CHAPTER 21: GARDEN OF THE MASTERS PART 2.
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MONKEY'S POV
I was also quite surprised as I saw the wolves appearing out of nowhere, as well from the behind of the statues and from the shadows of all around of on the ground helplessly lying pandas, surrounding them from every corner, blocking their every possible escape.
I knew that there was ambush after all.
But I never expected the wolves having ability to turn themselves invisible and ambush the pandas under of this ability.
Which was, in fact, impossible for the wolves to have such ability, which is the technique mostly owned by the master Chameleon.
Unless the main reasons of these wolves sudden appearance out of nowhere was...
"The Shadow crowns!" I whispered in shock, remembering well those artifacts, of which Heilang, the wolf boss of the Lin Kuei clan from the nearby woods, used once against us inside of the Jade Palace once Crane's mother was paying the visit on us.
These wolves seemingly wore the similar armors with the symbol of the blood-red Flaming Sun like Lord Shen's wolves does, however, these wolves immediately took out their primary weapons along with their long swords and glaive-spears... the long chain hammers, which were often used by Heilang's Lin Kuei clan in every time we encounter this bunch of wolf bandits.
From these, I immediately recognized that these wolves gotta be the members of Heilang's Lin Kuei clan... fighting for Lord Shen among the rest of their wretched kind.
There was, at least, twenty wolves from Lin Kuei clan and even more than just a one hundred wolves with Shen's symbol.
Heilang, however, was nowhere to be seen...
...but his clan members, twirling their hammers above and behind of their heads, seemed to be ready to take the action and attack at any moment to the surrounded pandas.
We had to do something, now when their ambush had been exposed by my plan and the wolves seemed to be not aware of our presence in the another side of the Garden of the masters.
"GET THEM!" I heard someone to order, probably Heilang, who was still nowhere to be seen.
And then, the wolves were about to attack the pandas with the lust for killing... apparently starting from on the ground helplessly and thus being beaten defenseless Po and his panda father, who was the only one to stand against them... though it was ten against one situation.
And then, it was time for us to make our move.
"NOW... ATTACK!" I cried as the signal to the Furious Five.
And all for once, we charged at Feilang's pack all together.
"CRANE! FROM ABOVE!"
"VIPER! LEFT FLANK!"
"MANTIS! YOU GOT THE PANDAS BACKS!"
"AND I'LL TAKE THE FRONT!"
And with the tasks given to each of my fellow member of the Furious Five, we separated to deal off the wolves from all four corner.
LI SHAN'S POV
As I prepared to fight - or more likely die in front of the overwhelming number of wolves - I heard Monkey crying the word "Attack!"
I turned to the direction of Monkey's cry and I saw all four of them, Monkey, Viper, Crane and Mantis, incoming towards us and the wolves surrounding us.
Master Crane was the first one to attack.
And after Monkey had given his attack signal, Crane had jumped from the tip of the rhino statue's horn and plunged in the air in the arch over our enemies.
Crane then spun himself rapidly around in the air as he flew over the wolves heads, and having his wings and their feather blades spread in wide, and with them, Crane sliced the spear heads, the long blades of their swords and their hammer-weapons chains into pieces, disarming the wolves and leaving them both surprised and dumbfounded.
Crane also grabbed at least four wolves with his legs' talons from their tails, lifting the wolves up from the ground as he tirelessly went up to the air with the high speed, despite carrying the weight of himself and four wolves at the same time.
Crane flew over the statue of Oogway, but not before he loosened his grip from the wolves tails and let them to fall against Oogway's statue, knocking them all out.
"Sorry for that, master Oogway!" I heard Crane apologizing... from the statue.
Then, I turned to look at my left side, where I spotted Viper to slithering in the feet of the statues.
Viper delivered the powerful "douple-whip-kicks" with her tail to the wolves faces, knocking about seven wolves out one by one, first sending them dizzy and then finishing them off with the finishing king, as she passed and cleared us through our left flank.
Viper then coiled herself around of eighth wolf with the long handle of the spear, which blade Crane had sliced off from the spear.
Using her technique, "the puppet of death", Viper used the wolf as her body to unleash her Kung Fu skills with the bo-staff turned spear through of another one's paws.
And with the wolf in her possession and using the wolf's staff-like handle of the spear through of his paws as her weapon, Viper attacked the wolves.
While possessing the wolf's body, Viper directed the wolf to circle around the pandas with the running speed and used the wolf's paws to spin the spear quickly and repeatedly from side to side while rushing through of to pandas from the shadows, stairs or behind of the status attacking wolves, giving them dozens and dozens of doubled and repeated swift, snappy and painful whacks from the staff's blunt ends to the wolves' wrists, knuckles, the back-side of their paws or even to their toes, making the wolves to yelp in pain, drop their weapons to the ground and grab from their paws or wrists with their another paws while howling in pain, before knocking the wolves out, one by one with the swift, snappy and painful whacks to their faces and so hard to ensure that the wolves were and stayed knocked out.
And with the strikes with the both ends of the staff, Viper also managed to knock the several teeth out from the wolves mouths.
And after Viper had knocked out cold forty wolves, Viper released the wolf from her possession, but coiled herself around of the wolf's wrist, and swung him around of herself... knocking out two wolves, who had surrounded her with the intention to attack her from every direction...
...before Viper tossed the wolf with all her strength towards the wolves standing in the top of the stairs, knocking out at least three wolves more.
Then I turned around to see sixteen wolves charging right behind of us at us, with their weapons, mostly swords and daggers but also with a few spears, axes and maces, lifted over their heads and ready to deliver the deadly strikes upon us.
I prepared myself to combat... despite my still lacking experiences of the real Kung Fu fight... and to my surprise my nephews, after having recovered from the invisible attack at the feet of the turtle's statue, stood up on my side with their weapons monkey gave to them.
In fact, I should have tell them to get behind of me and leave this fight to me, but I had not time to argue with my nephews and prepare myself ready to fight the wolves all at the same time.
So, I decided to leave it for later to discuss and focus to the fight.
However, before the wolves managed to even reach to us...
Suddenly the some invisible force sliced within a few seconds their swords blades, long handles of their spears and the chains of their chain hammers into pieces, leaving the wolves absolutely dumbfounded about that what had just happened.
And, before the wolves were able to react, the same invisible force started with the brutal force to beat up the wolves, knocking them out cold, like if they just got the direct and hard kick to their heads and tripping their legs off from beneath of them... leaving the wolves powerless... within mere seconds again.
"Mantis?" I whispered, as I realized that I had forgot master Mantis, who was no doubt behind of this invisible force attacking the wolves.
The bug was indeed, despite his small size, one of the strongest Kung Fu warriors and his small size was in fact his the best advantage against his the bigger opponent.
And then, as there was seventy wolves beaten and lying in the ground unconscious and fifteen-sixteen left, it was Monkey left.
Monkey hurriedly climbed through of the statues of the master Komodo and master hippo, before he leaped high into the air and towards the wolves standing on the stairs leading up to the turtle master's statue, while spinning his three-section-staff's loose end above of his head while holding with both of his paws from the staff's two other handles.
"INCOMING!" Monkey bellowed, as he landed in middle of the wolves and started whacking the remaining wolves with his staff.
There was to be heard "WHACK! BAM! BOW! PAFF!" within a mere four seconds and Monkey was standing in middle of in the ground lying gang of fifteen severely and to the unconscious beaten wolves.
And after that, more wolves showed up and all attacked Monkey from all directions
And with that, Monkey briefly spun his three-section-staff over both of his shoulders and around of his upper body beneath of his armpits for a four times before combined his staff's sections together, forming from it the staff for a while, after which he took the battle to the wolves.
The first wolf jumped off from the head of the statue of the master Gorilla and landed on his feet to the ground with the flame-resembling daggers in both of his paws, but before he managed to recover from the landing to the ground and attack Monkey with his daggers, Monkey pulled hard his staff in lateral position towards the wolf's chin, knocking his head backwards.
And when the wolf was stunned, Monkey changed his left hand's position on his staff, after which he whacked the staff's left side blunt head to the right side of the wolf's face. And after that, Monkey switched his hands positions on his staff by moving his right hand to hold the staff from its upper part and moving his left hand to hold it from its lower part, and then he pulled the staff's blunt end hard downwards and directly to the wolf's legs and toes in his right leg. The hard impact of the staff's blunt end against the wolf's toes made the wolf yelp loudly out of pain and drop his weapon to the ground, but Monkey wasn't yet finished.
As the wolf lifted up his from Monkey's strike sore leg up to hold it with his paws while howling in pain, Monkey at first swung his staff's end behind of the wolf's still standing leg, taking the leg off beneath of the wolf, tripping the wolf and finished him off with the hard straight strike against the wolf's stomach.
And after finishing off the wolf, Monkey swung his staff to his left side, whacking the next two attacking wolves faces hard, making them to halt their attack, which gave Monkey the opportunity to lift up his left leg, twist his hips, recoil and extend his leg forward. Monkey quickly performed the direct kick to the chest of one wolf in the right and then swung his leg laterally and hard to the left, kicking to the next wolf in the left faces. His combined kick send both the wolves to fly in arch aside and on their backs over to the ground.
Monkey was then about to be attacked by six wolves right after those three he just finished off.
Two first one lifted up their axes above of their heads in attempt to land their wide blades fatally on him, but Monkey disarmed them by couple times swinging with one hand his staff laterally from side to side, directing his staff's blunt head to hit straight towards the wolves knuckles around of the handles of the axes as they were incoming from above straight down on him. And with a couple snappy strikes, the wolves howled in pain after Monkey's staff's blunt head's snappy impact to their knuckles that got them to release their grips from their weapons, after which Monkey bent his legs downwards and swung with two hands his staff towards the wolves legs, taking their legs off beneath of them and tripping them over to the ground.
Next wolf, wielding the serpentine-bladed sword, used Monkey's attention on from the stairs towards him charging wolf with the spiked mace in his front side as his advantage and attempted to attack Monkey from behind with his sword pulled to his left and behind of his head in attempt to slice his head in half with the lateral swung.
However, Monkey sensed this incoming and bent his legs down again just in time as it flied over of his head, narrowly missing his head fur. And after dodging the wolf's weapon, Monkey pulled his staff hard backwards and struck hard the staff's another blunt head to the wolf's stomach, making the wolf to gasp in pain and bow his upper body and head down from the painful impact to his stomach, after which Monkey spun himself to his right and swung his staff to behind of the wolf's leg, taking them beneath of him and making the wolf to unintentionally perform the backward somersault in the air.
Monkey used this as his advantage by bouncing to behind of the wolf and striking his staff in vertical position in the ground. After which Monkey bounced on it, grabbed from the upper part of the staff and swung with his own weight himself around of the staff before he released his grip from the staff and launched himself straight towards still backwards somersaulting wolf and performed the double-punch-kick the wolf to his stomach. Monkey's kick sent the wolf to fly against the wolf with the mace, making them both to roll down along the stairs.
And from the kick, Monkey bounced back towards his staff and grabbed from its upper part, swinging himself around of the staff once again as three a new wolves were on their way towards him, with their swords up and ready for the strikes. However, they never got the chance to strike Monkey, as Monkey during the second round performed a two direct punch-kicks to two of wolves faces and one lateral arch-kick to the left side of the faces of third wolf, knocking all three of them out cold.
Monkey then bent his staff with his own weight downwards a little during of his third round before launching himself a high into the air, avoiding on his way the several towards him fired arrows and tossed spears and chain-hammers as his performed the backwards somersault, in middle of which he also performed the elegant lateral barrel roll to narrowly avoid several arrows and chain-hammers.
"WOOAAHH!" The pandas said, truly impressed by Monkey's movements.
And as Monkey came downwards with his head and towards his staff extended hands ahead, Monkey grabbed from his staff again and swung himself around of it, this time to the opposite side.
And after one round, Monkey launched himself towards the stairs and us, as there was two next wolves attacking him with the spears, with his into the squat-position bent legs ahead and pulled on his way his staff off the ground. And during of his fly, Monkey extended his legs towards the wolves and kicked them on their backs over to the stairs.
And then, Monkey landed back on his feet in top of the stairs and in middle of dozens of in the ground lying and to unconscious knocked wolves, spun his staff a briefly above of his head before he pulled the half part of his staff behind of his back from beneath of his right armpit and extended his hand forward.
And then, even more wolves showed up to the scene for the aid of the remaining ones and all of them attacked Monkey at once.
As more wolves attacked Monkey, Monkey dodged the first one's one lateral swung and one direct stab-strike of his sword, before he struck hard with his staff's lower end to the wolf's stomach, making the wolf to curl up in pain while holding his stomach with his paws, until Monkey finished him off with he hard knock with the staff's upper end to the right side of the wolf's head.
Monkey then swung his staff towards two other from his left side attacking wolves faces, sending them both dizzy and halting their attack. Monkey used this as his advantage and placed one of his staff's blunt ends against the ground into the upright position and pulled with the support of the staff himself laterally upwards and ended up into the backwards somersault in the air, performing the laterally upwards directed kicks to beneath of the wolves chins, sending the villainous lupines to fly in the arches over on their backs to the ground.
And after performing the backwards somersault and landing back to the ground, Monkey was about to be attacked by three other wolves once more. But this time, using his leg work, Monkey rolled himself around and swung his staff laterally from down to upwards and towards to him charging wolves; tripping the first one by taking his legs off beneath of him with the end of his staff and whacking to other wolves to their chest and faces hard enough to knock them put and send them over to the ground.
Monkey then paused his fight for a while, like deliberately giving the wolves time to surround him from every corner and even a change to attack him in any moment and with any opportunity they got.
However, Monkey pulled his staff above of his head and spun it for a while, before he grabbed with both of his paws from one end of the staff and eventually swung his staff's another end around of himself in the level of the legs, tripping at least four wolves by taking their legs off beneath of them with his staff.
And soon after that, Monkey jumped towards the lone wolf and landed in front of him with his legs bent into a squat position and swung his staff towards this wolves legs as well, tripping him and sending him to fall over to the ground.
And upon of next enemy wolf's attack, Monkey jumped back to upright position to face him, but not before lifting his right leg up and coiling it while performing the swift-paced barrel roll on his left leg and spun himself for a couple rounds, extending his right leg in the beginning of the second round and swinging his leg around of himself and into the lateral kick to the attacking wolf's chest, sending him to fall aside.
And after that, Monkey quickly bowed down and out of the way the next attacking wolf's towards of his head directed and over of his head flying blade, and right after that, Monkey bounced back in his upright position and turned around to avoid from behind of his back attacking wolf's direct stab-strike with his spear, narrowly avoiding the certain death from the wolf's spear under of the first one's created distraction.
However, once their attempt on his life failed, Monkey grabbed once again with both of his paws from the lower end of his staff and swung it partially around of himself, whacking with the staff's another end of the spear-wielding wolf's back of his head and to the first one's faces, knocking them both out cold and sending them to fall unconscious to the ground around of them.
And with that, after lifting up his staff and after spinning it with both of his hands, Monkey placed the half-part of his staff with the support of his left hand and arm to lie against his back while he extended his right hand towards the new attackers.
While following these four Kung Fu master's progress after releasing their Kung Fu skills upon these wolves, I saw from my eye corner that even Dim and Sum had joined the fight with Monkey on the stairs...
...and since then I was unable to call them back and stay with me to protect the rest of the pandas.
All what I was able to do, was only follow from aside as my nephews joined to Monkey's side on the stairs.
"Remember the code master-cousin-Po taught us, brother!" Dim said to his brother.
The code Dim just mentioned, the code of the panda style of Kung Fu, was the code what my son had taught to my nephews and the carriers of the gift of the panda style of Kung Fu...
...and which they carried out to the incoming and attacking wolves from between of the statues and out from the shadows.
"DUCK!" Dim shouted as he charged towards the six wolves that attacked him with the swords, a couple pairs of daggers and one spear.
They attacked him one by one and attempted to slash or stab with their swords to various places in Dim, like to his legs, knees, stomach, to each side, his throat and his head. However, my son had taught my nephews well, because Dim was able to swiftly to dodge every strike with which the wolves attempted to kill them by a couple times jumping through of the aerial somersaults out of the way to his legs and knees targeted swords' blades, dodging the spear's direct stab-strike to his stomach by moving to his right dodging and the sword's serpentine-shaped blade's lateral swung to his right side by moving to his left and finally avoiding their daggers from slashing his throat open and slicing his head in half by leaning his head backwards, narrowly avoiding their extremely sharp edges from reaching to his throat or bowing down out of the way of the blades.
And after passing all six wolves, Dim turned around to face from his swift dodging movements dumbfounded wolves.
"DISARM!" Dim shouted as he started to spun the loose ends of his nunchucks and directed their blunt ends with the couple of swift, snappy and straight whipping-strikes and a couple lateral strikes to whack to the wolves back-sides of their paws or their knuckles around of their weapons handles, making them to yelp out of pain and to drop their weapons. He also swiftly disarmed the spear-wielding one by spinning his nunchucks loose ends around of the spear's staff and then dragged the weapon off from the wolf's paws.
"DISTRACT!" Dim shouted as he delivered with his nunchucks loose ends' blunt ends the several swift but painfully hard strikes to either distract them or to make them dizzy... including whacking with both of his nunchucks loose ends hard to one of the wolf's toes, making him to yelp even louder out of the pain.
"AND FINISH OFF!" Dim shouted as he quickly somersaulted over the seventh to the brawl joined wolf's lateral swing of his sword and landed on it, pinning the blade down before he swung both of his nunchucks loose ends towards the first wolf, hitting him first to his stomach with the direct strike of his left paw's nunchaku before whacking his right paw's nunchaku's loose end to beneath of the second wolf's chin, before knocking the wolf completely out with the hard knock to its head with the same nunchaku's loose end.
And then, as another wolf attacker was approaching, Dim leaped to balance on his butt on the ground while rolling himself from side to side as the wolves picked up their blades from the ground and began to circle him. Dim proceeded in his doings by taking the legs off from beneath of one of the wolf attackers with his nunchucks loose ends, causing the wolf to fall to the ground on his knees, before Dim suddenly stopped himself and fell on his back to the ground, before he delivered two quick lateral somersaults in still along the ground, knocking with four strikes of his nunchucks loose ends to the wolf's head, pinning with the second strike the wolf's head against the ground before knocking the wolf's head with two latter strikes of his nunchucks loose ends, ending up to stand on his head.
And as the remaining five wolves attacked, though disarmed, Dim positioned himself to stand onto his head and rolled himself around while spinning his nunchucks loose ends in both side of his hands, knocking each wolf to their heads with his weapons loose ends with the two doubled strikes and knocking them out.
And after that, Dim jumped on his feet, apparently not dizzy from the latter move but instead ready to take down more wolf attackers.
"DUCK!" Dim shouted again as he bowed down out of the way of the spears that were threw towards him, which tips dug into the ground just behind of his back. Dim then proceeded by making a couple somersaults forwards to avoid even more towards him thrown spears before he jumped back on his feet and jumped again into the air, narrowly avoiding a few towards his legs directly swung chain-hammers' spiked fist-shaped hammers that could have crushed Dim's knees. And as they missed him, the hammers cracked or misplaced some stone plates from their places beneath of the hammers' weigh in the very same spot where Dim was just standing.
"DISARM!" Dim shouted again as he, while being about to land back on his feet to the ground, swung his nunchucks in the arches to downwards and snapped the chain-hammers chains in half, breaking them.
Dim was then immediately surrounded by the wolves that showed up from beneath of the statues next to his right: Five of them in the front side and four others from the backside, with the swords in their paws.
"ATTACK!" Dim shouted again as he began to spin the loose ends of his nunchucks and performed the barrel roll in the ground, swinging his nunchucks to both sides at the same time and knocked with two devastating swings all nine wolves out cold and sending them to lie unconsciously all over the ground around of him.
And then, Dim turned to the pack of fourteen wolves, a few of them were the wielders of the chain-hammers, whom were standing on the stairs.
"AND FINISH OFF!" Dim shouted again as combined his nunchucks together and tossed them together to fly rapidly and laterally spinning in the air towards the wolves on the stairs. And as a result, Dim managed to knock out cold the entire pack standing in the stairs, as his together merged and laterally twirling nunchucks flew through of the entire pack in the level of their heads, delivering the doubled strikes from both of merged nunchucks blunt heads.
And after finishing off the pack, the merged nunchucks flew in arch from the backside of some statues on Dim's right side, before the nunchucks returned back to his paw.
And in Sum's case...
"DUCK!" Sum shouted as he dodged with the bow the wolf's attack, which could had cut off his head...
"DISARM!" Sum shouted as he swung his bo-staff into air and landed it's blunt head with the high speed to the wolf's wrist, causing the villainous canine to whimper in pain and to drop his sword from his paws...
"ATTACK!" Sum shouted as he whacked with his staff to the wolf's toes, making him to whimper in the pain again... and this time louder, before Sum swung his staff's another blunt head hard to upwards, striking it the wolf to the beneath of his chin...
"AND FINISH OFF!" Sum shouted as he lifted his right leg up and coiled it before rolling himself around on one of his legs before he performed the finishing kick to the wolf's chest, sending him to fly over on his back to the ground.
"DUCK!" Sum shouted again as he bowed down once again, getting out of the way towards of his head swinging chain hammer wielded by the next attacking wolf...
"DISTRACT!" Sum shouted again as he lifted his staff to the level of his shoulders and knocked with its end to the wolf's head.
"ATTACK!" Sum shouted again as he grabbed with his paw from the chain of the hammer, as the wolf soldier, out of pure anger and frustration, swung his weapon again towards Sum but was immediately dumbfounded after the panda had grabbed from his weapon's chain in the mid-fly towards him.
"AND FINISH OFF!" Sum shouted again as he pulled the chain hardly towards himself, pulling the wolf with it as well. Sum also bowed down and prepared himself to impact between of him and towards him flying wolf. And during of the impact, wolf turned violently upside down along Sum's back and kept flying to Sum's other side, colliding with two another wolves, knocking them out as well.
I also saw, that Monkey was about to be overwhelmed by over forty remaining wolves of this ambush.
And after seeing this as well, both my nephews rushed to aid him, but they were instantly blocked from getting to Monkey's aid by over two dozens of wolves more, while the rest ones surrounded Monkey and were about to beat/cut him to death with their weapons.
Until... much to my surprise, also a little Bao had joined the fight, though a distance away from the struggle itself.
Little Bao fought by lifting the small round rocks off the ground with his legs into the air, before jumping to the air himself and kicking the rocks to the wolves heads during of upside down made somersault.
Also Bao's training under Po had done well to little Bao.
Not only brave for his age, but also very accurate to aim the rocks to their targets with his kicks.
None of them missed their target.
And within seconds, Bao had managed to knock out with nine accurately aimed and kicked rock at least nine wolves, through miracle, forcing the rest to retreat to top of the stairs.
And after Bao's attacks, Dim and Sum were finally able to reach to Monkey's aid.
And once they were there, the duo immediately got attacked by more than half of those wolves that were still attacking Monkey, prompting the panda brothers to do something to this matter and fast.
And after a couple of minutes, Dim was the first one for the duo to get some idea, though Dim, as his name already tells, isn't usually as bright and fast-thinking like his brother Sum usually is.
"BROTHER! DOUBLE-DEATH-STRIKE!" Dim called for his brother and he lunged towards Sum, with his paws extended ahead.
Sum then extended his in the lateral position held staff towards his brother's paws, and once Dim grabbed from the staff as well, Sum swung him around of himself and towards the seven wolves attacking them first, to whom Dim performed the series of kicks to their chests or faces during of the swing, kicking them out cold and over to the ground one by one out.
And after that, Sum lifted Dim in arch over of himself, allowing his brother to perform the split-kick to two from the heads of opposite statues towards Sum leaping and attacking wolves backs, sending them to fly towards and land hard against the statues, knocking them out, before Sum allowing his brother to land back on his feet to the ground.
And after that, Sum was immediately attacked by eleven wolf swordsman, two-three of which attacked him from above, and all of them had their swords lifted up above of their heads until they landed them upon of Sum.
However, Sum lifted up his bo-staff on the way of the wolves' blades, which were immediately halted back by the long handle of Sum's staff.
And then, before the wolves could either pull their swords for the fatal stab-strikes targeted directly to Sum's unprotected stomach or lift their blades above of their heads for the another, and this time even harder upright strikes that could have slice Sum's staff in half, Sum lifted his staff and the wolves blades along with it a bit higher above of himself and...
"FEET OF FURY!" Dim shouted, after which he started to deliver in rapid succession the kicks to the wolves' faces or chests, sending the wolves to either fly on their backs over the ground or fly against those ones, whom were still facing Monkey and knock half of them over and aside as well.
"Nice reflexes." Monkey commented my nephews battle style.
And glad to hear that from Monkey, both my nephews congratulated each other with the high-four.
I couldn't help but take the proud smile of my nephews and a little Bao for taking down these savage villains... as I started to help my fellow pandas, first Hugger panda, then Grandma panda and finally little Lei Lei back up on their feet.
"Li Shan! I need your help to get Po up from the ground!" I heard Mr. Ping calling me.
"I'm coming, I'm coming!" I responded, as I rushed to my Mr. Ping's side and gestured the Hugger Panda to follow and help me with my son.
And together, me and Hugger lifted Po up from the ground, lifted both of my son's arms over our shoulders and we kept moving through on the ground unconsciously lying wolves and we climbed up the stairs to the turtle's statue.
And after Monkey had finished off the remains of this ambush, the way was clear for us... for now.
And after me, my son, Mr. Ping and the rest of the pandas reached to the top of the stairs, I saw our four as bodyguards a moment acting masters of Kung Fu standing in the feet of the turtle's statues, where they had regrouped after the ambush...
...and while going towards them with my son the rest of the pandas, I heard them to discuss something with each others... something that possibly related to that ambush that happened a moment ago in the middle of the Garden of the Masters, as Viper, Crane and Mantis were targeting their scowls on their faces directly at Monkey.
And speaking of ambush, there was one thing I just don't understand...
What exactly was going on in Monkey's mind when he with the high risk our lives... even little Bao's and Lei Lei's lives... sent all of us nearly to our deaths if he actually knew all a time that there in fact was the deadly ambush set in middle of the Garden by those villainous and savage wolves hiding under the cover of the stormy night's darkness or some kind of power of invisibility or something.
That was extremely foolish and unacceptable act and he nearly neglected his task to ensure our security... as master Shifu had ordered back in the Training Hall.
At least I know that master Tigress, due to her closest bond with my son and little Lei Lei, probably would never have forgiven to Monkey if anything could have happened to Po or Lei Lei due to his foolish and rash act.
I'm sure that even master Shifu himself would be disappointed to Monkey at now, if he had just seen or learned from us that what Monkey just did and not being behind with Tigress and Mei Mei to hold the wolves back.
However, because of my son's in every minute worsening status and the wolves right behind of us, I decided to let the letter thing go for a while and focus more to get my poor son out of here and to the village's doctor as soon as possible, before my son's badly hammered well-being and status would get any worse.
And when this is all over, I will discuss with Monkey with the stern tone about this foolish and rash act and endangering our lives.
But not now.
"One hundred and eighty-nine wolves?" I heard Mantis saying to the others with skeptical tone.
"So I at least counted them. One is missing... Heilang himself is missing." I heard Monkey reporting to the others, mentioning to me a completely new guy with a strange name, Heilang.
"Did anybody saw him escaping from the area?" Viper then asked from his fellow comrades.
"More easier said than done, Viper. And no wonder if anyone of us did not even saw him escaping from the area, because that wretched flea-coat has probably in his possess one of those stolen Shadow Crowns, wearing it upon his head, disappeared as it's well-known effect to its wielder and escaped like the coward he is." Mantis said to all of them.
"Or then maybe not... maybe he removed it from his head as the ambush began, but instantly retreated into the shadows as we attacked his pack." Monkey said. "Probably he dropped the crown to the ground accidentally and is now only hiding within the shadows." Monkey guessed.
"I think that he did, Monkey. Because I checked the whole area twice after these wolves were defeated from the air, but no sight about the head wolf." Crane, skeptical about Monkey's guess, informed to the others,
"Are you sure, because it's not Heilang's way to retreat like that from the battlefield." Mantis asked again from Crane.
"You wanna jump on my hat and go to check the area for him with me if you don't believe me." Crane said back to Mantis with offended and stern voice.
While listening them, I knew that they were talking about someone I didn't know - and in fact, I did not even want to know - but whom with this strange name, Heilang, all four of them, master Tigress and my son including, had already met many times over, long before they even met me and I met them... but probably after them and their master Shifu having met my son.
However, as I was about to open to my mouth to say something...
"Ah-hem, I'm sorry to interrupt to your discussion with each other about somebody, whom I don't know and I don't even want to know unlike what you do, but shouldn't we instead take my... my and Li Shan's... son straight to the village's doctor to heal?!" Mr. Ping said - or more likely shouted - to the four masters impatiently and nervously looking around of all of us in case of a new attack.
Though each one of them, Monkey, Viper, Crane and Mantis, were a bit startled after being loudly and unexpectedly to them interrupted their discussion with each others about the something at not no-important thing...
...they all quickly snapped out of it and they agreed to leave not-right-now discuss of this Heilang-guy for a while and focus more into their mission to take Po out of here to the village's doctor and defend the Jade Palace from the wolf invasion.
And so, all four from the Furious Five immediately started to hurriedly gesture us to follow after them through the rest of the stairs towards the gates of the Jade Palace, passing of the passed turtle master's statue in the process.
But, however, all four masters then halted us back after we had passed the old turtle's statue and were in the middle of the stairs.
The explanation to this, of which Viper told to us, was that because the stairs of the One Thousand Steps were the only way to get onto the Jade Mountain's peak, a new ambush, that would have been presumably settled in the porch of the Jade Palace, would be both unpredictable and possible...
...especially if the first ambush would fail, which we actually managed to ruin a moment ago.
Viper also told us that they should have scout ahead to ensure the way to be clear and safe for us to pass the gates of the Jade palace.
And because of Monkey got all of us, me, my son, Mr. Ping and all the rest of the pandas to "go to scout" the stairs leading to the old turtle's statue, the members of the Furious Five decided to this time to handle the scouting ahead for us.
"Monkey and Mantis. Make you two yourself useful And go ahead to scout the porch of the Jade Palace and the Hall of Warriors, if you please?" Viper asked from Monkey and Mantis, who were standing right ahead of the group.
To be continued...
I hoped you enjoyed the reading of this chapter.