Chapter Twelve: A Game of Tag

Vixey kept low to the ground, relying heavily on her senses.

"Yeah," she said, "they were definitely here."

"Does this scene remind you of anything?" Mantis asked.

In the middle of the bamboo forest, in the early afternoon, they saw a jailer boar from a nearby town, cutting vines so he could put the pig bandits in his prison cart.

"Excuse me?" Vixey asked, running over to him. "Have you seen a tiger and two red pandas around here?"

"Why are you asking?" Po asked her. "I thought you had their tracks!"

"They just seem to disappear!" Vixey told him.

"I didn't see anyone other than these guys," the boar snorted, continuing his task.

"I saw 'em," one quivering bandit whimpered from inside the cart. "It was a few minutes after we were attacked by all these vines! Then that stupid leopard came by and taunted us!"

"That 'stupid leopard' was most likely the one that sent the vines after you," Crane told him.

The bandit's eyes widened.

"Do you know which way they went?" Viper asked.

The bandit nodded. He timidly pointed toward the sky and sank behind the door, out of sight.

"Up?" Vixey asked. "Well, that would make sense."

She went over to where the tracks disappear.

"But how are we supposed to find them," she started, "if they just..."

She stopped, sniffing the air. She pointed to the west.

"Stir fry," she said before dashing away.

"Stir fry?" Jin asked as he and the others followed Vixey.

"Tigress," Po told him. "But I didn't think she smelled like stir fry. We had that a week ago!"

At the very edge of the bamboo forest, Vixey made an abrupt stop, causing the others to almost crash into each other. They saw why she stopped: the tracks had appeared again.

"For your information, it was a very faint scent," the fox told them. "They're heading west."

"Well, come on!" Po said. "Let's go!"

They hadn't gone very far when Vixey turned to look behind them.

"Incoming!" she shrieked.

The others barely had time to look at what was coming after them when the air around them exploded into an airborne powder. Coughing and disoriented, they caught sight of Zhanshi pulling out of a dive with Wang on his back and Ting not far behind.

It took several moments of walking like a drunk and falling over before anyone could figure out how to get out of this mess. Vixey crawled out of the cloud and to the other Masters, who were still trying to recover from the sudden attack.

"I... hate... those... idiots," she said before rolling over.


That was only the beginning. A few miles down the trail, the Masters tried to inch along the narrow bank of a fast moving river. One false move, and they'd have to start their climb upstream all over again. All was going well until a certain peahen appeared suddenly and let out a shrill cry, making the Masters jump and slip into the ravine.


The Masters ran as fast as they could through a rocky pass when once again the soothsayers were seen.

"They're back!" Mantis shouted.

Vixey grew frantic and threw a dart in the soothsayers' direction. It missed Zhanshi by an inch, but hit Wang in the shoulder, knocking him off the old bird.

"Oh!" Vixey yipped, surprised.

"Let's go!" Viper cried as the other two soothsayers stopped to recover their leader. "Hurry! Hurry!"


The Masters continued as they ran through a field of dying grass. Vixey heard something off with the whistling of the wind and turned just in time.

"DUCK!" she shrieked.

The others did as they were told in time for Zhanshi to just barely miss clawing them with his talons or knocking them over with his wings as he dove. Mantis nearly had a heart attack when one claw slightly grazed his antennae.


"Climb! Hurry!" Monkey shouted.

He'd seen the soothsayers approaching while they were all climbing a tall mountain.

"There's a cave just up there!" Crane shouted as he flew up.

The Masters barely made it to the cave when Zhanshi and Ting were inches away from attacking. However, inches and seconds were all the Masters needed to perform the Feng Kong Barrier once again, slamming the soothsayers with as much force as if they had actually missed the cave and hit the mountain wall.


Viper just got tired of having to deal with the soothsayers and decided to scare them as much as she could. When the soothsayers once again swooped down on her and her friends, she ducked first before biting Ting's leg. This caused the peahen to shriek and veer off to the right, crashing soon after. When Zhanshi flew over to her, the Masters got up and ran for it.

"Master!" Ting quaked. "Master, what should I do?"

"Stop fussing and take flight," Wang growled.

"But Master!" Ting cried. "I'm dying!"

"Use your senses!" Wang barked. "You don't have to be a soothsayer to realize that that snake's bite won't kill you!"

Ting fell silent, but continued to shake.

"Get up," Wang told her. "Any delay will cost us dearly."

Ting hesitated. She felt almost... betrayed. Was this why Tian left?


It was late afternoon when Dianli led her group to a large hill in a willow forest. She moved some drooping leaves aside to reveal a small cave. Tigress looked inside.

"Is this where the crystal ivy is?" she asked.

"It must be," Tian said.

They walked inside. Tigress was looking around to see where this crystal ivy was. How would she know what it was if she didn't know what it looked like?

Several things were sparkling, but nothing looked like any sort of plant. Tigress directed her gaze back to where she was going and stopped suddenly. Inches in front of her face was a slim crystalline vine. It had small leaves that were about the size of her thumb. The vine generated from the ceiling and reached halfway to the ground.

"There it is," Shifu almost whispered.

Tian took a small pouch from her pocket. She gently took three leaves and a part of the vine the length of the tip of her longest finger to her wrist and put them in the pouch.

"That should be enough," she said, putting the pouch back in her pocket. "It needs to be ground to a powder anyway, so we won't have to be careful with it."

"Where to next?" Tigress asked.

"Dianli will lead us," Shifu answered.

Dianli was already standing at the mouth of the cave. She led them out of the forest, toward their next destination.


Ting sat gazing into the fire, still shaking. The cold of night wasn't quite helping either. She kept thinking about the earlier events, from the moment they first entered the Jade Palace until the present.

Nearby, Wang prepared a spell. He put a few items in a small wooden bowl and threw a powder at it. The result was a lightly glowing cloud. He and Zhanshi scrutinized it to the best of their abilities.

"Do you see anything, Master?" Zhanshi asked. "I see nothing."

"The spell is cloudy," Wang growled. "Ting, what do you see?"

Ting looked up with tired eyes. At first, she couldn't see anything. Then, a figure emerged. A large dragon, seemingly cut out of rock. She recognized it. It was a landmark she'd passed only months ago.

"I..." she started. "I can't. Fatigue is keeping me from seeing anything."

Wang growled before ending the spell.

"We'll try again tomorrow."