Kung Fu Panda and all its content belongs to Dreamworks. References and other mentioned names, products, brands and all other licenses belong to their respective owners. I only own my OC's. This story is purely written for entertainment and hobby purposes. English is not my native language and this is my first fic.
Thank you for giving this read a chance, and I hope you'll enjoy reading this.
Summary : A human accidentally gets stuck in a different world during a trekking trip, filled with anthropomorphic animals. Set on finding his way back home, Alexander Jenssen must survive in a world that seems vacant of humanity. But is that truly the case? Set between KFP and KFP2.
Kung Fu Panda : A Whole New World.
Geiranger fjord, Norway - June 12th
.
Three hours ago.
The forest and its inhabitants were nervous, as if an undefined terror was rapidly approaching. A doom of nature, a hurricane, an earthquake, a tsunami like such natural forces of destruction are always in the minds of such creatures, whose instincts still warn them with a dreading sense of foreboding.
Still, no such thing came that day. The high rock, a small mountain on its own located on the high side of the massive cliffs of the great fjord in Norway –The Geiranger Fjord- bathed in the nice warm sun which shone brightly in June. For nature, it was full summer already. The full event that happened there was so rare no animal sense so keen, or human technology so precise, could have anticipated what would happen on that ancient high stone.
Summer holidays had not yet begun, so it was a lone figure of a backpacker who walked down the trail in the late morning, heavily loaded. He halted near the rock, put his heavy gear down for a small break and sat down, looking wistfully at the high rock while quenching his thirst with some water. After some contemplation he apparently decided to deviate from his planned path and moved up for a climb to the top.
.
Thirty minutes ago.
It wasn't necessarily a very high top. It couldn't even be described as a mountain, really. It was as the name said : a very high rock, overgrown in time with grass and trees. The side of the fjord was a steep cliff that towered easily five hundred feet higher above the walls of the fjord itself.
The backpacker took things easy, not in a hurry at all, but instead taking his time and pausing here and there, as if he tried to memorize it and compare it to earlier memories, when he'd been here in a younger age. Finally, he reached to top and with some last heavy steps after the climb he let out a whistle of admiration to the magnificent viewpoint he stood on.
.
Three minutes ago.
Sitting content with his rest and meal for the midday, the man was clearly enjoying his bit of rest in the pleasant summer sun, away from all thoughts of stress and usual problems. What could go wrong? He was alone, the sun was shining, he had a beautiful view, the birds were whi- they weren't. Where were the birds and why were they silent? That wasn't normal. He thought for a moment but then shrugged his shoulders, deciding it wasn't worth a concern and thus disruption of his rather excellent midday rest. Nothing would disrupt his current relaxedness, Murphy's law be damned. Absolutely fucking nothing could.
Until an earsplitting crack resounded over the land.
.
Thirty seconds ago.
A foraging squirrel dropped the piece of tree bark he was inspecting suddenly when his black eyes opened wide in fear, his little ears twitching to decide where the source of the sudden thunderous roars before he sped off. So great was his speed in his fright that a bystander could have sworn it was flying over the ground and through the air, between the trees. The rusty-brown squirrel wasn't alone when all manner of birds, beetles, deer, lynxes and even the worms on the ground tried to join it in its flight to safer grounds.
If one of them had against their instincts in turned around to look, they would have seen that The High Rock was about to be a lot less high. The entire stone structure was about to come down because it was no longer in balance.
A huge section on the side and front in the middle of the rock was gone.
The shrieking of the stone was heard as a thunderstorm of earthquake inducing cracking when the massive topside was slowly tilting over and on the verge of thundering down. The figure on it stood still, not daring to make the slightest shift of weight when the whole thing was perfectly still for a moment in balance.
Then a small rock slipped out from underneath and with its last piece of support gone the plateau tilted further to a dangerous degree before it finally gave up its struggle and fell downwards.
.
Three seconds ago.
The small mountain was tumbling down now, taking huge slabs or rock along for the fall with every shattering contact while the entirety of came crashing down.
He was floating. Falling. Hurting.
He was screaming his lungs out, knowing a small hit with every piece of stone during the fall would kill him, and at the end of the fall he would be crushed like a grape beneath thousands of tons of rock.
No chance of survival what's-o-ever. A stray thought of great annoyance caught him, wishing that it had been a normal fall. Then he'd already be at the bottom and his certain death wasn't dragged on by the damn plateau hitting every bloody obstacle it could find.
Adrenaline was rushing through his veins and he was terrified as he continued screaming until something hard hit the back of his head. Dizzy, he felt himself turn in the air while he fell freely now. His groggy mind had nothing better to do than finding it somewhat strange that a freefall between an avalanche of rocks felt like being sucked through a really tight tube.
And that blackness could never be so dark and so bright at the same time.
.
Zero. Point.
.
And with that, Alexander James Jenssen was gone from the world.
.
Now.
.
.
Kung Fu Panda : A Whole New World.
Chapter 1 : Arrival.
He opened his eyes. Blue sky littered with a stray couple of clouds in it greeted him and he saw a pleasant, green lush forest around him while he sat in the middle of strange clearing that must have been a pretty meadow once but was now littered with humongous rocks in strange positions and shapes as if they had fallen from the sky or some higher being in the sky had played darts with them.
Rocks, meadows and green forests sounded good enough like southern Norway, but an annoying in the back of his head had to notice immediately that the vegetation was quite different. Now that he got up decently, he saw a couple of the trees were acacia's and others were linden trees and was that… bamboo? Others, he didn't recognize. Where on earth was he exactly? This certainly wasn't anywhere near the Geiranger… no signs of any fjord landscape that would allow it. He saw no signs of life around him.
He tried to sit up and get a slow walk around which resulted in muttering a turbulent stream of coloured curses while trying to go over what the fuck had happened. 'What the bloody poppycock-fuck' was indeed one of the few reactions that he thought proper in a weird situation such as waking up on a seemingly different continent then the one you seemed to think you'd be on.
This situation, whatever that was going on was bad, very bad. Fairly certain he wasn't hallucinating either. No recognition, nothing in his memories that gave any indication to where he was. He didn't even see his backpack! No gear, no supplies, no maps, no nothing, this was turning out to be a disast-
-There !-
His backpack! Ignoring his strangely stiff feeling muscles he jumped clumsily between more rocks to see his big trusty and quite shapeless comrade. He let out a shaky nervous laugh and uttered some grateful blessings between his lengthy string of curses. Not all was lost!
A quick check revealed a few scratches and dents in the amazingly strong Kevlar backing, both otherwise everything had survived the stone avalanche at first glance…
His head still felt somewhat dazed and fuzzy while he tried to sort his memories. There had been some sort of landslide, a rock formation that he was climbing had started moving and cracking. On the Geiranger rock. It was that sudden crack that caused the whole thing tumbling down. He fell… yes that was it. He remembered falling in the fissure that seemed to have opened beneath him during the whole scene, probably due to the quick way the entire cliff had been reshaped.
But he couldn't have fallen in, right? Because then he would have been dead, without a doubt. Afterwards everything had been black, probably just a rock that hit his head. How his head was not open and bloody was a mystery to him. He must have fallen at least a hundred feet, if not two hundred. By all common sense, he should be a bloody paste, crushed between some rocks right now.
But he was not. He was sitting, with all his gear and even his loose climbing ropes around him in an undeniably different location. There was only one logical explanation, despite it seemingly impossible. He had, somehow, been transported to another place. Like through a portal or a wormhole, even though it sounded too ridiculous to consider.
That, or he had been unconscious for a long while, and someone had brought and dropped him in an entirely different place, with all his gear and left him there. Not bloody likely. No one would do such a useless effort and action. The fact that a small scratch on his arm from yesterday was still the same only confirmed that not much time could have passed. Not for him, at least.
Then, he started sorting his priorities. Even if he started to theorize about wormholes and conspiracy stuff, it wouldn't help him a single sod if he didn't start taking care of a the more practical thingies first. He quickly checked his phone and to his relief it seemed to work alright. There was no connection to speak of though. He selected an option that would warn him with a sound should he get a connection somewhere, put on all his gear once more and took off.
"Okay Alex, you've got this", he thought, "There is gear enough to last a while, so the first thing is look for either shelter or people. Find a high vantage point, and go from there."
He started walking somewhat to the south since that slope went more and more upwards. What first seemed like a big hill revealed to evolve into a smaller mountain. Since he saw no signs of a trail and the parts became rockier with each passing minute he scanned to coming parts and always quickly formed an effective path that took him higher and higher.
He couldn't help but notice how different everything seemed. Difference in air, smells and vegetation and temperature... It was extremely unsettling, to put it mildly.
He watched very closely for the sorts of fauna and flora that could give him more information. He had already encountered 4 kinds of bamboo and saw jasmine too, which gave a decent indication that he might be somewhere in the eastern regions. China? Vietnam? Thailand? It didn't look tropical enough to be Indonesia or anything in those parts, nor was the air humid enough. It was warm, but not unbearably so. So still the northern hemisphere, though he was in a mountainous area – which might explain the temperature by height above sea-level.
The rocky parts took him higher and became misty. Now, the parts became very difficult and risky and it was on times like that a stray thought occurred that I'd have been handy if humans would have evolved from mountain goats. A lot of the time he was actively climbing now between the hazardous rocks. Doable for now, but he feared that those rocks could quickly become solid vertical walls. He began climbing more sideways, trying to advance without having to go to much higher. He guessed he was roughly above five thousand feet now by the slight lack of oxygen in the air and the mist was annoying.
He checked his phone and a separate gps for the tenth time, but no gear with satellite based coordinates did anything useful. Either he was very far away from any point in civilization or they might be malfunctioning due to whatever warped him here. It made sense that a lot of seismic power could mess up his electronic equipment. More sense than not being able to connect with a satellite when he never really had a problem with that before, or so he hoped. It was fortunate indeed he still had his trusty compass with him to keep track of the right direction, given that the sun was completely blocked by the mist.
After another half hour of climbing he arrived at a small plateau, from where a relatively easy passage could lead downwards again. The mist was far less dense here and simply crept through the rocks as miniature clouds and he let out a sighed "wow" at the sight before him.
Right there, at the feet of the round mountain-line lay a big, green valley that was, in a lot of senses, beautiful. For a couple of minutes, he simply looked in appreciation, letting it all sink in. It really was a perfect postcard set-up. "It probably wouldn't even need photoshop afterwards" he mused while taking a quick picture with his smartphone. Good thing he had a miniature battery charger/generator based on solar energy he would be able to charge it again when necessary.
Then he started to observe the valley more carefully with his binoculars. His eyes were keen, but he couldn't exactly see details from a couple of miles away. He did not possess elven eyes, nor could he see any hobbits being taken. What he did see though, were traces of various villages sprayed across the green fields and hills. Several long rice paddies were visible too on one of the opposite mountain flanks, to be repeated on other places. A lot of the ground however seemed to be partly controlled free nature with various hills or bigger rocky outcrops, most of the time covered in forest, both dense and lush.
Something caught his eye as he moved his gaze upwards and he saw parts of a palace of sorts, and small parts of the stairs leading up to it. Alex assumed it was a temple of sorts, but since he had not seen any signs of modern civilization he began to worry and doubt. Maybe he was not just transported to another place on earth. Maybe he was… no longer in his time too? After all, he saw no signs of pollution, modern roads, electricity poles or anything at all! He now really focused his sight on several of the villages, and the houses seemed to be very traditional. No cars, no poles, no roads fit for cars… It diminished the chance that this was just a very poor village lying near a temple for tourists. A place that kept traditional because it was simply more cut-off from the rest of the world perhaps? It was possible, but it would also mean there was no notable city around for at least hundreds of miles, nor anything worth to modern society nearby… A terrifying thought indeed, yet he held hope it was the last option.
He looked around for a moment and then realized that is was relatively quiet. No birds were singing. They hadn't been singing on the Geiranger either, but that was only that day – Here, it felt more unsettling for some strange reason. Come to think of it, he hadn't heard a single normal bird since he was here. No sounds of hundreds of avians or insects that desperately tried to get laid or fed, as if to emphasis he was well and truly lost and alone.
Only the easy and soft sounds of the winds through the grass and the trees. And the sound of water. Water! Always a good direction. Since he could not sense a human or any similar large creature nearby that could tell him more up here, high upon the mountain plateau, he decided to continue and walk or climb down. In the villages he could certainly get some answers, couldn't he?
He descended hesitantly into the valley for another couple of miles until he froze his tracks at what he saw. A road. Not a modern one, rather a broad path. Alexander stepped forward on the side of the road and bent his knees to study some tracks. What he saw confused him.
Several animal prints were through each other, but he recognized paw-prints from both felines and dog-likes. Also, several kinds of hooves, things that looked like pigs, sheep or even antilopes. Gooses were also here, apparently. Most of them were not very surprising, except maybe the paw prints. However, he saw nothing that resembled a human foot. There were shoeprints, but those forms and sizes had nothing to do with humans. Was this a path for cattle? But it didn't look like that, then the path wouldn't have such a variation of tracks… He didn't knew what to make of it all.
There he sat, pondering and thinking, until something suddenly caught his attention : loud, noisy talking and a cart being pulled. He couldn't hear what they were talking about, but he thought he had recognized English.
Praying that he was at least not wrong about the language he stepped backwards, set his backpack behind a thick bush of bamboo, looked around for a moment, and then quickly jumped against tree, upwards, and pushed himself away with his foot to gain more height and turned around in the air to grab a branch from the tree next to it. Pulling himself up, and climbing another three meters higher he positioned himself into a good hiding place while maintaining a good view on the road. Those people could be here any second.
The voices were apparently talking about some trade taxes on export of various clothes and materials that had recently changed. There was also talk of certain 'dragon warrior and the furious five'. "Doesn't sound much like a modern title" he thought. "But many Asian cultures have dragons in them, it makes sense with my earlier suspicions though I don't understand why anyone would have such a title. What is some action hero of sorts?"
Now the figures came up and Alexander looked very curiously. He cautiously peered through the thick leaves. He was lucky he had chosen a very broad and stable spot in the tree, because he almost fell out of it when he saw the scene unfolding and could realize what actually was going on. It was simply ridiculous, dumbfounding, and a whole lot of other things that cannot be accurately described.
He couldn't see any of the humans he had expected to see. Rather, he could see four pigs and two goats. There were three small carts being pulled. Those parts were okay.
The fact that they walked on their hind legs, holding a casual business conversation as if it was completely normal, was most definitely NOT.
They walked on their hind legs. Their hind legs. ON TWO LEGS. They were simply walking like bipedal creatures as if it was nothing, like it was completely normal. The fuck was going on? Was he hallucinating? Was he dreaming? Was he on drugs? How could he see such a ridiculous fairy tale scene right there?
No, he was fairly certain he wasn't any of those things. It was just – how? Was he in a part of the world that was completely unknown and where this thing existed, the origin of so many fantasy concepts? Or was he in a –he gulped- an entirely new world? His following realization made him feel even more dreadful. The pigs and goats had been the ones talking. They were the humans, the people, the intelligent life in this world.
He waited with fearful breath until the most highly unnatural herbivores were gone and climbed down from his tree, picking up his backpack and moving roughly towards the village he had seen, but keeping a good distance with the road. He really didn't want to be seen for now. Who knew what consequences it could have? "Humans", as he thought sullen, "must have a very different role here. Either they are non-existent here, or they are in the role of animals. A bit like 'planet of the apes'. Whatever the case, I can better avoid drawing to much attention until I know more".
Then suddenly it hit him. It reminded him of an animation film he had seen a couple of years ago when he was babysitting some kids. The movie Kung Fu Panda. Animals that talk and are bipedal. Ancient China. Dragon Warrior. Furious Five. Shit.
Shit.
SHIT!
He was in this 'Valley of Peace', in the world of an animation movie. He hadn't really watched a lot back then, he had been busy trying to keep those two kids from destroying the house in their battle with toy dinosaurs. This was bad. Really, really bad. Depressingly bad. Atrocious. This was now a bitter reality. He knew very little of how such a world would even function, but he really doubted it would turn out well for him. Who knows what differences here were, but at least it gave him a rough idea for now. No humans. Great.
Alex stepped quickly without really looking where he went straight into the thicker bushes, distracted by many fearful thoughts and doubts. If anyone saw him the consequences could be severe, to say the least. They'd freak out seeing him, being a weird human after all. Better not to take any chances and stay in wilderness for now, unknown, unfounded, unbothered.
After walking at a fast pace for almost an hour he halted, forcing himself to observe more around him and decide his next movements rather than march and stomp around aimlessly. He could use a rest. He had not had one since he 'arrived' and was still tired and bruised from the whole thing. He looked around not seeing anything except wilderness. He appeared to be in a part of the valley where no one lived or came regularly, since the ground was covered with obstacles a lot, trees were closely to each other with wild rocks placed between them.
Then, suddenly, his eyes fell upon a straighter rock wall from the mountain, because at its bottom, almost hidden by the bushes and other rocks, there was a small waterfall with a rather large opening behind it.
"A cave?" he murmured, wondering. "That's interesting. I need to find some shelter and water".
He slumped towards the spot. A stream that must have had a spring somewhere higher upon the mountainside had waterfall coming from higher in the rock, landing in a broad and calm pool. The pool seemed to be the size of a decent enough swimming pool, before going down in a smaller stream that seemed to run down wild and happy. The water was very clear, showing a few underwater plants. He estimated it would just be a little too deep for him to keep standing in the middle.
The rocks around hid most of the pool from direct sight. The main waterfall came from about twenty five feet higher, and several small streams from the rock joined it. The stone was interesting, looking very dark at some points. He couldn't identify the kind of it. Not that the density of a rock really mattered at this point, anyway. After refilling a sack, his attention was caught by the cave's entrance. Being roughly ten feet broad and seven high, it was a perfect opening.
Inside it was not as dark as he had expected. It was way larger than the opening had made it seem. It was probably slightly larger than the pool outside. With some rays of light that wriggled themselves playfully through the cracks it almost seemed like a hall of sorts. There did not appear to be any deeper opening after this, save for one on the side that lead upwards. Good thing too, he didn't fancy staying in a dark creepy lair of something. Who knew what kind of craziness existed in this world?
He putted down his backpack and sat down on a rock, his back resting against the wall. Sleeping and being away from the world for a bit would be so nice right now…
With a groan he pulled himself up again to at least make a grand check of his gear and make the cave somewhat more habitable. He suspected he might just be stuck here for several days or longer…
Lights, tent, sleeping bag, clothes section, special thermo clothes section for winter, climbing gear, pocket knife, eating utensils, knife, big knife, repair kits of all kinds, electronic stuff, food, drinks, extensive medical supplies, his precious few books and manuals, diary, maps, all manner of emergency gear… everything seemed to be there and in working order.
He placed the sack with freshly taken water over a filter to be certain and slowly watched it drip and trickle down into the large bottle while just sitting in his tent and his sleeping bag. He wouldn't move for today anymore.
And like that, completely drained and exhausted from everything, his eyes rolled back and his eyelids closed. Everything just washed over him. The near-death experience during the rocky avalanche, the fall, the waking up in a different world, the realization that no human was near and that he was completely and utterly alone. Yeah. He was utterly and royally screwed, he thought in bitter frustration.
He had handled the realizations and everything relatively cool and logical today, using his head rather than run around in sheer bloody panic, but no one could keep that up forever. What was he to do now? What had happened to him? Why had it happened? How would he go home? His sister probably didn't even know it yet, that her brother, one of her only remaining close family members had vanished from the earth. Perhaps forever.
He took a piece of chalk and drew a clear vertical line on the dark, unforgiving rock that would be his shelter for the coming time.
He muttered two words before he fell in the sweet embrace op Morpheus.
"Day One…"
This is the first and so far only chapter that has been or will be rewritten. The other chapters have no real need of it until the story is finished or something. And that's gonna be a looong while yet. What do you think?
Fun fact : it's been 1 year, 5 months and 4 weeks since I created the document and typed the first letter to start this story for myself now, on the 20th of November, 2014. Or 547 days. Woah.
Thank you for reading, and please leave a review.