Trust Issues -- Chapters 13 and 14
Two more chapters for you. I hope you like it. :) Chapter 13 The last shout was given by none other than Lion-O, Lord of the ThunderCats. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Suddenly a sinister laugh came from Cheetara. “Did you really think that I wasn’t coming for you? Your time has come and this planet will soon know my name!” The cheetah shouted. Before anyone could react, she was gone. All the yelling had woken Sahara from her sound sleep and Cheetara desperately tried to calm the cub down. Rocking the little girl back and forth finally made the cub fall back asleep. Looking at the clock, though she realized that that had taken thirty minutes. Sighing, the cheetah left the room to see what all the commotion had been about. Walking down the hall she could feel that something wasn’t right. Her sixth sense seemed to be telling her that something bad was going to happen. Rounding the next corner, she came face to face with herself. “Who are you?” The cheetah grabbed her bo-staff and extended it. “I’m you of course.” The fake cheetah smirked. “I bet it was you that had everyone yelling earlier.” Cheetara growled. “Such a fuss over a little kiss. You’d think I’d broken some sort of rule.” The other cheetah continued to smirk, knowing full well the ThunderCats’ marital status. This last statement made Cheetara lunge at the impostor. The fake Cheetara easily evaded the cheetah’s attack and grabbed her collar. “I wonder what will happen when those three find you dead.” The shadow in cheetah skin said as she began to do what she did best, suck the life from her victims. Cheetara tried to fight Dolosa but it didn’t seem to be working. The harder she fought the weaker she got. Suddenly there was a bright flash of light and a scream from the attacker. Then the world went black. Ben-Gali raced to Cheetara’s side as the thing that had attacked her vanished. He checked her vitals and found that her pulse was weak but it seemed to be gaining strength. Before he could do anything else Lion-O rushed down the hall. “I saw the fight on the Sword. Is she all right?” He asked. “I’m not quite sure. There were two Cheetaras. One was trying to kill this one and I blasted it with my Hammer. Then in an instant the other was gone.” The white tiger explained. Lion-O thought about the story before responding. “There were two Cheetaras.” He couldn’t wrap his mind around it. “Yes. Whatever that thing was it appeared to be sucking the life from her.” Ben-Gali said. Before the lion could respond, Cheetara sat bolt upright. She whipped her head around and saw the white tiger and her husband. Her hand went to her throat. Nothing was holding into her anymore but she still she couldn’t shake the choking feeling. Next she tried to speak but nothing came out. Lion-O got down on his knees and took hold of her shoulders. She looked into his eyes and could see the confusion and pain in them. “Ben-Gali, run an internal heat scan of the entire Lair. I want to find this thing. Also run through the security footage. See if it shows up on the tapes. Have the ThunderKittens help you.” The lion instructed. “Yes, sir.” The white tiger acknowledged and hurried to the control room. Carefully Lion-O scooped up his wife and headed for the sick bay. “Lion-O.” She finally managed to croak out. He didn’t respond and continued to walk. “Lion-O, listen to me. That thing is from the spaceship. It’s what has been coming after me. It wants to destroy us. As I said before we have to get rid of it.” She tried to get through to him. “What would you have me do?” He suddenly asked. Her confused look made his anger grow. “I watched you kiss Panthro. He tells me you kissed Tygra first. And now something conveniently tries to kill you? What am I to believe? How can I trust you?” The Lord of the ThunderCats asked. Chapter 14 Cheetara could not believe the words coming out of his mouth. If she had had the strength she might have slapped him. “Lion-O, I would never cheat on you. Do you think that I would break everything we have for someone else? I love you and I love Sahara and I would never do anything to harm either one of you.” She couldn’t comprehend why he thought this way. “Then why would you kiss Tygra and Panthro?” He gave her an accusing look. “I wouldn’t!” She shouted hurting her throat. “Great Gods of Thundera, would you stop it!” Pumyra broke into their argument as the Lord of the ThunderCats brought his wife into the sick bay. “You can’t honestly believe that your wife would do anything that she is being accused of! She is my best friend and I will not stand for you treating her this way! Whatever happened to ‘Innocent Until Proven Guilty’?” The puma scolded. Lion-O stood there holding Cheetara in his arms, still trying to understand where Pumyra got the stones to stand up to him like that. “Put her down and don’t say anything until you can realize what you’ve been saying.” The puma put her foot down and that was that. Lion-O placed Cheetara on the bed and backed away. Right away Pumyra began tending to her friend. “Thank you.” The cheetah gave a small smile. “Anytime. Now how are you feeling?” She asked. “As strange as this sounds pretty good. As soon as that thing let go of me I didn’t feel so weak. Although I can’t imagine that thing won’t stop trying to kill me.” Cheetara explained. “Yes well, it appears that you got a chunk of it when you were fighting. There is some dark stuff under your claws.” Pumyra picked it out and quickly sealed it in a test tube. “I’m going to run a battery of tests and see what we can do about getting this thing.” She continued. That’s when Ben-Gali burst into the room. “I’ve run a scan and I didn’t pick up anything but the ThunderKittens got something on the tapes that everyone needs to see.” The white tiger told them. Quickly the three followed him down to the control room. “Is everyone here?” WilyKit asked. “Yes. Now pull up the tape.” Ben-Gali said. Kit poked a sequence of buttons and the tape came up on the screen. “Split the screen and show the second set of footage.” The white tiger instructed. WilyKat then brought up the footage on his side of the screen. “You can see from the time stamp that at 19:30, Cheetara was both with Sahara and kissing Tygra.” Ben-Gali showed. “No one can be in two places at once.” Panthro said. “Exactly but here is where it gets even better. You see how a few minutes later at 19:33, Panthro is getting the lip service and Sahara is being rocked back and forth?” The white tiger asked. “Yes, so?” Pumyra asked, getting a little impatient. “Zoom in on the shadows.” Ben-Gali instructed the Kittens. They did as they were told and it was then that everyone saw what he was talking about. “Here you can see that Cheetara’s shadow falls on the floor in her bedroom and it looks like her. However, when the shadow is seen on the kissing Cheetara, what does it look like?” The white tiger asked. “Something else.” Lion-O said barely above a whisper, now realizing his mistake. “Exactly. We have a shape shifting creature on our hands who manages to slip past our security system and cannot be found on heat scans.” Ben-Gali told them. “So how do we get rid of it?” Tygra asked. “I think I know.” Cheetara spoke up. To Be Continued...