Mike waited patiently at the kitchen table for Viper to come through. The python felt slightly nervous as there was a number of things that he felt he needed to get off of his chest. Certain issues that he had noted the last couple of months, all to do with the way things were handled both up here at the Jade Palace and down in the Valley of Peace. With Viper being the more... gentler and understanding of the masters, he felt it would go much easier with her.
Even then, it was hard to exactly go over said issues with Viper. Especially when one of them revolved around her. Still, Mike felt that he needed detailed answers to the questions that he had mentally labelled as 'serious problems' which were then rated on a scale of 'slightly confusing' to 'stupidly unnecessary moments that nearly tore the team apart'. It was amazing just how many of them were closer to the latter.
Before Mike could ponder any more on the subject, He caught a glimpse of a certain green reptile slithering past the doorway. Now was a good time as any.
"Hey uh, Vipes?" He called hesitantly.
Viper looked up to find the Python sitting (or rather coiled up) on one of the kitchen chairs. Opposite him was another chair that had been positioned slightly in her direction, as though it was inviting her to join him.
"Oh, there you are." She smiled cheerfully. "We missed you in the training hall earlier today. Is everything okay?"
Mike gave her a weak smile. "Yeah. Yeah, everything's fine. Just... I've had a bit on my mind lately is all."
"Oh? Such as...?"
Mike said nothing at first, but instead gestured for her to take a seat. She did so on the chair that had been faced slightly to the right in her direction. Mike began.
"Well first things first, I know I've only been with you guys a few months so... maybe I've yet to get into the swing of things, but... I've found myself wanting to ask a few questions lately. About the way things are done around here."
Vipers smile shifted into one of confusion but rather than say anything she merely nodded, allowing Mike to continue.
"First thing I want to ask, before we get into the serious stuff... How long have you been doing Kung Fu for?"
Viper gave herself a moment to think on how long ago it had actually been. There was that time she had beaten that gorilla when she was a kid to protect her dear dad. Officially however? Since she arrived at the Jade Palace during that whole incident with the giant boar. The forming of the Furious five. Or rather, the next generation of the five, but even so it was one of the proudest moments of her life. That would have had to been twelve years ago, when she had just begun her teenage years.
"Twelve years. Have I really never told you the story before?"
"I don't think so, no."
Viper was about ready to tell him before she noted his polite smile. To anybody else it was a normal smile but to her, she could tell he was slightly impatient and was rather hoping for answers rather than a back story. Besides, considering that he had been waiting here for her, which could have been an hour or possibly longer, she decided to hold her tongue and tell him another time.
"Was that all you wanted to ask?"
"No. It wasn't. I'm just worried that this next question, considering the answer to the one you just gave will be... maybe a tiny bit insulting."
Viper gave a chuckle.
"Mike, come on. I'm a kung fu master for goodness sake. I'm sure that I can handle a little bit of criticism. Please, ask away."
The python nodded and took a deep breath. He asked his question.
"Why is everyone so terrible at kung fu?"
Viper blinked. Out of everything he was going to ask, she had not expected that.
"Excuse me?"
"Well maybe not everyone... just everyone minus Po. Maybe I should give an example. You remember a certain incident that I've dubbed 'sticky situation', involving Taotie transforming the training hall into a giant deadly war machine?"
"Yes?" Viper asked cautiously.
"And that every member of the five were defeated leaving only Shifu and Po to defeat him?"
Viper nodded.
"It seems kind of strange how after some of you took a single hit, you stayed down or ended up missing for the entire duration of the fight, while the others were tied up and whatnot."
"Hey, that was the first time we fought Taotie. We weren't aware of what he was capable of!"
Mike nodded. "Fair enough. And that is understandable. Or... rather it would be were it not for a few extra incidents..."
"A few?" Viper asked.
"Yep. I noted them all just to help you understand how serious this is."
With that, Mike bobbed under the table, out of Vipers line of sight. Moments later, sounds of struggling could be heard. When Mike popped back into view he was trying to lift a large stack of papers with both his head and tail. When they dropped onto the table it created a loud thump. It was amazing that the table held.
"You know, originally I was planning to have this whole talk in my room. Only after writing one too many of these incidents, it turns out there's not even any room to breathe in there now. Guess the kitchen is going to be my new living quarters for a while."
Viper stared at the enormous stack of paper. It was halfway to the ceiling. It also occurred to her that Mike may have had too much free time on his tail. Something she would need to deal with at a later point.
"How many of these 'incidents' did you write down?"
"As I said, just a few."
Viper looked back at the three foot tall stack and then to Mike with an unamused expression.
"A few?"
"A few."
Viper grumbled something under her breath, clearly annoyed. "Okay then, let's hear some of these so called incidents."
Mike nodded and pulled the top page off of the stack and read it out.
"Incident 211 'Rhinos revenge' where the five tried to subdue the rhino Hundun for the very first time, yet despite attacking him all at once, the five were defeated with one attack each."
"He knew our weaknesses. We couldn't fight back." Viper defended.
"So what, you all just lined up and waited for him to attack you? You could have easily stopped him as he took down the first victim, weaknesses or not."
Viper said nothing. Mike pulled off another piece of paper.
"Incident 231, 'Owl be back'..."
"Terrible pun by the way." Viper smirked.
"Hey, I had to keep myself amused somehow while writing these! Anyway, this is to do with your first run in with Fenghuang. You all fell from a single hit each from her, even when Shifu did most of the heavy lifting fighting her."
"Well she was the most powerful of all the original first five. Of course we had no chance!"
"Attacking alone, yes, but attacking together I think you would have had a stronger chance of beating her maybe, yes? This is also similar to the one I just read out, incident 211, with Hundun? Attacking all at once seems to be a common solution here. You guys are a team after all".
Viper avoided Mikes eyes as he pulled off the next piece of paper.
"Incident 231. A..."
"231 A?" Viper asked incredulously.
"Sorry." Mike apologised. "The previous one I read you was actually 231. B. 231. A is what happened before Fenghuang. You know, when the entire team thought that Po was going to turn evil and thus, ignored and feared him. You even let him leave the Jade Palace without even trying to convince him to stay. Your own team mate!"
Viper lowered her head, remembering that day well. It wasn't exactly her proudest moment.
"You know where I come from, people like that are known as either twats, bellends or tossers. Anyway, there's still more to go." Mike pulled off the next paper and read off of it. "Incident 671, Ghetto batman..."
"Ghetto what?"
"Uh, sorry. I meant Incident 671, the midnight stranger. I-"
Mike stopped before taking a second look at the sheet of paper, narrowing his eyes as he scanned its contents. After a moment he shook his head.
"Actually, never mind. This one is fine. Well, for this pile anyway. This is actually meant for the Tigress pile."
"The... Tigress pile?"
Mike nodded, reaching under the table once again and lifting up yet another stack. Although this one was nowhere near the size of the previous one, it was still rather large.
"Yep, the Tigress pile. All of Tigresses flaws and questionable actions, morals and attitudes. Individually, hers is the longest. For the Midnight stranger incident, it focuses on her hypocritical side where in a previous incident she mentioned that love distracts ones ability to focus, yet she does this. Actually she's been the one to fall in love the most out of the five oddly enough, yet there have been multiple incidents of it occurring. Like Incident 912, The way of the Prawn and the one I just went over, 671."
A sudden though popped into her head.
"And... how about me? How many do I have?"
Mike nodded, giving her a comforting smile before heading under the table a third time. Viper thought about looking under but was partly afraid of the amount of paper she would find. She also wondered how she hadn't noticed it all when Mike had called her over to start with, but that no longer mattered.
When Mike emerged, she was partially relieved to see only a few sheets of paper. four or five maximum.
"If it helps, yours list is the shortest out of everyone." Mike assured her. Viper nodded, unsure if she should be grateful or not. "Let's see... incident 1 for the Viper list... you very rarely speak. Yeah, that's something I've wondered about for a while myself. There have been times, especially during these incidents where you either say very little or just nothing at all. Would it be okay if I asked about that?"
Mike tried his best to be reassuring and gentle around the subject. Something Viper felt a little cheerful about inside. Clearly he wasn't doing this to be a jerk but rather to help. At least that's the way she saw it. Still she answered his question.
"I just... find it easier to focus on battles is all. It's not easy talking when fighting after all."
"And when you're not fighting?"
"..."
"No worries, I won't pry it out of you. I can respect that. We can move onto the next one if you want."
"Please."
"Okay, incident 2 for the Viper list... your state of being. In other words, your mood swings."
"Mood swings?"
"Yeah I mean, please don't get me wrong, you're a real angel most of the time and I love you for it. However you have been a bit... gritty to people sometimes."
"Like when?"
Mike lifted his tail up, signalling for Viper to give him a moment while he racked through the first stack. After a while he pulled out one of the papers and read off of it.
"Incident 856, The secret museum of kung fu. Shifu took you, the rest of the five and Po to the secret museum of kung fu where everyone argued and insulted one another for the entire trip, including yourself. Keep in mind that this one is one the mark for 'stupidly unnecessary moments that nearly tore the team apart'.
"Stupid unnecessary whats?"
"Basically its a scale on what's bad and what's worse."
"Shouldn't it be what's good and what's bad?"
Mike let out an amused snort. "Not with these stacks. Moving on, we still need to address-"
"Actually, if I may ask something?"
"Um, sure?"
"How many of these... incidents are there?"
Mike sighed. "Honestly Viper? I lost count after incident 3011. After that I just went by the name of the incident and stopped numbering them."
"So you're telling me you have over 3000 incidents listing our flaws and mistakes? Almost all of which you weren't even there for?"
"Yep."
"Why though?"
Mike sighed. "Look, Vipes, I know it's a bit hard to swallow... all of this." He gestured to the stacks of paper that threatened to destroy the table should even an extra piece of paper land on it. "But I'm doing it because I want to help. Everybody needs a bit of structural critisism but its also important to learn from it. Something that according to all these incidents, there doesn't seem to be much improvement in the fives methods and tactics. Think of it as... tough love. In where I point out all your flaws and silently judge you for it."
"Gee thanks. It's just as well you don't have this done for all of China."
"Actually..."
Viper gave Mike such a look of disbelief.
"You did not! ... did you?"
Mike slowly reached for yet another stack. This one was about the same size as Tigresses.
"Incident 23. How 99% of everyone here ever knows how to perform kung fu despite having no training yet is still capable of taking down the furious five-"
"Okay, I'm done." Viper sighed before getting up off of her chair, clearly having enough of this. Mike noticed this right away.
"Okay, how about incident 65 where the valley of peace wanted to replace the five with the crocodile bandits, linking with incident 433 on Shifus list of questionable teaching methods?"
Viper said nothing and left the room, leaving Mike on his own. He looked at the multiple stacks of paper before a thought came to his mind.
"I wonder if anyone would be willing to make this a t.v. show?" He wondered thoughtfully before quickly dismissing it. "Nah, nobody's that dumb."
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Interesting fact, I actually like Legends Of Awesomeness, but holy cow does it have some flaws. Still, this was something that came to mind earlier today and with some determination, I ended up spending two hours thinking up and writing it. I wanted to do more but I think it would just end up being repetitive. Wish I could have gone over some more 'incidents' but I'll leave this here for now and see how it goes. Cheerio!