Lion-O walked beside Falstaff, adjusting his longer gait so he didn't outdistance the portly hog.  He had a heavy leather satchel slung over his shoulder, and it contained a few loosely packed blades and candle irons from the smithy for delivery.  Normally such things were carried by a horse, but Falstaff had decided Lion-O was stronger than a horse, less costly, and followed directions much better.

Lion-O caught the little pig staring at him.  Well, he couldn't really call Falstaff little.  Short was a far more accurate word for it.  He'd never paid too much attention to distinctions like that before, but after a week of living and haggling with the creature he found it was starting to come automatically.  In many ways haggling was like swordplay, Lion-O had found. One had words to attack with and words to defend with, and any inconsistancy or ill chosen argument was an opening in your defenses that a clever enemy could exploit.  He'd been cut down by Falstaff's slippery tongue more than once.

Lion-O turned and caught the short pig staring at him again.  "What?" he asked, looking down at his mentor.

Falstaff snorted and looked away.  "You just seem...different today, lad.  I can't place my finger on it though.  Normally I can read a man just by looking at him, but I can't read you today."

Lion-O shugged, a motion caused the contents of the leather sack to shift and clink against each other.  "Today I am a whole man, yesterday I wasn't."

Falstaff laughed out, but then stopped as he looked back up towards Lion-O. It suddenly struck him the youth was being serious.  "And what exactly do you mean by that?"

"Yesterday, and every day before that for a long, long time I wasn't really myself.  I was...empty.  I thought I had lost all my memories of my life before I arrived here at Third Earth," he continued, prompted by Falstaff's look of curiousity.  "But they weren't lost, they were just blocked away behind a wall in my mind.  A short time ago that wall crumbled, and all my memories began flooding back into my mind.  Yesterday the last one fell into place.  For the first time in my life, I am myself."

*Lion-O remembered.  Not because he had to, but because he could.  He thought back across his life, seeing himself at different ages, and at different times, slogging his way though the years up until the present day.*

Lion-O smiled.

"So, Lion-O, you're you now, are you?"

Lion-O nodded.

"Who were you yesterday, then?"

Lion-O looked grim.  "A confused half man.  A tool created by someone else."

"Who are you now?"

"I'm Lion-O," he replied simply.  That seemed to be good enough for him, but judging by the soft scowl on Falstaff's chubby features that didn't mean a whole lot to him.  "So Falstaff, I seem to recall we had a challenge.  The Code of Thundera.  I'll concede Truth to you, but I doubt you can sway me on honor."

Falstaff seemed to brighten once the topic had strayed from Lion-O's change in manner.  For some reason he found the change deeply disturbing.  "Ah, the contest, I had almost forgotten.  It just so happens that Exhibit A to my proof is on our delivery route."

Lion-O arched his eyebrows expectantly, but no more explanation was forthcoming from the pig.  They walked in silence for a time until they were nearly out of Tabbot Village.  This particular delivery was for the duke and his son, and their ancestral home was outside the village proper, in a small stone house on a hill.

The hill itself was overgrown with tall stalks of green grass and wild weeds, and it was dotted with the grey, skeletal remains of what must have been a vast stone structure.  It had been a castle, Lion-O guessed.  Now all that remained were a few low, weatherworn and crumbling walls here and there at odd right angles.

"Ah, here we are, snort snort, Exhibit A."  Lion-O could only reply with a look of exasperated confusion.  "Allow me to clarify.  You of course didn't know it, but my people once had knights and protectors, much like your Thundercats.  They had a beautiful code, and they worshipped Honor.  It was honorable, you see, to defend one's king.  And it was dishonorable to flee the king's side under any circumstance.  In times of battle these high walls would be teeming with our brave and honorable knights, and everyone took great comfort in the fact that they would stick to their code of honor even to the death."

"They sounded like brave creatures."

"Oh, they were, and they were our great defenders for centuries.  But one day the barbarians from the sea decided to attack the village instead of the castle.  The knights, you see, had taken an oath, and it was a matter of honor that they never leave the walls undefended.  So they watched in mute, honorable horror as their wives and children in the village were slaughtered and their homes were burned to the ground."

Lion-O looked angry.  "That's not honor!  That's stupid!"

"Honor comes in lots of different flavors.  You have your code of honor, but others have very different codes.  Take Hatchiman for example.  Your code says killing is dishonorable.  The code he follows says it is dishonorable to not kill a defeated opponent.  Is your code any more valid than his?"

Lion-O opened his mouth to make a heated reply, but caught himself just in time.

Falstaff continued, pressing his attack.  "What about your code, Lion-O?  Is your ideal of honor worth someone's life?  Your code says it is dishonorable to kill, would you refuse to kill someone, even though you knew that action would lead to innocent people being killed?  If you would, how is that any different than standing on the wall as your village burned?"

Lion-O wanted to growl out a reply, and his mind raced, trying to block Falstaff's verbal strikes.  But his tongue caught in his throat when it struck home.  He himself had killed, dishonorably, for the very reasons Falstaff was talking about.  He had decided the life of his people were more important than his own sense of honor.

Falstaff gestured around him.  "Look around, see the box the remains of these walls makes?  That's what honor is.  It's a box that you trap yourself in." Falstaff stepped over the low wall and continued on up towards the duke's house.  "Personally, I'll have none of it."

Lion-O's head drooped and he almost dropped the satchel.  After a few long moments he stepped over the wall and out of the box, following Falstaff's lead.  "You win," he said softly.  Another verbal sparring match lost, and this defeat was particularly humiliating.  The new, complete Lion-O was 0-1, he thought to himself.

"Wait...what's that sound?" asked Falstaff suddenly.  Lion-O heard it too.  A loud, drawn out whining noise, that sounded like an engine's death cries as it was being tortured.  Then a stuttering cough, multiple booms and rumbles, and the sounds of faraway people crying out in terror.

"Skycutters!" exclaimed Lion-O, dropping the satchel filled with obvious weapons and charging down the hill frantically towards Tabbot Village.  He could see quick flashes above the buildings where the metal of the mutant fighters caught sudden glints of the noonday sun, and flares of red arced down into the buildings.  A red haze began to glow across the horizon as the village began to burn.  And still there were the screams.

"Wait Lion-O!  Come back!" called Falstaff, calling after the retreating as it dashed towards the chaos.  Falstaff shook his head and sat down on the hill, not about to go sprinting off like a madman.  Especially not into a battle. "Fool," he said softly.