Just under the rarefied, restricted levels of the nobles and blue-bloods, down to the blackened surface, were the sectors of the city reserved for the lofty middle classes, the half-breeds and common folk of low birth.The professionals, who possessed important degrees of knowledge, were considered by the ordinary populace to be ‘first among equals’ and so were placed in those positions above the others.The tradesmen and artisans, who in their own particular way beautified and animated the sterile, urban atmosphere with their esteemed culture, were given a slightly lesser degree of importance.The merchants, who provided the material and financial lifeblood important to the day-to-day vitality of Metropolis, were kept nearer the bottom yet they were by no means downtrodden for more often than not they represented the richer families from which the majority of the upper-crust of society originated.

Kara had eased his way out of school without notice -- or so he hoped -- and, armed with meager recollections of the mechanics of his past trip to the underworld, he boarded one of the very same turbo-lifts he had ridden in with Marsala but got off down at levels immediately before the boundary to the forbidden, surface zone.Working on little more than instinct -- for Marsala had expressly told him never to enter those sectors -- he thought for sure that he would be able to find Caesar in that general area.To be sure he was uneasy, he had never disobeyed his superiors that way, that defiantly and so he was anxious, wary even.

Especially unnerving was the damp, humid air that circulated through levels that he searched -- was unused to that kind of hostility but it was more than the elements that seemed inhospitable.He was immediately struck by how out-of-place he felt as he maneuvered through the vast, almost formless crowds.He felt alone, utterly alone as the pressure of eyes studied him, the harshness of snarled, annoyed faces were hurled at his direction.

The people had clothes but there was not much to their garments.The Thunderians for one had next to nothing on.Again on instinct alone he reasoned that if he wanted to blend in, then his robe simply would not do.

He ducked into a side-street and behind a parked vehicle he took off what he wore.The soot and ash that regularly plumed up from Third Earth’s surface had singed the once white and pristine cloth with a brown-gray grime.‘Perfect,’ he thought as he tore a large section off of the back with his claws.Quickly, the lion fashioned the rough strip into a loincloth and discarded the rest in a pile on the curb.He was pleased with the results but it occurred to him perhaps too late that his was much tighter than the others.Nevertheless, he convinced himself that no one would notice, or care and with that he set on again, out to resume his search.

Now he looked more like the natives and yet he sensed that he did not entirely fit in.It was not a new revelation to him, it was a familiar feeling, one that he had come to know very well.Starting almost as soon as those first, few days of preschool, when Marsala had introduced him to the children of the other nobles, yes, he knew from as far back as that that he was not part of the group, alike his peers.But what he never understood was why, why did the other Thunderians not like him?Surely the felines must have seen something in him that neither he nor the humans noticed.He had no one he could talk to about it, indeed, for the longest time he did not even have the words to communicate the idea to anyone.Such was his world and after a while, without resistance, he came to accept it, he just assumed that he was supposed to be alone.

And that was why it was so important for him to find Caesar -- it was a hope, dim and uncertain, that perhaps with him he could break free from that personal isolation.

No -- at last it came to him, he saw exactly why he was different at least down there, in the lower levels of the city.It was his walk, his manner.His very looks, un-battered by work and toil, were alien to the area’s denizens.For their own part the people were unfamiliar to him, too -- their language, inflections, cordiality.He found that, in response to his sudden bout of self-consciousness, his hands were in constant motion, frequently covering his face with the excuse of scratching.

Choking and suffocating in the throngs, he thought that the only way to relief was to break away from the crowds.Pushing his way through tight groups, cutting across lines and jumping over barriers, he stumbled inadvertently onto a part of town that was eerily quiet.The only sounds that echoed in the cavernous streets were those of the rolling sidewalks he had just escaped from and humming.He looked down -- though still, his feet vibrated.It was a familiar sensation and with the bellowing of a gray haze it occurred to him that he was much closer to the planet’s surface than he had believed.

He did not turn around, despite the seedy atmosphere, the blinking, neon lights.He was comfortable in the relative shadows that the larger, rising buildings around the scene provided.A speeding vehicle appeared from the distance, its sirens and red spinning lights startled the lion in its sudden arrival.He hid behind a metal crate thatbrimmed over with the burnt and shredded scraps of what had once been a house, now partly demolished.The strange car slowed around the area of the bin and seemed to stop for a moment or two.

He looked about him, past the empty lots, toward the backs of whitewashed buildings of brick and mortar, ancient structures he had only seen before in picture books.He feared that his quest was over, that all was lost.He wondered how badly he would be punished back home where his father and the Master of Activities, the official representative of the Lord of the Thundercats would find out.

But without notice the vehicle sped away, splashing through the pools of brackish filth in its way -- it windows were thick and blackened and offered no hint of its interior.He sighed and almost laughed in delight.He was again alone -- or so he thought.He stood and the hot, muggy air attained a biting chill.The sound of sprinkling, of sand or salt pouring came to his ears from both everywhere and no where at once.

Kara ran out of the scene, terrified -- and then as if all at once his strength was sapped.He stopped, huddled over, his head hot and aching.The world was spinning, darkening in a haze of confusion.An array of new, unexpected sounds -- notably a crackling laughter -- surrounded him.He had without thinking returned to the rolling sidewalks and was now a prisoner of a new mob.Where were they going?What was he doing there? -- his mind reeled with endless questions as he wandered about in circles, unable to concentrate.

Limping at last to the side, he tried desperately to reach the anonymity of shadow but he had no energy, no will.He stumbled on his knees over the concrete and there, on his side, he lay still.A hand grasped his shoulder and with that he remembered no more.