Hello there!
Today, I have a little Halloween treat for you all (at least I hope it's good enough to be considered a treat. Hmm…)
Anyway, today's one-shot is based off the song (you guessed it!) Walk The Moon's Shut Up and Dance (With Me). Personally, I don't listen to a lot of music post-2010, much preferring to treat my ears to the '71-'89 time frame of music. I mean, it was the stuff I was weaned off growing up (still am). Music is literally the reason I was born (long story there spanning two generations ago involving steel guitars and town dances), and it's also where my pen name comes from, so I can't help but love it.
But, I would be lying if Shut Up and Dance wasn't catchy as hell.
While we're on that note, I should probably do that. Yeah, I'll just shut up and let the story roll…
Warning! The following piece you are about to read is historically inaccurate (by a lot), and I am well aware of this fact.
Wait, wait, wait! This takes place in between KFP 2 and 3, and I don't own Dreamworks or any of it's… yeah, you get it.
Enjoy the show!
Jade Palace- Evening
The great and legendary Master Tigress stood tall in her room in the Jade Palace, looking into the mirror in the corner. Master Tigress was known for a great many incredible feats, including but not limited to the defeat of Boar, surviving a fight against Tai-Lung, aiding in stopping Lord Shen, and defending the Valley from bandits and other dangerous threats such as Fenghuang on a regular basis.
Right now, she looked in the mirror, and her confidence became as low to the floor as Mantis' head was.
"I look like an idiot," she glumly thought to herself. "Oh, how did I ever let Po talk me into this stupid mess?"
Tigress took a few steps and plopped down on her bed, trying to recall the life choices that had led up to this moment.
"Let's see, where did it start?" she began. "Well, I suppose it started when Po brought up the Fall Festival. It started out as only talk, but he had already been to it before he had joined us in the Jade Palace, and it soon became dazzling tales of light, color, and festivities as he enraptured us over a delicious bowl of noodle soup. And then, all of sudden, Monkey felt the need to say that he would like to see that. And then Po said 'Yeah, you should!'"
Tigress stood up once again, a white sheet trailing her. She walked up to the mirror again and took a good, hard look. On top of her whole body was a white sheet, with holes cut out for her arms to fit through and eye-holes to see through.
Tigress' eyes narrowed in slight irritation at her own image. "Why did I let Po pick out my attire!? Surely no one down in the Valley will look this idotic!"
Suddenly, there was a rap on the door.
"Tigress!" came the voice of Po. "You almost ready in there!?"
Tigress put on the largest and fakest smile she had ever put on in her life as she turned in place to the door.
"Just a second!" she replied through gritted teeth.
"How's your…" Tigress could swear she could hear giggling under his breath. "Outfit coming along!?"
A part of Tigress felt like throwing open the door and ripping that stupid panda's head right off.
"Oh, Po, you're simply unparalleled in picking out good outfits!" she replied with no small amount of sarcasm.
She heard a self-satisfied sigh from the opposite side of the door. "Yeah. I know," he replied.
Either Tigress' joke had gone over his head or he had elected to ignore it. Tigress had a pretty good feeling that it was the latter.
"I'll be out in one second!" she shouted again, indirectly prompting Po to leave.
"Okay! We'll be waiting for you!" With that, she could hear Po's retreating footsteps down the hallway.
"Ugh," Tigress groaned as she continued to look into the mirror. The thing that really stumped her was how Po had ever managed to convince Master Shifu of letting them go and participate in the festivities. She and the rest of the Five had been training under him for years, and not once did he ever allow them to leave for "something so trivial as the Fall Festival." They had asked the first few years they had trained there, but Shifu's stern and decisive stance on the Fall Festival was quickly made painfully clear, and the topic was never brought up with him again.
So when Po had gone to ask Shifu, the Five had all expected him to come back with his head down, dragging his feet, with his little ears flat on his head. What they had not expected was a happy, bouncy Po sprinting back down the halls, panda asthma taking its effect, and telling them that they were allowed to go. On the condition that they bring back the largest prize available to win at the festival. As they looked into Po's red and flushed face, excited with the prospect of being able to escort his friends around the festival, they hadn't been sure if he was joking about that last part or not. They had been rather inclined to believe the former.
And that was how, on the twilight of the beginning of the week-long festivities of the Fall Festival, Tigress found herself in her room, with a sheet over her, in what she believed was a rather sad attempt to look frightening. Actually though, that wasn't quite accurate, as Tigress was afraid. Very afraid. Afraid of being laughed at on how ridiculous the costume looked.
Once again, Tigress tried to stand up straight as she looked in the mirror. Gathering what little dignity she had left, she turned around and faced the door, the sheet flowing behind her as she moved to the door and opened it. She passed into the hall and closed the door behind her. After she did so, she gently leaned her forehead against one of the thin bamboo beams that made up the frame of the door, and she closed her eyes.
"Oh, please gods, hear me now…" She then realized the gods were in a very weak position to help her. The predicament she found herself in was purely her own, and she had been a fool to let Po draw her into it. To back out now would be to greatly disappoint Po and all of her friends.
All there was now was to face her actions and do whatever it took to survive the night.
Gathering her courage, she took in a deep breath and took her head off of the wall, heading down the hall and taking the way out of the barracks, until she reached the outside of it.
When she stepped outside, the cool, crisp air of the coming night awaited her. She could see the full moon hovering just above the horizon just as the Sun had set, it's last licks of light still giving the sky a dark grey glow. A light autumn wind came by, rejuvenating the tiger, who had grown accustomed to the rather stuffy and hot air of the Training Hall.
Over by the top of the stairwell that led back to the Hall of Heroes, which in turn led to the top of the Thousand Steps, her friends were standing in a huddle, Po, Monkey, and Crane each holding a lantern in each paw or wing.
When Tigress came up close and saw her friends, she froze.
She looked at Po and wondered what he had on his body. His entire body was covered in a single piece of black cloth. But on the back, he had eight fuzzy, stiff tendons sticking out in different directions. Was he… a spider?
"Hey, Tigress!" the group collectively shouted. And when she looked at the rest of the group, she was no less impressed. From Monkey's ghoul-face mask to Crane's crow-like mask with goggles, which conveniently slipped right over his real beak, they all looked like a group that was about to get burned at the stake for witchcraft. Or rather sent to a mental home.
"Aww, Tigress!" Viper shouted out. "You look adorable in that costume!" This comment didn't help Tigress' confidence any, as she never enjoyed being called adorable. Po must have sensed her irritation, as he quickly announced to the group-
"Okay, you guys ready!?"
He was met with a general sound of agreement.
"Alright then! Let's hit it!" With that, the group began walking down the stairs.
They soon reached the Hall of Heroes and the Jade Palace Courtyard, and then began to descend on the Thousand Steps, each member of the group silent with anticipation. Soon, they began to see the distant lights in the Valley. At first, it was specks of light sprinkled throughout, but as they drew closer and closer, more and more lights began to rise out of the darkness. The colors began to change and the lights began to move as they got closer. It took a good while for them to descend the Thousand Steps, as they earned their name for a good reason, but they eventually approached the bottom of the thing that often triggered Po's panda asthma.
When they finally reached the bottom, quite a sight lay before them. By now, people had begun parading the streets, everyone holding lanterns in their paws. Music was seemingly coming from random places throughout, and people could be seen swaying and dancing along to their heart's content. Meanwhile, many vendors had set up stalls and tents, doing everything from selling various food items, many of which made Tigress' stomach rumble, to various games.
Po gave his friends a second to digest everything they saw before them, until he shouted out over the general noise of the crowd-
"Alright! I'll let you guys explore for about an hour, and then we can meet in my dad's shop and we can decide what to do next! Sound good!?"
Monkey and Mantis were already off before they had a chance to reply.
"Crane!?" Po asked, but he too was gone. He turned his head.
"Viper!?" Vanished from the place she had been only a second ago. Po shook his head. He supposed they had been excited to come back to the Fall Festival after all these years of being cooped up in the Palace after all. He turned back to Tigress, who was still timidly standing there.
"Want me to show you around a litte!?" he shouted out. Tigress nodded her head, as she certainly didn't want to go alone.
So the ghost and the spider walked into the crowd together.
As Tigress entered the crowd, she wildly swung her head around as she tried to take in everything around her in all at once. People were everywhere, but her fears of looking stupid were soon aliviated, as everyone around her seemed to be infected with the stupidity sickness, as they all seemed to be in a competition to see who could come up with the dumbest outift of all time.
Po, being Po, naturally first took Tigress to a vendor's stall who was selling food. More specifically, the pig was speedily whisking some sort of pink substance in a large pot around and around, both mixing the strange string-like substance and spinning the tool in his hooves, further twisting it and pulling it apart.
"Hello!" Po merrily greeted. When the vendor looked up and saw the only panda in the Valley, as well as two stiped arms sticking out of the sheet with amber eyes peering through the top of it, he had no doubt as to who it was. He jumped up in fright as such customers.
"Oh! It's you!" he shouted out, as their presence was completely unexpected at the event. The pig could not come up with a good reason for why they were at his stall.
"Relax!" Tigress shouted back. "We won't bite!"
After a few seconds of hesitation, the pig seemed to calm down a little. "Very well. May I help you?"
Po greedily looked down at his pot. "We'll take two sticks of that please!"
The pig looked down and realized for the first time what the two were there for. He then laughed as he understood that his fears had all been premature.
"Oh! Why of course!" he quickly fetched two thick paper cones and began to twirl them in his hooves, making the substance stick to the cone and build layers upon layers upon it. When a good bit had stuck to the cones, he held them up and handed them to the two warriors. Po reached in his pants, presumably to get a few coins to pay for the fare, but the pig quickly interrupted the act.
"Oh no! You two, of all people, don't have to pay! These two are on the house!"
Po's face lit up with pleasant surprise. "Oh, really!"
The pig quickly nodded.
Po chuckled. "Well, alright then!" He took both cones from the pig, handing one to Tigress. "Well, thanks so much!" The pig nodded to them with a smile, and the two turned and walked away.
Tigress held up the mysterious pink substance in front of her and debated as to what it could possibly be. Just before he was about to devour his own treat, Po turned to look at Tigress and saw her indecision.
"It's cotton candy!" he yelled out. "You eat it!" As to prove the point, he held it up to his mouth and took a huge bite out of the pink cotton-ball-like piece of fluff, his face obviously relishing it.
Tigress watched the spectacle with shock. "You eat this!? It looks like an attempt to poison us! Look at it! It's made of fibers! Surely it can't be edible!?"
Po tried to speak, but his mouth was still full. "Jus' 'ry it!"
Tigress looked back down at what she held in her paws. Shrugging, she decided to follow Po's advice as she timidly bent her head down and ripped a piece of the fabric off of the fluffy ball. When it hit her taste buds, her eyes went wide.
There were no words to describe that experience for Tigress. It was as if her taste buds had entered into a higher dimension. As the parts of her brain that experienced pleasure went crazy, Tigress quickly tore into the ball in front of her until there was nothing remaining after a few seconds.
Po looked on in surprise as Tigress licked her lips. He looked at his own cone, still mostly un-eaten. He looked back at Tigress, who now wore a guilty smile.
"Wow, Tigress! I never thought you could do that!" Tigress decided to take Po's words as a compliment.
"Anyway, why don't I show you something else!?" Tigress eagerly nodded, now willing to follow her teacher into the unknown after he had proven his knowledge with the delicious treat he had introduced her to.
They trudged through the ever-growing crowd, moving to a close-by stall. This one seemed to offer some kind of reward, as there were various stuffed animals on display. At the very top, however, was a striped tiger, and Tigress had a feeling it had something to do with Po's choice of that particular stall.
On the back of the stall was a wooden board, and various sizes and colors of balloons were arranged along it, with a ring of large red balloons making the outer ring, and a smaller ring of even smaller green balloons inside of it, and one very small blue balloon in the middle of it all.
"Step right up!" the bunny vendor shouted. "Three tries to pop the balloons!"
"Wanna try?" Po asked Tigress. She noticed that Po seemed awfully excited for something he wouldn't even be doing. Tigress nodded her head, and the vendor quickly handed her three darts, with sharp metal tips sticking out the ends.
"You get three shots! The smaller balloons you can pop, the better the prize! See if you can snag that blue one there!"
Tigress took the darts carefully in paw and decided to play along to Po's wishes. She held one up to her eye level and carefully aimed it at the blue balloon. She let it fly, and it seemed to be whisking its way right towards the balloon, but right before it could reach it, gravity seemed to have its way with the dart and it fell just short of the blue balloon, hitting the wooden board in the back.
"Ah, so close!" the vendor shouted in good sport, although Tigress heard something in his voice behind his words, although she couldn't quite place it.
"Ah, you can get it Tigress!" Po called out, trying to be her moral support.
Tigress tried again once more, as she held the second dart up to her eye again, aimed, and let it fly. She put extra force on it this time, determined to not fall short of the blue balloon. Once again, it whizzed its way through the air, and it seemed impossible for the dart to miss, but once again, it suddenly took a sharp downward turn and it just missed the balloon.
"Ah!" the vendor shouted once more. "I'm sure you'll get it this last time!"
Tigress' eyes looked at the vendor, and she knew something was off. Darts didn't just fall like that. It was almost as if something was pulling the darts downwards on purpose. Something like…
A magnet.
Really, Tigress thought? Were the vendors this dirty? She particularly may have not been being charged for it, but how much money did this guy make for a game people couldn't win? The more and more she thought about it, the angrier she became, but her anger soon cooled itself as a solution came to her.
"You got this Tigress!" Po's voice came from behind her again.
"Yes," Tigress thought. "I do got this."
Tigres readied her final dart, and she held it up to her eye once more. But suddenly, just before she threw it, she gasped in horror and pointed behind the vendor.
"What's that!?" she screamed out.
"What!?" the vendor yelled back as he quickly spun around. With his backside turned to Tigress, she threw the dart with all her might straight at the bunny's bottom, where it landed with perfect accuracy.
"YEEAOOOOH!" he screamed out the sharp dart penetrated his butt. Tigress quickly felt a paw on her shoulder that quickly led her away from the stall and back into the crowd. She turned around and expected Po about to scold her, but she only saw the panda holding his clenched paw up to his mouth, clearly trying to prevent himself from laughing out loud.
"What?" Tigress asked, a smile on her face and a laugh beginning to build up as she wanted to know what was so funny.
"Let's… let's," Po had to pause to try and control his laughter. "Let's just say this: remind me to never cheat against you in mahjong again!"
Tigess chuckled at the joke for a second before her eyes went wide and her head shot up the Po.
"You've cheated in mahjong!?"
Po's eyes went wide as he realized the slip of the tongue he had just made. As Tigress' amber eyes bored holes in his own, he quickly tried to talk his way out of it.
"Ummmm, let's see what else we can find!"
With that, he led her back into the crowd again, Tigress deciding to let go of his little confession. For now, anyway.
Eventually, they came to a small square where two streets met. A group of musicians had been playing as they approached, and had just finished playing a song when the two approached.
All around the square, people were gathered, all having a good time, dancing to the music the musicians had been playing. When they stopped, they all clapped and cheered. In the front, a lizard with green scales, standing upright on two feet and holding a stringed instrument in his front claws, stood up and began to speak as Tigress and Po entered the crowd.
"Thank you very much! And now we'd like to- oh, gods, what do we have here!?" he suddenly shouted out, his eyes directed straight at Po and Tigress. Immediately, everyone's eyes turned towards them, now in the center of the square.
"Oh, ladies and gentlemen, may I present Master Tigress and the Dragon Warrior! Come on, give them a big paw!" Instantly obeying his words, the crowd immediately began to clap and cheer. Po and Tigress, with their spider and ghost outfits, waved to the crowd, Po much more enthusiastically than Tigress. As the clapping died down, the lizard beckoned the two towards him and his band.
"Now tell me: surely there must be a song you two like?"
Po put his finger up to his chin as he tried to think about it. "Well, yeah, but…"
Meanwhile, Tigress had been thinking of ways to repay Po for getting her out of the Jade Palace for once and having a little fun again. And she decided on a wonderful way to do just that.
She leaned forward, and the lizard leaned to her, raising his claw to his ear, as Tigress whispered something into it.
When she finished, the lizard leaned back with a cheeky smile on his face.
"Ah, that one! Excellent choice!" he leaned back to his bandmates and repeated her words to them. Just then, she casually took the Dragon Warrior by the shoulder as she led him into the center of the crowd.
All of a sudden, the confidence that Po usually had seemed to ebb away as he realized what Tigress was about to do.
"Umm, Tigress?" he asked. "What are we doing?"
"We're going to dance!" she happily replied, so glad that she might be the one to show Po a good time so something.
"Oh, umm, dance? Yeah, about that…"
Tigress raised her brow.
"Umm, I can't dance."
Tigress' eyes flashed in pure shock. "You can't dance!? But I thought you said you've been to this festival before!"
Po was twiddling his thumbs together as he sheepishly replied, "Yeah, but I was the kind of guy who hung around the back near the food stalls!"
Tigress rolled her eyes as the band started playing the song she had requested. The whole crowd began to move to the rhythm, including Tigress herself. Although she hadn't danced much, she found it quite natural to move her body to any beat that she heard.
She laughed as she saw Po uncomfortably stand there, unsure of what to do with himself as he robotically tried to sway.
"But-but, what do I do!?" he cried out in distress.
Tigress could hear the words the musicians were singing, and paused just for a moment to answer his question. Just as they got to the part she needed, she put her finger up to Po's lips, silencing him and making his eyes go wide.
Tigress was silent for a second, until the band finally reached the point she needed it to. She smiled as the musician in front pointed into the crowd and they shouted back at the top of their lungs the answer to Po's question.
"SHUT UP AND DANCE WITH ME!"
And that's a wrap! So, what did you think?
Damn, I just realized I've gone from where I started in the summer to writing seasonal works! How time flies…
Well, I hope you liked the one-shot and I hope you have a happy Halloween!
Keep being awesome!