Chapter 21

"MUST! GET OUT-" And anywhere else that is affected back this curse... "OF THIS-" This will be a death with a value. "CAGE."

"Viper stop! You're only going to hurt yourself!" Crane tried pull against his metal bonds again. The blood on his cheek had trickled down his beak every time he bowed his head, and he had to admit, the feeling mixed with the cold made him shudder, but he was trying not to pay attention to it. "I'll get you out!" He strained. "Just as soon-" He grunted. "I get out off these- YEAHHAAKK! - Cuffs!" Crane tried pulling away again, but soon out of anger, he hit his head off the wall when the attempt failed, almost growling loudly in frustration.

"And so will you if you do that!" Viper replied.

"I-e-e-e-e-i'll give my aid!" Mantis began to wobble about after the second time hitting his head against the bars. The first time, his body immediately hit the ground of his cage, but he got back up and tried again... bad idea. "A-s-s-s-s soon as I get out of this..." He gave out an 'ugh' as he fell back onto the floor once more.

Monkey tried to pull away from the wall, by letting his weight pull him down. "Po!" Monkey said as he spotted the panda, still half silhouetted by darkness. He looked at the door before facing the panda, and hissed. "Your powers can break these chains..." He quickly saw Po's paws fitted tightly in their iron gloves. He swallowed nervously, but Po didn't flinch. "They can break out of the shackles!" He chuckled when his friend slowly turned to face him. The chuckle soon was a lump in his throat when he found any source of determination to get out of here... absent. His eyes were heavy, and his face was blank, wiped clean of any happiness... Not the Po they all knew. "Po?"

He turned his head back towards the dark wall. "I can't..."

"What do you mean?" Crane asked. "This is magic we're talking about!"

He looked down at the steel gauntlets, feeling his paws open and close in the dark, tight spaces inside. "Yeah, and who knows what could happen... I could end up hurting you guys..." They looked at one another, starting to understand the concern. "I don't want to lose everyone I love..."

"You're going to lose one if you get up and get outta here Po!" Viper slithered to the corner of her cage, and looked at him. "Po? Po, listen to me... please..." His ears flicked. "Tigress needs you now... don't you understand!?" Her voice was on the edge of breaking, as the others stopped fighting their traps. "You love her! And she needs to know..."

"At least... That's what I thought." Po stood slowly, and leaned his head against the wall. "It's nothing but a petty crush."

Mantis shook his head to knock off the last of the dizziness. "Maybe nothing but that at the start," Mantis added suggestively. "But now! It has grown! You don't realize how close she is with you... remember the Coronation?" Po frowned, but it was lightly expressed. He also let out a small grunt. "I'm gonna take that as a yeah..." The bug said uncertainly.

"So will we!" Crane and Monkey claimed in unison. The panda's shoulders tense up, before Crane continued without Monkey's assistance. "Think about it! She danced with you! And we saw you watch her as you first revealed your powers, like none of our views mattered! You were worried what she was going to think... and you took the risk to kill us all with the chandelier-" Crane paused, wondering whether that last part was a good thing... So Monkey continued on.

"You were always by her side the whole journey to Rai's! And here!" Po looked down as his shackles began to freeze over. Shaking his head with a sharp in take of air, he held his paws against his chest, feeling the coldness of their steel and ice covering stab his gut. "Forget what the Peacock said!" Po covered his ears the best his could, doing the complete opposite the bug tried to make him do. "He can't define your love for her! We know how much you care about her!" His eyes shut tightly as he held his head, almost stabbing at his temples. "We've seen-"

"AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Tigress was trembling at the sight of her appearance in the meditation pool long after shedding tears. Distraught, she slowly traced her claws lightly along her white coat, which she was already aware off... but something else was slowly changing... her eyes. From the burning amber she remembered growing up with, was now stirring into an icy grey lightly spiced with blue. She rubbed her eyes repeatedly in hopes that her state was only making her hallucinate, but never went away. "It's real..." she whispered to herself again and again, as she held her head, take in air greedily, and exhaled heavily. Her ears picked up the sound of cracking. The wind outside was picking up dangerously again. Turning around, she saw the doors slowly icing over. She could sense the storm that was devastating the Valley growing worse...

And she would be at the mercy of her insanity if she wasn't cured...

Embedding his steel fists into the floor, they were immediately silenced by his scream, and the sudden jagged ice line that shot across the floor that followed the small shaking sensation around the room. Viper covered her mouth, and slowly moved her gaze along the frozen line, to where Po's paws were now free from the the chains. The gloves were practically torn and peeled pack as easily as it was to pull away banana skin, but small, and pointy stalagmite-like spikes started growing around Po's fists with a small, but bright glow, which soon faded, and crumbled into dust within the space of a few seconds after forming. "You don't understand!" He said in an eerily quiet voice. He dragged his fists along the ground until they were placed in front of his knees. "You don't understand what I feel towards her!" His voice spoke louder this time.

"P-"

"No!" He bawled with venom practically swimming in his saliva. His face said it all; nostrils flaring, eyes flashing and closing into slits, mouth quivering, and almost keeling over after he came spewing into the space like a volcano releasing its pent up emotions into the darkness. He was so angry, they knew not to fight him or push him further into getting them free, and so, with cringed faces and tightened bodies, they forced themselves to listen to his screaming. "You don't understand OK? You don't know what it's like to be in love with someone who you have no chance with!" He coughed out, letting tears gather and glisten in his eyes, making his vision go blurry as he turned to each of them. "Tigress has everything I could ever ask for in a person; kind, caring, concerning, mysterious, gentle, determined, loyal... she's beautiful, inside and out... and she's understanding." He let out a tear, which fell onto his paw, which opened down against his stomach. "I always thought I was the only one on this planet that knew what it was like... to live with the fear of no one understanding how hard it is to hide what doesn't need to be shared... and Tigress shared that with me. Yeah I could handle the stress because I grew up in the Valley, always surrounded by people..." another tear was freed. "But that doesn't mean I never had that fear within." He punched the wall, making a blast of ice sprawl out in different directions. "After finding out she had powers... hearing everything she told me... the dance we shared... the words that were spoken... I knew we had more in common than I realized... and I thought... I could help... have a chance to thank her for saving me from the shots... by showing the love she always deserved..." Viper started crying silently, unsure what to say, or how to react to this. Crane swallowed, feeling his own eyes welling up as he felt Monkey and Mantis' sight also on him. He turned his face away from them all the best his could, not wanting to see them looking, though he imprisoned wings refused to give him the option to do it fully.

Po broke completely, quietly sobbing as his chest sank towards his knees."I want her to know that we would've never been afraid... and that she was never... and is never..." His head rose. "Alone..."

Monkey's face melted into a look of pity. Crane's eyes released his tears, cheeks rising slowly as his beak opened with a slight tremble as he slowly turned to Viper, who was practically mirroring his expression. Mantis swallowed, and brought his pincers up to his eyes, hating the state his friend was in. He felt his back weigh him down, until he came in contact with the cold bars, and he slid down, until he was sitting and hugging himself. The fear of seeing their friend like this, a dark shadow suddenly loomed over them, shrinking the light that could only manage through the window, and the torch that Shen hooked up on the wall was slowly losing it's light. "Po?" His looked up, and gave out one more small sob, and slowly turned his head towards the voice, tears still falling and forming, while he paused in verbal weeping, and inhaled shakily.

"Viper?" He replied quietly.

She slid her tail out through the bars as long and as far as they could, until her tail tip was hover away from Po's crouching form by just a few inches. Wiggling it once or twice, Crane Monkey, and Mantis watched Po slowly reached out, and clasped onto her tail. Viper shivered slightly feeling his chilly grasp on her tail, but wrapped her tail end half way around his paw. "Never allow anyone to define how you feel towards Tigress, do you hear me?" She started crying again as her head rested against the cage. "If you say you love her, than you love her. Shen has no right to call your feelings, one of nothing but a fan boy's crush. They would only go for appearance and the next step on the social ladder. You... you're not like that." She smiled down at him. "You will never be like that. You have respect, kindness... and you share something amazing with her... I had her when we were little..." the serpent giggled shakily at the memories that were truly golden... the ones she hoped to re-live in the current duration they were living now... if they ever stopped the winter. "She'd be lucky to have... someone who loves her so dearly... and will help her through everything..." her eyes closed. "At least she'll let you in." Crane, Monkey, and Mantis knew what she was feeling, and hung their heads alongside her in agreement.

Po sniffled, and wiped his eyes with his free paw as he stood up sharpish, kicking the chains that once held him away as far, and as carelessly as he managed. "No no no no no no! Don't think that Viper!" He looked around, briefly looking at Crane, Monkey, and Mantis as well. "You guys can't think that! She'll let you guys in too! I know she will!" Viper opened her eyes, but didn't raise her head towards him. Instead, her eyes were watching the rust along the ground of her cage standing out in the dim light.

"How do you know?" She asked softly.

"I know because I do! She cares about you guys. She hid from us all because she loves us, and never wanted to hurt us!" He knew they weren't buying it, because even though this was the case, she still caused pain...

She pulled the blanket over her shoulder weakly. There was nothing she could do. No one could help her, and it was her fault for revealing her powers in the first place. If it didn't happen, the situation she place herself and the Valley in would've never come to light, yet at the same time... if this never happened... would she have been not as close to Po and the others as she did at he coronation? Would she have danced with Po more? Would she have laughed more with Viper and the others? Would she have said yes or no to Viper's wish... to reconnect...

Looking up to see ice overtaking the ceiling as well, another chill ran though her and she hunched over slightly, growling and hissing at the cold, until she heard a door creak... before it stopped... and creaked again. Breathing in and out quickly, she turned around to see the door at the other end opening, welcoming the wind from the outside. "Help... me... please..." She whispered as the door swung open fully...

"Po?" Viper, Mantis, Po, Monkey, and Crane froze and turned to the door, wondering who it was. They heard a pitter patter of feet, and continuous panting, growing in volume, until they stopped outside the door. "Viper? Are you guys in there?"

Monkey stood on the tips of his toes to see if he could find out who it is, but was hurting his arms in the process. "Fù?" he called out hopefully. "Jījí?"

The door opened after they heard the rattle of a key, and Fù rushed in, shutting the door behind her, holding a ring of keys. "I found you guys at last! I knew I heard someone down here, so I went key hunting!" She rattled the keys proudly, which bounced and sounded like bells or chimes. She stared at them for a second, eye's widening as she slowly stopped the keys shaking, and then asked. "Why are you guys chained or caged?" She looked around slowly, before looking back at them with panic in her eyes. "Ti-"

"Hall of Heroes!" Monkey said, waving his hands. The dragon blinked and his jump desperately. "Never mind the name! Quick! Just free us! We need to get over there quickly before Shen does!" She opened her mouth. "We'll explain later!" Monkey snapped. "Just get us out! Please!" She nodded and snapped into action, and quickly unlocked them all but Crane in a flash. First the sound of keys chiming was played, but now the clinking of shackles opening, the clank of chains hitting the ground, and the creak of the cage doors opening. She was turning to Crane as Mantis jumped out of his cage, silently praising his freedom, when she caught sight of Po, and paused in mid step, unsure about what he was doing, or why he wasn't moving from his place. Monkey spotted this, bit his lip, and ran to Crane in hope to free him. Leaping up and planting one foot between Crane's flank and his cuff, and the other on the other side of the cuff, he attacked the wing shaped plate, and tried to get his fingers through the small space between the plate and the wall to set his friend free.. The edge dug into his finger tips as he tried to squeeze through and he felt dents on his finger tips form, but that wasn't going to stop him from trying to get Crane out. He pulled at it as best he could, and it was slowly coming away from the wall... making just enough room for the avian to wiggle his wing about, almost a quarter way out, but Monkey's fingers slipped as he pulled, and he suddenly went flying across the room. The plated snapped back into place as he hit the opposite wall, groaning as Crane's wing was in an uncomfortable position.

Fù's head tilted side to side, and they heard her neck cracking, even though she had proven on some occasions she had no bones. "Let's get Crane free and find Tigress!" She looked at Po, who was still by Viper's open cage, his paws latched onto one another under his chin, eye closed tightly. "Po?" She scooted up to him, grabbing hold of his stiffened arm. "Po?"

His mouth opened...

Jījí strolled in with a happy hum. "Nice place." He said aloud, eyes focused on all the artifacts.

Jījí!" He froze and looked left to right.

"Is it a ghost?" His eyes suddenly focus straight ahead, where he saw Tigress watching him, eyes heavy, shoulders raised, head down, with her weak attempt to straighten up. "Tigress!" He ran around in panic, and picked up a dead torch, before running for her. Stopping, he looks around to see the few candles that were still flickering after the wind getting into the hall the second time that Shen had re lit as he was talking with Tigress. "Hang in there Tigress!" He leapt over her, flew over the meditation pool, picked one candle up and holds the torch over the flame, quickly relighting the torch. He stares at it slowly with big eyes as he dropped the candle, which rolled right into the meditation pool with a small plop. "Woah..."

She looked up, and stared at the flickering light that twirled in the still air, feeling only a small fraction of the warmth.. but then realized Jījí's face start to glint... and a droplets began to tinkle down his forehead, which he only wiped away. "Jījí?" He smiled down at the dancing torch light. "Jījí!" She tried to push herself up and crawl, but she nearly went head first into the pool. Grabbing her blanket and pulling it around her tighter, she shook violently while barely managing to make it to the end of the sentence. "G-g-g-et away f-ff-from th-hat!"

"So this is heat..." He raised one arm and whispered slowly, as if not to hear her. His eyes went as round as dumpling and he inhaled excitedly at the experience he could only dream of. "I love it..." He reaches a stone claw toward the flames, and jumped when the area of snow near it began to melt. "Ooh!" He shook the arm about. "It's very hot." He pulls his talons away, shaking it about as he gave the torched to Tigress, and clung onto it as close as she could. "So, where's Po and the others? What happened to..." He thought deep and swift, before jumping. "I remember! What happened to unfreezing your heart and saving the Valley?" His smile faded away very quickly at her saddened face, and tilted his head lengthwise by the side of her face. "Well? I can see your fur i still white... and I haven't melted yet-"

She shook her head slowly, making him pause. "Rai was wrong about me... about everything. He... was a hoax..." Her voice began to break. "They can't save me..."

Jījí gasped, and looked about, seeing Oogway's staff on the ground not far from them. "But... we ran all the way here- Rai can't be wrong! I mean... you shouldn't be cold..." He hugged her tightly from the side, dangerously close to the flame.

"Please Jījí..."

"No! Hugging time!"

"But you can't stay here." She said almost desperately, as he held onto her tighter. "Not near the flame; you'll melt."

"Well I am not leaving here until we find some other source of love to save you! And I guess my hug will need something extra!" He let go and parked himself down beside her, stubbornly. Like Mantis, she thought, almost tempted to smile fondly at this thought. She felt Jījí leaning his back against her arm and think aloud for her to hear. "Do you happen to have any ideas?"

Sigh. "No."

"The others love you..." Jījí began counting off five of his fingers that represented Po, Viper, Crane, Monkey, and Mantis. Her ears flattened so lowly they almost disappeared. "Me and Fù love you..." he added on two more, but then his frown mirrored hers, but his was more of frustration. "How..." he exhaled. "How come that couldn't help you?"

Tigress stared into the flame, as she felt her head sliding off to the side. "It's because I lack something you all have."

She felt his eyes on her curiously. Slowly turning as he asked; "And that would be?" She held the torch tighter and nearly leaned her head against it out of sudden loss of common sense.

"I don't even know what love is..." she whispered.

Jījí smiled up at her, confident. "That's okay, I do..." Jiji hopped up a little, and burrowed his head under Tigress' chin from the side, as if he was a child wanting to cheer his mother up at the end of a stressful and tiring day. "Love is..." He looked down at her paws, and gently ran his claws along her closest paws, that was clasped around the wooden rod, and ran them along the black markings on her paws, and then along her knuckles. "Putting someone else's needs before yours... She looked down at his claws waltzing along her knuckles. "Like, you know, how Po and the others raced all the way here to help you." Her ears picked up a little. "They love you..." He tilted his head. "...Don't you love them?"

She shook her head and gave a little laugh, but then coughed when she felt the lump in her throat returning. "I don't deserve to be loved..." Jījí's gaze began to sadden. "And nor can I ever love or show it..." He looked at her slowly, with the same expression for a few more seconds... and then started laughing, making her question mentally. "What?"

"You can!" Jījí smiled and jumped back, flailing his arms about. "And you have! Don't you dare say that!" She blinked, a little taken aback from his sudden change in attitude. "You put everyone else's needs before yours too! Like when you first revealed your powers, you ran away for the sake of everyone. You created me and Fù, and protected her as soon as you found out she was alive! You helped the others in the battle with Chen in anyway you could... you were always worried how the others were doing..." He then held his arm out to the flame, and Tigress immediately slapped it away, accidentally making his arm detach,and land on the floor. "See? If you didn't love me you would've let my arm melt away!" He cupped her face gently after retrieving his limb, and rested her forehead against hers. "Worrying about people is love Tigress." He smiled bashfully as Tigress freed one paw to place it on his arm. Thanks to his height, and the length of his arms, her paws practically covered his whole arm. "Me and Fu look up to you... almost like a mom..." He saw something spark in her eyes... which were not the right color, and he only noticed it, but now wasn't the time to panic, even though he only realized it there. "And Po really cares about you... but... maybe that little bit more than the others."

Her eyes dilated, and her head slowly pulled away, letting go of his arm, which only fell limply to his side. Watching her paw, she felt her breathing being cut short, and her heart rate quicker than it was before Jījí came in. "Po... loves me?"

He blinked and raised a brow so smoothly, that it reminded her so much of Crane when Monkey and Mantis were acting childish, or said something stupid. She never took part, or was rarely around to see how often these events occurred, but she knew that look anywhere. "Wow, you really don't know anything about love, do you?" She clung onto her chest when she felt an uneasy thump, and he raised his arms. "Don't have a heart attack over it!" He tried to laugh it off with a shaky start, but she didn't. She could feel something worse, but she could suss out what it was.

So instead, she looked at the pool, and sadly chuckled, with a small smile. "No..." Po... "I didn't..." Looking back up to Jījí, she saw his face starting to melt. "Jiji..." Tigress tried to move him away, but when he didn't follow, she extinguished the torch in the pool, making him cry out and almost jump in after it, if it wasn't for her catching hold of him. She lifted him as high as she could, but she shuddered and twisted slightly to the side.

"Hey! Why did you do that!? You need to stay warm!"

"You were melting."

He smiled sweetly and reassuringly at her. "Some people are worth melting for..." She smiled back at him as he went to pick up another candle to pass to her. Even though te flame was smaller, his face started to melt properly this; his face began to slowly shrink slightly, water running down all over his face. Panicking, he pushed the mushy snow back in place. "Just maybe not right this second." He chuckled bashfully as she smiled down at him, and hugged her, burrowing himself into her chest. She carefully placed the candle away from him at a safe distance, and hugged him back tightly. Even though he was made of snow, she felt this instant warmth bouncing off him. Resting her chin gently atop of his head, she instantly thought about the warmth that came of Po whenever she was in his arms...

Now she was thinking about the others... were they okay? She needed to find them... What if Po's love.. yes in that way, really was the remedy she needed to stop this winter? Despite what Shen had said about Rai... after all...

Didn't she feel the same way towards him?

"Help me up, Jījí." She asked hoarsely as she dragged herself sideways towards the end of the step, her legs limply scraping across the smooth marble floor. "Please."

"No, no, no, no, no." He held onto her paws. "You need to stay here and keep warm..." he darted his eyes to the single tiny candle sitting off on the side. "With that..." his nose twitched, and his whiskers bounced as he looked back to see her eyes in contact with his.

"I need to find Po." She said.

Jiji eyed her cluelessly. "Why...?" She raised her brows, and her head slightly twitched forward, and her shoulders raised when she smiled, but the corners of her mouth only moved up. He quickly realized. "Oh, oh, oh, I know why!" He hopped around in an excited display of hope. "There's your act of true love, hiding somewhere in the valley..." Hopefully. "Possibly the Noodle Shop! Let's hurry and look there first!"

"They're in the medical wing. Help me up and I'll lead you." He was just about to hoist her up and assist her towards the door Shen disappeared through, when they suddenly heard multiple footsteps. With her good hearing, she detected the sound of metal clanking, voices mumbling... and swords being drawn. "Guards."

"Guards?!" Jījí began to panic, looking up at her. If he had real skin or fur, she knew right away he would be ten shades whiter by now. "W-what do we do now?"

She looked around. "This way!" With sudden energy, Tigress stood as she went into a lopsided run for the main door at the other end of the hall, grabbing a round shield along the way as Jiji leaps onto her back, almost making her buckle. Just as the guards enter from the door they were meant to find Po and the others, a bursts of wind comes through the main door as Tigress punched it with all her power, both physical and magical; the weight of the ice already on the wall, and the amount that came from her paw, crumbled the door, as they made it outside, dragging some of the wall with her.

The men duck out of the way of the bits of shrapnel, debris... and the artifacts that flew at them. Shen pushed his way into the room and saw viciously... The wall is blown open. The torch stick was floating in the uneven meditation pool, and the candles were blown out and scattered all over the floor and the display, with one or two rolling along the floor... and stopping at his feet.

Shen's eyes narrowed as the guards all looked at him as he kicked the candle away. He slowly drew out a feather dagger of his own, making it's own swishing sound in thin air. "Go check on our guests." He snarled. "I'll find her."

She must be eliminated... the right way.

Miss me? Man! Long chapters kill me, but I love writing them!

What do you all think?! Not long now until the ending! I'd say... two or three more chapters to go... sadly :(

Please review! And tell me what you think is going to happen next!

136 reviews! Woah! Let's try and make it 146!