Another long chapter to wrap up the Trial of Water. Very long. In fact, it's now the longest chapter of anything I've ever written. Enjoy.

Chapter 13: Eggsplosive Finale

Viper was the first to strike this time, surprising Yin Bei. The serpent contorted her body like a whip and struck Bei in the side, knocking her away. Shoving down the tinge of guilt she felt, Viper ascended to the surface for some fresh air. Her head was starting to get a bit loopy. Definitely not a good condition to be fighting in.

As she surfaced, Viper realized that Bei would also be needing air soon and thought for a moment that she might not have to fight her after all. But as the hare came out of the water, Viper didn't have the time to so much as get a word out before she dived back under. Hissing in frustration, Viper went after her.

She almost immediately had to dodge another kick, and swung around to try to hit Bei's side again. But the hare was ready for it this time and thrust herself slightly downwards, so that her right ear perfectly blocked the strike. Viper was shocked at just how tough the appendage was. It didn't budge at all. Bei shot under her, grabbing Viper's tail as she did so. Spinning around a few times, she threw the snake hard into a sunken rock.

Bouncing off the stone surface, Viper was starting to question if she might actually lose this battle. But she sure as heck wasn't giving up. She was going to get through to this girl even if it killed her.

Thankfully, it didn't come to that. As Viper shook off her dizziness, she saw something tumble past her vision. It was the tortoise egg previously jammed between the rocks, now dislodged by her crash landing. What do you know? I helped her get it out after all.

Seeing her egg freed, Bei rocketed downwards, looking fully intent on ramming Viper right out of the way to get to it. Looking frantically over the ground, Viper finally saw her chance. Viper dived out of the way, giving Bei a free shot at her egg. But as she was just about to grab it, Viper reappeared again, now holding something in front of her like a shield.

Bei's eyes widened, and she stopped herself just to time to avoid crashing into the egg held in Viper's coils.

If she weren't underwater, Viper would have breathed a sigh of relief. It worked. Bei may have been willing to smack her out of the way, but she wouldn't do the same to an innocent tortoise egg. Looking between the two eggs in bewilderment, Bei finally seemed to be piecing things together. Repeating her gesture from before, Viper pointed to Bei's egg and smiled.

After a few seconds...Bei smiled back.

A sudden rumbling interrupted this little tender moment, and the two females looked around anxiously.

Kuai shot a leg up and kicked the egg out of Reidak's claws. It flew a considerable distance away, and the cheetah was swimming right after it in pursuit. He was quickly followed by Tigress and Reidak coming in on both sides, and the three were back to making aimless swipes at each other. Finally, Reidak put a paw in the lakebed, and thrust off to nail Kuai in the face with an elbow strike. Tigress ducked as Kuai rolled over her head and aimed a kick at Reidak. The other tiger blocked it, but as Kuai attempted to come back in for a counterattack, Tigress leapt back over top of him and hurled the spotted cat directly into Reidak, making them both veer off and crash into the sand.

Unsurprisingly, they were both on her again in an instant.

Tigress caught up to the egg, and Reidak and Kuai landed on the other side of it. The three masters exchanged another long silence, each equally determined not the let the others win. All at once, they struck.

In one solid movement, Tigress punched Reidak, Reidak punched Kuai, and Kuai punched Tigress.

Dazed, they staggered back from their respective blows, while the egg continued to sit there harmlessly. It was hard to believe that such an innocent little egg could cause such great pain.

But it wasn't sitting still anymore. Now the egg was starting to bounce up and down as the ground beneath it shook violently. Even in the heat of battle, the three felines couldn't ignore this, and claiming the egg was no longer their greatest concern.

Winging it wasn't going very well.

Monkey pulled out the most random moves he could think of, combinations of styles that should never go together in any serious fight, but Zhi Ming dodged, blocked, or countered all of these, all while remaining as gloom as ever. He then stopped using kung fu entirely, instead switching to his repertoire of prankster antics, as fresh in his mind as if he were still that young troublemaker in the Valley.

Unfortunately, he didn't have much better luck on that front. He couldn't exactly drop banana peels underwater, his funniest faces didn't get so much as a blink out of his opponent, and Ming still had that crippling advantage of not wearing pants. Damn tortoises.

Above all else, that oppressive wave of negativity was weighing him down like an anchor in his chest. Every time he tried and failed to land a blow, the urge to just give up and let the blackness of the void take him got ever stronger. If he didn't beat Ming soon, he could have much more to worry about then just passing the trial.

That's when it hit him. If his thoughts were the enemy, he should simply stop thinking.

This was easier said than done of course. Someone like Po couldn't possibly turn his mind off like that, and he would probably be incapacitated with depression by now, but Monkey's style allowed him to cleanly separate his thoughts and actions. It would be much easier for him. Maybe he could do this after all. No, he couldn't think positive. He couldn't think at all. He just had to clear his mind...

Zhi Ming wasn't sure what to make of his opponent, who had suddenly gone completely limp on the spot. He couldn't have drowned already, there wasn't any sign of a struggle to breathe. Playing dead? Perhaps. Might as well show him the futility of his efforts once again.

But as he went in to finish him off, Ming was surprised as the simian dodged his punch and kicked him in the side. Just what kind of game was he playing now?

Nothing, actually. Monkey's mind was completely blank, leaving his body to do all of the fighting for him. Acting entirely on reflex and instinct, Monkey continued to press the offense, no longer hampered by the dark cloud of depression that surrounded the tortoise. His blows came so abruptly and without warning that Ming struggled to dodge them, taking several more hits. His sullen demeanor slowly gave way to one of frustration.

But Monkey had no demeanor at all and was not distracted. All he knew right now was the simple command of "fight" and that's all he did. He didn't even notice the tide turning on his own battle.

He also failed to notice the sudden tremor below them until it was too late.

"Yes! I made it!" Po cheered mentally, climbing up the slope that would take him and his prize to shore. "I've got the egg, and I'm sittin' pretty! Take that Trial of Water! Did you think you could stop the Dragon Warrior? Well ya couldn't! I-hey, what's that rumbling?"

Just as he was about to breach the surface, he was suddenly thrown back with strong force.

This strange rumbling baffled the competitors fighting under the lake, and those outside it were no less confused.

"W-What is this?! I can assure everyone that this is NOT a designated part of the trial! We have no idea what's going on any more than you do SQUAWK! ...Actually, that's not assuring at all, is it?"

Crane was the only one watching Lao Pi at the time, but even he didn't think that this could possibly have come from him. All he did was punch the ground. Surely, no one was strong enough to cause that kind of reaction.

No one except the legendary Master Golden Gibbon.

Crane's eyes widened. He remembered what was written in the old master's scroll and had a pretty good idea what was about to happen. "Everyone! Get away from the lake! Now!"

He flew as quickly as he could away from the lake waters, straight past the panicking Chaonao. Looking back, he sighed bitterly as he realized that no one had listened to him. The other avians weren't about to distance themselves from the lake, from their shot at the 1,000,000 yuan prize, just because he told them to. It was a move most of them would come to regret given what happened next.

The center of the lake suddenly exploded and a long stream of water was thrown into the air, soaking most of the birds still flying around it, Chaonao included. It stretched all the way from one end of the lake to the other, directly where Lao Pi was crouched over in concentration.

Master Golden Gibbon, once a bodyguard for the Imperial royal family. He was a legend whose sheer strength could topple buildings and make the oceans themselves part for him.

Along this "seam" of water, the Lake of Tears split into two, leaving a large expanse of land between it.

"What in the world?!" Shifu gasped.

"There can be no doubt now. That is Master Gibbon!" The Emperor said, awed.

"I can't believe I ever thought he was just some cranky old geezer," Mantis said. "Remind me not to get on his bad side."

The rest of the crowd was no less shocked, and startled gasps rose up everywhere, from those in the stands to the watching villagers.

"L-Ladies and gentleman, this is incredible! The Lake of Tears has just-well you don't need ME to tell you! Just look for yourselves! Yes folks, that just happened SQUAWK!"

In those few moments that the lake remained parted, several things happened at once.

Lao Pi, the one who had caused this phenomenon, was the only one staying calm about it. He had studied the lake thoroughly and found the perfect place to make his strike, now he had to take advantage of this opportunity. Scouring the lakebed, the gibbon quickly found a stray tortoise egg and dashed in to grab it. He was in and out of the lake before anyone else could even regain their composure.

But Chaonao spotted him anyway. "Whatever the heck just happened, Lao Pi has taken this chance to snatch an egg SQUAWK! Talk about pragmatism! Now this is a guy that knows what he's doing!"

Chaonao's words were like a trigger. Every other competitor instantly snapped back to attention and remembered what they were supposed to be doing.

This included Tigress, Reidak, and Kuai, who suddenly found themselves fighting a land battle. Glancing at the egg still sitting between them, the felines all lunged for it at once. You might think that this would result in them all crashing in to each other comically, but this was not the case.

That only happened to two of them.

"Ow..." Tigress groaned, rubbing her sore head. "What happened?"

"The egg..." Reidak said, dazed. "It just vanished!"

"Did it now?"

The two tigers looked up to see Kuai, smirking and twirling the egg around on a single claw. "See ya!" Catching the egg in his paw, Kuai disappeared from the spot. Looking closely, they could just make out brief flashes of the cheetah, appearing only as a blur, making his way up and out of the lake.

"It sure took him longer than he expected, but Master Spotted Blur has finally collected his egg SQUAWK!"

"Ya nee paneemayoo, why didn't he just do that from the beginning?" Reidak asked, helping Tigress back to her feet.

"I guess that fancy Fleetfoot of his doesn't work underwater."

"So he was handicapped this whole time? Hmm...that's a bit insulting, isn't it?"

"I guess we better stop fighting for now and go find some eggs of our own."

"Da. Our battle will be concluded another day."

With that, the tigers got down on all fours and raced off towards the chaos.

Back on shore, the skirmish between De Lu and Xingfu had come to a brief stop. Even the fox wasn't crazy enough to ignore a lake splitting open. "What the heck is...HEY!" She caught movement out of the corner of her eye and turned just in time to see the wolf dive back into their half of the lake. Snarling, she went in after him.

A short distance away, the violent tremors in the Earth had unsettled the land around Dun enough for the pangolin to free himself. Giving the slightest hint of a smile, he curled back up into a ball and plunged back into the water.

On the opposite half, two figures were thrown out of the lake and onto shore, their fall cushioned by soft marshland.

Viper groaned, still in a good amount of pain. Evidently, she and Bei had been caught in the middle of the lake when it parted, and the resulting currents tossed them up here.

The snow hare was lying next to her, groaning as she coughed up a bit of sand. "You okay?" Viper asked, too weak to do more than turn her head.

She turned her head back to her. "Y-Yes." Pausing for a moment, she bit her lip. "...I'm sorry I attacked you, Master Viper."

It was a good thing Viper was so exhausted right now, or else she might have tried to wrap the hare up in a bone-crushing hug. That probably wouldn't have been the best move, given the circumstances. "I understand, Bei. That's all over now. And you can just call me Viper."

"Viper..." She paused again, even more uncomfortably. "Thanks for helping me with the egg..." Viper understood her difficulty with this. Apologies and thank you's could be hard for a lot of people, let alone someone as shy as Bei.

"You're welcome, I-" Realizing she had forgotten about the eggs, Viper started looking around.

"Don't worry, I've got them."

Viper looked over at Bei, but didn't see the eggs anywhere. "Huh? Where?"

"Up here." Bei pointed behind her head, to her long ears. The two appendages unfurled to reveal that each was holding an egg. Moving one ear, she pushed an egg over to Viper.

"Those things sure are useful, aren't they?" Viper asked, grabbing the egg.

"They come in handy."

"And two more eggs have been collected! Master Viper and Master Silent Hare have both completed the Trial of Water SQUAWK!"

"Looks like we did it," Viper said, grinning.

"Yeah..."

Now Viper was the one nervous. Could this mean what she thought it meant? Only one way to find out.

With a bit of effort, the snake extended her tail over to Bei. "So...friends?"

After only a second of hesitation, the hare smiled and grabbed the tail with her small paw.

"Friends."

If there was anything that could snap someone out of a blank state of mind, being violently thrown by a current had to be at the top of the list.

It took a second for Monkey to remember exactly where he was and what he was doing, but by then, he was already on a one-way trip to the surface. Seeing a battered Zhi Ming and the egg he still held, Monkey reached out and wrapped the tortoise up in his prehensile tail as he passed by. Together, both of them were ejected from the lake.

Seeing the ground coming up, Ming desperately grabbed the tail in midair and tried to yank the simian towards him. Monkey could already feel his touch, as cold and empty as life itself, starting to affect him. He needed to end this now.

Letting out a piercing battle cry, Monkey grabbed his own tail with both hands and slammed Ming face-first into the marsh.

He felt the tortoises's influence dissipate instantly. It was like a massive weight off his shoulders, and now his victory was sweeter than ever. Flipping the unconscious reptile on his back, Monkey pried the egg out of his claws and held it up triumphantly.

The egg cracked, then shattered in his hand.

Monkey shrieked and shook the pieces of shell and egg goop off his hand.

"Yikes, hate to see that happen! Master Monkey is hereby disqualified SQUAWK!"

"W-What?!" he shouted back. "No way! He was the one holding it!"

"Then maybe you shouldn't be so rough with people handling delicate objects! Better luck next time, child-killer SQUAWK!"

Monkey froze, horrified as he stared down at the goop still remaining on his hands. Being disqualified was now the last thing on his mind. "What have I done...?"

Turning around, he saw the eyes of several tortoise villagers upon him, staring into his very soul.

He threw himself onto the ground in front of them, starting to weep. "I'm so sorry! I never meant to harm any of your children! If there's anything I can do to make up for this, I swear I-!"

"Oh, calm down, you big baby." Monkey looked up through watery eyes at the familiar face of Master Bludgeoning Rhino. "Those eggs are just replicas."

"Wait, WHAT?!" he shouted again, his sorrow quickly turning into anger.

Rhino scoffed. "As if we'd let a group as destructive as you handle actual tortoise eggs. Nah, we just told you that so you'd be more careful with them. Didn't work, clearly." He turned to his right. "Bring in another one!"

Monkey's jaw dropped as an entire wagon of "eggs" was wheeled in by a pair of antelope guards. One of the guards tossed an egg to Rhino, who then hurled it back into the lake. "There. Problem solved."

"I hate you," Monkey said darkly. "I hate you so much."

Rhino just shrugged and walked off again. Monkey turned his attention back to the unconscious Zhi Ming. If the tortoise were awake right now, he would no doubt be giving him another lecture about the futility of his existence.

He just might have agreed with him too.

Finally, after what seemed way too long to be anything resembling natural, the Lake of Tears closed back up and returned to its normal state. This spectacle wasn't quite as impressive in reverse.

"Don't give up yet, competitors! Only half of the eggs have been collected! There's still five more for you to get your greedy little paws on, so get moving SQUAWK!"

Po was doing just that, swimming rapidly for the edge of the lake again. He had no idea what hit him earlier, or why everyone seemed to be making such a big fuss out of it, but whatever it was had been inconsiderate enough to send him a good distance away from the shoreline. When this trial was over, he never wanted to swim again.

Squinting his eyes, the panda saw something else coming at him. As he got closer, Po realized it was Angry Wolf Guy. Wait, what was his name again? Du Lee? It didn't matter. He was sick of this guy getting in his way and now he was going to throw him out of it.

Stopping in place, Po stuffed the egg into the rim of his shorts and got into his stance, shooting De Lu the universal gesture for "bring it on."

The wolf was happy to oblige. Dropping in low for just a second, De Lu shot up and aimed a kick at Po's side. Po raised his arm and blocked it, but as he tried to counter with a punch, the wolf immediately sped out of his range. Swimming above the panda's head, De Lu aimed several kicks straight downward. Po again was able to block the attacks, though each one pushed him further and further down. His air supply was starting to become worrisome again.

With one final kick, De Lu pushed Po down to the lakebed and himself far above him. He was now directly between Po and the oxygen he needed. Deciding to take out two birds with one stone, Po kicked off the ground and thrust himself right at De Lu.

Unfortunately for him, the wolf master was expecting just that, and he intentionally allowed himself to sink just enough for Po's momentum to carry him directly over top of him. Before the panda could react, De Lu grabbed his arms and kneed him hard in the gut.

The blow was even more effective than he anticipated. Po gasped as the little air he had left was forced out of his lungs. Reaching out with one last effort to reach the surface, Po's vision darkened and he felt himself go limp.

We should have just done this to begin with.

Tigress looked at Reidak, both stretching themselves out after their little workout. Around them were the fallen forms of several other competitors, including the crocodile and the cobra. They slowly floated back to the surface, leaving them alone.

Alone with two eggs that is.

Reidak studied his egg intently, as if unsure that it was real. Given his lack of eyesight, he did this by basically groping the thing until he was certain it was not just some very round stone. Satisfied, he nodded in Tigress's direction and headed for the surface, silently promising to settle the score with her later. Tigress watched him go, looking forward to such an encounter herself.

As she was about to leave, she felt something hit her lightly in the back. She whirled around, expecting an enemy, but what she saw was just another egg, likely dropped by one of the other competitors somewhere along the line.

Now these things are just mocking me. She growled and kicked the thing out of her face, then left to claim her prize.

Crane sighed to himself as he rested on shore. After hours of continuous flight, his wings were getting too sore to sustain it. He was forced to either come back to shore or keep flying until they inevitably gave out and he drowned in the lake. The first option sounded better, even if it felt a lot like giving up.

"Who am I kidding, I am giving up," he muttered to himself. "Hours of long, tedious effort, and for what? Nothing." No one else was flying over the lake either, with the exception of Chaonao, who was obligated to. Even the tenacious bladed hawk master was lying some distance away, wheezing in exhaustion.

So that was it then. He had no chance of getting an egg now. It's not like one was going to just come flying-

He heard a loud splash in front of him and an egg landed in the sand right at his talons. Crane blinked.

Wow. He didn't even get to finish that thought. This had to be some kind of record.

Crane took one step forward and closed his talons over the egg.

"...I'm not really sure how it happened, but it appears Master Crane has finally got an egg SQUAWK! Let this be a lesson to you, folks! If you keep trying and failing at something over and over again, eventually you'll get lucky enough to manage it!"

Crane scowled, but he couldn't exactly argue that and so he decided to just take the win.

Two more splashes came from the water and he almost expected two more eggs to fall in his lap. Instead, it was Reidak, followed closely by Tigress, emerging from the lake with a pair of eggs of their own. At this point in the trial, the lake was nearly empty, and so they faced very little resistance on their way back.

"And just like that, we're down to only two eggs left! The only question is, who's going to be bringing them back? It's not over yet SQUAWK!"

Tigress and Crane looked around as the winning competitors began to assemble. There were eight total, and they both noticed that Master Monkey was not among them. Seeing the simian looking dejected over at the side, they could only assume he hadn't gotten an egg yet, leading them to wonder why he wasn't in the lake right now.

More importantly, there was no sign of Po anywhere in sight.

Tigress looked back out at the lake uneasily. The idiot couldn't have actually gone and drowned himself, could he? "Dammit Po, where are you?"

"Woah...hey...I'm not dead...awesome."

Po coughed weakly as he slowly opened his eyes. Well, he could assume he wasn't dead anyway. He could see the sun shining brightly in his eyes and he seemed to be lying in some tall grass somewhere on land. Besides, he wouldn't be this sore if he was dead, right?

"You better be alive," a voice said from next to him. "Who am I going to obsess over if you kick the bucket?"

"Xingfu?"

The fox leaned over his face, grinning at him. "That's right! It's me! Your number one fan that wasn't about to let her idol sink to a watery grave!"

Po tried to get up, but couldn't. He was even weaker than he thought. "...You mean you pulled me out of that lake? All by yourself?"

"No silly, you weigh a ton! I had some help from that De Lu guy."

"Huh?! But I thought he was trying to kill me."

"Yeah, me too. But after we dragged you up here, he said that he 'miscalculated' or something, and that he didn't intend for you to drown. He ran off after that, saying that he'll wait until the next trial to take another crack at you."

"Well that's reassuring," Po said, rolling his eyes. "W-Wait, what about my egg? Don't tell me he stole it again!"

"Nope! Your egg is still safe and sound." Xingfu dug the object out of his shorts, which she seemed to enjoy more than she should've, and plopped it down right on top of his belly. "Here you go!"

"That's egg number nine, folks! The Dragon Warrior stays in the running SQUAWK! And it looks like he's won more than just the egg!"

Po became aware of just how close he was to Xingfu and turned away quickly. "But what about you? You didn't get an egg for yourself, right?"

She shrugged. "I told you already, I don't care about the tournament. Yeah, I wanted to defeat you before, but then all of this happened. And I'm not about to leave your side to let some other lunatic with a grudge try to finish you off."

She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled in close, making him blush. "Besides, why go swimming again when I can spend the rest of this trial here with you?" she whispered into his ear, her fingers starting to trace circles around his chest fur.

"Oh boy."

Hearing Chaonao's announcement, Tigress sighed to herself in relief.

"You see? Nothing to worry about," Crane said.

"I wasn't worried." Tigress crossed her arms, instantly returning to her hardcore self.

Crane looked around at the remaining competitors. "So that's nine then. Who do you think's going to be the last one?" Getting no response, he turned to see Tigress already walking away. He had a pretty good idea as to where.

Sure enough, after a surprised feminine shriek and some loud yelps of pain, Tigress reappeared, dragging Po behind her by the ankle. "Found him." She dropped the panda on the spot.

"What happened?" Crane asked him.

"Xingfu saved me from drowning, and then Tigress saved me from Xingfu."

Gasping loudly, the fox crawled out of the lake, coughing up water onto the ground. "Ugh...didn't think she was the jealous type." Tigress just sniffed, not even looking at her.

"So what's going on?" Po asked. "Is the trial over yet?"

"No, not yet. We're still waiting for the last winner."

"Cool. I wonder who else will-AW, NO WAY!" Po's eyes bugged out, suddenly sitting straight up as he saw someone else emerge from the lake.

Moving into the center of the assembled winners, Dun the pangolin uncurled himself, holding an egg between his large claws.

"And just like that, it's allllllllllll over, folks! The Trial of Water is done, done, DONE! Er, no pun intended..."

"Agh!" Po flopped back onto the ground. "I went through all the trouble to stop that guy and he goes and tanks his way through another trial anyway!"

"Just be happy you won," Tigress admonished. "And that you're not dead."

"Yeah," he smiled. "At least I didn't have as much bad luck as Crane." The avian's head dropped.

"Or me," Monkey said bitterly, coming up behind them. "Crane still made it through in the end. I went and got myself disqualified."

"That's what you get for being so reckless." Tigress didn't know what actually happened to him, but it wasn't too hard to figure out.

"What about Viper? Did she do okay?" asked Crane.

"Better than okay!" the serpent grinned, slithering up to the rest of her teammates. "I didn't just win, I got myself a new friend! Everyone, let me formally introduce you to Yin...Bei?" She turned around, noticing that the hare was no longer behind her. Looking around, she saw her several feet away, waving shyly at them from the distance. "Well...she's used to me at least..."

"That's great, Viper!" Po said enthusiastically. "Looks like this worked out for everyone." Someone coughed loudly behind him. "Except Monkey."

Mercifully, the competitors were given another ten minutes after the conclusion of the trial to rest a little. This was much needed, as Master Rhino wouldn't accept anything less than perfect attention when he arrived.

The Final Ten of the Wu Xing Tournament lined up in front of him as per usual, soaking wet, dirty, and shivering. All of them wanted nothing more than to return home to a nice warm bath, but Rhino wouldn't have it. "It looks like you've all survived, and more importantly, managed to dredge up every last egg. But of course, some of you did better than others. De Lu, you collected the first egg, and so you have won an advantage."

Crane's head whipped around towards the wolf, who didn't seem to notice him. D-De Lu?! ...N-No, it must be a coincidence...

Everyone else was shocked too, but for a different reason. "Advantage?! You didn't mention anything about an advantage this time!" Kuai shouted.

"Oh, I didn't? I must have forgotten." No one believed him.

"Attention, everyone! The Final Ten has been decided! Let's see who we've got SQUAWK!"

"First to finish is the Wistful Wolf, De Lu!" De Lu frowned slightly at the nickname, but nodded.

"In second place: The Groundshaking Geezer, Lao Pi!" The aged gibbon gave a small "Bah!" and shook his head.

"In third place, the Smirking Speedster, Master Spotted Blur SQUAWK!" Kuai promptly lived up to the nickname.

"In fourth place, technically hitting the ground first, is the Bashful Bunny, Master Silent Hare! Yin Bei's ear twitched in annoyance, though it was hard to tell if this was due to being called "Bashful" or "Bunny".

"In fifth place, smacking the dirt straight afterwards, is the Slippery Serpent, Master Viper SQUAWK!" Viper hissed. It was clear by now that Chaonao wasn't trying to come up with accurate nicknames, just ones that sounded catchy.

"In sixth place, the Feathered Fumbler, Master Crane!" Crane looked like he wanted to fly up there right now and show the parrot how much he could "fumble" his face.

"In seventh place, the Blind Bruiser, Master Fearless Shadow!" The tiger smiled and nodded.

"In eighth place, the Cantankerous Cat, Master Tigress!" Tigress literally smacked the smile off Reidak's face.

"In ninth place, the Boorish Bear, the Dragon Warrior Po SQUAWK!" Po cheered, clearly having no idea what "Boorish" meant.

"And finally, rolling in last at tenth place, it's the Indomitable Indifference, Master Rolling Fortress!" Dun blinked.

"And that's all, folks! Hope you enjoyed seeing everyone get wet as much as we did! Thank you all for watching, especially the denizens of the Lake of Tears who were so kind as to let us defile their sacred village! This is Chaonao, signing off SQUAWK!"

Ya nee paneemayoo - I don't understand.

Yes, that's really the only footnote I have for this long-ass chapter, except a quick thank you to Fox MCcloud SNR for helping out with some of the details.