Hiya,
How's everyone doing today? Good? I hope so, on with the story!
(Actually, I just realised that in all of these chapters when the five and Po and Shifu and everyone eat the dumplings it could be perceived as suicide (in a way, even though they just fall asleep but the thoughts still there) so if you get triggered by suicidal thoughts don't read thank you, that goes for the other individual dumpling chapters too)
Viper clicked her tongue and slunk to the other side of her stone prison, digging her tail into its crumbly exterior, however the stone made no move to crumble down before her.
The dumplings on the Ming plate sat untouched on the other side of the little prison, Viper hadn't thought about them since the voice had debated about whether they were poisoned or not.
She wrung her forked tongue around her sharp fangs and cocked her head to the side in thought as she stared at the immobile stone wall.
There had to be a way out, there had to be.
Viper took a deep breath and clicked her tongue again, sighing loudly in defeat. That's when her gaze fell back on the dumplings.
Absolutely no way.
She told herself, twisting her head sharply away, but her gaze lingered on the plate as her stomach ached.
Taking a shaky breath in, she approached the dumplings and picked up one, letting it roll around in her tail as she examined it.
If I die then the warriors, when they find a way to escape, will have one less warrior to break out.
The thought hung low in her brain like a dense fog. It was a true in every way, that if she killed herself now the others would be able to escape quicker, but it also made her ache.
What about Maya, and Veena and Lucy back in the village with Chuge?
Chuge was an increasingly lovely panda, but that didn't mean she knew entirely how to care for three young mischievous children.
And not only that but would they be able to get back her mother and father in the Viper village? They would be worried sick.
The very thought made her own stomach clench as she thought of her parents and grandmother pacing the floors of their large mansion in worry, not knowing what would've become of their four daughters.
But then again, if she died the other warriors would be able to escape quicker, with a lesser probability they would be stopped, meaning her friends could take care of the girls and take them home.
That would be a relief.
The decision made; Viper lifted a dumpling close to her mouth and took a tentative bite out of it.
"Finally, a little warrior to carry on my legacy."
Viper peeled her eyes open and found herself lying wrapped in a silk blanket in a room bathed in golden sunlight. A room she knew extremely well.
It was a room she and her sisters hardly ever used in the palace, right in the eaves of the building, with tapestry-hung walls and simple wooden stool furniture.
Her eyes, though fogged with sleep, could just make out her father's thin, knife-sharp fangs and comically white wiry eyebrows, peering over her.
That's weird, he had two perfectly working fangs.
Feng Mian, the Great Master Viper, lifted his coils towards her face and slowly peeled back the silk blanket she was wrapped in, to reveal her heart-shaped face and large, periwinkle eyes.
There was a moment of cooling silence as the great master studied his daughter before Viper felt her mouth open of its own accord and a high-pitched, baby's squeal of delight wafted out of it.
"Dada!"
"No venom!" Her father cried, his eyes widening to the size of dinner plates as he scrutinised the fangless baby snake, the snake who was intended to become the next, fearless ruler of the Viper clan. And with that he swayed a little, and fainted clean onto the floor with a flop.
Viper winced as she watched his body drop onto the floor in a sway, it made her feel awful now, to see her father's distress. All she'd ever wanted was to impress him, to help him in his fight against evil. And yet she was born without the one thing destined to heed her success. Without fangs she was worthless to him, everyone.
Then the whole room swirled into nothingness, meaningless colour and shadow, until it came to a sudden halt and, through rather clouded vision, she could just make out the landscape view of her village from one of the windows in the palace.
A view she'd admired many times later in life as she sat with her sisters and a brimming green tea pot.
"Are you sure you don't want to go?"
Viper glanced up at once towards her mother, who was nodding her head towards the village, where she could just make out the sound of heart-warming cheer chatter as another bright firework cascaded into the sky above them, dappling the house and half of her mother's face in bright colour.
"The most beautiful ribbon dancer?" she urged in compliment.
"I…. I'm too afr~…. no." Viper's mouth chattered as she stumbled over the reply.
Her mother sighed and lifted her head to examine the view of the village again.
Worthless.
Her brain crowed unhelpfully to her. Can't even dance in the village for your mother.
Suddenly there was a noise. It was distant at first, almost inaudible. But as Viper inclined her head, inclining it further and further out of the window, she could hear the blood-curdling cry of her father yelling.
"Father!"
She bellowed, eyes widening, she grabbed the nearest thing to her tail, in hope of it being an effective weapon, and jumped right out of the window, all uncertainty forgotten in an instant as she barrelled down the gravely path to the village, ignoring her mother's cries for her to stop.
Her heart hammered against her chest but she ignored it too, all enmity of her fear forgotten as she flew down the path, keeping that one image of her father stuck to her mind's eye as her lungs screamed at her to stop.
She landed with a final, rather undignified, thump on the ground and glanced up just in time to see an enormous Gorilla bandit twirling her father around his enormous finger like a candy cane.
The gorilla was ten times her height and covered in thick black fur. His eyes were beetle black nestled in cold yellow and he was dressed in powerful, silver armour.
It was now, as she glanced up at the horrifying beast, that the realisation hit her; she didn't know what to do.
"No one beats up my daddy!" she felt the confident tone in her voice linger among the words as she felt them fly out of her mouth without consent.
The gorilla leered towards her, his dustbin-lid sized face right in hers as a rank smell, like that of rancid milk, entered through her nostrils as the great beasts gapey mouth hung open.
"A little snake with pretty ribbons? What are you going to do, dance for me?"
Viper felt every fibre in her entire being deflate as she mulled over the gorilla's true-rung words.
"If it'll make you happy, let's dance!"
The words left her mouth as if it was a stranger speaking and she catapulted towards the great beast, readying her ribbon for the attack, but instead it never came.
The village and beast around her blurred, and her head suddenly ached in pain as the voices of her past wafted through her head, seeing nothing but streaking colour.
"But Master Shifu! We already have this bug here, why do we need another contender for the Dragon Scroll?"
"Because we do Tigress, Viper is a very well-known marvel among the viper clan after her attack of the great northern gorilla bandit, and I'm sure she'll be an excellent accessory to the team."
Viper watched breathlessly in awe as the grand courtyard of the Jade palace sprung into view as well as Po's great, unmissable and unmistakable body bled into view, lying helpless on the floor as Master Shifu stood towering above him.
"Your next opponent will be me!"
"Alright, let's go, woo hoo!"
Viper immediately turned her head to Crane, as the most level-headed of the group but he simply exchanged the same intrigued glance.
Then the courtyard spun out of view as quickly as it had come, being replaced with other snapshots of her past, some lingered longer than others (when she and Mantis healed Po after Shifu's outburst in the palace courtyard for one example) while others were merely glimpses and echoing voices, such as sitting in Crane's room and drinking tea quietly together, until she noticed the paintings in his room launching him into a four hour telling of each one.
"This is a sketch I did after we defeated Tai Lung, look how happy everyone is! I even put Tigress bowing to Po to properly signify he was a true master now. Oh and this one is of when we went to the moon festival, your first one out of your village, and Monkey got drunk and trashed the Jade palace.
"I know he can seem kind of heartless." Mantis mused, placing another needle deep into Po's shoulder.
"But he wasn't always like that, according to legend there was a time where Master Shifu actually used to smile!"
"No!"
"But that was before~ before…."
"Before Tai Lung!"
"Lord Shen has created a weapon, one that breathes fire and spits metal, unless he is stopped, this could be the end of Kung fu."
"Then you will be stopped, by the unstoppable weapon!"
Viper's eyes blinked open again and she found herself in a place she recognised well, not for a good reason this time however; Gongmen Harbour.
She grimaced as the feelings of relived pan shivered down her spine at the sight of the harbour again, but before she could allow herself to admire the incredible sight in front of her, that was Po and Tigress' second hug in the same day, Po held out his large paws and dragged her and Monkey into a bone crashing hug.
As she sat in the pandas soft, warm arms she glanced up and felt her eyes meet with Crane's chocolate brown ones again, as he smiled at her from under his shady rice hat.
He had cropped up in this dream quite a lot now she thought of it.
The thought bounded about inside her brain like a herd of elephants as her head slowly began to stop spinning and, although she was left with a burning headache, when she blinked her eyes open, she found herself sitting, still quite alive, in the dark interior of the stone prison cell.
Haha, I just realised this was 1830 words long!
I didn't even write this much for Po's flashback and he had the most stuff to go over! Well, I guess that's what happens when your favourite character gets no screen time and you discover Fan Fiction.
Anyway, quick notice! From now one chapter of this story will be released once a week (I don't know which precise day), every two weeks, so I publish this chapter now, then next week is for my other fanfic's chapter, then this one again the week after, understand? Cool!
Hope you enjoyed, please leave me a review because they will really give me the motivation to write another chapter, and favourite, follow and enjoy the rest of the story!
xx