In its own way, perhaps unwittingly, perhaps unsuspectingly, the city resembled that very underworld it tried so desperately to be ignorant of.

Kara wandered the crowds and files of bystanders, a permanent chill cast over his body.He shivered, his hair stood on end.He was lost in a once-familiar world that had become alien.The areas, the stops, the scene, the people were all different, all changed.Something had been altered, something that was once now was no more -- yet it was small, imperceptible, it had to be, he reasoned, how else could the others be oblivious to it but he?

But what was it?Nothing had happened to the city -- the buildings and massive structures still stood.Nothing, too, had transformed the people -- the Thunderians and humans still divided themselves into their mutual spheres of societal influence.

What was it?What was it?What was it?The words, the thoughts careened in his mind and suddenly the answer came to him -- the realization crashed upon him unexpectedly in a flurry of insight, a sunrise at midnight.Stopped amidst a loud throng of sight-seeing tourists he realized that only his world had come to an end and despite the groan and heaving with which it had tumbled down to hell, only he and he alone was aware of its coming to pass.

He had changed, he was different.

It was terror, new-found and unrelenting, that faced him, not in the piecemeal degrees of gradual logic, but all at once, all together.Out of the lofty heights of the royalty into which he had been born, he had become the stranger, the despised outsider.He did not belong and he knew that for his safety alone he had to go.

The danger he faced heightened his senses.Noises, from the jarring to the slight, almost imagined, alerted his immediate attention.His nerves were on edge, frayed and he had had more than enough.The pain in his head, the throb in his face made him lose track of his surroundings -- he found himself in and out of conscious control until, at last, he had stumbled into a turbo-lift.

The bright, white lights of the elevator car shocked him back to reality.

He was not alone -- to the side was a man, standing, holding a newspaper, its cover and blazing, black headlines obscured by folds, to front were two Thunderian guards, a pair of the very guards that Marsala had put in place.Yet they had not stopped Kara, they had not --

The lion got to his feet and laughed -- the panther cats, in flimsy uniforms, snuck coy, antsy glimpses at him.Looking at the blinking control dials he sighed in relief.He was going down, reaching, step-by-step, the level of his beloved, his one and only.Out of the darkness, into the light, his mind turned from the infernal torture of his soul, to the divine bliss of his Caesar -- his human.

Ever since that day in the pleasure garden, that fateful day that through the course of time had come to seem to be an episode of history long past, his trips to the lower levels of Metropolis were more regular, more common place -- and the familiarity resulted in the sense that he felt he a better knowledge of that terrain than the popular attractions and youthful locales of the upper-crust society he had been born into.

But the greatness of that world of the clouds and skies was a lie -- founded and supported by a lie.A lie that purity was strength, a lie that the throwbacks were ‘disposable,’ that superiority was virtuous, that slavery, masked and disguised by euphemistic semantics, was acceptable.He was a Thundercat and he saw no question of moral ambiguity for he had no choice but to live by letter of the law, the ancient, timeless Code of Thundera.The power and influence of evil and corruption had to be expunged.

And so, rejecting the future his father had planned for him, he found his true place at last, in the depths.

The elevator continued to plummet, gears turning, ridding on toothed tracks, ideas and indistinct notions formed in his mind.He imagined that with Caesar’s help he could vanish and hide in the underworld and those long-forgotten areas of the city.His face would change and soon he would be unrecognizable even to those who had known him his whole life.He reasoned that it was --

“Sector five-fifteen,” a computerized voice announced -- the turbo-lift’s doors opened to the sound of an electronic bell.

Kara noticed that he was alone -- the man with the newspaper was gone and the guards, too, had stepped out along the way.Odd, but he had no recollection of the elevator stopping at any moment.Cautiously, though, he passed through the open doorways and looked left and right nervously.With that, tentative pause, he entered into the blackness of the absolute night.

He smiled for he had in his grasp the open possibility of a new life with his beloved, a new world set free from his father’s reach and that of the malevolent forces that kept him in power.

As he walked the desolate streets, he had the feeling that the few people who were there looked at him differently.Whereas before they had been content to ignore him, now his image was a cause for second looks -- “Why?” he wondered.

He stopped and put a hand on his face.His cheek felt hot -- in the coldness he had not noticed it -- and the skin was taught, too, the flesh was swollen.He merely bumped his nose with his finger and it reeled with pain -- it was loose, its bones softening, coming undone.

Terrified, he tried to scream but the muscles in his jaw shifted, he felt them move down his chin.His eyes welled and his back slumped forward -- the pain and discomfort was extreme.He ducked into an alcove to recover.He tried to open his mouth a little, just until he sensed he could go no further.He stopped and opened it a little more.His jaw was agape and he began the slow, aching process of closing his lips.In that manner his exercise alleviated the abrupt change that his body had undergone.

All his life he had had such episodes but the doctors were always there to help him.The doctors -- Pallas, his father’s silent, obedient accomplice.He wondered how much the man knew but worse still, why he kept silent.Indeed, what would happen if the people knew the truth about who and what their leader was?

And what about the sword?How could it have allowed such things to come to pass?Jagga and Liono, surely they were not just sitting back, watching idly even from the astral plane, that ethereal paradise where the spirits of the great ones rested for all eternity.Astral -- the stars, the field of stars --

The back doors of the hospital were locked, the small, inner lobby was unlit.He explored the building’s perimeter and in short time found the main entrance.Up the brick steps of its dark-yellow, outer façade, through the open doorways, he entered the scene that was unfolding in the large reception area.Doctors and administrators yelled at each other and at officers of the Amazonian Guard.

He snuck behind the unruly mob and listened at the front desk.

“I have told you, already, doctor,” said a man in black uniform, “and I will not repeat the consequences of disobedience.The license of this hospital has been revoked --“

The head of the establishment was about to speak but the same solider cut him off --

“The order comes from Lord Phaeton himself,” he rebutted sternly.A fellow soldier behind him -- a courier, or so his uniform designated -- displayed a rolled-up scroll to his superior and the gathered staff.

“This hospital is the property of Caesar Antonious, of the noble Claudian family.It is protected by customary rules of engagement and cannot be unilaterally shut down, as you put it, or repossessed by anyone without a due and proper hearing of the great council of the Thundercats and Amazonians.”

The soldier sighed -- he had taken the scroll and banged it in his palm.“As I was about to say, Caesar Antonious is wanted man --“

“Wanted?” Kara butted in, unannounced.A doctor pulled and tugged him gently to the side.“For what?Who ordered it?”

The Amazonian laughed, arching his head back in amusement -- but the glare in his eyes betrayed his true annoyance.“He has been charged with treason --“

The doctors and nurses gasped as echoes of ‘treason’ resounded in loud whispers.

“His crime is instigating the throwback population to rebel.I can divulge nothing more at the moment -- the evidence is being gathered as we speak and will be made public in due time.Right now we have most of our active rank and file hunting the fugitive.”

The lion stood in shock.His father had trumped the charges, he knew that, but he did not know how to explain that.How was he to tell them that he was Kara, the son of Phaeton and heir to the Thundercat throne?Would they believe him?Would they care?

He was about to speak again but he stopped, his voice would have only been drowned out by the shouting and arguing that broke out among the forces gathered in the lobby.The words ‘twenty-four hours,’ ‘immediate ceasing and desisting’ were thrown about, back and forth.Weapons glimmered, law books opened.

“I guess we don’t have much time,” a female, feline voice said -- she dragged the youth into a semi-lit passage.

“It’s you,” Kara turned to face the cheetah doctor.She wore a white lab coat with her name stenciled over the left pocket -- a stethoscope’s bell was tucked within, the tubes that emanated from it obscured most of the tag.

“Yes, I suppose it’s me, I haven’t been not-me in a while.”

“Don’t you recognize me, I’m -- “ he caught himself -- “Liono.”

“Liono, hmmm?”She held his chin and lifted his head into the slants of dim light.“Well, isn’t your face all banged up?Just how did you get it all swollen like this?”

Kara tried to speak but she was holding onto his chin and he could not open his mouth wide enough to answer her -- so he mumbled.

“I see --“ she let go.

“Where’s Caesar?” he asked, in whisper.

“I don’t know.He didn’t come back and we haven’t heard from him all day.”

“What’s going to happen?”In horror he saw that his new-found plans had crumbled.He could do little, little -- having repudiated his father and his father’s world, he no longer had the power to make right the injustices that were at that moment at work in the hospital nor those that were sure to be done latter, if the soldiers were to find Caesar.

“No, no!” he shouted in his mind.A solution would be found, the answer was at hand.It was bust a setback, minor disturbance of no substance.He had to be strong, he could not give up.

“We’ll have to see,” she said, dryly.“But we won’t give up without a fight.The Amazonians can’t just bully us around, no matter whose orders they have.This is a hospital, it can’t just shut down at a moment’s notice, we have patients and employees and their welfare has to be taken care of first.It’ll give us enough time to maneuver our way out of this, you’ll see.But as for Caesar --“

A faceless figure wandered into the hall and drew the cheetah back to whisper in her ear.She told Kara not to go anywhere, that she would be right back to check on his face.She left with the mysterious man and vanished in the lobby.

The lion-cub moped about the darkness, passively listening to the arguments.He felt nervous -- that same, faceless figure had returned to the hall, albeit at a distance.He turned from the immediate scene to the recess of the corridor.Recalling his previous tour through the building, he traced a path to the back exit and set out immediately to reach that area.

Although it had been locked closed from the outside, he hoped that at least from the inside it could open and he could leave unnoticed.

His heightened senses of alertness made him feel the overpowering, chocking dread of terror.By gradual degrees he had noticed that he had begun to develop newer, deeper notions of awareness -- instincts he had had no knowledge of before.He knew without knowing that he was being followed.

He reached the lobby but continued on, toward a set of swinging doors and opened them violently without passing through them.Quickly, he turned back and hid under a secretary’s desk, carefully avoiding pitfalls or any such disturbance that could give his covert presence away.Crouching in the shadows he waited and listened -- listened as the footsteps announced the arrival of that faceless figure.

It, who or whatever it was, stopped and waited, too.The damped but perceptible disturbance of the double-doors caught its attention.Guessing that he had gone through that passage, the stranger sighed and stepped out of the lobby into the rear hallway.

Kara remained in the shadows until he was satisfied that he was relatively alone.He arose and sprinted to the glass doors.The portals would not open automatically and for a few moments he panicked.He buried his claws into the crevice between the doors and tried with all his strength to fight against their resistance.

Exhausted and desperate, he grabbed a table lamp and flung it against the clear walls -- but it bounced off.Undaunted, he picked it up from the floor and flung it again.Again it rebounded and he caught it.He did not stop and in response the crystal substance formed a small, slight crack.He kicked it and it shattered -- the flat sheet of glass dissolved into a million, tiny bits of sparkling shards.

Overall, the operation took no more than a minute but he feared still that the sounds of his struggle had blown his cover.

He rushed out of the hospital into the streets.Empty and abandoned, he did not feel safe in the open avenues.He felt instead the telltale pressure of eyes watching him, following his every move.Alone, he realized he had only one, last place of refuge, one last hope.