Chapter 31: A Match Made in Heaven.
John's POV
Roughly a couple hours after the five made their way to the village, I was sitting in one of the trees next to the courtyard entrance patiently waiting for Tai Lung to show up. Clouds had rolled over the mountain during that time. Luckily, I could still see the bottom of the mountain.
'Weather's changing. At least the smoke will still be visible. I'll just make sure to give the grenades a baseball throw down the mountain.' I thought.
I then remembered I still had the scroll with me in my belt pack. I decided to take it out and re-look to see if there was any secret message that could have been hiding in plain sight. After a couple minutes of looking, I gave up.
"I don't get it. Why reward the five for all of their years of training and hard work with this blank scroll?" I asked myself.
Oogway must have been watching over me because the sun for a brief moment had broken through the clouds, shining onto the blank scroll and showing my reflection.
After looking at my reflection for a couple seconds, I remembered what Oogway had told me the night I got picked.
'You see Captain, the one thing that stands out in you apart from the other five, especially Tigress, is quite simple. It's YOU.'
It then finally hit me.
"There is no secret power." I said.
All this time, it never was about power. It's the individual chosen that's the secret. I gave a small smile, finally understanding the whole mystery behind the scroll being blank.
"*Beep* Movement detected. Distance, 300 yards." My phone goes off.
"Here we go." I said unlocking my phone.
I opened up the app that I used to control my camera. I saw that Shifu was standing atop the stairs looking down the mountain. I decided to activate the zooming microphone my camera had so that I could hear what would happen.
As I zoomed in on him, I began feeling a bit worried about both Tai Lung not yet showing up and Shifu standing where he was.
'Where the hell is this snow-'
"Crack!" A bolt of lightning then struck the courtyard.
"Agh!" I covered my eyes.
Because of how close I was, it blinded me for a short moment. As I regained my vision, I looked at my phone and saw the man I was waiting for.
"Tai Lung." I growled to myself.
"I have come home, Master." Tai Lung said.
"This is no longer your home, and I am no longer your master." Shifu said sternly.
"Oh yes, you have a new friend...So tell me, where is this John? Did I scare him off?"
"In your fucking dreams buddy." I chuckled to myself overhearing their conversation.
"This battle is between you and me."
"So...that is how it's going to be?" Tai Lung asked.
"That is how it must be." Shifu stood his ground.
Tai Lung then hopped into the air and landed back with such force that he ripped a huge chunk of the stairs out and propelled it towards Shifu.
That was my cue to make my move. I put my phone away, set my camera equipment aside and made my way up to help Shifu. Thinking that he was able to hold off Tai Lung long enough for me to get there, I kept to a medium paced jog.
That was until I was about halfway up the stairs when I heard a loud crashing sound. I looked up and saw both Shifu and Tai Lung skyrocketing into the air. My guess was they crashed through the roof during the bout. Seeing this, I then went on all fours and sprinted the rest of the way up.
Upon making my arrival, I set myself up against one of the walls beside the doors, which were blown off completely. I decided to change the old magazine that I had in my pistol (part of John's getup from the previous chapter).
"Where's my fucking scroll?!" I heard Tai Lung scream.
I took a quick look and saw him strangling Shifu. I then gave a short breath.
'Now or never Johnny boy.' I thought.
"OI!" I yelled while walking in the palace.
Tai Lung then turned around to face me.
"How about instead of beating up an old man, you pick on someone your own size."
"Umm, who are you?" He asked me.
"Dragon Warrior. Now would you-" He cut me off.
"Wait...you Dragon Warrior?" He laughed as he dropped Shifu.
"You're a wolf, he's a wolf. What are you gonna do bub, howl me to death?"
"Nah, that would be too time consuming. I actually have a little proposal. I hear you're looking for something." I said taking out the scroll.
"My scroll." He said.
"Actually, my scroll. BUT, I'm willing to bargain. We fight for it. Winner keeps the scroll." I offered.
Truth be told, I knew that was the only real way for this to end. But, I had a few tricks up my sleeve to assure I would be able to finish him.
"Tempting, but I have a better offer. You give my scroll back to its rightful owner, I leave the Valley of Peace and you all get to live your lives." He countered.
'Hell, even better. I can bait him in.' I thought.
"Hmm, now that you put it like that, good enough for me. Here catch."
I then tossed the scroll to him. However, I gave it a lot more air than needed so that whilst distracted, he fell for my trap. As he looked up at the scroll, I casually ran up to him. Just as he was catching the scroll, I gave him a 'Johnny Cage style nut punch' which caused him to fall in pain and allow me to grab the scroll and put it back in my belt pack.
"Oh come on now, you had to see that coming surely. You really thought I'd give this to you." I laughed.
He then got up, brushed off the pain and gave me a very angry look. At that moment, I knew I was in for the fight of my life.
"You're dead." He growled before charging me.
The fight was on. He threw at me a series of punches that I could barely dodge. This man was fast and seriously a hard hitting fighter. Although I was able to keep up with him and block off his attacks, let me tell you it was not easy. Essentially, my spar against Tigress was simply child's play compared to this.
After a few seconds of being on the defencive end, I began to even out the odds and fight back. We were now trading blows. Back and forth, we either landed or blocked off any strikes we gave each other. This lasted for a good couple of minutes until I was able to knock him back. That however is when I saw Tai Lung's powerful nature truly come out because he jumped back and continued swinging punches at me like nothing ever happened. I tried that tactic a good ten times, but the outcome was the same. Everytime I tried to keep him off me for a moment so I could catch my breath before attacking back, he would jump right back up quicker than the previous times.
It began tiring me out. Unlike when I sparred with Tigress, the more we fought, the harder it was for me to attempt to finish him off due to Tai Lung always lunging back at me. I knew I had to step up my game, otherwise I was toast. So after I knocked him back the tenth time, I sprinted towards him and changed my approach by stomping his stomach in. A few stomps in, he pushed me away as he began to get back up. He was able to practically ignore my attacks like it was nothing.
He then sprinted at me, but just as he was about to attack, I kicked him in the mid section, which temporarily stopped him. I saw my opportunity to then hit him with a dual palm strike, which sent him crashing into one of the pillars.
'What the hell do I have to do to beat this guy?!' I mentally screamed.
As I was contemplating on what to do next, I felt a gust of wind hit me from behind. My belt must have gotten loose during the fight because I felt it slowly coming off. I put my hand on it and doing so, I grabbed my holster. I looked at it and remembered why I had decided to stay behind in the first place, which was to kill Tai Lung.
Unfortunately, I was set up perfectly for Tai Lung to rush back at me without even seeing him and kicked me with such force that I was sent flying out of the Hall. I didn't even have time to react because all I could see was the courtyard flying underneath me at a very fast speed. I thought that this was it for me, that I was going to be flying to my death. That was until I felt a foot smack me right in the chest and sent me back first onto the courtyard floor. To my surprise that didn't knock me out. If anything, it only felt somewhat stiff, possibly due to my body armor. I then looked up to the sky and saw Tai Lung shooting towards me with both fists pointing at my chest. He hit me directly in the midsection, which knocked the wind out of me. I began to slowly drift out of consciousness. The impact was strong enough to leave a crater.
The scroll, which was in my belt pack, had slipped out and began rolling towards the stairs. I weakly stuck my arm out, but the scroll was then picked up by Tai Lung.
"I must admit, you know how to fight. But at last, we all knew that this was the outcome mate." He said taking the scroll out of its tube.
"Finally, after twenty years of rotting in that fucking prison. The power of the Dragon Scroll is mine…" He paused as he saw the blank scroll.
"What the fuck?! There's nothing."
"You ain't the only one dude. I also found out the hard way." I said slowly getting back up.
"What?" He asked.
"There never was any secret power. Truth is, the power...it's you."
I gave a small smile. This re-pissed him off.
"That's the biggest load of rubbish I ever heard. You read the scroll didn't you. No wonder you were able to fight me, THE POWER IS IN YOU!" He screamed at me.
I was shocked. He really thought I have some secret power in me.
"What planet are you living on, you moron? That scroll always was blank. There never was any power. No wonder Oogway refused to choose you. You're so corrupted by this 'secret power' that it plagues your mind.
Trust me, I too didn't believe it when I first tried reading it. Hell, you should see the training hall. After I was done, it looked like a bomb went off in there. It wasn't until after I calmed down and relooked at it that I realized that the scroll never had any secret power. In reality, it's simply a title that you keep in order to remind you of the responsibilities and challenges you will face in order to achieve greatness.
Huh, a title awarded to someone based on their willingness to face challenges in order to prove their worth? Talk about a match made in heaven."
My words must have flown right over his thick skull because he proceeded to strike me with a nerve attack. I fell down on my knees from the impact.
"Worth?! I'll show you just how worthy I am after I'm done killing you!" He said.
"Pff Hahaha. What the hell was that?" I said getting back up.
"What the fuck?"
"You know, if you wanted to kill me, you need to try harder than that dumbass." I said.
He then hit me again with another nerve attack. This time, I resisted the impact and stayed still.
"This usually works." He said angrily
"Hate to break it to you. Performance issues are not as uncommon as you think. Roughly a one out of five chance-" He cuts me off with another failed attempt.
"Jesus christ, will you fucking die?!"
"Jesus Christ? Stop me if you heard this one.
Jesus Christ walks into a bar and hands the bartender three nails and a cross. What does he say?" (Little nod to The Crow, a must watch)
"Shut up!" Tai Lung aimed for my face.
This proved to be a serious mistake, because I caught his fist and dug my claws into his wrist. Blood began to leak onto my hand.
As he began to show pain and a look of shock, I gave him a look of rage.
"You think you can put me up for the night?" I then shoved my foot into his chest, sending him into one of the storage units with a thud.
I then set myself up once again to be on the receiving end of Tai Lung's fury. This time however, I was ready and decided to show him what my Samoan family members taught me when I was younger.
He then charged me again, but this time I took the first swing and went to work on his midsection. I threw at him a series of punches in his ribcage before then focusing on his pressure points in his arms and legs.
This proved to be helpful as he would begin to swing punches at me much more slowly than earlier in the palace. He began to slowly get more erratic with his moves that I decided to toy with him a bit and walk around the courtyard, which greatly pissed him off even more. Seeing the anger boiling over, I decided to finally pull the plug and prepare the final blow.
After a few moments of toying around, I then re-hit him with a dual palm strike that propelled him across the courtyard floor and gave some distance between us.
He got back up and then fully sprinted towards me on all fours. I simply waited for the right moment before giving him a final blow. Just as he was to pounce, I did the splits and then threw him into the air a good few feet. Just as he was about to land face first into the ground, I caught him and proceeded to execute a thunderous spinebuster on the ground.
The impact was so violent that I actually heard a few bones physically break along with his breath getting cut. I knew at that moment, our fight was over. I then got up and began soaking in the moment, but that was cut short by the sound of scraping coming from behind me.
I turned and was shocked to see that Shifu somehow mustered up enough strength to slide down the stairs from the palace on one of the shields that were on display in the Hall of Heroes.
"Shifu!" I ran over to check on him.
"Shifu, you alright?"
He looked at me.
"John, what are you doing here? I thought that-"
"I stayed behind. I wasn't gonna let that snow leopard kill you. After all, you did say that you wanted to be a better father for Tigress. Now come on, I have some supplies to help patch you up."
As I got up, I noticed how much pain he was in. I then decided on carrying him to my things.
"Here, get on my back." I knelt down.
He grabs onto my body armor and I begin making my way back to my stuff. However, Tai Lung then began to show signs of life and started to slowly get back up.
"Oh for fuck sakes." I said.
"He's still alive?" Shifu asked.
"Not for long though."
I was about to reach for my pistol, when Shifu had other ideas.
"Wait, I have an idea." He said.
He whispered to me what his plan was, which was we bait him for Shifu to use the Wuxi Finger Hold on him. I walked over to Tai Lung just as he got back on his feet.
"You...can't defeat me. You are just...a mangy...rabid...mutt." He slurred and gave a weak punch attempt which I was able to stop by catching his index finger.
"See that's where you're wrong Tai. I ain't no mutt…" I looked at Shifu and gave a smirk before turning back to Tai Lung.
"I'm just some flying redneck from Dallas Texas, and you sir just met your match." I said.
I raised my pinky which scared Tai Lung shitless.
"The Wuxi Finger Hold!"
"Oh you know this?"
"You're bluffing. YOU'RE BLUFFING, Shifu never taught you that!" Tai Lung said.
I then sighed in defeat and put my pinky down.
"You caught me, he didn't. But hey, gotta at least give me an A for effort."
I then spit in his eye, which caused him to momentarily lean back, giving me enough time to sneak a knee to the gut before grabbing his hand, kneel forward and give Shifu the honours.
"Now!" I yelled.
He applied the hold and paused.
"Goodbye son." Shifu flexed his pinky and the hold was set.
I then kicked him away from us and just to make sure, I pulled out my pistol, cocked it and fired all eight rounds into Tai Lung. Just before he fell to the ground, a bright flash emitted from his body.
"Brace yourself John." Shifu told me.
I blocked my eyes and stood my ground as the light got brighter before all at once, an explosion of energy emanating a shockwave caused my shirt to rip itself off from my body. It had already been ripped to shreds during the fight with Tai Lung.
I moved my hand away from my face and looked to see the mess left behind. To my surprise, apart from blood on the ground from where Tai Lung was standing, there was nothing left of him.
"Getcha' Pull, motherfucker." I said aloud to myself.
Finally, the battle was over and Tai Lung was dead. But a new problem had emerged from the aftermath, Shifu was in need of medical attention.