Kung Fu Panda : The Foreign Warrior

by Oscar0916

After the terrifying Tai-Lung has been defeated by the Dragon Warrior named Po. The Valley Of Peace has once again restored with peace and prosperity. But it is not over yet as young human warrior who had found himself in a different world and time, can he learn to adapt to this strange place, maybe he will learn a few things about life and face his dark past.

53. Chapter 52 : Een Plakkerig Situatie

Author Note : Hey there, it has been some time. Sorry for taking a while to post, life in school has been pretty busy lately and I got less time to write during that period. Fortunately, once the exam week of my school ended, I was able to resume my writing and got this chapter out as fast as I can. Also, to make up for not posting for almost two months, I took the liberty of making this chapter to have the enormous size of 14,95k words.

I have not much to stay other than telling you that this chapter is going to be pretty dark and it also will contain some few suggestive moments. If you are not comfortable seeing these kind of stuff, it's best that you don't read this chapter. However, if you do wish to see these kind of content, please read with caution. Reader discretion is advised.

Anyway, let the first chapter of 2021 begin!

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Chapter 52 : Een Plakkerig Situatie (you can translate it from Dutch to English :P )

It was indeed one heck of a morning. Before the sun could rise up from the horizon, the stoic leader of the Furious Six Tigress woke us all up at what looks to be at five in the morning. Me and the guys ate a quick energy-boosting breakfast made by both Po and Viper that'll help us on the searching for any activities that is related to the opium case in the center of Tianhe district.

The sky is dark blue and the only source of light could be seen was coming from where the sun is going to rise and will soon illuminate the massive city of Guangdong with its warm and bright rays. The city has barely anyone wandering around other than a few early risers and some imperial guards.

The atmosphere in the center of Tianhe district seems to be fully absent of tobacco. With the absence of smokers, this has made the environment around here far more bearable than it was yesterday. I can finally breathe with worrying about these toxic cloud of smokes entering my lungs.

About an hour of walking has passed, the sun rose up from the horizon, jutting out its lively and warm light upon the city. Voices now beginning to overlap one another as the citizens of Tianhe district are coming out of their houses. Several aromas of fresh homemade breakfast can be picked up by my nose that are coming from the nearby restaurants and the house of a family.

Our group was approached by a smaller group that has three individuals in it. There was a zebra, a ram and a familiar brown horse. All of them were donned in some sort of a protective European coats with few armor plates protecting the vital parts of their bodies. Each of them are armed with longswords strapped on their waists while the ram has a some sort of a flintlock rifle strapped on his back. The brown horse smiled once he saw us.

"Goede morgen." Jasmijn greeted us. He began inspecting our group before he could saying something. "My, this is quite a group."

"I take it you are the Dutch traders that Master Lukas has spoken to us about." Tigress spoke. Her straightforward demeanor and serious tone had caught the three Europeans off guard as it made their eyes widened for a short time. Jasmijn nodded.

"And you must be their fearless leader." Jasmijn replied to the tiger.

"I am, but due to certain conditions, it is Lieutenant Jienbei who shall be the one to lead us through this investigation." Tigress gestured Jasmijn to the brown she-wolf.

"I've already met with Master Lukas and Lieutenant Jienbei. So to you and the ones who I have yet not met, my name is Jasmijn Koopman."

"I am Herman Holst, a pleasure to be working with you." The zebra greeted.

"My name is Bastiaan Colijn and I am at your service." The ram greeted.

The brief moment of exchanging greetings and names has now came to an end. Jienbei and Jasmijn made a decision that we should split up again like yesterday. With three more additional guys helping us would give us a better chance of finding suspects or clues. All of us split up like yesterday as I went with Jienbei.

While moving through the streets, I noticed Jienbei seemed to be walking a little more faster than my pace. I hurried myself to match her pace before speaking. She appeared to be more energetic than yesterday.

"Hey, what's the hurry?" I inquired.

"The faster we move, the sooner we will find them and the sooner the better." She responded to me with a deadpanned tone.

"I know, but can you please take it a little easy here?" I said. Jienbei ignored me and is now walking with a faster pace and is making some distance from me. Oh Jesus.

We both went into several crowded 'business' buildings and ask the people who worked their (and some customers) about any activities they've witnessed, heard or know about anything that is related to the opium case. Everyone that we asked had responded that they have no idea about any of this. Jienbei kept going as her questions and her tone are becoming slightly more aggressive as it intimidated and scared the local people. I managed to convince her to leave the place before she could end up scaring anymore citizens.

"It's been hours of questioning the people, maybe we should take a breather." I suggested. The brown wolf looked at me and was about to sharply denied my suggestion, but she then puffed out some strained air and nodded her head.

"Yeah."

It was afternoon and the sun's temperature has reached its peak. We are inside of a small and decent saloon as both of us took a seat at the bar counter. Jienbei has ordered two drinks for us both. She seemed to be enjoying herself and is leisurely sipping a glass of clear rice wine while I'm looking at my glass of wine, contemplating if I should drink or not. The brown wolf shifted her gaze at me.

"Hey, what are you waiting for?" She asked in a more relaxed manner.

"I'm not sure about this." I responded reluctantly. Jienbei chuckled.

"Don't tell me you're a weak little lightweight?" She mockingly teased.

"No I am not lightweight." I nodded my head horizontally. "It's that I haven't drunk alcohol for quite some time. Also, we are on a mission and I want my mind to be crystal clear." I moved the glass of wine away with my finger.

"Your loss, Mr. Lightweight." She paused as she grabbed my glass of wine and down it swiftly. Jienbei smacked her lips in satisfactory.

The brown wolf placed some coins on the table of the counter for the drinks and the bartender's service before we both left the saloon. While on the street again, I can definitely see that Jienbei is in a brighter mood than before after having two glass of rice wine.

"You seemed to be in a better mood." I spoke.

"You bet, those two drinks can really lifted those straining stress away in an instant." She replied lightheartedly. "Too bad you missed all of it, Mr. Lightweight."

"I told you, we are on a mission and I don't want to end up in a drunken state." I said. She chortled.

"What, does one little glass is capable of knocking your lights out?" She riposted, making me to unable to reply back to her. "I'll take your brief silence as a yes." The brown wolf let out a short laugh.

"Whatever." I sighed while rolling my eyes and gave up. Hey, I guess she not serious and grumpy at all after seeing this bright side of her.

During our walk, Jienbei was more open and we both has a lengthy conversation. She told me about her previous large cases and how she and her comrades were able to respond swiftly and effectively handling it without stirring up many of the folks. By not knowing where the suppliers are hiding at and cannot find any sort of clues have made this probably the most difficult situation that she had ever faced. Jienbei also said that the main motivation of this is that opium had even affected her father and this also affected her entire family.

"My father used to be a gentle, kind and caring man. After he was persuaded and tricked by his so-called friends and colleagues, my father has fallen under the effects of opium and would later soon became an addict to the substance." Her brighten expression dropped. "He was arrested and taken away when I just a young pup and I've never seen him again." Her gaze shifted up to the bright orange sky.

"That must be excruciatingly rough, I'm sorry to hear your loss." I sympathized. "What are you going to do?"

"I'm gonna find out whose behind these wicked schemes and bring that person to the axeman." Jienbei spoke in a quiet yet menacingly as her gaze return to ground level.

"Isn't that a bit too much?" I scratched the back of neck.

"I believe this bastard deserves this kind of death sentence for ruining so many poor innocent lives and turning them into criminals and thugs." The she-wolf simply said. "They've totaled my father's life and almost ruined my entire family shortly after he was arrested. I will never forgive them." Loathe came over to her voice. After that, we both remained silent to one another and continue with our investigation.

The orange sky darkened and the people of Tianhe began lighting up their lanterns and candles along with the ones that acts as 'street lights'. We both made few turns and is heading back to the Main Barrack. Jienbei suddenly then raised her paw up as our tracked was stopped completely. I grew concerned.

"What is it?" I asked. The brown wolf took a few sharp sniffs before responding to me.

"I smell opium." She sniffed again. "And it's quite near to us."

We take cover at the walls of the houses. Me and Jienbei slowly peaked our head out our cover to see what's going. There was a small group consisting of three figures wearing baggy clothing. They've bumped into several peoples, ignoring them when the people they've bumped yelled at them. Me and Jienbei quietly and slowly start following. After some time of following them, the small group made a sharp turn to the right and headed into a narrow alley.

They stopped when they're at front of a very large fancy looking house where there's barely any signs of people and imperial guards. One of them approached the door and knocked a few times, the door has a 'thin slider' above it as it was slid open by the person behind the door. We both remained silent and began eavesdropping on them.

"It's getting late out there and here, what the hell do you and your buddies doing here, Heng?" The person behind the door spoke.

"Look, we know it's late and all, but those amount of opium that we bought weren't enough for us. We thought we'd stopped by here for more."

"No way I am going to, it's far past the dealing time and I'm not risking getting caught by the imperial guards."

The person Heng took a step forward to the door and grabbed something from his waist. Heng raised his paw and show the person behind the locked door a medium bag and wiggled it, producing what sounds like hundreds of coins clinking within the bag.

"We don't mind paying you double for the extra opium we are going to buy." Heng grinned. A chuckle came from the person behind the door.

"Heh." The person paused for a moment. "Alright, come in."

Several clicking sounds could be heard from behind the door. As the door opened, an antelope wearing a brown peasant robe. The three figures entered and the door was closed. The she-wolf shook my shoulder lightly, grabbing my attention.

"Master Lukas, I need you to stay here and keep an eye on that small group of criminals. I'll head back to the Main Barrack and report back what we've discovered, then I'll lead an adequate force to overwhelm and secure the building." Jienbei whispered. "If the three of them leave before I could get back here, follow them."

"Got it." I nodded. She left and start running her way back to the barrack, leaving me all on my own again.

Nearly half an hour has passed, the sky blackened significantly and stars became visible to the naked eyes. The streets gone very silent as there was barely anyone walking around. My senses sparked as I heard I heard the door opened. I slowly peeked my head out of my cover and saw the same three guys walking out of the large fancy house, each three of them are carrying a small burlap sack. Their movements were sluggish and mellow, indicating they've might have taken some opium inside the place already before buying extra more.

"Oh man, that was good." Heng spoke in high delight.

"We should've done this weeks ago!" The other one in group added.

"That was very generous of you, allowing us to have some 'samples' before purchase." Heng thanked the antelope.

"Paying us double was quite an amount, so we're just want to repay you back for that." The antelope grinned.

Several sharp feminine screams, yellings and profanities was heard about more than a block away. Causing them and me to tensed up. Soon, an elephant and a leopard both wearing common peasant robes approached them. The leopard appeared to have a sheathed dao saber, strange how the hell did a civilian managed to acquired a sword? The elephant was holding a familiar brown she-wolf in the air by wrapping his trunks around her waist tightly while the leopard was keeping an eye on her in case if she freed herself. Oh shit, they've somehow managed to capture Jienbei!

"Release me now while you still can or you'll be sorry!" Jienbei threatened loudly.

"I've found her and her other buddy following you three idiots." The leopard pointed at the three guys. "It would seem she and her other friend had figured out the true nature of this fancy house of ours."

"Wait, we've been followed this whole time?" Heng exclaimed. "But how!"

"Because you three numbskulls didn't even bother to check if your being followed or not!" The elephant scolded.

"You three are very lucky that me and him were able to capture her before she could expose our 'base of operation'. Get your ass out of here right now before your gonna draw more troubles for us." The leopard pointed his finger to the opposite direction as the three quickly made their way out of here. A growl came from the she-wolf

"You're not getting away with this!" Jienbei yelled. "With you capturing me, my comrades will suspect that I'm in trouble and will come looking for me." The leopard chortled.

"You think that the Military Of Guangdong or the Imperial Army would look for you once you've simply just 'disappeared'?" The leopard scoffed. "They don't even give a single damn about you. Once they've taken notice of your sudden disappearance, they'll simply just scrap your name out of their list and you'll be forgotten faster than you'll know it."

"Nice try, but those words won't work on me along with any of your upcoming attempts won't be able to break down my morale." Jienbei grinned.

"Oh." The leopard's eyebrows lifted. "Any attempts you say won't work on breaking down your morale?"

"And none of them is going to scratch it even." The she-wolf said. The leopard took a closer to look at the brown wolf.

"Then you won't mind letting me and my friends play dirty with you for a while." A lascivious tone was attached to the leopard's voice. My eyes widened in shock as I couldn't believe what I've just heard. This made Jienbei went pale as a ghost as her eyes widened and her body's motion appeared to be frozen still as a rock.

"No..." She uttered before realizing what she shouldn't had said. "NO! You wouldn't dare to do such an act!" Jienbei began wriggling, trying her hardest to escape the strong grip trunk of the elephant's trunk.

"My men and I have been lacking quite low on young and pretty women like you lately." The leopard walked behind the brown wolf. He motioned for the elephant to level her body down to his height level with his trunk. The leopard grinned before lecherously placed his paw on her rump and start 'feeling' it, causing Jienbei to gasped sharply. "My, what a soft-"

Before he could finish what he was saying, a fast and speeding backward kick that came from Jienbei was sent upright to his groin. Her vicious surprise attack caused the leopard to instantly fall on the ground, holding and clutching on to his 'tenders' and began yelling in sharp pain.

"Next time, I won't be so merciful." Jienbei threatened. The leopard slowly picked himself up and managed to 'cooled' himself down.

"You... bitch..." The leaped spat, groaning and panting heavily. "...you've fucked up big time." The leopard growled and stood near the she-wolf.

Jienbei went for another surprise attack with her strong kick, but was unsuccessful as the leopard anticipated that and stopped her kick by catching her foot.

"Forget what I said a moment ago. I believe I'll repay you back for having you for myself for the entire night." His expression was filled with lust as he stared intently at her. The leopard looked at the elephant. "We've wasted enough time out here, get her inside and tie her up so I can repay her back from that kick if hers."

The elephant and antelope nodded. When the elephant began making his way inside the building, Jienbei already knew what might happen to her and start screaming for help. Her screams was silenced as the leopard ordered the antelope to quickly wrap thick clothes around her snout and mouth before blindfolded her with the rest of the thick clothes. I watched in strong aversion in my concealed position as Jienbei continued to struggle by wriggling her entire body and start kicking the air futilely, hoping to struck one of them or the elephant to get herself free. Once they were all inside the building, the antelope shut the door and locked it.

I made a few swivels around to check if I'm in the clear. Once I'm fully sure there is no one around here, I moved out from my cover and started running my way back to the Main Barrack.

Before I could even reach to a panting state, I had made back to the Main Barrack. Once the guards instantly recognized me after I told them who I am, I rushed inside and moved hallways to hallways until I found the correct one of where my friends are in. I slid the sliding door open and saw them inside, having a relaxing quite moment for themselves. They then took notice of my presence.

"Oh hey there, Lukas." Crane was the first to greet me.

"No time for chitchat." I spoke hastily.

"What's the matter? Did something happened?" Monkey asked.

"Yeah." I nodded. "Both me and Jienbei somehow were able to locate the opium suppliers. She told me keep an eye on the place while she go fetch reinforcements, but she was captured by them before she could reach back here."

"I suggest we should head out there now and deal with them. Their guard should no doubt be lowered at nighttime." Monkey suggested. The rest of the others shook their head in agreement.

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The team has moved themselves out of the safety and comfortable room and zone of the Main Barrack. All of us has borrowed a handful of slightly torn up hooded cloaks for ourselves to cover our identity so we could attract less attention from the other people. The brown hooded cloak we're wearing pretty much resembles the one you'll acquire when you chose the rogue class in a fantasy role playing video game.

"We should hurry up, things will get ugly if we are too late." I whispered. The others nodded at my words.

"Why though, we could messed up if we rush things up." Mantis spoke, covering himself beneath the hood of Monkey's cloak.

"When they've captured Jienbei, one of them said they'll do some... unmentionable things to do her." I reluctantly said. I saw everyone's expressions widened in shock. Po was the only who was unfazed by what I've told everyone and is seemed to be curious rather than being shocked.

"Well... that was... quite unexpected." Viper spoke with lingering uncomfortableness.

"Wait, what does Lukas mean by 'unmentionable things'?" Po asked. I felt nervous.

"Po, it is better to not continue talking about that. Forgot what Lukas said and let's resume our task." Tigress said. The panda nodded as we all picked up some pace. I then moved myself close to the tiger.

"Thanks, it would've been very too uncomfortable explaining Po what I was saying." I thanked the tiger.

"Your welcome." Tigress's replied. "And yes, it would indeed have been a very uncomfortable situation for you explain that for Po and for us to hear it as well."

Once we've reached our destination, we take cover behind some houses and start running our plan again. The plan is that we need to get access inside the building by telling them that we are interesting in buying opium. When we are inside of their building, we will distract them and once they're guard are lowered enough, Crane will fly out of the building to alert the Main Barrack to surround the entire building. After going through the plan once more, we could now run the plan without a worry.

I walked up to the door and knocked it a few times. Soon, the thin slider of the door slid itself open and revealed a pair of antelope eyes. With me and the rest of the others has the cloak's hood covering them, the antelope does not recognize us one bit.

"What do you guys want?" The antelope behind the door spoke.

"Me and my friends have heard that this is the place where we can get ourselves some opium, correct?" I asked, forcing my tone to sound excited for doing drugs while in reality, I absolutely despised this.

"Sorry bud, but you've come in the wrong time. Come back tomorrow, our boss have something to take care off." The antelope said. I gritted my teeth while closing my mouth shut to not show it.

"Please, just listen to me." I plead. The antelope behind the door ignored me. "We've got a very huge stash that is worth of a lifetime fortune stored somewhere, ready to spend it all on your high quality opium."

"All of you look like a bunch of homeless people. How in hell should I believe you hobos have this 'huge stash that is worth of a lifetime fortune'?" Is he assuming us as hobos because of our cloaks?

"What, you don't believe us?"

"Yes, now get out of here." Before he could slit the thin slider of the door, I pushed my fingers on the slider and prevent him from fully shutting it.

"Your willing to give up a chance for a lifetime fortune? Come on pal, your gonna miss out a lot and I can guarantee you that you will regret it." After persisting a long enough, he eventually let out an annoyed sigh.

"Alright, but if you don't have this 'lifetime fortune', the heads of you and your hobo friends will be rolling across the city." To be honest, I wasn't even fazed when the antelope made that threat to us. The antelope then opened the door for us to enter.

The inside of the building was quite a sight to look at. Most of it's color was painted red and has some but of green and yellow on it. There were fancy vases and beautiful oriental flowers being planted in pots on some furnitures. Once we reached further into the building, our noses was encounter by a clouds smoke that produces a horrendous kind of smell. We found out where the stench came from as we entered a wide room.

The wide room has several small beds and seats that resembles couches. On each of them has an individual sitting, slouching or lying down on them with either a short or long smoking pipe. Our facial features widened in repugnance as we've saw an extra feature that we should have not seen. There were female prostitutes that are appeared to be in their very young twenties and all of them are wearing nothing but their undergarments. They were seen joining up with the opium smokers in their small beds and couches, lying with them and were 'sharing' their smoking pipes together.

What truly shocked us is that some of the prostitutes here weren't even at the appropriate age to do such things. At a sickening scene, we've witness a young lioness in her undergarments who looks to be about fifteen years old. The young lioness has few visible scars at few parts her body such as her arms, legs, neck and other parts that I don't want to mention. She is seen making out with a boar in his mid-thirties in a couch as she lets him ran his both hoofs all over her body freely. Her face shows pure aversion as the boar's hooves began touching her private parts while she has to endure it. This soon made her began shedding tears.

My hand formed itself into a tight fist, clenching itself hard in distaste, enough to accidentally produce cracking sounds of my knuckles. The rest of the team behind too were having the same expression and feeling the same as me as well. A reptilian tail wrapped my hand gently.

"Lukas, I know how you are feeling." Viper spoke, suppressing her distaste. "The girl has no other choice."

"But she-"

"If she didn't, she would have starved and left to rot in the street." Viper said. "What if she has siblings or a family to feed and take care of?" I was unable to reply back to the serpent's words as I remained quiet and suppressed myself afterwards.

A goat who wears a blue robe approached us.

"Please come this way, we would like to make the deal in somewhere that is private." He gestured.

We followed the goat and went though several halls and to the second floor of the building. When we stopped at our destination, the goat opened a door for us. The room we all entered has some strong resembles to a classic large office of an American mafia boss, greatly mixed with Chinese culture. The office room is well lit with fancy red lantern being hung on the ceiling. The far end of the office, hung a large and long yellow banner on the ceiling with the symbols "隐藏" painted on it. These written characters means "Yincang" or more accurately "The Hidden".

At a desk that's not far, stood two oxen with robust build a bit behind the desk. They both wore heavy armor and each of them are equipped with a guandao. Between the two oxes, sat a buck deer on the desk's chair. The deer donned a sleek and glossy dark red robe that is made out expensive silk fabric materials. The deer stood up from his seat and gazed at us.

"Muzho, why the hell did you brought these commoners to my office in such a late time." The deer spoke, irritated.

"Sir, these commoners said they wanted to purchase opium from us." The goat said.

"Well, you all can come back tomorrow." The deer motioned his good for us to leave."

"Sir, they've said they can have a stash of money that's worth of a lifetime fortune." Upon hearing what the goat said, the deer's ears perked up before a greedy grin grew and spread on his face. The deer then motioned for the goat to leave the office.

"Oh, why didn't you say so soon earlier." The deer approached us. "Forgive me for my sudden outburst, my dear customers." The deer approached us. "I am Luzhei Fiujing, leader of this small and successful criminal syndicate. Please, take a seat over there and we shall began discussing business." Luzhei motioned his hoof at a pair of expensive couches with complex intricate patterns.

After a lengthy and careful discussion with him, we were able to convinced him that we do have this 'lifetime fortune' stash. Luzhei seemed to be at a relaxed mood. Good, now it's time for the plan. Tigress poked Crane with her elbow. The avian knew what she means as he stood up from the couch.

"Sir." Crane called the buck deer.

"Please, call me Luzhei."

"Well Luzhei, I'm kinda in a need of using the restroom." Crane requested, lowering his knees to make it he's 'in a hurry'.

"Of course, it's right down at the first floor at the right side. You can ask the people down their for directions if you ever get lost." Luzhei instructed. Crane get up from the couch and left the room.

Alright, now we gotta buy Crane as much time to get the guards from Main Barrack to surround this building. A sudden realization hit me as I realized I've forgotten about Jienbei and the 'situation' she's in and is about to happen.

Oh fuck, how could I forgot about her... !

I nearly shot up from my seat and looked at the buck deer.

"Luzhei, if you don't mind, I would like to take a walk down at the first floor for some fresh air." I requested. The buck deer nodded.

"Lukas, where are you going?" Po asked.

"Don't worry, I'll be back very soon." I assured.

I exited the office and head down to the first floor. As I walked through the same sickening hall, the foul smell of opium being smoked along with the sight of prostitutes began to their assault in my nostrils and eyes, causing me to cover my nose with the loose sleeve of my cloak. I quickened my pace to the next hall.

While I'm nearly getting out of this repugnant place, a leopardess prostitute who looks to be in her late twenties stood at front of me. Like the other prostitutes, she wore an undergarment with a what seemed to be a smoking pipe being held in her mouth. She had a slightly lewd look on her face. The leopardess appears to be slowly approaching towards me.

Oh, I am so out of here... !

I tried to not look at her and turn to another direction. Soon, my evasion was scoreless as she called me.

"Hey there, cute boy." I ignored her call and kept walking on. I felt a grip has grabbed my forearm. I turned my head around and saw it was her. I tried to budge away, but the leopardess kept her grip on my forearm. "Where do you think you're going?" She asked with a grin.

"My bum hurts from sitting so long, I am going to walk the pain off." I nervously answered. She chortled.

"I know how to get rid of that pain for you." The leopardess placed her other arm around my neck. Her arm on my forearm soon shifted itself to my chest. She began to cling closer to me as I felt her chest began to squish against the side of my chest. Oh God, please help me. My nervousness grew as my voice began to crackle.

"I'm kinda in a h-hurry. I-I gotta go now." I stuttered. I soon managed to budge out of her grip as I began to fast walk my way out this damn place.

Suddenly, the same grip caught me with much more force and threw me to a nearby couch. Once my senses returned, it was the same leopardess. She began to slowly advance herself towards me while swaying her hips in a seductive manner. When I tried to roll my whole body off the couch, she caught me and threw me back on the couch again. The leopardess gotten her body very close to me and pushed me against the couch tightly. She grinned lustfully at me, causing my face to start becoming pale.

"You know, normal leopardess can remain in heat for about a week or so. But I've been in heat for almost a whole month now and it feels like it is getting even worse by the passing days." I gulped, feeling heavy in my throat. "You seemed to be a suitable man to extinguish my heat." She grabbed the hood of my cloak and removed it. "My, your cuter than I thought." She began to chuff audibly before placing her paw on my head and began playing my hair. When she opens her mouth, few long drops of saliva began to drip down to my torso, wetting my cloak. I tried to break free, but this hormonal driven cat kept keeping her grip tight on my body.

Her eyelids grew heavy and dropped a little before closing them. She began moving her head near mine as she tried to lean forward for a kiss. Before she could anything crazy to me, an orange black-striped paw gripped strongly on the leopardess by her shoulder and threw her off of me. I turned and saw it was Tigress who saved me from being... you know what, after almost being molested by a cat in heat, let's not talk anymore about that. The leopardess rolled on the floor before shortly getting up.

"Which one of you interrupted me?" The leopardess raised her voice. She then locked her sight on Tigress. "Was it you?" Tigress remained silent. "You better back the hell away from my mate or I'll tear you apart, you bitch." The leopardess growled and hissed, flattening her ears and unsheathed her claws. Tigress helped me up from the couch and held my hand firmly with her paw.

"Sorry, but you must have mistaken my husband to be a single man." Sharpness was attached to the tiger's voice. My eyes widened in shock from what Tigress has said.

"Tigress, what in hell are you saying?" I whispered. Tigress gestured me with a swift 'play along with me' sign.

"Your husband?" The leopardess inspected shortly before speaking. "Alright, prove it to me." I felt my heart rapidly skipped a beat.

"Pardon me?" Tigress questioned.

"You heard me, prove that if he is truly your husband or else move away and let me do what I was about to do to him." The leopardess reiterated.

Me and Tigress both looked at each other as our eyes slightly widened. Wait, she wants me and Tigress to prove that we are a legit married couple?! Soon, I leaned my head closer to hers.

"Crap, what should we do?" I whispered, trying to ease myself.

"I... I don't know." She replied quietly. "Damn it all, if we don't prove it to her, we will have our cover blown." Tigress said. I nodded.

I began by slowly and hesitatingly wrapped my arms around the tiger's waist. Tigress slowly wrapped her arms around my upper back as our embrace became tightened. Our faces began to redden deeper as our heads began leaning closer to one another. At this point, I could hear and feel her warm breaths hitting against my face.

Dear Lord, is this really going to happen... ?!

As our mouth almost made contact, we were very fortunate that other nearby leopardess prostitutes noticed our situation and quickly came by to us.

"Jiumai." One of the other leopardess called. "Leave that poor couple alone." This caused 'Jiumai' to growl before relaxing her expression as she went along with the other leopardesses.

"Please forgive our friend Jiumai for her excessive 'forward' behavior' toward your husband. She's been having quite some trouble finding a man for herself." One of the leopardesses apologized with a bow.

"Apology accepted." Tigress said as her voice nearly cracked. The leopardesses then took their friend and moved away from us.

Once they fully left, I noticed my arms are still wrapped around the tiger's waist and our body are pushed tightly against one another. We awkwardly and slowly unwrapped ourselves as our eyes diverted away to the opposite direction. There were brief silence between us before I speak.

"Sorry for you putting you in such an... embarrassing situation." I apologized.

"There is no need to apologize. I did what I had to do, even if I had to lie to them that you are my... well... husband." Tigress assured, slowly collecting her cool. "Anyway, what on Earth were you thinking about moving around all alone?"

"Lieutenant Jienbei is in serious trouble, we gotta hurry and go find her before these bastards are going to break her." I said as my desire to save Jienbei from a scarring predicament she is in has reignited.

Me and Tigress picked up pace and moved through the hallways. At a particular hallway we have made to, I could hear what sounded to be a faint and nearly inaudible... crying?

We both followed the crying sound as the sound grew clearer once we arrived at a certain door. I slowly opened the door and the crying sounded similar to Jienbei's voice. There wasn't anyone in the door as it was dark only a few small lit up candles were providing light for this room.

Both of us continued to follow the crying until it lead us both to the bedroom. At the bed, stood a crying naked brown wolf, sitting on the bed with her hugging her legs. Her arms and legs were chained against the bed.

No... don't tell me that we're too late...

"Lieutenant Jienbei, is that you?" I spoke softly.

The wolf, still crying, slowly raised her head to us. Her red brownish eyes are swollen from crying and tearing along with the fur of her body were a mess, especially the fur at the area of her neck as they looked ruined. Her tough demeanor was broken.

When Tigress broke off the chains, Jienbei rushed off of the bed and embraced me. Her crying began to sound increasingly louder by each second as she tightens her embrace around me. She then buried her whole head into my chest.

"Lieutenant, what happened?" I asked, trying my best to comfort the she-wolf by returning back the embrace to her.

"He... he wouldn't s-stop..." Jienbei paused. "He kept his paws... around my neck and kept on having his ways with me and my body." Her weeping and sniffling started to subside. I can't believe this, how can we let this happened to her?

God, I have never dealt with such a situation like this before in my life and it really pains me knowing that I am incapable of helping her emotionally and that she needs to recover from this all by herself. I later swallowed up my emotions as this is not the time to start blaming myself. We both slowly broke up our embrace. A couple of words failed to escape from from her mouth as she stuttered each time she attempts to talk. Tigress then came by.

"We... we understand, you do not need to have to speak to us about it no more. Please, save your strength." Tigress assured. The wolf nodded weakly. After we found some clothes nearby for the brown wolf, we left the dark room and are now walking cautiously on the hallway.

"We gotta get her out of here." I suggested. The tiger pondered for a moment.

"I know, but I believe waiting for Crane's arrival with reinforcement is better than risking to sneak the lieutenant out of here." Tigress's replied.

After we 'hid' Jienbei somewhere safe, we both left the room and began to make our way back to the guys. Passing through several hallways and rooms later, me and Tigress made it back to Luzhei's office.

To both of our great surprise, instead of having everyone being all chill and sitting on their seats in this room, the Dragon Warrior and the rest of the Furious Six were standing up and had their fighting stances prepared. There were quite a handful of heavily armed guards pointing their guandao at them. Me and Tigress immediately got our fighting stance on when the office's door was closed behind us. A well dressed deer appeared as he moved through the guards. A grin formed on his face.

"Ah Master Tigress and Master Lukas, how kind of you two to join the upcoming demise of your friends." Luzhei spoke. "I have to hand it to you Kung Fu masters, all of you seriously almost made me fall for your little act and your puny disguises. But in the end, you all should've think twice before laying a step in my property."

"It won't matter, we'll just kick your butt sore like every other criminals we've dealt with." Po replied.

"You are right, but your also wrong as well, Dragon Warrior." The deer snapped the finger of his hoof. Multiple guard entered the office room and surrounded us in a circle, pointing at us with intricate looking sticks. Upon closer look, I instantly know that those 'sticks' are far more than just 'intricate-looking'. Those sticks are very well carved and are silky smooth, on the top part of the stick has a long metal pipe and other metal parts and components on the stick. Everything soon clicked inside my head.

"Ha! Are you trying to make us terrified or laugh about a bunch of funny-looking sticks?" Mantis guffawed.

"Oh I can assure that your gonna have a real blast once you see what my boys can do with these sticks, Master Mantis." Luzhei's grin grew darker.

"Alright, time to kick some butt! Let's g-"

"PO, DON'T!" I screamed, causing the panda to stop dead on his track along while attracting the attention of the entire office to me.

"Lukas, what's wrong?" Po asked.

"Yeah, what's wrong about fighting a bunch of mooks with funny-looking sticks?" Mantis added.

"Guys, listen to me very carefully and do exactly as I say." I said.

"Lukas, what are you talking about?" Tigress inquired.

"It was seem that Master Lukas knows about these 'sticks' quite well." Luzhei spoke.

"Listen, those funny-looking sticks what your referring to are not just funny-looking sticks. Back in my country, we call those funny-looking sticks guns." I warned. The other Furious Six and the Dragon Warrior grew confused of what I have said.

"G-Guns? What the hell is that?" Crane asked.

"I don't have the time to explain it in details, but believe me, those things can surely kill one of us in an instant once the trigger of the gun is pulled." I started raising my hands up. "I suggest we should not fight this battle until the right moment comes."

"It was a wise choice of you to warn your comrades to not fight us directly, Master Lukas." Luzhei said.

Eventually, the rest of the us ceased our stances and kneeled down with our hands/paws/tail up in the air. Right in the nick of time before one of the gunmen could restraint us with ropes or cuffs. The same goat wearing blue robe bursted into the office. His expression is filled with fear.

"Muzho, what is it now again? Don't you see I'm busy with our Kung Fu guests?" The deer grew irritated.

"I'm sorry to interrupt you, but we are about to face a very serious situation." The goat said. The deer motioned for the goat to continue. "Somehow, the Military Of Guangdong had discovered our base of operation and they have surrounded the whole building."

"WHAT!" Luzhei yelled with a mixture of anger and shock. The deer approached the goat and placed two hooves on his shoulders. "Dammit Muzho, are you sure this is serious or this is some kind of sick joke?"

"No sir, they're outside." The goat said. "You can go take a look through the window if you are not so sure about-"

"Luzhei Fiujing, you are completely surrounded and have nowhere to go!" A voice came from outside. "Surrender yourself along with the others, and if not, we will use force to storm and seize this building."

Luzhei moved to a window of the room and moved open the curtains. The deer saw that his entire building is surrounded by imperial guards, grasping tightly on their weapons. A speeding arrow came flying, striking the glass but nearly penetrate through it. I assume that was a warning shot from the imperial archers outside. Luzhei soon realized how the Military Of Guangdong had discovered them.

"That damn bird!" The deer yelled in realization. "This would not have happen if I were to see through their disguises sooner." He muttered. "Anyway, it doesn't matter, gather the most important men. Me and them will use a secret tunnel to escape from this building." Luzhei ordered. Damn, a secret tunnel? If we don't find a way to stop him, who knows how messed up China is going to be if he kept selling opium and turning more innocents into drug addicts. "And all of you." The deer pointed at the gunmen. "I want all of you to buy me and the others enough time to escape. Also, keep an eye on these Kung Fu bastards, I don't want my escape to be delayed by dealing with trouble from both the outside and the inside."

As the deer exited the room, most of the musketeers went to the window, leaving a small handful of other musketeers to keep us at bay with their guns pointed at us. The gunmen mounted their muskets on the each windows. My eyes widened in shock the moment when the leading musketeer gave the command.

"Fire!"

Several loud bangs ran through the office and to my ears. I could heard screams of the imperial troops from outside when the volley of musket projectiles had struck them. I suppressed an anger filled growl as my ears has start catching their prolonging and painful wails from outside.

"Musket fire! Take cover!" One of the imperial troops yelled, causing the rest of the imperial guards to scram for cover.

After the every musketeers finished firing, they fall back and began reloading. The other musketeers at the back moved up to the windows and mounted their loaded rifle muskets on the windows. Scanning this scene, I can expect a good opportunity of escape is nearing towards us.

"They're reloading! Charge!" A commanding voice spoke as dozens of imperial guards charged forwards. I could hear the sound of the doors from the ground floor being broken down. Right after the doors were broken down, I started to hear blades clashing with each other accompanied with a diverse amount of violent shouting between the imperial guards and Luzhei's lackeys.

As the battle below are growing louder and footsteps were heard ascending up from stairways, the musketeers behind us are still reloading and is becoming more visibly nervous and anxious. In a blink of a second, my eyes saw a small green blur moved silently and rapidly towards the reloading musketeers, striking them at the center of their nape. Me and the others caught the falling bodies to prevent them from making any sounds that will alert the other musketeers. After the musketeers finished firing their guns, they turned behind and their expression grew dreaded. We launched ourselves at them and swiftly took them all down with ease since they're only armed with nothing more than a bunch of unloaded muskets. We soon then left the office.

As each floor we head down, it was filled with imperial guards and cuffed criminals. As we made it down to the ground floor, it has several times more imperial guards than the other two floors. They made arrests at the 'indulgers' and the prostitutes along with collecting a large amount of opium. I felt instant relief as I saw the imperial guards comforting that juvenile lioness as they covered her body with a blanket. I heard one of the guards said that she and her family will be compensated with a house and other goods. They also arrested that revolting boar who now has several bruises on his face with a bloodied nose. We were approached by a certain avian and what seems to be a commanding imperial troop due to the additional golden trims on his attire.

We also came across a particular brown wolf. Jienbei is being escorted out of the building by a gray she-wolf imperial guard. Before the two females could exit the building, the room was filled a loud shout coming a certain leopard who has his paws placed behind an imperial guard appeared to be struggling to cuff him up.

"Let go of me, you bastard!"

"YOU!" Jienbei screamed suddenly.

Jienbei lunged herself towards to the leopard and give him a punch straight to the face. The punch caused one of his fang to pop out along with his nose starting to bleed. The leopard seemed to be in a disoriented state from the punch as well. The brown she-wolf slowly walked to the leopard on the floor as the imperial guard who's trying to cuff the leopard backed away with a fearful gulp. Before the leopard could regain his senses, he felt a weight on his body as Jienbei sat down on his upper abdomen.

"You have ruined me and permanently stained my dignity. And now your gonna fucking pay for it!" The lieutenant started pummeling his face with savage punches. After dozens of punches, Jienbei raised her fist fully upward before she hurled down her fist to his face with a feral cry. The last punch made a twisting and cracking sound, which I'm assuming she had broken his nose. The leopard's face is heavily bruised, swollen and bloodied as he is pretty much unrecognizable. After a moment, she regained her fiery fury as she raised her fist. Jienbei was stopped as a by the same gray she-wolf.

"Lieutenant Jienbei, please control yourself! That is enough!" The gray she-wolf said.

"NO! I'm just getting started with this sack of shit lying down here. What he has done to me is far incomparable to what I am doing to him!" Jienbei soon broke free from the gray she-wolf. As the she-wolf is about start another round of intense beating to the already heavily bruised leopard, a fast moving pair of tiger paws caught her as Jienbei was gently being placed down on the floor.

"Please lieutenant, please stand down. You have done enough." Tigress pleaded.

Once the lieutenant had regained her composure, Tigress let go of her grip and helped the brown wolf up. Jienbei was nearly reaching to the exit with the other imperial guards, but she stopped and slowly walked to the groaning leopard. She looked at the leopard lying o the floor with a long lasted glare filled with pure contempt and disgust. Not long, Jienbei spat on his half-conscious face before leaving. Damn, that was quite a scene we've witnessed there. The leopard would've been killed by her if Tigress did not stopped Jienbei from beating him to a bloody pulp.

"Took you long enough to get reinforcements here or else we would've got holes in our body." Mantis spoke.

"Well, it was sure one long flight from here to the Main Barrack." Crane replied. "We couldn't find Luzhei Fiujing, even after we cleared the entire building, he was nowhere to be found in here."

"We heard that he and a handful of other criminals are using a secret tunnel to escape." Tigress explained. "We gotta start looking for that tunnel and follow his tracks."

"Masters, I believe my men have found this secret tunnel." The commanding imperial guard spoke.

A guard found the hidden escape route as he moved away several heavy crates with the help of additional guards. The tunnel looks wide, enough for Po to walk in it without getting stuck. It has lit up torches, providing a good amount of light for us to head in without any support of other light sources. It also has some wooden structures and planks on the top to prevent any rocks falling on our heads. As we made our way in, we began moving as fast as we could. The tunnel start to become more dimmer as we proceeded further. We were then met by bright light and rays from the morning sun after a lengthly twenty minute of sprinting. Woah, time sure does fly pretty quick.

We exited the tunnel and notice we are at some sort of small old and dusty shack. They were in such a hurry that they left the door open wide. As we exit the shack, the criminals were nowhere to be seen. We decide to ask the people around.

"Have you seen a group of shady looking people led by a deer?" Viper asked, only to be responded with a horizontal nod.

After we asked dozens of people about the criminals, a result finally came up.

"Well, I did see a shady group of people, there species are indeed a variety, but I did saw a deer walking among them." A purple-robed sheep said.

"Can you tell us which way did they go?" Po asked. The sheep pointed the direction where they went. "Thanks!" We all began to quickly pick up some pace.

"I am assuming that they are heading to the port." Crane assumed.

"How do you know?" I asked.

"When I was investigating and looking for clues with Viper on our first day here, I conducted a few aerial scouts on few cities of Guangzhou. I basically became a map and a navigator for us." Crane said.

"I believe they are trying to use escape with a boat, we better hurry or who knows where they will gone off to." Tigress spoke.

We made it to the port as soon as we could. We spotted a shady looking group with a deer among them. The criminals were heading into a large wooden ship. Me and the team ran as fast as we could, shoving some civilians out of our way before reaching to the ship. We walked through the boarding plank and are now on the ship. Quietly moving down into the shelter deck, we began to hear voices.

"I can't believe we gotta start all over from scratch again. We have been building up our business so well there at Guangzhou for nineteen years and it's now all ruined thanks to those Kung Fu bastards."

"Look, at least we got out of there alive. We should learn from this mistake of ours and strive better in the future. I heard Luzhei is going to explain us his plans once this ship arrive at Chaozou roughly less than three days." Another voice assured. Fifteen minutes of wandering down in the shelter deck, we felt the ship is moving.

"We gotta split up before the ship is gonna leave the port." Tigress suggested.

Before we could split up to our own path, several figures jumped out from the shadow and began attacking us with their bladed weapons. I dodged a blade attack from a guandao, grabbing its shaft with my both hands and kicked it, breaking the guandao in half. The figure growled in anger and proceed to threw punches at me. One of punch his punches struck me on my jawline, knocking me down to the wooden floor. I swiftly recovered myself and got up. I planted a forward kick on his abdomen before knocking the figure's conscious out with a spinning high kick on the side of its head.

I looked at the others and they have finished dealing with these guys who jumped us from the dark. To avoid anymore ambush from the shadows, we moved up and left the shelter deck. As we reached the top deck, we were surrounded with Luzhei's remaining men who they're pointing their muskets at us. At the middle of them, a deer took a few steps at us.

"That was quite stubborn of you to follow us. You all could've simply save yourselves a lot of trouble by stop tailing us and report back to your master that the leader escaped and the threat has been stopped." Luzhei said.

"That is not how we do our task. Once we are tasked to deal with a problem, we will not stop until the problem is fully finished." Tigress responded.

"Then I better correct my mistake of letting you all live at my house." Luzhei raised his hoof. "Take aim..." Oh no, at this point, we are done for. "Fir-" The deer was interrupted as the boat we're standing on shook heavily, causing all of us to lose our balance. "What the hell happened!"

"Luzhei, we have trouble, BIG ONE! Our ship has received a large hole from a cannon fire that by an unknown ship. This ship is going to sink soon!" One of Luzhei's men shouted.

Several swivels later, I spotted a massive European ship that is beside us and it's not that far. The European ship was sailing towards us and fast. The crew on the European ship placed a wide boarding plank on the ship's edge as a handful of European troops began storming the ship. Realization struck me as one the Europeans was a brown horse, a zebra and a ram.

"Jasmijn, Herman and Bastiaan! Thank God you three brought some backup here." I said. He came up to me and gave me a hoof. I grabbed his hoof as he helped me up.

"Excuses mijn vrienden, there were some few complications and delays when we were investigating. It took some time for me and my crew to convince the Dutch East India Company to lend you guys some help."

After a few moments, we all fought and managed to subdue Luzhei's men. The criminals are now tied and cuffed and were placed in a cells of the European ship.

"Wait, where is Luzhei?" Viper asked. We all spread out through the slowly sinking ship and checked every corner. We regrouped and head into the European ship.

---

Third Person POV

"No sign of that damn deer." Mantis spoke, disappointed.

"Same here, nothing." Monkey said. "This is one slippery bastard we are dealing with." He added.

"Well, at least we got to put an end to this opium situation for now." Viper assured, trying to lighten us all up with her optimism. The green snake turned her sight to a reserved tiger. "We should start coming up with an explanation for Captain Yun about the mission." The tiger didn't responded, she was staring intently at the port of Guangzhou at a far distance. "Tigress?" The tiger soon snapped from her brief blank state and turned at Crane.

"Crane, can you fly me back to the port." Tigress said. Crane lifted a brow.

"Yes, but why?"

"It's Luzhei, I've just spotted him landed at the port with a backup boat. We have to go get him now, this our last chance to catch him or else he is going to escape for good." Tigress said. Without a word being said, Crane nodded and gripped the tiger on her shoulders with his bird feet and started flying.

About less than five minutes later, the two warriors reached the port as the avian placed the tiger on the ground. They both then saw Luzhei, who is already on the run.

The two warriors began to give chase to the deer. Luzhei pushed and shoved away various civilians. The deer reached to an outdoor market. He stopped for a quick moment and grabbed multiple market stands and threw them down. The market stands broken down into big pieces with fruits and goods being dropped and rolled on the ground. This made the owners and the customers to yell as the deer had created some chaos in the outdoor market. Crane flew over the obstacles while Tigress effortlessly made several graceful vaults, jumps and flips to get pass through broken pieces of the market stands.

While the two warriors are nearing themselves to the deer, he suddenly turned and ran into an alley. His sudden turn of direction confused the two Kung Fu masters for a moment as this significantly widened the gap between their distance. The deer is now deep in the alley and is running nonstop. His running was halted when he saw a large abandoned building that is two stories high. Luzhei tear down the restricting wooden planks on the window. As he entered the abandoned building, he quickly pushed an old dusty closet to block the entire window. The deer ran to the first floor and sat on the corner of the floor with his back against the wall.

Luzhei slowly peeked his head to a window blocked with wooden planks that was beside him. There was nothing but silent and the voices of the citizens as he tried to hear the footsteps of the two Kung Fu masters. His heartbeat rate increased when he saw a tiger with an avian donned a conical hat was running and passed the abandoned building he's hiding in.

The two Kung Fu masters ceased their movement as slowly began to walk back to the abandoned building they've just passed. The tiger made multiple sniffs.

"It's him, he is hiding inside this building." Tigress pointed.

"Are you sure, this building looks like even uninhabitable for hobos." Crane inspected.

"Nothing can escape the senses of my nose." Tigress said while sniffing a few more time. "He is definitely in there. Let's go." The avian nodded as they both headed inside the deserted building.

The deer grew dreaded and head to the top floor with haste. Luzhei looked around for the closest roof of a building. He is planning to make a jump for it. His scanning has ceased when the two masters slammed the top floor door open. An irritated expression has grew on the tiger's face.

"There is nowhere for you run now, coward!" Tigress spoke.

"If your crazy enough to even think about jumping off, don't bother trying as I am faster in the air and I will catch before you would know it." Crane warned.

"Then you two leave me no other choice but this..."

Luzhei places his hoof in his robe and start fishing out for something. Seconds later, the deer pulled out a small and strange looking metal instrument with a small wooden handle on it. The strange instrument has a long metal barrel at the end of it. The two Kung Fu masters tilted their head slightly at the sight of the peculiar metal instrument.

"Say goodbye." Luzhei grinned before pulling something with his thumb on the metal instrument as it made a slight clicking sound. A loud booming bang was heard and was accompanied by a slight flash from the end of the barrel.

In an instant, Tigress felt a sudden sharp and overwhelming painful sensation in her right shoulder as her whole body collapsed on the floor. She had no idea what hit her there, but the moment she heard that loud bang, her body acted on itself as it instinctively moved. If it weren't for her body's self instinctive action, the injuries she received would've been on her head instead of her right shoulder.

"My, what extraordinary reflex and reaction displayed by the great Master Tigress." Luzhei spoke mockingly. Smoke is slowly fuming out from the hole of the barrel of his small metal instrument.

"Tigress!" Crane cried.

On the floor, Tigress began letting out poorly suppressed painful cries. The pain in her shoulder started surging and slowly saturating her mind. Crane tried to stay as calm as he could and began to check on her wound. It has what seemed to be a small hole, but there was a lot of blood leaking out from her shoulder injury.

"What the fuck did you do to her!" Crane yelled.

"Remember what Master Lukas has said before in my house, that it is never a wise choice for you and your friends to fight people with guns directly." Luzhei reiterated. A sinister smile formed on the deer.

"Shit..." Crane uttered before turning to the tiger. "Tigress, listen to me, you gotta stay strong. Just don't give in." The pain was slowly starting to get too much for her as she merely nodded while rapidly taking in deep breaths.

"Now if you don't want to end up like your friend there, I have a place I must go and you better not follow me, or else you'll-"

A monkey came flying out of nowhere and planted a flying kick on the Luzhei's head. The deer fell and rolled across the floor. Soon, the Dragon Warrior and the rest of the Furious Six arrived at the top floor while Monkey has took on a flying entrance to reach up to the top floor instead.

---

Lukas's POV

After having a slight argument about how to quickly get to Tigress and Crane with the others earlier ago, I knew letting Monkey parkouring his way by jumping and through other roofs to reach here was a perfect way to sneak up on Luzhei.

My eyes shifted itself to a scene as my eyes widened in shock as I saw Tigress was on the ground, clutching on her right shoulder as blood leaking out fast from her injury. Crane was crouching beside her, placing both wings on her paw to put pressure on the injury.

"Crane, what the hell happened to Tigress?" I asked with haste and concern.

"She has been shot by an unknown metal instruments that bastard was hiding in his robe." Crane responded. "The instrument looks harmlessly small, but I never knew it has this kind of capability of inflicting such an injury." A small metal instrument? What is he talking about? As the deer collected himself up and my answer soon arrived.

The deer was holding some sort of metal instrument that Crane was talking about. The instrument has a smooth wooden handle and the rest of its body made out of metal. The barrel was thin and long, it also has some sort of thing behind it that looks a... cylinder? A horrified expression sprong up on my face as I realized that metal instrument he's holding is none other than a revolver.

"That... that's a revolver. That thing shouldn't even exist." I uttered to myself. "Luzhei, where did you get that!" I questioned loudly.

"Oh, this? I'm not fully sure, but I recalled getting this beautiful and deadly instrument from a group of English pirates a very while ago. They said they've performed a few small raids on some American naval bases near the shores of the United States and got their hands on these things and other more. They said they will trade muskets and firearms for us in exchange for our opium." Luzhei elaborated. He then pointed the revolver around at us. "Now back the hell away from me, or if anyone of you have some kind of death wish to make, come forth and try. But don't blame me if any of you end up having holes in your body."

We raised our 'hands' up as we let the deer slowly taking his steps to the door that leads down to the lower floor. As his hoof is about to reach for the door knob, a green blur went off in rapid speed, striking his hoof as he dropped the revolver. Luzhei grew panicked and tried to reach for the fallen gun, but the green blur returned and swiped the gun away. The panda saw an opening and tried to grab Luzhei with his large arms.

Luzhei proved himself to be evasive as he ducked down and avoided Po's grab. The deer went swiftly behind the panda and kicked him hard on the back of his knee, bringing the panda down on one knee. Right when Po is about to strike him with a punch, the deer stopped the panda's punch, grabbing him by his wrist before locked it along with his arm behind on his own back. Luzhei slit out a thin and long dagger from his robe and placed it near Po's throat.

"Po!" We all yelled.

"Now, now, let's not do anything rash here, shall we? Or else the Dragon Warrior is going to get a knife stuck through his neck." Luzhei threatened as he pointed the knife closer into the panda's neck. "I'll be taking this panda with me and you'll get him back after we both slowly walked out of this building. If I witness anymore tricks or attempts from one of you, I'll kill him without hesitation."

"Lukas, catch!" Mantis shouted as he threw the revolver as my hand caught it. Not wasting a second, I pointed the gun at the deer.

"Let him go, Luzhei!" I yelled. "I... I don't wanna do this." I said, feeling a bit of shakiness in my voice.

"Then don't do it and let me escape." Luzhei responded.

While I'm unable to reply, the feeling of gripping a gun is making me very anxious as my hands began trembling, making jiggling sounds of the revolver. What the hell am I suppose to do here? If we do what he said, he'll let Po go and he will escape for good. If we try to stop him, Po might get hurt or worse... killed. The deer then spoke.

"Drop the gun, Master Lukas. Do it slowly and kick it towards me. If not, your friend here will not see the light in the next half minute." Luzhei demanded, sliding the dagger's blade even closer to Po's neck. Soon, the deer start counting down the half minute. "Thirty, twenty-nine, twenty-eight..."

As I stood frozen on the spot I'm standing, pointing the gun at the deer. My anxiety began to rise rapidly as Luzhei is counting down the half minute. I felt cold sweat dripping down to my chin quick and my body's shakiness became worse and noticeable. A grin flashed from the deer as he took notice of my growing anxiety.

"You better hurry, Master Lukas, we got eighteen more seconds left before I'm gonna carve this poor panda dead." The deer said.

Suddenly, half of my vision turned black and white as the other side was seeing things normally. Wait, I've experienced this strange black and white vision before when me and the guys had quite a predicament with Kazuhiro at the Hall Of Warriors. I reluctantly closed my right eye and everything soon turned black and white for me. When he counted down to six, my heart rate start beating faster and the speed of it is raising. I then saw a tiny light blue area on his head, indicating a very small opening.

"Lukas, just give him the gun or else Po is gonna get killed!" Viper pleaded loudly.

Right when Luzhei counted down to one and before he could manage to plunge the dagger into Po's throat, my mind went blank as I instinctively pulled down the trigger.

The cylinder rotated and a slight click was made and was soon followed by a loud ear piercing bang with a gust of smoke being released from the barrel. Small chunks of flesh and blood splatted against the side of Po's face as the shot went though the deer's forehead. Luzhei dropped down to the floor with no life. Metal clink sounds were made from his dagger falling on the ground. The black and white vision of my left eye later reverted itself back to normal.

"Lukas... you..." Crane trailed off quietly.

I looked around and saw everyone has a shocked expression plastered on their face as they looked at me. I shifted my sight at the revolver I'm holding before glancing at the dead deer, feeling a heavy emotional weight of taking away a life. My breathing began to become irregular as I continued processing all of this.

What... what have I done... ?

I dropped the revolver to ground and slowly walked to the corner of the roofless top floor, sitting against the corner with my head lowered. I have felt this feeling before when I was under control of the Satsui No Hadou and killed Tang Kuan's younger brother Mi Zhao. However, this is the first time I have killed someone while being completely aware of my action, and it stings far more than when I was under control by the Dark Hadou. Po approached me as he crouched. He placed a paw on my shoulder.

"Lukas, are you alright, man?"

"No, I don't think I am." I quietly responded. "Just give me some space for now, I will soon be fine." Po nodded at my request and gone back with the others.

Moments later, several imperial guards had entered the building and ascended to the top floor before securing the entire building. They said they're going to burn the dead body in order to prevent disease from spreading once they return to the Main Barrack. Me and the gang eventually left the abandoned building.

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The Next Day

A long yawn managed to escape from my mouth. It is pretty early in morning with me and the guys had already packed up our stuff. We told General Jianhong that our task of taking down the criminal syndicate was a success and their leader is dead. Jasmijn informed us yesterday that we should head to the trading post. He said that he and his crew will give us a lift via boat transportation to the port of Hangzhou in the Zhejiang province so that we could walk ourselves back to the Valley Of Peace at the Henan province in about four days earlier. If we were to walk all the way back from Guangdong, it would have take us about fifteen days to get back to our home.

Additionally, once the imperial troops cleared out everything at yesterday, we took Tigress to a doctor to examine and treat her wound. The examination revealed an unfortunate result as the bullet had penetrated through her scapula bone, fracturing it. The doctor was able to successfully pulled out the bullet that was struck into her right shoulder. The doctor cleaned and bandaged the wound well before applying an arm sling around her neck to keep her arm levitated. He had estimated this type of injury she has sustained on her shoulder might take about six weeks or longer to heal up.

"Man, I'm gonna miss sleeping on those soft bed." Monkey spoke, stretching his back.

"No kidding, my back felt like it was sleeping on the clouds of Heaven." Mantis added.

After bidding goodbye to the general, we left the Main Barrack and started making pace to the trading post. During our walk, we encountered a certain brown wolf as she made a swift arrest to buffalo by sweeping his both feet with her feet, planting the buffalo down to the ground and quickly cuffed him. Once the other imperial guards arrived and took the cuffed buffalo away, the brown wolf approached us.

"Good morning, Lieutenant Jienbei." Tigress greeted the brown wolf.

"I've been informed that you guys are leaving the city today." She spoke.

"Yes, it is time we should return to the Valley Of Peace. I believe the securities back there are having lots of work to do while we are doing our task here in Guangdong." She said before pausing for a short brief. "How are you doing lately?"

"Oh I'm quite fine." Jienbei replied. "I was able to release every drop of anger and rage within me in the interrogation room." Hearing what she said made me gulped.

"What happened?" Mantis asked. The praying mantis sounded both curious and scared at the same time.

"Hmm, how do you put this?" She scratched her chin for a moment. "To answer your question Master Mantis, lets just say that piece of shit is now no longer a male." Briefly, the green bug understood what she meant.

"Woah, woah wait, you mean by chopping off his di-" The praying mantis was cut off as a green reptilian tail quickly smacked him on his head.

"We get it, there is no need to make us feel uneasy or more importantly, make poor Lieutenant Jienbei feel uncomfortable." Viper scolded.

"Do not concern about me, Master Viper. In fact, after that fucker got what he deserve, I felt like an entire world has been lifted off of me." Jienbei assured.

"I'm glad your alright and back to your usual self." I spoke, genuinely.

The brown wolf took some steps towards me and stood closely at me. I was again taken by surprise when Jienbei suddenly wrapped me in a hug. Nervousness nearly overwhelmed me as I stood still for seconds before I slowly decided to return back the hug to her.

"Will I be seeing you and the others again?"

"I am not so sure about us returning back here again. It depends if Guangzhou will be facing another grave danger similar to this one that me and my team had just finished dealing with." I responded. We both broke unwrapped each other.

"I'm going to miss working with you all."

"Yeah, we certainly will with you." I said while the others gave her a nod in agreement.

Unbeknown to me, her tail started wagging slowly. Before I could realize her tail was wagging at all, she raised her feet up and gave my cheek a quick soft kiss. The entire being of me has ceased any forms of movements when I felt that.

As Jienbei disconnected her lips from my cheek, she looked at me with a wide blush covering her entire face and the same goes for me as well.

I heard Monkey and Mantis as they both uttered "Damn..." and are acting like a bunch of thirteen year old boys who perceived romance in a childish way. Viper and Crane were just standing at their spot and is giving me a neutral look while Po is looking at me with a confused expression. Tigress too is looking at me with a neutral expression, but her facial features is far more sharpened than usual. Her tail is slowly swaying left and right. I guess she does not like it very much when others are getting a bit too friendly with us Kung Fu masters.

"Thanks for that emotional support you've lent me yesterday, it... it truly helped me out a lot when you let me flush out and stabilize my emotions." She uttered.

"Uhhh..." I couldn't even get a word out from myself until I managed to calm down myself. "Your welcome."

I felt very confused when the moment her lips had suddenly smooched my cheek. I'm currently feeling weirded out as another species has made such a 'move' on me. But again, like the last time I had this 'different species' subject when I thought about having romantic feelings for Tigress, it is nothing negative.

Strange, I don't feel that much weirded out compared to having my cheek kissed by a she-wolf than contemplating about having romantic feelings for a powerful tiger. This is probably might be me getting more and more accustomed and used to intelligent, sentient animals after living in this world for like almost two years. We later then bid Jienbei farewell and continued on with our way to the trading port.

Once the European clothings that we see are becoming more frequent, we eventually have reached the trading port. We are now at the port where a medium European ship was waiting for our arrival. The ship is swaying in a gentle and repeating consistent manner. A brown horse donned in an European coat on the ship saw us.

"Goede morgen, mijn vrienden." He greeted us, waving his hoof.

"Morning to you as well, Jasmijn!" Po return the greeting.

"Me and my crew will take to you the port of Hangzhou." Jasmijn paused as he felt a strong gust of wind blow across his face, messing his horse mane a little. "It feels quite windy, we will be arriving to Hangzhou in less than two days if the wind stays like this." Without wasting any time, they dropped down a smooth-made walking plank on the pier for us as we enter entered the ship.

Hours has gone by and the bright orange sun slowly setting itself down into the horizon of the sea. I'm currently standing at the ship's fence rail with my forearms resting themselves on the fence rail. The sea wind blew through me, it felt strong, but not to vigorous and was enough deliver some sort of relaxation for me.

Throughout the ride, I stayed quiet, haven't said a word for hours as my mind kept replaying that scene where I shot the deer with that revolver. Why the hell am I stressing over about this, Luzhei is a dangerous criminal who caused so much suffering for the innocence, I should be glad and relieved that he is gone for good. However, despite that fact, I still feel wrong for what I've done as this unpleasant feeling is still crawling around on my back. These deep thoughts of mine was broken as I felt a sturdy paw rested itself on my shoulder. My eyes shifted to a certain tiger.

"Are you feeling well?" She asked, concerness was present within her tone.

"Sort of." I responded. Her facial features lighten up a little. "I... I guess not..." Her features then went back to the concerned one.

"Do you wish to discuss about your thoughts with me?" I glanced at her shortly before returning my gaze back to the setting sun. As I open my mouth, a long breath had escaped from me.

"After when I shot and killed Luzhei, my mind and emotions has been troubling me. Hell, I didn't slept much yesterday at the Main Barrack because of these thoughts I'm having." I rubbed my eyes before continuing. "Tigress, have I done the right thing or was it wrong that I have taken a life, even if it's the life of a dangerous criminal?" The tiger stood still, thinking about her next words. Shortly, she found the correct words and stood beside me, resting her forearms on the fence rail.

"Us Kung Fu masters and warriors are strictly trained and taught to only subdue our enemies and to not kill our enemies. But there are times that one of us must break that code and we cannot escape from it when the time has come. When subduement is not working and there are no more other options left to handle the enemy, we will have to convert to the use of lethal force."

"But that doesn't change the fact that I have killed him." I responded with a frown.

"What would have happened if you did not shoot him? Would Po still be here? You did what you have to do."

"Tigress... have you taken a life before?" My question seemed to have caught her off guard.

"I have, several times in the past." She answered, her expression grew grim.

"How did you feel?" I inquired.

"At first when I was younger, I felt the same way as you are, but instead of me openly talking about it with someone close like you are doing, I decide to go against that and bottle those unpleasant feelings up and not tell Master Shifu about it. The feeling of taking a life had certainly causes me to think deeply about what I have done, why have I done it and has driven me to seek out if my actions were justified or not. It took a while for me to realize my actions were justified already."

"Were my actions justified?" I asked. The tiger stayed quiet for a moment.

"I certainly do think your actions were already justified since you have done it in order to save Po's life."

"Still... what if... what if I just-"

"Lukas." She cut me off. Tigress had caught me off guard as she gently enveloped my hand with the paw of her only non-injured arm. "What happens, happens and you cannot change it, instead, learn and rise above it. You must stop dwelling in those kind of thoughts. If you continue and keep doing so, those thoughts will surely turn into regrets. And those regrets will soon cloud and drown your senses and judgement. Just know this, you are a family to us and we will always be there for you. I will be there for you." Hearing those words from her made the weight of my mind feel lighter. I gave her a small smile.

"Thanks, I feel better now."

"I'm glad I can help." She let go of her paw and looked at the setting sun which now is nowhere to be seen except for its dimming orange light. "Don't stay out for too long, you should join us down in the ship's interior."

"Well, guess I'll see you down there soon enough." The tiger nodded and head down to the ship's interior.

As she left, I continued starring at the dimming orange light of the sun, listening and feeling the soft breezes and waves of the ocean.

Today has been one hell of a day. It started from stopping a small drug-selling criminal syndicate, to witness the existence of deadly firearms, to fail to prevent the defloration of Jienbei, to Tigress almost getting fatally shot by a revolver and lastly, to the death of Luzhei caused by me killing him with his revolver.

My view towards upcoming missions will be different from this day on. I must be stronger, faster and allow no room for hesitation if I don't let any of my teammates and the innocent people getting hurt. I took one more glad at the horizon of sea and noticed the sun has set down and is nowhere to be seen, which only had a small smidge of orange light before it fully diminished. Small stars started appearing at the darkened sky. As I managed to ease down my mind, I left the fence rail and head down to the ship's interior to meet up with the guys.

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Author Note : Congratulations, you have made it to the end! You should feel proud of yourself for finish reading the longest chapter I've ever written in the story. I hope the length of this chapter does not cause any annoyance for you.

As for how dark this chapter has been, I am planning to make the next chapters to be more darker, but not as dark as this one. After I'm done posting this chapter, I will also change the rating from Teen to now Mature.

If you are having fun reading and enjoying this story, please Follow, Favorite and Review. If not, then I hope you will continue reading it.

To not make this chapter to be too long as how it is already, I will have end this author note here. It's almost 4AM and I NEED TO SLEEP. Well, I'll see you guys in the next one.