Chapter 7: Blast from the Past: Part 2

Disclaimer: I do not own Skunk Fu or any of its characters. They belong to Cartoon Saloon and CAKE Entertainment. However, the story line and any OC that appears in this story belong to me.

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Cheetah sprinted as fast as she could, looked around for Panda. The figure she saw in the sky made her worried. Her instincts told her that something bad will happen, and they were never wrong, she hope it does not. She hoped that Panda might know something about this and she is going to find out what.

Then she finally spotted Panda, standing at the top of the hills staring at the dark sky with Ms. Duck by his side.

"Master Panda!" she shouted.

The two elders turned around to see Cheetah coming up to them, looking a little out of breath, "Cheetah, what is it?"

She took a few more breaths before speaking, "Master, I just saw something strange flying in the sky, did you see it?"

"Yes, we did young one."

Her face grew more concern, "Master, I don't know why but I have a feeling that something horrible might happen. Do you know what is going on? Please you have to tell me."

Both the elders were silent; both gave a brief look at each other before nodding as if they agreed on something. Then Duck pulled out her fans and began to fly away, Cheetah noticed that she had a serious yet worried look on her face. However her attention was directed back to Panda.

Panda sighed, "I am afraid so, Cheetah. The Council will handle it here. There is no need for you to be concern into this matter. Now please go back home."

"But Master…"

Panda's face and tone became much firm, "That wasn't a request, it's an order. Now please, let us handle it."

He walked right passed Cheetah, who looked like she was recollecting her thoughts, leaving her by herself. Among the years she had learned under Panda's wing, Panda has never been that strict as a teacher but wasn't exactly a lenient one at that. But this was the first time, at least of her knowledge; she had seen this side of Panda. Cheetah knew even though he tried to hide it, something bad will happen. She looked up at the sky which has started to rain.

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Leo went through the desert area of the valley escorting Young Rabbit to his home where he and his mother lived. However along the way, something was troubling him. The thing he saw in the sky gave him a bad feeling. He doesn't know why he has this feeling, but you can be sure that if anything were to happen, he was prepared to fight it head-on.

"Rabbit!"

Leo snapped out of his trance and looked ahead. He noticed that he already made it to Rabbit's burrow, but there was someone else there too. It was another rabbit, who had an impatient look with its arms crossed, and with its big feet tapping on the floor in a quick pace.

"Hey Mom," Young Rabbit said earning him a whack on the head, "OW!"

"Don't 'hey' me, young man," the older rabbit scolded, "It's about time you came home. Do you know what time it is? It is way past your bed time, young man."

"But, mom," Rabbit whined, "I am training to become a warrior, and warriors don't need bed times."

"Not while they are 8 and live under my burrow," his mother retorted as she grabbed and pulled him by the ears, "And don't use that tone with me! Now come with me!"

Leo couldn't help but chuckle at Rabbit predicament; who in turn noticed it, "OW! Mom! Not in front of Leo!"

Ignoring her son's complaining turned to Leo, whose tone and voice changed into a more apologetic way, "I'm very sorry for my sons' actions, Sir Leo," she said with a bow, "I hope he wasn't too much trouble, you know kids these days."

He chuckled again, "No, not at all. In fact, he was kind of like me when I was his age."

"Oh, I'm sure you were," she teased, "Well anyway, have a good night, Sir Leo."

She then walked in her burrow with young Rabbit, as Leo bid them good night too.

As he was making his way to his den, the sound of thunder ceased him from his tracks and quickly turned to the sky. Despite being dark out, he could make out the dark black clouds began to form and spread around the valley. Then without warning, it had already started to rain all over the valley.

"Well, that's not normal," Leo stated. The valley hasn't had rain for months, and here it is raining very heavily with the sounds of thunder and flashes of lighting. He knew something bad was going to happen, and this is one of those moments of where he hates being right. Going by instinct, he ran to the mountain path.

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Tiger paced around his and his friend's den with a worried expression on his face. It has already been several hours that Tiger was waiting for his friends to come. He looked outside again hoping to see either Leo or Cheetah, but there was nothing, only heavy rainfall. But that only raises further concern. Since the drought happened, there were hardly any clouds in the sky to begin with. So how can rain happen during this time, Tiger is beginning to think that something abnormal is causing this, but as of now his concerns are towards his absent friends.

He sighed deeply, "Where are they? I hope they are alright."

He then heard some loud splashing outside, which was a bit too loud for the rain to make. He looked at the mouth of the den again to see Cheetah, who came inside looking soaked from the rain. Tiger grabbed a towel and hand it over to Cheetah, who gratefully took it.

"Cheetah, where have you been? I was worried sick."

"Sorry Tiger," Cheetah said as she dried herself with the towel, "I didn't realize it would rain all of the sudden."

"Yeah," Tiger nodded, "But I find it funny though. We barely had a cloud for months, and this happens," he motioned outside, "But other than that, where were you at the time Cheetah?"

Cheetah explained everything to her friend; with the dark figure she saw in the sky and with Panda's actions towards her. After she was done explaining, Tiger manage to get every detail sinking in his head.

Tiger groaned, "Here I thought that thing couldn't possibly get any worse," he paused and looked at Cheetah, "What should we do?"

Cheetah sighed, "I don't know. Panda told me that he and the Elders will handle it, but I feel that something bad might hap…"

She stopped in mid-sentence feeling something wrong again. She looked around the den frantically, with sudden realization and worry in her eyes. Before Tiger could ask what's wrong, she suddenly came to him and shook him by the shoulders, "Tiger, where's Leo?"

Even while trying to recover from her outburst, he manage to answer her, "I-I don't know," he said, "You were the first to come here. Last time I saw him was when he was still training Rabbit."

"If something were to happen to him…" she muttered to herself, and then turned to the mouth of the cave, "I gotta look for him!"

Without wasting another second, she ran outside in the rain unaffected by its downpour.

"H-Hey, Cheetah! Wait up! I'm coming with you!" Tiger shouted as he started to rummage his closet and pulled out several items from it; straw hats and black coats. He hastily put them on and ran outside with the extra garments on his side, hoping he might catch up with his very fast friend.

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Leo managed to cross the border between the valley and the mountains. He stopped to rest after running at such a long distance. Despite being soaked and freezing all over his body, his main concern was the abnormal weather the valley was having. He then looked at the sky again when rain finally calmed down, not giving much rain as it did before. Before he had time to react, a loud clap thunder gave way, quickly covering his sensitive ears from the sound.

"Man, what's with this weather?!" Leo grumbled as he started to hear ringing in his ear.

He looked back at the sky again to find himself shocked at the sight. What he saw the black cloud formation had made a very intimidating face, which could even cringed the most strongest warrior. Before he had time to comprehend, lighting flashed over his eyes, temporarily blinding him. When he managed to recover his sight, he looked up to see the figure vanished. He thought it was finally over, but was short-lived when he saw what looked like a fireball came crashing down towards the mountains, and then he heard a very distant crash from that area.

"What the heck was that?!" Leo shouted and started to run to the mountain path.

After several minutes of running he managed to make to the mountain top, as he frantically looked around the area to see any signs of the crash. Then he noticed smoke was coming from the north-west area. He quickly ran to the crash site, as he looked over it he couldn't believe what he was witnessing.

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"Tiger come on! Hurry up!" Cheetah yelled to Tiger who was at a farther distance then her.

"I had to be friends with the most fast land animal of the world," Tiger mentally groaned, though he could understand how she feels.

Tiger was just as worried about Leo as much as she is, if not more. Ever since they came to the valley to become kung fu masters, they would always stay together whenever the going gets tough. And no matter what, they will find him.

Tiger managed to catch up with Cheetah, who was looking around frantically for the sight of their friend, but no avail. He gave a comforting squeeze on her shoulder, "Don't worry we'll find him."

Cheetah managed to calm herself down and gave a grateful smile, "Thanks."

"Don't mention it."

Then both of the giant cats noticed that the rain started to lighten up. Before they could look up at the sky, thunder cracked in the sky, both covered their ears to muffle down the blow.

"Ow, that was loud."

"I'll say." Cheetah agreed, as lighting flashed following with the thunder. Thankfully, they were wearing the hats that Tiger brought, so the flash of lighting had hardly had any effect on them.

After they looked at the sky, what shocked them wasn't lighting but the falling ball of fire that came from the sky and headed towards the mountains.

"You don't think that fireball landed near the mountain village do you?" Tiger asked Cheetah.

That was all needed to be said as Cheetah dashed forward without replying a word to Tiger. He regretted for saying that now, seeing her reaction, both knowing well who lived in the mountains, and Tiger knew if Leo saw the thing fall from the sky he would go to it, which only increases Cheetah's anxiety. As the two ran up the path to the mountains, neither of them said a word.

However in Cheetah's mind, she repeatedly pleaded in mind, "Please be safe… Please be alright!"

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"MASTER DRAGON!" Leo shouted.

He couldn't believe his eyes, the fireball that crashed in the mountains, was indeed Dragon. Leo quickly went down the hole and ran up to Dragon, and carefully examining him. Dragon had really taken a number from the crash. Nearly his entire body was pitched black what looked like very severe burns. Leo also noted that the wings that Dragon once had were completely gone. He didn't know why Dragon was like this but he is intending to find out.

Leo went to Dragon's head and light shook it, "Master wake up! Come on, you have to wake up!"

He heard Dragon groaned as he shook him and slowly got himself off the ground, giving a good sign that he is alright.

Leo sighed in relief, "Thank goodness that you're alright Mas-UGH!"

Leo didn't manage to finish as Dragon hit him with his tail and send him out of the hole and landed hard on his back. Leo groaned as he stumbled to get up, he really didn't see that coming.

Before he had time to react to what happened; Dragon swiped his tail against Leo again. Leo was sent flying again toward a dead tree in the mountain. As he made impact with the tree, it broke into pieces. Leo just lay in the snow with his consciousness starting to fade. But before he blacked out, he had seen Dragon heading up the mountains.

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Present Time…

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"By the time Tiger and I reached the mountains we saw Leo laying on the ground unconscious. After that Panda and the Council Elders came and told Tiger and me to take Leo back to the Valley and went ahead up the mountains… and after that…"

"Well… what happened after that?" Skunk urged to go on.

Cheetah stayed silent before speaking, "I'm sorry, Skunk… it's a little hard for me to explain what happened after that. Or more like I don't want to remember it," She gave a hesitant glance at Fox, "Fox was there when it happened, and I don't want to bring anymore bad memories."

Skunk looked at Fox, who looked like she was about to break in tears. And he noticed that Rabbit was gripping on her paw, showing a sympathetic look to her, which was very uncharacteristic for him. He figured it must have been really bad for those two be like this, so he decided to not press on the matter.

"It's alright, you don't have to tell me," Skunk said, "…But how does this relate to you and not being friends with Tiger anymore?"

"Well, you could say it was a major point of what made Leo wanted to leave the valley." Cheetah sighed, "It was about several months ago after Dragon's rampage…"

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Same timeline…

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"GRAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!" Leo roared as he punched the boulder in front of him, shattering it into rubble. He turned around and did the same thing over and over again. After several minutes of doing this, he stopped taking very deep breaths of exhausting his self. He look around him with just about everything he punched was already dust.

The argument he had with Cheetah still rang in his mind. He had hoped venting out his anger and frustration in training would work like it did from past arguments they had when traveling around, it didn't. Leo can tell that fight was probably the worst one he had with her.

Leo let out a frustrated sigh and lay his back on the tree behind him, and looked up at the sky. As he did he began to reminisce his past from his training to Dragon's attack. But out of all of the things he remembered, the one that stood out the most was him and his friends, Tiger and Cheetah together. Remembering the good times he had with them made him simile, however it was short-lived when he recalled what he had said before.

"And for what? Making amends with him, that cowardly excuse of a kung fu master?!"

Leo then remembered what he needs to do… the reason for leaving the valley, the reason for returning, it was all for this moment, maybe then he could finally face him.

"I must end this…"

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Early in the morning…

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"I can't believe we still lost to those blasted Valley Dwellers," Baboon grumbled.

"Baboon just let it go already," Gorilla said.

It has already been several days since their ultimate defeat against the valley, they had the upper hand but their hopes were dashed once again. After their battle the monkey army had really taken some major damage most had bandages on their arms, head, and nearly their entire bodies. But Baboon had it worst, because Gorilla landed on him not once, but twice. The first was when Leo threw Gorilla at him, and twice when they were sent flying back to the Mountains by the wind attack by Cheetah and Gorilla landed on him again from the crash landing. He had to wear a full-body cast and have some of the primates with minor injuries to help him move around in his wheelchair. If it was anyone's opinion he was just lucky he made it out alive.

"No, I won't let it go, you hear me!" Baboon ranted at Gorilla, "Do you have any idea of how many times we've lost to them?! We have lost to them so many more times than there are grains of sand in the beach!"

"Wow, that's a lot."

"We could've won if those stupid overgrown felines hadn't showed up!"

"Who's the stupid overgrown feline?"

Both Gorilla and Baboon flinched at the voice they heard, they slowly turned around to see Leo standing while behind him were some monkeys and gorillas on the ground some were groaning in pain while others were already down for the count.

Leo gave a grin when they started to shake in terror and cracked his knuckles, "Heh heh heh. Hello misplaced aggression."

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To be continued...

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