Chapter 29: The Return of Bad News.

John's POV

After waking up from my sleep, I had started up a small fire to get some water boiling. That way, when Shifu wakes up, his tea would be ready. As for me, I stuck with some much needed coffee. Never was much of a tea person.

As I was drinking my coffee, it must have caught his nose because I heard him sniffing the air. After a couple seconds, he began to sit up.

"Good morning Shifu."

"Oh, good morning John. For once, I'm the one who gets woken up."

"I can see that. I have some water boiling for your tea if you want some." I offered.

"Reading minds are we?" He joked.

We both chuckled.

"I wish. I figured that when you woke up, your tea would be ready. That and I knew you don't drink coffee." I said.

"That's very kind, thank you. So, I know I just woke up, but when did you want to head back to the palace?"

"An hour, like yesterday. That way we can eat breakfast and pack our stuff up properly."

"Excellent." He said drinking his tea.

Timeskip

We were walking through the courtyard after arriving from our two hour long hike. For the majority of the walk, it remained pretty quiet because I had my music in my ears.

"Captain?" Shifu said.

"What's up?"

"During our walk back home, I was thinking about our talk from last night. Mainly about your opinion on the matter."

"Really now?"

"Yes and after much consideration, I will take your advice. I would love for me and Tigress to have that relationship we should've had when I first adopted her." He said.

"I'm glad to hear that-" My concentration was interrupted by a constant "swoosh" sound coming from behind me.

"What's that noise?" I asked.

"What noise? I don't hear anything."

It then got louder.

"That swooshing sound. Sounds like it's coming from the village."

We both looked behind us and I froze. It was Crane carrying the others and they did not look well.

"Oh my god, Crane!" I dropped the stuff and ran towards him.

He landed at the entrance and dropped the others.

"Holy shit, he killed them. He fucking killed them!"

"No he didn't." Shifu walked over.

"What do you mean no, LOOK AT THEM!" I screamed thinking he was delusional.

"He used a nerve attack on us John. I was lucky to have just barely dodged it."

That calmed me down a bit, but seeing what Tai Lung did to them still terrified me.

Shifu began working on breaking them out of their paralysis state. I went over to look at Monkey.

"Jesus Murphy!" I said

"I would stand back if I were you John. He was about to strike Tai Lung before getting hit."

Right on cue with Crane telling me so, Shifu fixed Monkey up. As he did so, his fist shot up into the air.

"HE'S TOO FAST!" He shouted

"Easy buddy, you're home." I said helping him up.

"I flew us back home, Monkey." Crane said.

"Thanks, to both of you."

"I thought we could stop him." I heard Tigress say.

"Tigress!" I then sprinted over to her as she sat up.

I sat next to her and held her tight. Realizing that I was holding her, she leaned into my arms trembling.

"John?" She said.

"Easy Tigress, you're home. Everything is going to be alright." I said, comforting her.

"He could have killed all of us, why didn't he?" Viper asked.

"Because that way, you could all come back and use that to strike fear into our hearts, but that's not going to work." Shifu said.

"Hate to break it to you Shifu, but it's working." I said nervously.

"You can defeat him Captain. I know you-" I cut him off.

"CAN I? He fought them 5 on 1 and look what happened, he damn near killed all of them." I said mentioning the five.

"But you have something he doesn't. The one thing that will separate you from him. Follow me, all of you."

He began leading us towards the palace, mainly the Hall of Heroes. As I got up, I noticed Tigress was having some difficulty getting up.

"I got you Tigress." I offered my hand.

"Thanks John." She said as I helped her up.

"I may need some help walking up the stairs." She said.

I put her arm around my shoulders as I held her lower back, giving her some leverage.

"That good?" I asked.

"That's perfect, thank you John."

We all then made our way up the stairs before entering the hall. Shifu was already waiting for us at the little pool. Knowing he wanted me to join him, I walked over. He was looking up at where the scroll was.

"It's time." He said.

He then began doing a series of moves with Oogway's staff, which caused the petals in the water to become airborne. One of which landed on the scroll, which caused it to fall out of the dragon's mouth and get caught with the staff.

He then presented the scroll.

"Behold, the Dragon Scroll. It is yours."

I took it.

"Once I read this, what will happen to me?" I asked.

"No one knows, but legend has it that once read, you will be able to hear a butterfly's wing beat and even see light from the darkest of caves."

"Woah, now that's heavy." I said.

"Read it John, unlock the powers within. Read it and fulfill your quest to truly become the Dragon Warrior." He said.

I popped open the cap and took out the scroll itself. Safe to say, being nervous was a major understatement.

I looked over at the others, who in return gave me either a thumbs up or a simple nod.

"Well, in the words of Mitch Lucker. 'You only live once, so just go fucking nuts.'"

I turned my head away while opening the scroll, expecting to feel a beam of energy smack me in the chest.

But nothing happened. I then looked at what the scroll's message was but was met with a huge plot twist.

"It's blank."

"WHAT?!" Everyone said

"Here, look for yourself." I offered it to Shifu.

"No, I mustn't." He then grabbed the scroll and repeatedly opened and closed it, trying to see if anything would pop up.

"Blank, I don't understand."

'Blank! Blank! Blank!' My mind kept screaming over and over.

Third Person.

With everyone shocked by the scroll being blank, questions began flying.

"So, with the scroll being a dud, now what?" Mantis asked.

"Who's going to stop Tai Lung now?" Tigress asked.

"He's gonna destroy everything in sight and kill everyone. We have to do something and quick Master!" Crane said.

After thinking for a quick moment, Shifu realized that there was only one way for all of this to end properly.

"Evacuate the village and take the villagers to the Marshal military base. Knowing that we have friends and allies who can help, they will be safe over there. That way, they will be long gone by the time Tai Lung shows up."

"What about you master?" Tigress asked.

"I will stay and fight him. This is a mess I have put myself in 20 years ago and today, it ends here.

It is time for you to continue your journey without me. I am proud to have been your master for-" Crane cuts Shifu off.

"Uh guys, I think John's not feeling well." He pointed out.

They all look to see the Dragon Warrior standing in a rage induced trance that had begun after both seeing the blank scroll and hearing the constant repeating of the word "blank" in his head over and over again. He was on the verge of snapping and Shifu noticed this.

"Captain."

No response.

"Captain!" He said a little louder, still no response.

"JOHN!" Tigress roared

That snapped John out of his trance, albeit not by much. He looked over at his teammates with pure rage in his eyes. His mouth was practically foaming and steam began blowing out of ears. The Five were shocked by what they saw. Crane's beak fell to the ground, Viper coiled up, both Monkey and Mantis looked at each other with wide eyes and Tigress extended her claws in case he would attack somebody out of nowhere. As for Shifu, he knew that John was about to explode at any second. He then decided to send John to the one place he knew where he could unleash his rage.

"Captain. Training hall, now." Shifu said

"With pleasure." John growled.

He then began stomping over towards the training hall.

"Tigress, keep an eye on him. As for the rest of you, pack up only what you need and wait for them at the courtyard entrance."

"Yes Master." They said.

Tigress quickly followed John to the training hall. She knew that she was about to witness rage that even she's never experienced.