Hey, guys, I'm back. Sorry about it not being on one of my Warriors fics, but I've really gotten int KFP, and that's pretty much all I can think about.
Anyways, this is for a KFP competition. It's run by 3431jess and M4DG4RL. If you want to participate, go onto 3431jess's profile and find a story labeled "Ancient China non-Kung Fu Competition".
This is my first KFP fic, so hopefully it's good. In case you don't know, it's about a croc named Lidong, who's from Legends of Awesomeness. He's a giant croc, like, twice the size of his fellow crocs.
"No!" Father yells in frustration. "You have to swim faster!"
I lower my eyes, not wanting to meet Father's furious gaze. A bandit to the heart, he had given it up for the moment to try to teach me how to be one as well, so that when I was all grown up, I could take over his gang.
Father storms over to me and hoists me out of the water. His amber eyes, just like mine, glow with anger. "We've gone over this, Lidong! You need to have a straight, streamlined position to get the maximum speed. Your pursuers aren't going to wait for you to carefully swim away." Though he doesn't say it, I can practically hear his next words: Tiny and slow. What a disappointment. Why can't you be more like your brother?
I bite my tongue to stop a response to that unspoken question. Tentatively, I say, "Father, maybe..."
"Maybe what?" he snaps.
I shrink down. "Maybe I'm not, you know, cut out to be a bandit?"
"Nonsense," he snorts, dropping me back into the water. He doesn't even flinch as the cold water from the splash hits his scales.
"B-but Father," I stutter, "I'm still so tiny and slow, two things a good bandit doesn't have."
"You'll... grow," Father growls through clenched teeth. The words sound forced. He takes a deep breath. "And with growth comes speed. Until then," he eyes me, "you'll have to make do with your strength. That'll help others respect you."
It's a half-truth, and we both know it. It's true that I'm stronger than most would be at my size. But my strength is about equal to the strength in the mediocre crocs. It's nothing to brag about, not when I'm this size. Especially not when they're the same age as me.
A moment passes, and then Father points toward the island. "Again. As fast as possible. And Lidong, remember—"
"Yeah, yeah," I mumble. "Streamlined position."
After I try and fail miserably at getting to the island in the time Father demands me to achieve, we return to our house. I go down to my room and sit slumped. The chair in sitting in was made for a full-grown croc. Depressingly, I had to use a tiny ladder Father stole for me to reach it. Even more depressingly, even with my arms spread out, I don't touch the sides.
The stairs creak as somebody comes down. I look up, expecting it to be Father, but surprisingly, it's Fung, my older cousin.
"What are you doing here?" I ask.
"Mom made me come," Fung grumbles.
"Oh." It's obvious, now that I think about it.
"Come on," Fung says. "Uncle Cajing wants a word with you."
I follow him upstairs, scrambling to keep up. Fung's tail flicks to one side and almost sweeps me off the stairs, but I manage to dodge in time.
Father's sitting at the table, a scroll in hand. He looks up as we approach. "Took you long enough," he says.
Fung glances at me, but says nothing. He scoops me up, ignores my indignant complaint, and dumps me on the table.
"What did you want to talk about, Uncle?" he asks, leaning forward and resting his elbows on the table as I scramble to my feet.
"Hey," Father says, shooing at Fung's elbows, "don't lean on my table. I stole it from the richest merchant in the Valley. Nearly lost my tail during it too. I don't need that pine sap incense smell that your dad likes on my table."
Fung rolls his eyes, but stands up straight. "So?" he prompts.
Father holds up the scroll. "Lidong, you know what this is?"
I shake my head, and Fung sighs.
"It's the acceptance scroll for the best bandit training camp in the swamp. There, you'll find some crocs who can work around your size. You'll never be my level, or part of my gang, but maybe you can find a place at the lower ranks of another's gang." He shrugs.
"And why am I here?" Fung asks, sounding bored.
"You're going to take him there," Father says. Fung's eyes widen.
"What?" he says. "Why me? Why can't you take him? After all, you're his dad."
"My gang and I, we've got a raid planned," Father says simply. "Now, Fung, the camp starts in a few hours. It's by the old cess-pit." He turns and walks out. "Don't be late!"
"You've gotta be kidding me," Fung grumbles. He sighs, then picks me up and sets me on his shoulder. "Well, better get going. Dad's gonna get mad if I don't do what his brother asks. And I do not want to see him mad!"
I sit on a lily pad, tail drifting in the water. I've been in the bandit camp for about a week now, and things just keep getting worse.
I got in all right, but the head crocs were doubtful about my chance of becoming a bandit. Probably the only reason I'm in now is because Father's a well-known bandit around this swamp, and a lot of the camp's funds come from him.
It's free time at the moment, and the other crocs are having a great time wrestling with each other. There's no other crocs even close to my size, so I'm all alone. There's no one small enough that it would be safe for me to wrestle with.
I'm so lost in my misery that I don't notice the three crocs coming up until they're right in my face. They're called Deng, Klung, and Werhing. Their leader, Deng, sneers at me.
"Well, well, well, what do we have here?" Deng growls.
I don't bother to answer. So far, anything I've said, they've spit back in my face or got really mad and made the day's bullying worse. I learned my lesson from that.
"C'mon," Deng says, prodding me in the chest, "no wise words for ole Deng?"
The other two grin at the apparent ludicrousness of the statement. I glance furtively around for help, but none comes. A streak of rebellion rises in me, though, when my personal trainer, a croc named Qing, nods shortly at me and turns away. I can hear his silent message. Stand up to them. You're better than they are.
I swallow, then say, loud and clear, my voice carrying easily to the other crocs. They stop their fighting to watch. "You must be a big coward, huh, Deng? Picking on me with two others to back you up. Yeah, that's the sign of a brave croc."
Deng's face twists in fury. The other crocs head my way, interesting lighting up their features. Klung shoves me off the lily pad.
"Yeah, real tough, Deng," I snort.
His eyes glowing, Deng motions for his two cronies to back off. "I'm gonna get you for that," he hisses, real slow. His eyes burn with malice.
Scared now, I swim away to the land and back away. Deng follows me at a leisurely pace.
"Get him, Deng!" a croc shouts.
"Yeah, show that little runt his place!" another yells.
My hands ball into fists. Deng approaches, baring his sharp teeth. I charge in and throw a punch at his scaly stomach, determined to prove my strength to him.
Deng throws his head back and bellows with laughter at my pathetic attempt. The other crocs roar right along with him. He eyes something behind me, and I realize with a jolt that it's the cess-pit. Uh-oh.
"You think you could beat me?" he jeers, face full of contempt. "You're nothing! A useless little hatchling! A weak hatchling who couldn't kill a leaf! A bug is bigger than you!" A shove accompanies each word, forcing me closer and closer to the revolting part of the swamp: a cess-pit, stinking and full of pieces of scrap. Things no one needed. The crocs cheer him on as I come closer and closer to the edge of the pit.
"You belong in there!" Deng sneers, jabbing a claw toward the pit. "You're just like everything in there: you're. Not. Wanted. Now get out of here. You're not worthy of being called a croc." With a final shove, I tumble into the pit. My snout just peeks above the surface of the vile liquid. They laugh derisively as they turn and dive into the water, leaving me to struggle out alone.
I thrust myself forward and grin as I feel my arms scrape against the side of the roots. Over the last two months, I had grown significantly. I now dwarfed Deng, previously the biggest of the crocs at camp. I'm not sure how it happened. I've never heard of a croc growing this large in such a short amount of time. A huge growth spurt, and a phenomenon, I guess.
My head pops up from the water. The other crocs wait for me. They grin when they see me.
"Lidong!" Werhing shouts. "Nice to see you, buddy!"
I glare at him, but say nothing. I have not forgotten what he, Klung, and Deng did to me when I was still a runt. Before, I barely reached their waist. Now, when at my full height, I was bigger than the full-grown crocs at camp. When the crocs saw how much bigger I was becoming, they instantly gravitated towards me, trying to become my friends. I was okay with the respect, but didn't particularly crave it. In fact, their constant noise bothered me. But I was fine with that. I still remembered very clearly each and every word of torment they threw at me. Now, I was surrounded by respect.
It wasn't my favorite thing. But it was better than before. Now, I was big. Bigger than any other croc.
No one would ever be bigger than me ever again.
Yeah, I know, big time skip. I couldn't think of anything to put in between there.
Anyways, until next time! (probably in a few months, unfortunately)
—Forest