped in front of his cell.
Lurella drew her dark blue cloak around her a little more tightly and shifted as she stood. “I heard about your sentencing, and I wanted to come and speak with you before it was carried out.” The Lunatac looked away for a moment and sighed, a sad look upon her face. “I’m so sorry, about you and about Kalin. It’s unthinkable that this had to happen.”
Grune scowled at the vocal reminder of his situation. “Well you can thank your lover and his bitch of a boss for that.”
Lurella’s eyes darkened as she answered the sabertooth. “Alluro is no lover of mine any longer, or ever again,” she informed him, her voice dropping to a low and venomous tone that Grune had never heard her use before. “You were right about him, you know. I remember when you tried to warn me… but like a fool, I didn’t listen because I wanted to believe—”
The psi stopped mid-sentence and shook her head, hardening her expression as she did so. “I hate him. Not only for his part in what they did to you—that’s bad enough—but also for how he used me. And that’s why I’m here. To see him paid back for it.” Lurella lowered her voice to a whisper. “This ‘payback’ involves you, Grune. Are you interested?”
Eyeing the psi dubiously, Grune only shrugged. The hypnotist was of little consequence to him, aside from the fact that he wanted to bash his skull in along with those of his companions for leaving him behind. However, the sabertooth certainly would not turn down any offer that might get him out of his prison and enable him to avoid the execution of his sentence. “If it gets me out of here, I’m interested,” he told her guardedly, and then leaned closer, curious as to what motivated her to take such a bold step. “But what’s behind this sudden change of heart of yours? Last I saw you, all you could say was how wonderful Alluro was, and how he wasn’t like Luna and the others, and all that bullshit. What did he do, other than take off and leave you behind? It’s not like he left you to take the fall for him and his boss,” Grune added bitterly, feeling a fresh stab of hatred for Luna and her crew.
“He left plenty behind, but I want no part of any of it,” Lurella snapped bitterly.
“You are bitter that he left you, and now you want revenge,” the sabertooth guessed.
Lurella’s long purple fingers circled around one of the bars of Grune’s prison. “It’s a little more complicated than that,” she stated quietly.
Grune folded his arms and frowned at her. “And how is that?”
“Why is that important?” the psi countered, somewhat agitated, before lowering her voice to a low tone that would not be overheard again. “I’m here to help you, Grune, isn’t that enough?”
“Because I hadn’t pegged you for the vengeful type, and I don’t like surprises. I’ve had enough of those lately, don’t you think?”
Lurella considered the sabertooth’s words before answering. “Fair enough,” she conceded. “All right then, if you must know, yes, I’m angry. I’m also hurt, betrayed, and humiliated. I trusted a man that I loved in my home and in my bed for months. I gave him thousands upon thousands of credits to settle so-called debts to Luna, debts that he claimed he needed to pay off to be free of her once and for all, so that he and I could, as he told me so sweetly in the privacy of my bedroom, be together for good. He told me so many pretty lies that it breaks my heart and makes me sick just thinking about them all.”
The psi looked away as she continued, too emotional to face the sabertooth’s intense gaze. “On the day of the raid—the day of your arrest—I learned that I was carrying his child, and I was happier than I’d ever been, Grune. And then… then I went home and heard the news bulletins. When I watched the broadcast, I saw his face, Luna’s, and all the others’ that worked in that gods-forsaken place plastered all over the place as wanted fugitives. The list of crimes they were accused of was enough to make my stomach turn,” she finished. “And before you say it, yes, I know the reputation of the Lunatacs of Plundarr,” she said, lifting her eyes to meet those of the sabertooth. “But I never really believed it was that bad, or at least that he was. After all, I’m an empath,” she said, clenching her fingers tightly around the bars. “I would know such a thing if I saw it, right? I would feel it? Isn’t that what I told you, weeks ago when you warned me?”
Before Grune could answer, she continued, her tone still low but with a noticeably emotional edge to it. “When the broadcast ended it stated that most of them—Alluro included—had fled the Moons. I remembered your warning, Grune, all those weeks ago. So many things started to click, little things that I had refused to acknowledge and didn’t want to see, and finally had to face all at once. And then, as if that wasn’t enough, I saw the aftermath of it all.”
Lurella sighed and leaned against the bars. “The broadcast showed the club and how it had been destroyed by all the laser fire in the standoff. The royal guardsmen were pulling out dead bodies like so much garbage, and I recognized one of them as it passed by the camera as Kalin. I didn’t know her well, but she had always been one of the regulars of Luna’s club that was at least always polite to me, and it saddened me to hear that she’d been killed—and how. Then they showed you, being hauled around by the royal guardsmen like you were some wild beast out of control, and in a way, I guess you were,” the psi said, looking intently at Grune.
“I’d never seen anyone so enraged or deadly as you were at that moment, and even over the impersonal view of a monitor, I could feel a touch of the rage you felt. And despite the terrible things they accused you of, and how vile they made you out to be, Grune, I still couldn’t help but feel sorry for you.”
A low growl came from the sabertooth, and he grabbed the empath’s hand roughly through the bars. “Don’t you ever pity me.”
Startled at the force of his touch, Lurella shrank back instinctively. “It wasn’t pity I felt, Grune, it was sympathy,” the psi corrected him. “Because you’d been hurt by them just like I had. Alluro used me and lied to me, and left me with nothing but a gaping hole in my bank account and a bastard child I don’t even want any longer, because it reminds me of him. He and his friends left you and Kalin, members of their own team, behind to die for their crimes. It was wrong, Grune, and they have to be made to answer for it—and you are the one best suited to that. And that’s why I’m here,” Lurella finished, “because I feel—and I’m not alone in this—that you deserve a chance at your own freedom and revenge.”
“I see,” Grune said finally, a vicious smile spreading across his features. “And if I get loose and happen to knock your ex around a little—?”
“All the better,” Lurella replied, a vindictive look in her eyes.
“All right then,” Grune agreed, and lowered his voice. “So how can I get out of here?”
Lurella beckoned for the sabertooth to lean closer, and he obliged, until their faces were mere inches apart. “Thanks to some information from a mutual friend in a high place, that’ll be easier than you think,” the psi whispered to him. “My friend tells me that all Thunderian prisoners are handled the same way—placed in Thundrainium-lined cells that keep them too weak to put up much of a fight. Their guards are given Thundrainium guns too keep them in line, because not only are they cheaper than regular weapons, they’re less messy and more efficient against your kind.”
Grune growled with annoyance at the reminder of his natural weakness. “So I noticed. I’m weaker than a gods-damned cub.”
“But what if you suddenly gained immunity to Thundrainium?” Lurella said mysteriously, “Especially when your guards didn’t expect it?”
Grune raised an eyebrow, intrigued by the psi’s suggestion. “Immunity? How? All Thunderians are susceptible to the effects of Thundrainium.”
“By birth, yes,” Lurella conceded. “But, in our own scientific research with the compound, we Lunatacs have developed a special little formula that does wonders for your people against it. It was an accidental discovery—Lunatacs don’t make a habit of aiding their enemies, after all—that popped up in our research with Thundrainium and its effects on Thunderians. This particular formulation is so potent that one dose can make a grown Thunderian virtually immune to ill effects from Thundrainium for nearly three standard years.”
“There’s a vaccine against Thundrainium?” Grune asked in genuine disbelief.
“Oh, it wasn’t sold to your people,” the psi informed him with a shrug. “Given our less than peaceful relations, it was in our best interests to keep it a secret, by order of the royalty. But fortunately, you have a friend who has access to all of these secrets and then some. It’s nice to have friends in high places.” Lurella slid her hand along Grune’s muscular, furred arm as they talked. When her fingers dipped beneath the crux of his shoulder, the sabertooth felt a sudden prick and jerked back. The psi smirked and withdrew her hand, and Grune caught a quick flash of a needle and syringe concealed in the long blue sleeve of her cloak.
She then stepped back from the bars and drew her cloak around her body more tightly. “You should rest, Grune. You look tired. I bet once you wake up, you’ll feel like a whole new cat.”
Grune broke into a wide grin as he entertained the new possibilities of escape and vengeance that were now within his grasp. “I bet I will.”
Lurella waved and started back down the hallway. “Take care of yourself, Grune. And if you ever happen to catch up with Alluro again, please give him my fondest wishes.” With that, the psi vanished through the doors at the end of the hallway and passed by the two guardsmen on duty with a smile and thanks. Strangely enough, the guardsmen would later not recall admitting a psi woman to visit the prisoner at all.
* * *
It was four hours later when Grune was rudely awakened by a kick to the side. The sabertooth groaned and rolled over, and was greeted by the sight of four pairs of small-footed boots surrounding him—Lunaro’s guardsmen.
“On your feet, sabertooth,” snarled the uniformed force captain that stood above him. “Today’s your day to die.”
“That’s right, we wouldn’t want you to be late,” a second one mocked, and shoved him roughly with the barrel of a Thundrainium gun. “On your feet.”
Grune shifted slowly, but not fast enough for the force captain’s tastes. “We said ‘move it’, fleabag!” The steel toe of the captain’s boot connected with Grune’s jaw, making the sabertooth growl more in indignation than pain. A pair of arms then roughly grabbed each of his and yanked the feline to his feet. Grune struggled in their hold, and his efforts for that were rewarded by a sharp blast from a Thundrainium rifle. The sabertooth winced and growled at the sensation, but to his surprise he did not feel as weak as he should have after receiving a dose of the weakening metal.
The shot, Grune realized. It did make me immune to Thundrainium. The sabertooth did not let on to that fact yet however, not when he was still in the confines of his prison cell where an escape attempt would do little good. No, he would wait until he got somewhere more open, he decided. Feigning weakness, Grune fell to his knees.
The smug force captain grinned cruelly at his prisoner’s discomfort. “Kitty needed his medicine to be a good boy, I see,” he taunted, and motioned to his men, who were in the process of attaching shackles, also made of Thundrainium, to his wrists. “Get him out of here. King Lunaro doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”
The two guardsmen holding Grune hauled the sabertooth to his feet. Grune continued his weakened charade, keeping his body limp and letting it drag and slouch so that he would seem like so much dead weight to his captors. “Pretty pathetic,” one of them remarked snidely. That particular guardsman was a lunar man, on the larger side for his kind, standing at four and three quarter feet and weighing just under a hundred standard pounds. “One shot of Thundrainium and he can barely walk. Real ‘mighty’,” he snickered, and the other guards joined him in a hearty round of laughter at the sabertooth’s expense.
“Quit dragging your ass!” a second guardsman added with an aggressive shout, slamming the butt of the Thundrainium rifle into the small of Grune’s back as he did so. The sabertooth growled and fought the urge to turn around and bash the Lunatac’s skull in. Five more minutes, Grune told himself, using every bit of restraint he had to keep up his act and his temper under control. Five more minutes and you can kick the shit out of these short lunar weaklings.
And he did just that. Biding his time, Grune stumbled along in the rough hold that the two Lunatac guards had on him while the force captain led them out of the holding area. Grune kept his head low, but kept a careful eye out for any place that showed promising opportunity to make a run for it. He did not want to make his break while still too far inside the palace’s lower dungeon levels, knowing that the security would be too tight. He confidently thought that he could probably manage it if he had to, but why take any unnecessary risk?
Grune faked a stumble in his step, and seconds later
another shot of Thundrainium stung him from behind. The sabertooth turned his head slightly and
saw the sneering face of the guardsman on his left side, and then heard the one
behind him laugh. “Just a little
something to keep you going,” the Lunatac sneered mockingly. Grune then felt a sharp kick to the back of
his knee that caused him to nearly lose his footing a moment later. He’s
the first to die, Grune vowed silently.
I’m going to rip his head right
off his puny little body.
The guardsmen and Grune rounded a corner and went through a locked door that took them out of the maximum-security area. Grune was careful to keep his eyes open for any opportunity as he maintained his façade of weakness, and soon just such an opportunity presented itself to him. He caught sight of a lit farther ahead in the corridor with a symbol that represented an exit, a fire escape route of some sort most likely. When they were about twenty feet past the sign, Grune made his move. Giving his captors no warning, the “weakened” sabertooth stopped suddenly and made a grab for one of the guardsmen’s rifles far faster than any sedated prisoner, especially a former Thundercat pumped full of Thundrainium, should have been capable of.
“What the—” was all the unfortunate guard managed to get out before the infuriated sabertooth slammed the barrel of the Thundrainium rifle into the back of his neck with incredible force, dropping him to the floor instantly. The other guardsmen caught on to what was happening a moment too late and drew their weapons, but now that he was immune to Thundrainium, Grune cared little if he was hit or not, which gave him a great advantage in the melee. The sabertooth leapt back and knocked the arrogant guard who had taken such delight in mocking him earlier to the floor. He was on him in a flash, circling his shackled arms around the guardsman’s neck. The bonds gave him an advantage that allowed him to choke the Lunatac, who coughed and struggled weakly in Grune’s hold for only a few moments before the sabertooth’s brute force crushed his throat and his body went limp.
The remaining two guardsmen opened fire on Grune immediately. Using the dead guard as a shield—although Grune was now immune to Thundrainium’s effects, the shots did still sting and had enough kick to knock him off balance—the sabertooth backed away as far as he could before dropping the dead weight and taking off into a fast run. The two royal guardsmen ran past their fallen comrade without so much as a second glance in hot pursuit of the escaping ex-Thundercat, but security duty in the royal quarters hardly kept them in the sort of shape that one would need to be in to match the speed of Grune the Mighty.
Grune ran for his life toward the exit sign. When he was about halfway there he heard an alarm go off, but there was nothing he could do about that except run faster. Adrenaline pumping through his veins, he bolted through the door. Grune was annoyed to realize that the sign had been deceptive, for it was not a direct exit outside but instead some sort of stairway that led upward to one. The sabertooth then realized that he was underground, and decided to head upwards, but to not follow the signs. The guards were not the shrewdest of the Lunatacs he had dealt with, but he knew that if they had not already, very quickly they would be notifying all of the security personnel in the area of his escape. As he ran up the stairs, he could hear the pursuing Lunatacs’ lighter footsteps behind him, so instead of taking the predictable route of following the lit exit arrow up yet another flight of stairs, he instead went through the door on the next level as quietly as he could and darted down the hall.
Once he was a safe distance down the hallway, Grune ducked behind a corner to stop and take a breath. It was then that he realized that he no longer heard footsteps or voices, just the pounding of his own heart. Could I have lost them that easily? The possibility seemed too good to be true, but Grune was not about to complain about any break he was given when the odds were stacked so highly against him.
After another few seconds of rest, Grune crept back into the shadowy corridor looking for a way out. It struck him as strange that the palace seemed as empty as it did. The sabertooth knew from his former stay there as an ambassador that the lunar royalty had a very large staff and that there were almost always “honored royal guests” of some sort staying there, but that day most of the staff and nobility were nowhere to be seen. “They must have all gone to my execution,” Grune muttered under his breath with a sarcastic chuckle. “I’m so honored.”
Stealthily Grune made his way to the other side of the palace to find a way out. After weighing his options carefully from what he knew of the layout of the building, he decided to try and make his escape through the hangar. Grune figured that if he could find a way to sneak aboard a spaceworthy ship and fire it up, he would be able to blast right past any land-based security and hopefully go straight into space, not unlike Luna and her crew had done when they had left him and Kalin behind back at the raid of Luna’s club. The sabertooth was pretty sure that none of the security staff would be expect him to be foolish enough to outright steal a royal ship. The hangar was under a strict measure of security at most times even when nothing was amiss, and few souls would be brave—or just plain crazy—enough to be willing to try such a dramatic and risky escape route. That was precisely why he decided to do it.
Fifteen minutes later, Grune slipped into the hangar through a service entrance. As the former Thundercat had suspected, the doors were sealed and three armed guards stood on each end, apparently having been notified to seal off the exit and be on their guard. Grune had expected that, and it would be easy enough for him to get around—a couple of full-powered blasts from a moon cannon would do the trick nicely in opening doors for him. The sabertooth took a deep breath to steady himself in his hiding spot and then, drawing upon the experience he had gained in stealth all those weeks ago on the Hunt, he silently ducked behind a small space cruiser and, careful to remain out of the guards’ line of sight, opened the entrance hatch.
Unfortunately Grune was so caught up in avoiding the eyes of the armed guardsmen and getting inside the ship that he never noticed the slight lunar man that had equally quietly crept up behind him. “Don’t move,” he said in a low tone that caught Grune completely off-guard. “I’d rather not have to send a laser searing into your back, but I will if I have to,” he continued as Grune felt the unfriendly end of a pistol press through the fur on his back. Grune did not have the chance to voice a response before the Lunatac spoke again. “I’m not here as your enemy, sabertooth, but acting for a friend of yours.”
“Who are you?” Grune demanded angrily, although careful to keep his voice low enough so as to not rouse the guardsmen. Although trusting the Lunatac with a laser at his back was a rather dubious risk to take, the expected response of the guardsmen to an alert to his presence was a sure bet.
“Who I am doesn’t matter,” the lunar man replied. “What I can do for you does. For starters, you won’t want to attempt an escape in this ship. It has no fuel to speak of. Instead you’ll want to get into the same model cruiser two to the left of this one. That one has a full tank of fuel and its weapons are fully charged. It just came back from maintenance two hours ago.”
Slowly and with deliberate caution, Grune turned his head to meet the eyes of his surprise benefactor. “Why are you helping me and why should I trust you?” he pressed.
“Firstly, because you have no choice,” he responded, “and secondly, because I love my mistress the Queen, and I will do whatever she asks of me to secure more of her attention and favors, including helping a Thunderian rebel that for some reason she does not wish to see die at her husband’s hands,” he informed him tersely. “This is not a safe position for either of us, and the longer we stand here and jabber, the more that risk grows. But your safety, and more importantly, my safety and hers is assured if you do exactly as I say. Now get in the other vehicle and do not take off for at least another twelve standard minutes,” he instructed him, lowering the laser pistol but keeping a wary eye on the sabertooth.
For a moment Grune debated whether or not to follow the Lunatac’s instructions. He had no way of knowing whether he was walking into another trap, but one thing the lunar had said was true—he was a goner if he was caught by the guardsmen anyhow. Finally he decided to trust his instinct and do as the Lunatac said. “Fine,” he growled.
The lunar man lowered the pistol altogether, handed it to Grune, and then withdrew back into the corner from which he had appeared. “Then go.”
Nodding, Grune stepped back from the craft and, after eyeing his benefactor for a moment to assert that he made the right decision, the sabertooth wordlessly stole through the shadows of the back of the hangar until he reached the designated, and climbed in as he had been instructed. When Grune looked back briefly before pulling the door shut, the Lunatac was gone.
Those twelve minutes were some of the longest of Grune’s life, and he felt like a caged animal being teased with a halfway open door. Once inside the ship he used the laser pistol to break the chain connecting his shackles so that he could move about more easily, and then tried to pass the remaining time with the distraction of familiarizing himself with the controls of the ship. However, once he figured out the basics of the craft—namely, its navigation and weaponry—he spent the rest of the time formulating his plans of revenge instead. At that moment Grune wanted to obliterate King Lunaro’s entire miserable palace off the face of the Third Moon, but he was in no position to do that yet, especially in a simple lunar space cruiser. No, first he would return to Thundera and take a more personal revenge first—the revenge he had intended to take through Luna’s failed plan to conquer Gatoria.
Revenge against the Thundercats.
Revenge against the ones who had doubted him and betrayed him.
A twisted and cruel smile spread across the sabertooth’s face when he glanced at the clock on the ship’s console and he realized his twelve minutes were finally up. He switched on the power systems of the ship, and did not even bother to wait for it to completely finish warming up before he sighted the hangar doors with the moon cannons and opened fire, buckling the door and exploding it outward in a brilliant flash of light and a very loud explosion. The startled guardsmen, the three that were still standing after the blast, screamed curses and scrambled for their hand weapons. The security officials vainly fired upon the cruiser as its engines came to life, but their shots glanced off the reinforced hull of the ship with little effect. One of the guardsmen managed to set off an alarm, but Grune’s craft was already halfway through the door before it even sounded.
Grune laughed maniacally as he plowed past the demolished doors and accelerated into the purple sky above. Briefly he saw a crowd gathered outside in the palace grounds, a large and bloodthirsty mob eager to see the execution of a former Thundercat. With another laugh of hatred and contempt, he fired the moon cannons right into the heart of them before he swung upward into space.
One disadvantage of taking off from the hangar Grune realized quickly, however, was that those who would pursue him also had easy access to spacecrafts, and not surprisingly, it was only a matter of minutes before the scanners in his own stolen cruiser alerted him to the presence of several other Lunatac ships hot on his trail.
“Damn,” the sabertooth swore, pushing the acceleration further. He was dismayed to see that already he had used one third of his fuel, but he tried to hold fast in the knowledge that most likely not all of the ships behind him were fully fueled, as his unnamed benefactor had implied when he directed him to the cruiser he had taken.
Sticking to his plan of returning to Thundera, Grune quickly set course for the nearby planet, raised the defense shields, and manned his weapons. He fired as best as he could at the ships that pursued him, but his shots were wild and somewhat random as his ultimate goal was to get away, not necessarily take them out entirely. He certainly would not have wept if he saw any of the crafts following him go up in a brilliant ball of flame, however.
The Lunatac ships pursued him well out of the Third Moon’s orbit, and through evasive maneuvers and a lot of luck Grune managed to avoid having his own craft suffer anything more than a few scrapes from strafing fire as he made his escape. It relieved, but also surprised him when he then noticed the pursuing ships backing off the farther away they got from the Plundarrian Moons. When Grune glanced down at his own fuel gauge he saw why that was. While his ship was space flight capable, it was not optimized for long interplanetary travel. It was fast but far less fuel efficient than star-class battleships. “Less than half a tank left,” the sabertooth muttered. “Better take it easy on the speed from here on out.”
Grune sighed as he saw the last of his Lunatac pursuers give up and change course, presumably to head back home. He had no doubt that was only to get reinforcements, but as he intended to be far out of the airspace of the Moons of Plundarr by then it so it did not matter. He knew the Lunatac royals would not be brazen enough to do a surface attack on Thundera unless they wanted to start a battle royale with the Thundercats, and would likely just take their frustration at losing Grune out on the unfortunate souls who had not been able to prevent his escape. He wondered with a cruel smirk if some of them might wind up as prey on the next Hunt. He hoped so.
It was not long before the golden orb that was the planet Thundera shone brightly in his viewscreen. “Home sweet home,” he said to himself sarcastically, just as a satellite outpost station that kept watch on all crafts entering Thundera’s airspace hailed him.
“Felis One to unidentified Lunatac craft,” a harsh voice cackled through on the radio. “Halt and identify yourself.”
Annoyed, Grune merely made an obscene gesture at the radio and continued on his way toward the planet’s surface.
The message blared through on the console again, the voice louder that time and far more stern. “This is a warning, unidentified Lunatac craft. Identify yourself immediately, or we will be forced to assume you are hostile and take action.”
Grune growled in annoyance and picked up the transmitter. “This is Grune the Mighty you’re dealing with, and if you don’t let me land in peace, I’m going to show you a whole new meaning to ‘hostile’, got that?”
The sabertooth could hear a bit of commotion on the other end of the transmission and then another voice, presumably that of the acting commander of the outpost, came on the line. “Grune the Mighty, this is not an optional stop and check point. You are in an enemy craft and therefore subject to inspection, regardless of what title you might have once held and dishonored. Bring your craft to a halt immediately and prepare to be boarded and searched, or face the consequences!”
A feral snarl came from deep within the sabertooth’s throat as he listened to the outpost commander’s judgmental power trip. “You want consequences?” Grune laughed viciously. “You’ve got them!” With that he targeted the cruiser’s moon cannons on the Felis One and fired at full power. No one in the station had any time whatsoever to react before the beams sliced through the darkness, hit the orbiting station, and exploded it in a dazzling orange-gold burst of fire.
Laughing like a madman, Grune used the very last of his fuel to hit the accelerator and speed toward Thundera’s surface, ready to begin his quest for revenge by finishing the job that Luna and her contact there had already started but would now never finish. He was going to conquer Gatoria for himself.
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