The Blade

Tygra and the others simply stared at Lion-O in shock.  He looked a mess.  His red mane was tangled and matted, and dried blood was caked all over his hands and forearms.  His face was pale, and his eyes were wide open, with a crazed look to them.  "What do you mean by that, Lion-O?" asked Tygra softly, his voice full of suspicion and concern.

"Vultureman is dead.  No other mutant has the technical expertise needed to build one of these, so we should be safe for a time."

Gasps of astonishment travelled around the circular council table.  "Vultureman is dead?" queried Cheetara.  "How did he die?"

"I killed him," said Lion-O flatly.

The gasps were much louder this time.  An awkward silence fell over the table as the Thundercats looked to one another.  Finally, Tygra put a voice to the shared thoughts.  "You...you broke the code, Lion-O?  Murder...by Jaga...we'll have to have a trial."

"Now wait a minute, Tygra," said Panthro sternly.  "Lion-O is king, his word is the code.  You can't put a king on trial!"

"The king embodies the code, but he is not immune to it, Panthro.  Our laws have been broken.  It is our way."

"The Sword!" exclaimed Cheetara suddenly.  "We can't judge our king, but the Sword of Omens can!"

Tygra nodded vigorously.  "That's it!  If the Sword accepts Lion-O, then we must as well.  How about it, Lion-O, do you agree to this test?"

Lion-O remembered.  He was five.  It was past his bed time, but he had always been mischievous and adventurous.  He liked to explore, and as soon as Snarf fell asleep the young lord would sneak out and prowl the dark hallways of his home, the royal palace.

He was creeping down a long, ornate, corridor, hiding behind the tapestries or stone statues whenever guards were near.  He'd heard a rumor that there was a secret passage behind the throne, and he wanted to find out for himself.  There was a soft, flickering light eminating from the throne room, and casting a strange glow that created strange dancing shadows in the corridor.  Lion-O came to the edge of the passage.

His father, Claudus, sat on the throne, and there was a...a thing clinging to him.  The thing was slender, gray, and spectral.  Its bony mass was hidden inside the folds of a massive cape, the back of its head obscured by a peaked helmet.  The cape puffed out and in, like a giant monster's breathing chest.  As it puffed out the soft white light spread through the chamber again, and then dimmed.

Claudis was the strongest man young Lion-O knew, but now he looked weak, sitting timidly in the throne, not struggling, as the monster pressed its drawn face to his neck.  Then it moved its dry lips up to Claudis's, and the light flared again.  Claudis's cheeks glowed, and a ball of light floated out of his mouth and into the monster's.  It was feeding on him.

Young Lion-O watched in helpless horror as he saw his father's brilliant red hair turning blond, and as the creature atop him began looking younger and fuller.  "No!" screamed the child.  Both his father and the monster turned to look at him for the first time.  It wasn't a monster atop him at all.  It was Jaga.

Lion-O felt a sudden sense of confusion within his memory.  Young Lion-O knew Jaga to be old, but the Jaga he saw now, unfamiliar to him, was very familiar to the older, remembering Lion-O.  Claudis looked to his son with resignation.  "Don't be afraid son," says the father in a weak voice.  "You will understand someday.   You shall even take my place eventually, it is the way of things."

Young Lion-O just screamed and screamed as he stared into Jaga's right eye, that terrible eye, blood red with a slender, glowing slit for a pupil.  And the eye growled of its own accord.  "Lion-O..." said Jaga.

"Lion-O!  Did you hear me, Lion-O?" repeated Tygra.  "Do you accept the test?"

Lion-O shook his head, and found himself in the council chambers, with all his friends staring at him.  "Yes, Tygra.  I will face the Sword," he said with grim determination.  He remembered once he had tried to lay it aside, but it had come back to him.  At the time he had been pleased.  Was the Sword his, or was he the Sword's?

He led the way back to his quarters, where the Sword slept.  As soon as the door opened the static eye slipped open, and began to glow and growl softly.  Lion-O curled his fingers around the metal of the hilt, feeling an electric tingling through his fingertips as they touched the cold metal.

A spectral hand closed over Lion-O's, pinning his fingers to the Sword's hilt.  Lion-O strained with all his strength, but he couldn't let go.  Something was overpowering him, lifting up his hand, until the Sword was held up before his own face.  The Eye stared into him, through him.  He grunted as he could feel his strength evaporating.  He could see.  It was Jaga's hand that had closed over his own.  The ghost was standing before him, holding the Sword in front of its face, so that the Eye glowed red and menacing where its right eye should have been.

The next thing Lion-O knew, he was in the void again.  It was spinning slowly around him like the dark clouds of a tornado.  Everything was moving, swirling...being drained away, he realized.  He was in a black whirlpool, and everything that he was was being sucked away.

He looked around, tryng to gain his bearings.  He was terrified.  He saw Jaga in the darkness, huge and ever growing.  The whirlpool was draining into Jaga's ravenous mouth like a black, twisting ribbon.  "You...have...a destiny...Lion-O," Jaga's voice boomed through the darkness.  "Succumb."

Lion-O could feel himself growing smaller, more and more lost.  "Father!" he cried out into the emptiness in fear and desperation.  He was spinning, falling, there was no hope, no chance...

He felt something strike his palm.  It was blocky and hard.  He closed his fingers around cool, unyeilding metal.  It was the blade, from his dream.  A yell ripped out from the depths of his soul and he slashed with the blade through the base of the whirlpool, cutting it from Jaga's mouth.

There was a flash and Lion-O fell to one knee in his quarters.  The Sword of Omens spun from his hand dropped into the floor point first with a 'spak!'  The Sword had embedded itself into the floor.

"Tygra," said Lion-O weakly, trying to stand.  "The Sword of Omens is yours.  My last official decree is that you shall replace me as Lord of the Thundercats.  Goodbye to you all."

All any of them could do was stare in dumbfound disbelief as Lion-O pushed his way slowly past them and made his way out of the Lair.