Lion-O stood with his arms crossed, smiling down on the field of warriors he had assembled.  They had been drawn from all the members of the alliance.  A few scattered Tabbots stood among them, with their ornate, jewel encrusted armor and swords gleaming in the sun.  Many of them were Balkans, both the young and idealistic, and the old warriors with nowhere else to go, all in their heavy boiled leather jerkins, wielding sharpened staves.  Fewer still were the Wollos, dressed in colorful padded overcoats, practicing with heavy maces.

 Amongst them were the more elite forces, the soldiers that Lion-O knew would be the most useful in a real skirmish: the Tuskas and the Warrior Maidens. The hardiest of the Tuskas had come out of the ice lands to serve, having cast off their heavy suits, they still sweated as they drilled with their bayonettes and rifles.  The Maidens wore their simple skins and carried bows. They were the centerpiece of his army, and they knew it.  The seemed to take great relish in their roles as leaders and trainers, and many ambitious young Maiden scouts had requested to serve with the coalition army, hoping to gain coups and ranks within their society.

 But all this was not to detract from the rest of his army.  Each company and each race served it own, vital purpose, even if it was only to be decoys or cannon fodder.  Lion-O smiled as he saw Panthro scolding a Balkan and correcting his fighting stance during the drills.

 Panthro and Wilykit's arrival the day before had immensely improved Lion-O's mood.  Those volunteers who had been the first to arrive were amazed to see the young Lord smile for the first time.  Everyone else had smiled too.  After all, they had brought a tank.  Panthro had knelt down before his Lord, and no one had been surprised when Lion-O bade him stand and appointed him the general of the alliance army.

 Everyone had been surprised when he had appointed the slender, red-haired girl that accompanied Panthro as the other general.  Wilykit had been surprised too, but that quickly was replaced by a sense of glee.  If word ever got back to Wilykat that she had been put in a leadership role...and *adult* role, he was sure to scamper after her.

 A few of the soldiers had mumbled about Thunderan favoritism, incredulous that a little girl would be chosen over one of them to be a general.  Lion-O asked them to choose the most experienced, the strongest, and the most respected warrior from amongst them to try to defeat that little girl in personal combat.  It hadn't taken long for a stocky, tan skinned Warrior Maiden named Avilex to step forward.

 It was short, brutal, and embarrassing.  Avilex never laid a finger on the agile youth, and spent most of the fight trying to get up off the ground. Lion-O called a halt to it before human's pride was too badly hurt, and named Avilex the first Captain in the army.  When asked why the woman was made a captain, Lion-O told them it was because she was the most experienced, the strongest, and the most respected warrior amongst them, just as they had said. No one questioned Lion-O's appointments after that.

 Berbils began to weave through the training fighters with cold water.  Lion-O turned his attention away from his practicing forces to speak to the Nai emissary that stood next to him.  "Very impressive," the creature said, with it's heavy lisp.

"Thank you," replied Lion-O.  "We'd very much like to have the Nai join us. Your sailing ships would be a great asset to us, and your forces would benefit from our training and military aid in times of need."

 "Now may very well be such a time.  Our shore patrols have seen sails to the North, and smoke from burning villages."

 "Raiders.  Am I to assume that is why the Nai have suddenly come to a decision regarding the alliance?"  Lion-O grinned to himself.  The Berserkers had picked an opportune time to strike this far south.  And they would make an excellent example for the others.

 The Nai seemed to squirm a little.  "We have still come to no official decisions about the alliance...but if you could repel the raiders that would certainly be a mark in the alliance's favor..."

 "I don't think so.  We are a coalition based on mutual protection.  You are either in, or you are out.  If you wish to stand by yourselves, the Alliance wishes you the best of luck against the raiders."  Lion-O leaned down to the shorter Nai and whispered conspiratorially.  "But just in case your elders come to a decision as the pirates get near your shores, I'll arrange to have my army practicing manuevers in the woods beyond your town.  If they should happen to decide that they want to join the alliance, we'll be there in time to save the town from being burned down.  And the women raped.  And the children killed..."

 The Nai gulped and blanched, turning a paler shade of purple.  "I-I must go speak with my government!"  He bowed deeply and trotted back towards his riding beast.  Lion-O tried hard to disguise his mirth.

 "You wouldn't really let a town burn, would you, Lion-O?" asked Avilex, who had been standing nearby, observing the drills.  There was a hint of worry in her voice.

 "No, but as long as he believes that I would we have a great deal of leverage.  If you believe I would, then he certainly does."  Lion-O noted the abashed look on Avilex's face and smiled to himself.  He decided to break the tension with talk of business.  "I see that young Kindis is doing well.  Once that firebrand has proved herself in battle we might try her as a commander of a detachment, see what she can do with them."

 Avilex brightened and nodded keenly.  "The Lord has a good eye.  Kindis is one of our brightest.  A bit on the impetuous side, but skilled enough to compensate for it.  The shock of real battle should cool her blood just enough to make her a great warrior."  The stocky woman looked up at the tall lion. "I didn't know you even knew her name."

 "I know all their names.  Look over there at the Balkans.  They aren't warriors by nature, but they've sent volunteers in an attempt to pull their own weight.  In their own way they are a noble people."

 "I never thought of them that way," admitted Avilex.  She'd thought of them as cringing, cowardly little wretches.  "Look at that little one.  He should be resting with the others, but he's still practicing that stance Panthro taught him."

 "His name is Anham.  Avilex, go down there and inform him he's just been chosen as our second Captain, would you?"  Avilex's eyes grew wide in surprise, but she nodded and rushed off to obey.

 Lion-O's sharp eyes continued to rove the field, searching for the potential in each of his volunteers.  Finally his eyes settled on Wilykit, standing with a group of Tabbots, showing them some shield moves.  She looked up towards they exchanged a long penetrating stare.  Lion-O broke away, turning back into his tent, a brooding look on his face.

 He hadn't spoken to her yet.  Not privately anway.  What could he tell her? That he remembered her now, that he remembered what they had?  To him it was years ago.  The intense, beautiful, exotic older woman of his childhood memories was still just a kitten.

 Something flashed in his mind and his blade leapt into his hand.  A hard, invisible blow glanced off the parrying weapon.  Lion-O roared and lashed out with the blade, and the seams of his tent blew outwards and the heavy canvas of the structure was shorn neatly in two.

 Lion-O rolled out into open ground and crouched low, becoming completely still, opening his senses to try to detect his unseen assailant.  He held the blade across his chest at a defensive angle.  Lion-O closed his eyes to concentrate.  Was this Tygra?  If it was, his next move would be to snap his sword, just like he had done once before...

 The air sizzled.  Lion-O twisted the blade in a small, quick chop.  The heavy blunt ends of the whip had been aimed squarely at the center of Lion-O's weapon.  The whip had cracked through the air like a thundering serpant, its head striking harder than a hammer.  But the blade hadn't been there, the flick of Lion-O's wrist had brought it up enough to let the whip pass, and then slice back down, decapitating the snake's head.

 The severed head of a long blue whip, ending in three, heavy crimson orbs plotted down at Lion-O's feet.  Tygra.  Lion-O caught a blur of movement, headed for the trees.  Tygra's doing, no doubt, he wanted to be followed. Lion-O waved back the volunteers that were rushing to his aid and sprinted towards the trees.

 He heard a rustle of branches and leapt to slash the trunk of the offending tree.  It toppled over with a mighty crash.  Leaves began to drift down like wide green raindrops.  Another blur of movement, and again Lion-O struck, splitting a heavy trunk down the middle with another earsplitting crack.

 Sharp pain struck Lion-O on the back of the head.  He span quickly only to catch a shower of dirt in his eyes.  A thud in his stomache that must have come from an uppercut knocked the wind from his lungs.  Lion-O's heavily muscled arm flashed out, guided by instinct.  It struck something fleshy hard enough to feel a bone of some kind snap.

 There, he heard movement off to the side...he hesitated.  He halted his blind attack and pitched foward, rolling over the ground, uncertain whether he had dodged an attack or not.  The sounds, the motion blurs...had they been illusions?  Tygra had the power after all.  The forest around Lion-O grew black and a complete, deafening silence fell over it.  Then it flared into burning white light and thunderous noise, and then back.  Off and on like a strobe light in his head it flashed.  He'd been mentally invaded.

 He leapt again, ignoring his senses and trusting his memory as to where the fallen trees were.  He couldn't afford to be dealt a blow while he gathered mental energy to ward off the illusions.  He yelled sharply, and struck out with his mind like a blade, slicing through the curtains of thought Tygra had put up around him.

 He heard Tygra yelp in pain and surprise, caught off guard by Lion-O's mental attack.  Lion-O squinted and saw beyond sight.  Tygra was stunned, his back to a tree, blood seeping down out of his nostrils.  Lion-O hurled the blade straight at his throat.

 It screamed through the air.  Tygra could see it coming, dimly.  He could picture it in his mind, slicing through his windpipe and pinning him to the heavy trunk like a tack.  He had time to think that he should really be thinking some auspicious last thoughts at this moment.

 "Stop!" yelled a strong voice.  It took Tygra long moments to regsiter the voice as Lion-O's, and longer moments to register that he was still alive.

 "W-wh--" Tygra's half formed quesion was stopped by the tickling sensation of cold, pointed metal touching his adam's apple.  A small trickle of blood started when he gulped.  Lion-O gestured and the weapon zipped back into his waiting hand.  Tygra blinked and stared at young Lord.  "Why?"

 "Because I don't kill without reason, Tygra," said Lion-O, holding his hand out to Tygra.  "Now come back with me to the encampment, old friend.  We have much to discuss."

 Tygra shook his head as if he was awakening from a spell.  Still dazed and battered he let the muscular lion lead him back towards where the others were waiting.  All the time, Lion-O spoke softly to him of plans within plans, of jaguars and revenge, of mutants and Berbils, and of faraway worlds and Mumm-Ra.  It all seemed so unreal, but one look at Lion-O told him that the Lord could and would do all the things he had just said.  "A-and what do you want of me?" stammered the shaken tiger, once Lion-O had finished his whisperings.

 "I want you to be my advisor."

 "But Lion-O, after all the things you have just told me, how could you expect me to work for you?"

 Lion-O gazed steadily at Tygra.  "Because if you don't, then I will succeed anyway.  And when I take my rightful throne I will be without your steadying influence.  I will be without your ethical insights.  If you refuse me, then you give up any kind of reforming input you could have had over me in the days after the kingdom was won."  Lion-O smiled at the paling tiger, knowing full well that he was trapped.  Once Tygra reached the same conclusion, he would use his influence to bring the other Thundercats into the Alliance.

 All the pieces were falling into place.  After tomorrow he would have the Nai and the Thundercats.  Then the only pieces left for Lion-O to move were two frightened mutants and one Ever-living Sorcerer.  This was all too easy, Lion-O thought to himself.