"Hard times don't create heroes. It is during the hard times when the 'hero' within us is revealed."
Bob Riley
Kung Fu Panda
The Long Night
Chapter X: Hero
The village is not big. The frozen lake and rice fields are taking more than half of the space inside the valley, while the village only stretches out around one out of four of the valley. And that only because the houses are standing quite afar from each other. They are built with wood and look different from the hut…more like houses, to which I am accustomed here in China. Most of them are neither expensive nor cheap with the main purpose to live in them. But one pokes out of all them: the main building across from my position looks almost like a palace. Zhusai told me that this is the Hall of the village and big enough that all the villagers would fit in. Since Yan came all females and most of the children are locked up there and need to serve Yan and his men.
I lay down the wounded Zhusai on the ground – I couldn't let her alone up there in the hut.
"Stay by the others." I tell her.
"Free us please…" she says to me and I nod. Was the first time she did this…
Now I am going straightly to my target.
Some villagers appear from their houses. I become angry, when I see, that they look almost as weak as Zhusai, fed very badly. But still no one looks as weak as her. I begin to clench my fists, when I see the first destroyed buildings. Examples for the ones, who want to oppose Yan.
My eyes meet Yak's standing close to the village hall. They are armed and one of them runs inside the building. Warn him only…in this way I don't need to find him.
The first Yaks charge me….they are equipped with spears. I don't move an inch till they are in my range, but then I get down on all fours and jump on the first one. Before he can react I have kicked his face and while I fly backwards with a backflip, he flies against his next partner. I land beside the next Yak who is surprised of my speed, but he doesn't get a chance to react: With my feet I grab the fallen spear of the first one and kick it against his chin. He collapses like hit by a lightning.
I hear a yell and sense the next Yak, this time using an Axe. Wrong choice. Before he can attack me with it from upwards, I uppercut him and while he flies away, I grab his falling axe and throw it against the palace. The Yak, who has warned Yan, needs to stop because it had hit him by narrow margin otherwise. The remaining Yaks outside stare at me shocked. Now it is my time to charge.
The first Yak I encounter, I grab and throw him on the first comrade close by, while dodging the attack of another axe and simultaneously hitting another Yak with my fist. I don't hold back. While the axe haymaker tries to pull his axe out of the ground I kick him so that he knocks out another comrade. Then I jump at the palace door and the three Yaks, who want to leave the palace in this moment. With one smooth kick I catapult all of them back inside, before I can look around.
The interior of the hall is big, because normally a table for meetings would be here. But this time it is away and a horde of Yaks is standing here. All of them armed and ready to strike at me, if not frightened because of what I have done right now.
I breathe in and out loudly and then begin to grin. Like in Chor-Gom Prison….I chuckle.
Before they can attack me I hammer with my foot against the ground and focus on the whirls I created inside the wood in this way. I find all of the villagers, before I grab a Yak by his axe, who wanted to attack me from behind, and throw him at his comrades. Then I attack the next Yak by smashing his mace with my fist and sending him at his comrades as well.
I continue my attack and one Yak after another collapses, while one villager after another gets freed by me. In one room I find 40 wives, aunts, grandmothers and girls. All of them Mountain Cats and afraid to the hell. I don't look on them too long, because of my fighting face. It scares them.
I storm the stairs roaring at the Yaks standing there, but they end like their predecessors. In one of the upper rooms –the hordes of Yaks standing in my way fly over the balustrade back to Ground Floor – I find three children, the friends of Zhusai. They got punished hard and are sleeping now. The others in the room treat them and I get even angrier. "Yan?!" I roar.
I sense his exact location and go to his room fast by throwing more Yaks from the balustrade of the first floor. He is not alone inside: A younger female cat is his hostage and one of his axes is ready to behead her.
"Not a move anymore, Tai Lung! Or her head is cut off!" he yells to me. I sense the fear in his voice.
"You have lost, Yan! Let her go and I am merciful!" I reply with another roar, while stepping closer carefully.
He doesn't look like someone who can think fast and I growl again. Thankfully he is a coward in thinking as well: He lets her go. "Okay, but be merciful!" he says before I catapult him outside of the building with a kick. He smashes the wooden walls in his way. I jump through the hole to follow him.
"Wait! Wait! You said you would be merciful!" he pleads.
"Have you forgotten my reputation, Yan?! I am the most feared Kung Fu Warrior of China!"
I go to him and raise my fist to end it, when…"No!"
I stop and look back to the yeller. It is Zhusai and I see that she is touching the spot of her wound panting. "Go back to the others!" I yell back and focus on Yan once again, who still has not tried to stand up.
"No! Don't do it!" she yells again before moaning in pain.
"Don't yell again! It is bad for your wound." I say to her with a worried, but still angry voice.
"You can't kill him…" she murmurs more than she talks, while Yan crawls backwards away in this time.
I growl at him so he should stop. "Why not?! Have you forgotten what he did? He is a murderer. He killed your parents and almost you as well. He doesn't deserve better."
I see tears on her face. "I know…I know….but will it bring them back, if he is dead or not?"
…Has she really suggested this? Even after all she has lived through? ….DOH!
…I can't look at her anymore and face Yan once again. He is still frightened and doesn't look like someone who gets what is going on right now. I grab his collar while he moans in pain.
"You don't deserve mercy for what you did here. Do you understand this?!", I say to him and I feel a weak nodding, before pointing at Zhusai, "This girl understands already more of life despite being so young than you could ever do. Thank her for your life!" I throw him on the ground. He gets up slowly and looks up to me questioning. I growl loud. He directs his head to her and begins to bow down.
"Thank you for sparing my life!" he says as loud as possible, while I look at the beaten Yaks, who come out of their holes. "You as well!" I yell to them and they follow my order.
"Thank you, Little Kitten!" they yell.
And now I grab Yan at his collar once again and bring his face close to mine. "Listen well, you dirty ox: If you or one of your men will come back here ever, I promise you that I will hunt you down. No matter how long it will take, I will hunt you down. And I swear that this time you will not get mercy. Have you understood me?!"
He nods as fast as it is possible in my grip. I throw him aside and Yan crawls away from me. "Let your weapons here!" I yell, when he comes closer to his axes. He redirects immediately, stands up and begins to run away. I look back at the Yaks. "What are you waiting for?!" I yell to them and slowly they begin to throw their weapons away and leave the village in the same direction their boss did.
When they have left the village, I turn around to Zhusai: She looks like she would faint every minute.
"We are….free…" she murmurs still smiling happily.
I run to her, but can't catch her in time before she falls on the snow.
Some days have passed. The villagers have celebrated me as a hero….Odd that I don't feel like one. I would have become a murderer and monster like once almost, if Zhusai wouldn't have stopped me….Zhusai….she had fever the first days, but it wears off already, after the healer of the village has treated her. He had even praised me for my first aid treatment; even when I have no experience in this point….I don't feel like I have earned this praise….
It is night and the villagers were still celebrating like they did the last days: It seems that the Yaks have drunken more than eaten and so the supplies were still intact. But still despite the party the villagers looked out for their supplies because of the winter. The healer comes to me, while I look outside at them.
"She is awake again." the healer, a goat, says to me and I nod. I decided something. "Let her friends to her first." I say, but the Healer shakes his head. Then he tells it to me. And he says that she knows. I growl mentally, before nodding.
I go to her room – one of the rooms of the village hall, which is quite empty now – and see her looking out of the window down to the villagers. She doesn't see them like I do, but she feels and hears it still. They are happy to be free, but she has still lost everything she has loved.
"How are you, kitten?" I ask her in a tried carefree voice. I see her sad face after she has turned around, but I don't think I am born to be an actor. She sighs.
"They are free….we are free….I am free…and happy cause of this…but….I thought it would feel better…" she says and seems to be again close to crying. I heard from the other villagers, that she has not cried since the death of her parents during the initial attack. They have tried to protect her and the village and the bandits killed them as an example. When I said to the others, how emotional she got at the hut, they were confused. She never showed such emotions for months. But now she can cry like in the hut….I come closer to her and hug her again.
Still a thing I am not accustomed to, but nothing I am ashamed off anymore….
"Are you regretting it?" I ask her after her decision. We had no time to speak about it till now.
She keeps silent, thinking over it. "….No….I don't think so…we are free, if they live or not….and my parents…would have…probably…decided in this way as well…" she tries to look confidently like at the day we met, "I don't regret it…but…" I understand. She has nothing here anymore. Her friends…the ones she has cared for and who got punished…they have not come even to visit her, although their wounds were healing better than hers…and their room is two doors away….their parents even forbid the visiting. Many adults dislike her decision, because the risk that the bandits will come back is high…She is a complete outsider now. She will never be able to celebrate like them….with them. I lower my head.
"I will leave the village…" I admit sadly. She turns around to me surprised. "Why?"
"Because there is a thing I need to investigate…something….something important…" I say. This shadow….I need to find out, if Tian Yi is doing something again in this matter….it would be not good if yes. She lowers her head and keeps silent for a while.
I listen to the people outside….the warrior who has become a monster once again almost is celebrated, while a little kitten, who was the one to convince the warrior to free them, is excluded…What a shame! They even sing songs about me being a hero…
"I want to come with you…" I hear her suddenly. She has spoken these words so weakly that I have not understood them by the first time. When I realize what she has said I look at her.
"Are you sure?" I say and am quite surprised as well that this idea doesn't sound bad for me.
She nods. "Yes, I want to….become strong. You are strong, so you could teach me…"
A disciple. I chuckle about this irony mentally. "It is not always good to be strong….you don't get what you want with strength alone and like you have seen it is a thing which can lead to the wrong direction…."
I remember my last years. The prison, the Fight against Po and Tian Yi…..was there a time, where strength helped me to get what I want? I lower my head once again.
"As long as you use your strength for the right thing…you get what you want." she replies weakly and I look at her surprised. She smiles warmly, but still sadly. "My dad said this always…" she adds after a while shyly.
…I chuckle. "Yeah.", I nod.
I look down from the hill at the valley. It gets better for the people down there. They will come through this winter, I bet it.
"You can say Goodbye now." I tell to Zhusai, who is standing close by me, while I turn around.
She says goodbye silently and follows me. "Where have you learned to see…without Seeing?" Zhusai asks me. I have waited till she has recovered enough for this journey.
"An old crazy turtle taught it to me." I explain.
"I would have never expected that there are others who could use this…I always thought I would be something special cause of this." she admits, while we pass the hut. The villagers have told me, that the builder of the hut was someone from the west. He had left long ago back to where he has come….they said he was a turtle….
"But there are others. And I will teach you how you will use this technique properly….also with a bigger range…and without snow." I inform her.
"And the other training?" she asks confused.
"This will come as well…after all you are the disciple of Tai Lung, the most feared Kung Fu Warrior of all China…you should be proud of it."
"I don't think it is good to be feared…" she admits awkwardly.
I chuckle. "Yeah…but it was once at least. But more I don't have despite this bad reputation so it needs to be enough."
"You have me now, do you?" she asks innocently and I chuckle once again before nodding.
Something crosses my mind. "I'll tell you from the start: the training will not be easy."
She gulps. "I am ready to everything."
I hoped for these words. "So be it."
Tai Lung earned a second chapter in a row :) Hope you like it as well like I appreciate it still when you would review this chapter.
Need to inform you sadly, that there will be no KFP: The Long Night next week :( But I need some time for some things. So I hope you forgive me for this.
"Kung Fu Panda" (c) DreamWorks Animation
I own nothing except for the written word.
Characters you don't know are from me. The Idea is also from me.
