Crimson eyes sunken into putrid sockets formed of decaying flesh glared in the darkness with a hatred so bright it glowed.  He sucked stale air in through his mouth, anticipating the need for speech.  This creature only inhaled to speak.
        Breathing, eating, even urinating were all bodily processes he had shed a millenia ago when he had been mummified.  He had no lungs to breath with, no stomach to digest, no heart to beat, no blood to course, nor even brain matter inside his head.  All those parts were either in small jars or casks hidden in his main chamber, or had been cast away.
        He was a shell of carefully preserved skin, held up by ancient bone, and hollow inside but for an ancient darkness and the once mortal soul he had bound to it.  "Someone is coming," he rasped to himself.
        He stretched out his hand, waving bony fingers across the surface of the massive stone cauldron that formed the center of his antechamber.  An eerie glow rose up from the depths of the pool, and the liquid within began to steam and bubble, to churn, and finally with a flash that illuminated the four twisted, looming statues that formed the corners of the chamber, the pool
stilled, and an image shone in its bubbling surface.
        The burning eyes narrowed as they stared at the image in the pool.  It was a man.  Little of the man's figure showed through the fold of cloth and metal that covered his body, but it was plain from the width of his shoulders and
the thickness of his neck that his frame was powerful.
        His hair was as red as fire, and pulled back into long braids.  Slitted, amber eyes peered out from under his wild brow with surprsing intellegence, turning what could have easily been an almost neanderthal face into something noble.  A king of beasts.  And this king held a long sword without a hilt in his right hand, pressing it flat against his forearm.
        "Lion-O," the ancient demon priest hissed, barely recognizing his long time adversary.  As old as he was, the priest tended to view mortals as collections of energy, recurring themes that reappeared again and again across the tapestry of time.  And he knew this energy from long ago.
        The priest sucked in more cold air to use for invokation.  "Ancient Spirits of Evil," he chanted lowly, spreading his arms out to supplicate himself before his dark gods.  The cauldron bubbled and foamed violently as his low, droning words continued.  The words themselves took on a kind of life, reaching down towards the roots of the darkness he served, stirring it, waking it, moving it...manipulating it to his own ends.
        The eyes of the four massive stone figures in the corners made a grinding, scraping noise as they slipped open.  The priest maintained his careful incantation, his low voice even, orchestrating the forces of raw chaos and darkness, bending them to his will, focusing them into tools, into life.
        Then it was done.  He let his decaying arms fall back to his sides, the bubbling pool quieted, and the massive stone icons became still once more. Claws scraped against stone, horns tossed, and the newly created beast roared.  The roar came out not as sound, but as a thunderous bolt of lightning that sparked across the stone walls behind the priest, leaving thick gouges and scorch marks.
        "Go my pet," commanded the undead sorcerer.  He gestured to the hallway out with a clawed fingertip.  "Destroy the intruder."  Mumm-Ra allowed himself a grim smile as his newly created servant shrieked its obedience in the form of a second lightning bolt, and then flashed down the corridor.
        Light glared from the hallway in quick bursts, illuminating the chamber and casting heavy shadows.  Sounds of violence echoed throughout the dead halls, and the decaying form cackled, until he noticed the insistant bubbling and brewing in the waters of the pool.  Danger.  He looked up to the hallway to see Lion-O there, the blade still cradled in his right hand, the head of the monster being dragged behind him in his left.
        Mumm-Ra felt his rage and fear building within him.  The darkness swelled within him as he called forth more power.  His wrinkled skin began to expand outward, inflating as the forces grew within him.  The hunched figure of Mumm-Ra slowly rose up, growing in size and stature until he loomed over the quiet Lord of the Thundercats.
        But both beings knew Mumm-Ra was afraid.  Lion-O could not destroy him, but he could greatly inconvenience him.  It could take several generations to rebuild the kinds of damage Lion-O was capable of inflicting.  Lion-O took a step forward and tossed the head of the slain monster into the cauldron, and then drew the blade slowly up in preparation.
        "What a pity," snarled the demon priest, hands glowing with mystical energy as he prepared to discharge it at his hated foe.  "All that power gone to waste.  If you would work with me rather than against me, we could conquer the universe."
        "That's what I came here to talk to you about," replied Lion-O calmly.
        Mumm-Ra blinked.  "What?"  Unconsciously he shrank a few inches.
        "Just what I said."  Lion-O sank part of the length of the blade down into the stone floor and relaxed his combat stance.  "I came here to bargain, not to fight."
        "And what can you offer?"  Mumm-Ra shrank back down to his shrivelled, stoop shouldered form, stepping forward curiously.  He had long seen this potential for darkness in the young lord, but had never counted on it coming to fruition.
        "Temples.  A pyramid exactly like this one on every world in my empire."
        "And what do you want in return?"
        "Information.  I have suspicions on what my enemies are doing, but it is all conjecture and assumption.  I need to see them for myself.  I need information."  Information was what it was all about after all.  He had known Jaga had taken possession of Tygra.  Jaga had been draining him, the drawn features, the whitening hair, it was obvious if you knew what to look for.  When he had hurled his blade at Tygra's throat it hadn't been to defeat Tygra...it had been to force Jaga's spirit out of him.  "I need to see Jaga."
        "Very well, look into the cauldron, young lord," Mumm-Ra said smugly, gesturing towards the pool.  And there in the waters they saw a planet.  The pool showed them spaceships, and defenses, and growing cities only decades old.  A new world founded by the Jaguars.  Just as Lion-O had suspected.
        The image focused in on a pillared chamber, and a young Jaguar, flanked by twenty more of his kind in gray robes.  The face was different, but it was clear to Lion-O's eyes whose soul was in the young body.  Jaga was speaking to a lion in a military uniform.
        "There is an evil growing on the planet," said the young man, but it was definitely Jaga's voice.  "It must be wiped out.  Move the fleet into orbit around this target.  Bombard the surface, but do not land there under any circumstance.  Consider the planet quarantined.  Take the fleet, Admiral, and insure that it is done.  For the safety of New Thundera, Third Earth must be
destroyed."
        The image faded and Mumm-Ra regarded Lion-O coldly.  The stakes were higher than he imagined.  Jaga was willing to exterminate a planet just to snuff out Lion-O once he became a threat.  "I think your empire will not last very long, young lord," the demon mocked.  He was hiding his worry.
        Lion-O seemed thoughtful.  "My assumptions were correct.  I wasn't sure he would have the resources for a planetary bombardment, but it would make the most sense.  Swift, certain, and there's no opportunity for us to strike back. It's what I would do.  How long will it take those ships to arrive here?"
        "Weeks, no more."  Mumm-Ra grimaced to himself.  An artificial apocalypse was not something he was looking forward to.  He would survive, he always did, but he prefered to have slightly more control over the destruction of all life on the planet.
        "Plenty of time," said Lion-O happily.  "Show me Monkian and Jackalman.  I'll be needing them for the next phase of my plan," he continued, and smiled to himself at the look Mumm-Ra gave him.