G'day,

Hope you enjoy!

War.

Everyone repeated the word quietly under their breath, letting the huge impact of such a short word wash over them.

"It's getting late," Spirit Yin sighed, straightening her robes and standing up. "Let me find you some rooms."

Many hours later Monkey lay awake in his dark room, listening to the pitter patter of raindrops on the roof.

The room was small but neatly organised with a suitable number of things, a single bed, silver washing basin, mirror and oak grooming table and a north-facing rectangular window.

He twisted over under the crisp covers and starred out of the window, into the dark endless navy night sky. There were no stars and no sign of a moon either, just heavy rain.

Monkey groaned and licked his lips, closing his eyes tightly. He pulled the covers tight around him and stretched out his body in an effort to start to fall asleep, but to no avail.

Loud thoughts were parading around his brain, making his head ache.

Almost instinctively, as if he'd been thinking about wanting to do it for some time but never actually complying with his thoughts, Monkey sat up and pulled a coat around himself.

His hand flailed around on the bedside table until it clasped around a candle and clumsily lit it.

He pulled his coat tighter around himself, and held the orange light ahead of him, squinting in the darkness until he managed to grasp his door handle and open it.

From there he hobbled down the dark passageways, occasionally stopping when he passed a window to look out of, but equally walking quicker when he passed a bedroom door, until he arrived on the twisting narrow kitchen staircase.

He climbed down it carefully and pulled the creaking wooden door open, revealing an almost pitch-black room, except for a single candle light on the table.

It took a minute for his eyes to adjust. Because of the darkness he couldn't quite make out what the room looked like, he suspected it would look like an old kitchen, but he could make out the shadowy figures of the rest of the Furious Five and Po, sitting around the kitchen table muttering quietly.

"Hello?" he whispered into the darkness.

He heard a sharp gasp and then the voices resumed.

"Oh, Monkey you scared me, come over." Viper offered and he followed the light on the table until he could feel the rotten wood of the table in his hands and found a stool around it.

"What's going on?" he whispered as Tigress, dressed in a sweeping and rather weather-beaten grey dressing gown, went to shut the door.

"We couldn't sleep." She announced as she found her way back to the table.

"So you decided to have a little tea party at three in the morning? Seems logical, rather than, I don't know, maybe trying to go to sleep." Monkey exasperated.

"We've tried for hours," Groaned Crane. "There's just too much going on."

"When was the last time we actually had a normal conversation, you know, not involving fighting strategies or Kung fu in general?" Viper pondered.

"Don't know. It's been a tough couple of days." Tigress sighed, running a paw back through her fur. "But I bet there'll be worse ones to come."

"Don't say that Tigress." warned Crane. "It'll be alright, we'll be fine, we should just enjoy the time we have together now."

"Crane's right, though I don't like to admit it, why don't we just hang out together now, you know, enjoy ourselves before we die." Mantis agreed, which was met with an eye roll from Crane and a smack on the head from Viper.

"Stop that Mantis, we don't know what's going to happen in the future, let's just enjoy now." She conceded.

"Why don't we play a game?" Suggested Po, fiddling with an icicle of dry wax from the candle.

"What kind?"

"I don't know, Truth or dare?"

"No way." Tigress groaned, accidently hitting Po in the nose as she swung her arms out in expression. "Last time we played that, I ended up with half a whisker."

"And a face-full of blue paint." Added Mantis with a chuckle.

"Blue paint? How did that happen again?" Po asked forgetfully, rubbing his sore nose.

"Well, Tigress chose dare and we dared her to entirely cover Master Shifu in blue paint while he was sleeping, but he woke up before she'd finished and just hurled the paint pot at her remember?" Viper explained.

"Oh yeah."

"Kiss, Mary, Kill?" suggested Monkey eagerly.

"Over my dead body." Viper grumbled. "Remember when Po thought he actually had to Kiss me?"

"That was hilarious, he was chasing you around for an hour trying to kiss you." Monkey guffawed while Viper rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, well, he only tried to kiss you, he though he actually had to kill me!" Mantis cried. "Chasing after me with that enormous can of bug spray."

"I was new to the game alright! And I wasn't actually going to kill you." Po flushed as he relived those moments.

"Yeah but he did Marry Tigress, albeit much later." Crane cut in. "When he asked her then you practically killed him."

"I didn't kill him, I just attacked him." Tigress countered, as if that settled the matter.

"Well let's just agree never to ever play that again." Viper gave a slight chuckle.

"Absolutely, Ohhhh!" Po let out an excited gasp. "What about would you rather?"

"Didn't that game end with Crane point out refusing to answer so we just dared him to annoy Master Shifu until he attacked him?" Monkey questioned, rubbing his chin as he struggled to remember.

"Pretty much." Mantis shrugged. "That was pretty funny though."

"For you." Crane grumbled. "I've still got a bruise from Master Shifu's attack."

"What even was the question? I swear it was something really simple too."

"Don't remember but I do remember your question was would you rather be a slug or a pig." Po snorted.

"Oh my god yes! And you spent so long deciding on it!" Viper squealed.

"I did not." Mantis muttered, his pinchers chattering nervously.

"I know right, literally anyone could answer that in a second, it's obviously a pig." Crane squawked, glad to get back in the conversation when the topic had moved on from him.

"No but a slug~"

"Oh save your monologue, we listened to that once already this year." Tigress groaned, setting off the others into a fit of giggles.

They hadn't managed to find a game to play but it was nice for them to laugh and smile. It was nice for the six friends to just have a few moments to themselves, remising about the past and joking together, completely unaware of what was coming, saving the memory of that night in a golden bubble of happiness.

Yo,

Hope you enjoyed this chapter, thank you Kfpreader for giving me this idea for a chapter, for the six original friends just to have a little time together, to joke and laugh.

I'm kind of thinking of doing a little series about what happened during those games they mentioned playing before, if you guys are interested please do say, and I hope you stay well.

Ciao,

xx