"That Outta Keep ‘Em Down for a While!"

A ThunderCats Fan Fiction

By CassiusSMH

All characters Copyright Rankin/Bass Entertainment, Lorimar Pictures, and the Estate of Ted Wolf

The Thundercat known as Panthro awoke with a start.

By the Cat Gods, what had happened?

The mechanical genius looked around him. He seemed to be on the remote coast of Third Earth. A dank cave- probably formerly inhabited by the brutish Gigantors, noting the stench that emanated from it. Torches hung on the walls.

"The trip," he muttered. "Lion-O might thought it be a good idea to relieve Tygra for a while…"

He’d been out patrolling…when he’d been knocked out cold.

"Funny, I thought Third Earth was free of trouble…"

"Is that so?" A grizzled voice spoke to him from the darkness. It had a rustic quality to it, from barking out orders. From a hardworn life. Life…on the sea, perhaps. It was at that moment the pirate crew known as the Berzerkers stepped from the shadows and clustered around Panthro. Their captain, Hammerhand, a late middle-aged human with a long gray beard, a metallic hand and a cybernetic eye patch, had spoken to him.

"You!" Panthro grunted, trying to free himself from his bonds, which happened to be chains attached to a large boulder.

"Why Cap’n," a yellow-bearded portly pirate with a wheel implanted in his chest chuckled, "Methinks the Cat’s done forgot about us, us, us!"

"Aye," a gangly pirate with a spindle-thin neck and a crooked helmet replied, "Be ye surprised by that, Ram Bam?" Around his chest hung a vicious looking morningstar, and across his back attached via strap hung a shield.

"Nay, Top Spinner," Ram Bam replied, crossing his arms. "Just didn’t think he’d be so…stupid."

"Feh," Hammerhand said, absently kicking Panthro in the side. "Don’t matter now, do it? He’s ours, ours, ours!"

The largest pirate, a barrel chested giant with thick arms and legs and a prodigious orange beard smirked.

"Ye gonna talk to him, matey? Ye-and we- been waitin’ fer this fer many o’ year."

"Ye bet I am Cruncher," Hammerhand squatted next to his captive, face grim. "So, ye forgets about us, the mighty Berzerkers, scourge o’ the seas o’ Third Earth, agents o’ chaos and raiders elite?"

"You’re nothing but sea scum, pirate," Panthro scowled. "And if I were free I’d teach you a thing or two!"

Hammerhand absently took Panthro’s head in his human hand and forced his jaw shut.

"Ye be silent. Ye had plenty o’ sermonizing when we last met over the open sea, Thunderian. Do ye recall, mayhaps, what ye said ter me on that occasion? Do ye?"

Panthro growled deep in his throat, a feral warning. Hammerhand merely applied more pressure to the blue man’s face, and Panthro began to wince.

"Nay? I remembers it. Clear as day." Hammerhand said, musingly. Top Spinner, Ram Bam and Cruncher were somber. They knew what was coming.

Panthro suddenly began to sweat. Open sea…last we met…wait. That addled human can’t be talking about- and his eyes suddenly widened in horror. Hammerhand saw the reaction and savored it.

"So. Ye memory recalls, do it?" Hammerhand relaxed his hold on Panthro for a moment and said easily: "What did ye say, ye Man-cat bastard, when ye sank me beautiful ship and sent me fine crew to the Deep?"

"That outta keep ‘em down for a while," Panthro said in a whisper, staring in shock at Hammerhand’s face.

Hammerhand stood up, and danced a merry hornpipe. His crew looked away in pain.

"Aye, ‘tis what ye said to me! And me fine lads too!" Hammerhand wheeled around and spoke into one of Panthro’s ears. "Ye know, me metal hand kept me from surfacin’, it did. But I first saw me whole crew- fifteen fine lads- drown before I went. And me fine ship, broken to kindling…" the captain’s voice became more ragged, and a tear sprang to his eye.

Panthro was stunned, staring into the madman raider’s hideous face of metal and flesh. His similarly horrid crew looked on, haggard and furious at the same time. They’d all lost comrades, friends, even family. The four that stood in the cave were all the remained of the once mighty Berzerker Clan, led by Hammerhand the Gray.

"Land dwellers think drownin’s nice an’ quick…but nay. The Sea…she plays with ye. Time stops. I heard me boyos yellin’, screamin’ to me, as she took ‘em. Or when the ship parts crushed ‘em. And then she took me too." Hammerhand said, voice dreamy. "When Mumm-Ra summoned me back, he put me in a body like ye, Man-cat. Methinks Mumm-Ra knowed how I died, playin’ with me, aye, which is why I broke his pretty machine after the ThunderCats stopped me fun. That’s how I gots this body here." The captain said easily.

Panthro looked back and forth at the crew, trying to puzzle out what they would do to him.

"You won’t get away with this, dang blast it! Lion-O is probably being alerted through the Sword of Omens right now!"

"And what’ll he do, preytell?" Hammerhand snorted. "Send that puma wench here?"

"Har, she hain’t much o’ a nurse," Ram Bam sniggered.

"Nor a fighter, neither!" Top Spinner chortled.

"You said it mateys," Cruncher said smiling. He quietly went over to Panthro and unfastened his chains. Hammerhand pressed down on his feet so he couldn’t escape. In a matter of moments, the blue Thunderian was gripped by the arms by the grappling pirate.

"Now, Top Spinner," Hammerhand gestured with his human hand.

The gangly pirate walked up and unfastened his morningstar, attached via chain. Whirling it expertly, he slung the spiked ball at Panthro’s left leg. The ball impacted with a thwack cracking the bone at the kneecap. Panthro grunted and shook with pain, but did nothing else. Top Spinner smirked, and jerked the spiked points embedded in Panthro’s leg. Top Spinner wound up and, with all his strength whirled the morningstar ball into Panthro’s right leg. As expected, that leg was broken at the knee. Panthro cried out as both legs were about to collapse.

"All set, sor," Top Spinner said, wiping off the morningstar of bone parts and blood.

"Now, Ram Bam," Hammerhand said.

The portly pirate backed up and sprinted toward Panthro, head lowered. Cruncher forced Panthro upright, and his chest out. Angling for a good blow away from his bandolier spikes, Ram Bam made deafening contact, slamming into Panthro’s exposed stomach with terrific force. Panthro lurched inward, giving a strangled cry and sprayed blood from the blow, which Ram Bam narrowly avoided.

"Done, Cap’n. His guts be pulp soon," Ram said, re-adjusting his helmet and standing by Top Spinner.

Hammerhand stepped up to the battered Panthro, gut horribly discolored. Blood trickled from his mouth, and his legs wobbled about him, useless.

"Now, Cruncher," Hammerhand said softly.

Cruncher nodded sight unseen to Panthro, and twisted his massive arms hard against Panthro’s own. With an ear splitting crack the big pirate broke both of the panther’s arms. Panthro couldn’t hold back the pain and screamed in agony. Hammerhand let him scream for nearly a minute before he brought up his hammer hand and slammed it into Panthro’s skull, knocking him out.

"He’s out, matey." Cruncher flung Panthro to the floor with disgust. Hammerhand nodded.

"Now, we wait for the morn, Berzerkers. We wait."

 

Panthro awoke to the calm lapping of waves. In pain, the panther sat up. His uniform was ragged, legs mangled, chest a ruptured, arms shattered, and head throbbing. Blood flowed freely from his legs and mouth.

"Where…where am I?" Panthro spat out. He lay on the floor of a small dinghy. Top Spinner and Ram Bam were at the oars. Cruncher sat with Panthro in the back of the boat, while Hammerhand peered down at him from the prow.

"Why, we be out ta Sea!" the pirate captain said, taking a deep breath, then letting it out. "In’t it glorious, Man-cat? Ye know, I was taught that the Sea- water, anyhow- meant life. Rebirth. I was called from it…and perhaps ye will be too…" Hammerhand carefully stepped over the others and hoisted Panthro up with his hammer hand, which clutched about his neck away from the boat, suspended above the waves, "Say hello to me crew, Man-cat bastard, ‘cause ye be over the very spot ye sent ‘em to the Deep."

And with that, Hammerhand dropped Panthro into the sea.

 

OhbyThunderaI’mdrowning…Hammerhandwasright-everythingissoslow…Iseetheship…samoflange…

 

Top Spinner and Ram Bam began to row the dinghy quietly back to shore, while Cruncher kept the boat level with his added ballast in the rear of the boat. He, too, was silent.

Hammerhand, though, couldn’t stop peering at the spot where the last ripples of Panthro’s descent were slowly disappearing. He was even able to see Panthro sink for a time. Then the sea swallowed him. A madman’s grin played across the pirate’s face and as he broke into a lunatic cackle-

"That outta keep ‘em down for a while, while, while!"

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