Lonely Kitten

Chapter One

Leaving

Smoke, the clang of weapons, the cries of combatants as they attack each other with everything they have. There in the heat of battle, lies the action, the big blow-by-blow scenes playing out in front of you. To hear your pulse racing in your ears, to feel the adrenaline pumping through your veins, pushing you on, on to see the end. To see the end of all the countless battles against the mutants, the Lunataks, the Berserkers, Mumm-ra, all meant to decide the fate of Third Earth. That's what being a Thundercat meant, not sitting in some chair back in Cat's Lair watching buttons flash on and off on the main console.

Wilykit sighed dejectedly as she slumped farther down in her chair. She knew that protecting Cat's Lair, protecting their home and base of operations, was important, but it was all her and Wilykat seemed to do. Sure they got to join in on the action occasionally, but not as often as the others. Lion-o, Lynx-o, Tygra, Bengali, Panthro, Pumyra, and Cheetara, they were the ones who fought almost everyday. Always adding new stories and tales to their already many battle accounts.

Wilykit couldn't stay in the seat anymore, watching the end of the battle on the main monitor, knowing that she had missed yet another battle. With a quick word to her brother, the young Thundercat left the control room and traveled the short distance to her room. As she walked she thought about how the other Thundercats viewed the twelve-year-old thunderkittens.

Wilykit and Wilykat had been Thundercats since they had first arrived on Third Earth after escaping from a dying Thundera. Yet in all that time, they had always been treated as children first, Thundercats second. Of course things had improved over the years, especially after the Thunderkittens had run away from Cat's Lair, but still. Wilykat's anger towards the subject had abated once Panthro had started to teach him engineering. Now he was more than happy to stay home and work on whatever project Panthro wanted him to do at the moment.

Wilykit settled herself on the sill of the window in the room she still shared with her brother. She had tried to learn what the other Thundercat's offered to teach her, but she hadn't enjoyed any of it. She liked to fight, to ride her space-board, to ride her space-board into battle and do battle against the other machines in the air. Of course Wilykit was allowed to do this very little, Lion-o was afraid of her getting hurt.

With one leg propped up on the sill in front of her, and the other dangling out the window, the young kitten gazed out into the nighttime scenery below her. In the distance, headlights from the Thundervehicles could be seen swiftly approaching, like beacons in a hopeless world. The two kittens weren't even allowed to learn how to drive half of those vehicles, because they were still too young. Wilykit knew though that Wilykat had been learning how to operate all of them thanks to Panthro.

Wilykit was glad that she could at least take her space-board out whenever she wanted and ride it. Unlike her brother, Wilykit couldn't stay still, she had to be moving, and she had to be active. She had come to enjoy riding the air currents as they passed by on her space-board. To be able to feel the power beneath her board, to be able to exploit every updraft, every gale of wind to her own advantage. It was exhilarating. The very best air currents were around Fire Rock Mountain and Dark Side, but the other Thundercats had forbidden her from going near them. They feared that she would either be attacked, her board would malfunction, or that she would stray to close to the Thundranium and be weakened, prey for any of their enemies.

Even she was attacked; it wasn't like Wilykit couldn't defend herself. More than once she had bested Lion-o and Tygra with her skill with dual short swords, and her hand-to-hand combat training had been applauded by Bengali and Panthro. She had learned early on that you needed more than just smoke pellets and clever ploys to survive in battle; you also needed strength and skill.

The others made their way into the Cat's Lair garage, and as Wilykit watched them, heard their joyous laughter, and bragging over their recent victory, she realized something. She was tired of it. She was tired of being treated like a child; tired of not being able to join in on the battle, go wherever she wanted, being able to do anything without someone looking over her shoulder. She wanted the full recognition of being a Thundercat that everyone else had.

She would run away, and not just from Cat's Lair this time, she would run away from Third Earth as well. The Berbils had a ship leaving for their home planet in two hours. The ship would stop at several ports along the way to trade cargo and such. Wilykit would be able to get off at any of those ports, and the no one would know which one. After getting off, she could track down an old friend of her parents, a friend who she hoped would be able to hide her for a while, or help her find a way to hide.

With all her plans running through her head, she packed. Wilykit tossed some clothes into an old knapsack she used to carry candy fruit in. Along with the clothes, she threw in some small possessions. An arrowhead that the Warrior Maidens had given her for her birthday, a bracelet that was the first real thing Wilykat had ever made after he started lessons from Panthro, and a small, golden mirror with the code of Thundera etched around the oval surface. This mirror was part of the Treasure of Thundera, and had been given to her so that she may always see not only the beauty outside, but also her inner beauty.

The last thing Wilykit did before leaving the room was to remove a necklace from her jewelry box. The necklace had two chains, with each chain connected to one half of the pendent that hung on them. Engraved upon the pendent were the words 'never forget'. When the Lunataks had once captured the kittens, Alluro had used his mind powers to make the kittens forget the other one. Three weeks after their rescue, Wilykit had found the locket at a Berbil market. She hadn't had a chance to give half to Wilykat yet, until now.

Pulling gently, the pendent split into two, each with a jagged edge. Wilykit put one half around her neck, while she put the other half on her brother's bed, along with a note that said 'I'll be back.' This was the hardest part, leaving her brother, the one who had been by her side even before they were born. But they both knew that they couldn't be together forever, that one day they would each chose paths that would take them different places. This was her path, to leave and not come back until the other Thundercats could truly accept her as an equal.

With this conviction firmly rooted in her mind, Wilykit picked up her bag, left the room, and headed for the hanger. She arrived just as the other Thundercats were leaving. Grabbing her space-board she told the others that she was taking some candy fruit pie to the Warrior Maidens for Snarf. They bought it; after all, they had no reason to doubt her. Wilykit left the hanger without any of them even giving her a second glance.

As she raced along the top of the treetops, Wilykit unclipped the Thundercat insignia from her belt and studied it. In leaving like this, not telling anyone, just up and running away, was she still a Thundercat? No one had ever clearly defined how exactly you stop being a Thundercat, about what actions you have to do to stop being one. She knew that if you attacked another Thundercat, or even killed your opponent, you were no longer a Thundercat. But did running away, in order to one day return and prove yourself, break the Code of Thundera? Wilykit clenched her hand around the black and red disc as she gritted her teeth. As a Thundercat, she should know the answer to that the question, but she didn't. With a disgruntled sigh she placed the insignia in the pouch at her side. She would try to find an answer later.

As Wilykit neared the Berbil village she banked sharply and landed in the woods. Deactivating the transmitter in her board, she hid it under some of the bushes around her. She had to be sure that the Thundercats couldn't track her. The road that leads to the Berbil village peels off and heads towards the Treetop Kingdom here. Even if they were tracking her progress, from here they wouldn't know for sure which way she went. As Wilykit reached to disable the transmitter in her communicator, it suddenly crackled to life.

"Wilykit, are you there?" Lion-o's voice came from the communicator. "Where are you going? Snarf said that he never sent you on any errand to the Warrior Maidens." The Lord of the Thundercat's voice was dripping with suspicion, and for good reason. Lion-o had learned much since he had awakened and found that he was no longer a child, but a man. And part of that was that sometimes you couldn't even trust the people around you. Everyone had hidden agendas at some point in time. Wilykit looked down at the communicator resting in her hand with a blank expression. Lion-o's voice was soon replaced by Panthro's, then Tygra's, and so on. It seemed that every Thundercat tried to get her to explain her motives. Where was she? Why was she doing this?

Wilykit found it odd that it was so easy to ignore the voices and pleads of the people who had been her only family for two years now. The people who she had mourned the death of Thundera with, and set about to build a new home, here on Third Earth with. But then again, these were the same people who had caused her to run away, intentionally or not. Her hand moved to disable the transmitter, and to turn off the communicator. Just as her fingers touched the wires though, a voice made her freeze, a voice which she didn't want to hear.

"Wilykit, sis, I know you can hear me." Wilykat said from the communicator. "I'm not going to try to stop you, because I'm probably the only one here who understands what you're doing and why you're doing it. Just be safe, and remember that I'll be waiting here for you when you get back." Wilykat's voice was full of sadness that his sister was leaving, but also full of understanding and trust. Trust that his sister truly would return. Tears sprang to Wilykit's eyes.

"Thank you," Was all she was able to choke out before she pulled the wire. Throwing the now silent communicator into the thick foliage, she wiped the tears out of her eyes. Now was not the time for crying, now was not the time to give in to her inner voice telling her to go back, back to her brother, back to her home. If she turned back now, nothing would be resolved. She would still be guarding Cat's Lair all the time, and probably even more after making everyone worry so much. Wilykit made her way to the main path and encountered a familiar face.

"Wilykit, what are you doing here?" Ro-Bear-Bill asked the Thundercat, giving as much of a quizzical look as he could at her. Wilykit plastered on an innocent and trusting smile on her face as she answered.

"Lion-o said that I could visit the Berbil home planet, to be able to see other worlds besides Thundera and Third Earth, and to learn more about the Berbils." Wilykit answered as she held up her knapsack. "It's not like I can't come back on the next ship." Wilykit knew this was a lie. When she came back, it wouldn't be on a Berbil cargo ship, she didn't know what it would be on.

The mechanical Berbil was more than happy to fulfill this rather abrupt request. Anything to please the Thundercats, the ones who had protected them for so long now. As Wilykit was escorted towards the Berbil ship, she thought more of the friend of her parent's that she was heading out to find.

His name was Lioner, a distant relative of Lion-o's. He and his wife Tygre had been off-world when Thundera was destroyed. Tygre was Tygra's sister, and Tygra liked to keep tabs on his sister every now and then. Last they had heard the couple was in the Acambria system working as merchants. The other Thundercat's didn't seem to be aware of Lioner's connection to the Thunderkittens parent's, a fact that Wilykit would definitely be exploiting.

Filing her information on Lioner and Tygre away, the Thunderkitten reclined in her seat on the ship and took solace in the fact that soon she would be off the ground. Wilykit took one last look out the window, knowing that the next time she looked at this landscape; she would be looking at it with new eyes.

[Comments, complaints, or concerns? Please tell me now before I put up the second chapter and completely disappoint you by repeating mistakes! Until next time.]