Hello there!
I welcome you to my latest chapter! I don't really have that much to say…
Oh yeah, this chapter is named after King Crimson's Sleepless! The title of the chapter is pretty much self-explanatory, so I'll quit boring you with my music suggestions ;)
On with the show!
The door creaked open. The goat walked in and closed the door behind him. He turned back around to look at the dark house. He shuffled around for a few seconds until he found the matches on a nearby table. He lit one, reached for a candle next to the matches, and lit it. He lifted it up and looked around.
His house looked exactly the same as it had before he left for work this morning. Like the shop, Shao's house was spotless. There was not a single particle of dirt or dust to be found. The furniture was nothing special; it was just like everybody else's. A chair sat by the fireplace, with a small table in front of it to hold his evening tea. Above the mantle was a vase of fresh white flowers. The walls were made of the same bamboo wood that many houses were made up of. It was painted a dark brown on the inside. While it did look nice, it didn't help with brightening the place up.
Shao lit the fireplace and placed the tea kettle above it, which he had already prepared that morning before he left. As he waited for the water to boil, he sat absent-mindedly in the chair, staring into the flames within the fireplace. After a few minutes, he found his hoof reaching for the inside of his robe. He had brought something with him when he had come home. Something he hadn't had when he left that morning.
He pulled it out and looked at it in detail. The wooden object looked harmless. It seemed like a piece of decoration; something to put over the mantle. But he had seen what it could do. A single pull of the metal trigger, and whoever it was pointed at would surely be dead. Part of him felt like he had no business with this thing.
"This belongs in the hands of the government. Something like this, the black powder; it's dangerous. What would it mean if this got loose? What if they made more? If armies were equipped with this…" bloody thoughts made Shao stop thinking about it. The fact was, he hated blood. The very sight of it made him nauseous. Even when he accidentally cut himself, he had to quickly clean it up and cover it to stop the bleeding so he didn't have to see it, so he didn't have to feel it running down his skin, getting his fur wet. He had always had a fear of blood ever since that day.
"No," he begged himself. "Don't think about that." But it was too late. The memories came back to him, whether he liked it or not.
Gong! Gong! Gong! Go-
The ringing of the attack bell was suddenly cut off. Shao clung to his mother's leg, who held him tightly. At the moment, he and his parents were hiding in the closet, hoping the bandits would pass by their house. It was pitch black in the closet, but he could hear the heavy breathing of the three of them.
There were crashes outside as the bandits came closer and closer to the house. Eventually, they heard the dreaded sound of their own door giving way. Shao, who couldn't have been more than six, almost screamed, but his mother put her hoof over his mouth just in time to catch it. He could feel his parents tensing up as the sounds of the bandits tearing through their house, looking for anything of value, came closer. Eventually, the door to the closet was torn open, and Shao and his family were violently grabbed and thrown down on the floor. They were quickly picked back up and held in place by two leopards. Shao looked up around, and saw huge leopards, lions, crocs, and wolves tearing his house to shreds. Tables were flipped and doors torn right off the hinges. There wasn't a whole lot of valuables in the house, but one of the bandits saw the ring on the finger of his mother. He pointed at it.
"Give me that!" he viciously shouted. His mother desperately tried to get it off, but she hadn't removed it in so long that it wouldn't come off easily. Getting impatient, the bandit roughly grabbed his mother and tried to rip it off of her finger. But he couldn't pull it off either, and his mother only screamed in pain and fear. His father had had enough of the bandits, so he tore himself loose from the bandit who was holding him and tried to come to his wife's aid.
"Get off of-"
Those were the last words of Shao's father. The leopard who had lost his grip on his father angrily pulled a knife from a sheath by his side and stabbed the goat right in the back. Immediately on impact, the blood spurted right on Shao's face, getting in his eyes and mouth. The terrified child desperately tried to get if off, but to no avail.
Meanwhile, at her husband's death, Shao's mother had screamed. She pounded on the bandit still trying to get the ring off in a mixture of rage and grief. The bandit, now getting angry himself, pulled a knife from his own sheath and killed her the same way that her husband died. The other bandits came from the other rooms, having taken the few things of value, and they all rushed out of the door, ready to join back with their comrades who were invading other homes.
The bandits had come like a tornado. They had been swift but had done irreparable damage. There was only one thing left intact. A small child, standing alone amidst the damage and death. He could not comprehend what had just happened; he refused to believe it. If he just stood there and waited, he thought, he would wake up from what was clearly a bad dream.
But no matter how long he waited, he did not wake up. Trembling, with tears building in his eyes, he dared to look down at his feet. The sight before him scarred him forever. The tears in his eyes burst out, and Shao stooped down and laid on the bodies of his parents, wailing with the sounds of a terrible sorrow. He got on his knees and peered at his mother's face. It wasn't damaged, as she had been stabbed in the chest. He reached down with his small hooves and tried to hold her face.
"Wake up," he softly said. There was no response.
"Wake up." A little louder this time. He gave her a little shake. But there was still no response. Shao couldn't take it anymore.
"WAKE UP! WAKE UP! YOU HAVE TO GET UP! COME ON, GET UP!" With that, Shao resumed his wails as he rested his small head on her cheek and kept on sobbing. He got back up and looked at his mother's hand. The ring was now on the tip of her finger, as the bandit had almost removed it. Shao snatched it up, and held it in his hoof.
Shao had never hated anything when he was that young. But he hated that ring with every fiber of his being. He angrily threw it away as hard as he could, and bent down once more on his mother.
After the bandits had moved out of the area, and his neighbors had come to make sure everyone was alright, a tearful sight was before them. A little boy, sobbing on top of the bodies of his parents. A few people looked on in horror, and some moved forward to pick up Shao. As they lifted him up, he struggled and kicked, desperately trying to get back to his mother's touch.
"NO! NO! NO!" he wailed. But his neighbors did not heed his calls, taking him out of the house. He would never see his parents again.
Shao sipped his tea, finished with his memories. Even after all these years, and after running that memory through his head countless times, they still brought tears to his eyes. He set the empty tea cup down on the table and finished the last few sips of the soup he had been eating as he was reliving that cursed moment. He got up and left the living room, heading across the hall and into his bedroom.
In the bedroom, there was only his bed, which rested against the side of the room, and a wardrobe, which were the only two things in the room. As Shao started preparing to go to bed, he pulled out the wooden object and set it on top of the wardrobe. He looked at it, and he realized that the time had come to really think about what he was going to do. The words of the ram echoed in his head.
"So you mean you don't have what it takes to make the world a better place."
"No," Shao thought. "That can't be how to go about it. Killing people won't solve anything."
After a few moments spent reassuring himself about his decision, he set the object down again and prepared himself for bed. When he was ready, he blew out the candle on top of the wardrobe and rested on the top of the bed. He stared up at the dark ceiling for a while before closing his eyes.
The first thought he had was of the Dragon Warrior and the Furious Five walking through the streets, as people parted to the sides and clapped and cheered. They were treated like gods, Shao thought.
Before he drifted off to sleep, one more thought ran through his head.
"But it wasn't always that way for some of them."
After the attack on his village and the death of his parents, Shao had been sent to the nearby Bao-Gu Orphanage. He was a mess most of the time, running that scene through his head over and over again. Out of all the things that happened, the one thing that stuck out in his memory was the blood. He could still feel it on his face, burning his eyes. He could still remember the salty, metallic taste of it on his tongue.
Shao had done his best to take the hand of the sheep standing outside of the gates. He tried not to think about why he was going there. He just focused on putting one hoof forward at a time. Right hoof, left hoof, right hoof, left hoof, and on and on until he got where he needed to go. The caretaker looked at him with a deep smile.
Even though Shao was only six, he had watched his parents interact with other adults. He knew that the caretakers' smile was fake. It was not the smile of a friend or a family member. It was like the smiles of the vendors in the streets, tricking you into believing that they were your friends so you would buy something. The smile was only on her lips, but it was nowhere to be found in her eyes.
Shao instinctively decided that he didn't like this person. She stooped down to his height so she could talk to him. Actually, it bothered him when adults did that. He may have been small, but he was quite capable of looking in an upward direction. She spoke in a tone that matched her fake smile.
"Hi!" The words were forced and exaggerated. "What's your name?"
Shao had half a mind to tell her, "Why do you need to know? You'll forget about it in five seconds anyway." But, he didn't have the courage to say anything like that. So instead, he just shrugged.
The caretaker didn't really seem to mind that she hadn't learned his name, and she stood back up and took his hoof, taking him from his neighbors who had brought him to this place.
Shao walked through the front doors, with the sun shining and clear skies over the round courtyard. Kids were playing, and the scene was very welcoming. The sheep leading him stopped and let go of his hoof. He looked up at her, unsure of what to do, and she gestured for him to go on. He timidly shuffled forward, wishing that he could hold on to something with his hooves. There was nothing, but he soon realized he didn't need it. The children running around quickly "tagged" him, and before he knew it, he was soon running around among them. He would always remember that moment with some happiness. He ran and rolled around as much as he could until the sun set on the horizon, and then happily ate with the other kids until it was time for bed.
However, the night was not as friendly as the day had been.
Shao woke up and decided that he had to go to the bathroom. He fumbled around in the hallways, looking around to find it. While he didn't actually find the bathroom, he found something much more interesting. There was a thick wooden door, reinforced with metal bars. There was a tiny window towards the top of the door, but he was much too small to look through it.
Shao approached the door with curiosity. He put his ear forward, and could make out some sounds coming from the room. It sounded like… sobbing? Was there a person in there, he wondered? Why was someone shut in this room, kept away from everybody else? He was determined to find out, so he raised his small hoof and softly knocked on the door.
"Hello," he softly said. He heard the sobs stop, and some creaking sounds as the inhabitant of the room got out of its bed. He heard some steps coming toward the door.
"Who is it?" a voice timidly asked from the other side. Shao was in shock. It was the voice of a little girl! Why was she in that… cage!?
Determined to speak with her, he replied, "My name is-" but that was as far as he got before he was suddenly snatched up by the armpits and found himself dangling in the air in the hands of the head caretaker.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?" she screamed at his face.
"I...umm… I just-" Shao was caught by surprise by the caretaker's sudden appearance and didn't know what to say.
"Don't ever do that again!" she yelled. "Don't you know how dangerous that… monster is!?"
Shao could hear fresh sobs coming from the other side of the cage door. Part of him felt that it was wrong, but he was now too afraid of the caretaker to say anything. He quickly nodded his head, and the caretaker put him back down on the floor. She all but shoved him back to the bedroom, where everyone was now wide awake because of her outburst. All the kids looked at him with a look of sympathy, as each and every one of them were afraid of what was behind that door. It wasn't that they actually understood what exactly was behind it, as the head caretaker rarely took it outside while other kids were around. Many of the newer orphans had never even seen it. But the caretaker had instilled such a paralysing fear of it in them that they didn't need to see it.
Shao went back to bed, his imagination running wild. But no matter how the caretaker called it a monster, he would always remember the fear in that little girl's voice. How could something like a little girl be so frightening, he wondered?
A few months later, a day came that had been just like any other day in the orphanage, but ended quite differently. The caretaker had gone inside the cage in the morning. When the children came inside to eat, the sheep was standing in the eating area next to a little female tiger cub. The children all stared, surprised that was the thing that they were supposed to be afraid of.
The cub had her hands stuck to her sides, and her head drooped towards the ground. The caretaker announced-
"Children, this is Tigress. She will be joining you in your daily activities from now on." With that short explanation, she turned away and headed off to who knew where.
Supper commenced like all other suppers did. The only exception was the girl. She sat in a section alone, quietly eating her food. Shao really did feel bad for her, but he couldn't bring himself to go and sit with her. Everyone shot her fearful glances and stayed away from her as if she had the plague. Would they look at him that way if he went over there, he wondered? Would they all avoid him forever? Shao couldn't bear being alone; interaction kept him from thinking about his parents.
One time, she had tried her best to ask some children to play with her. She pretty much had to back them into a corner to get the two to listen. But no one heard her words. They only saw the deadly-looking fangs behind her soft smile and the sharp claws. The two only cowered in fear. The cub backed up some in shock at their reactions, and the two bolted away with the opening. Everyone heard the furious scream of the cub as she unsheathed her claws and smashed a nearby table to pieces.
The weeks passed by, and the looks of fear slowly turned to resentment. On one fateful day which he would never forget, they had all been getting ready for bed. The bedroom was a large hall with the headrest of each bed against the walls. A young pig walked up to her, determined to impress his friends with his bravery.
"Hey, freak!" he rudely addressed her. The cub didn't even turn to look at him; she only stiffened up.
"Yeah, that's right, I'm talking to you!" By now, the other kids were looking on with a mixture of fear and curiosity. What was the pig thinking? His friends were huddled in a corner, snickering at the scene.
Meanwhile, Tigress had put her paws over her ears.
"Leave me alone," she requested, her voice doing its best to suppress the raging emotions within. It was then that the pig made his mistake. He grabbed her shoulder, trying to turn her around so she would look at him. At that moment, the floodgates opened and the raging emotions burst through.
Tigress roared and jumped on top of the pig. She battered him with her fists, punching him and scratching him, biting him, knocking his teeth out, scratching his eyes, and breaking his snout. The pig screamed in fear and pain, but Tigress was relentless. She kept pounding on him. Everyone was paralysed with fear. They didn't dare try to get between the tiger and her victim. Even the caretakers who had rushed in the room when the noise started were now frozen in place, unwilling to put the pig's safety before their own.
But there was one thing that Shao would never forget. The blood. It was all over the pig's face, especially his snout. As she kept beating him, the blood got on her clothes and face. When Tigress finally decided that her vengeance was complete, she got up off of the pig. She looked around at the terror-stricken faces around her and her look of fury turned into one of despair. Her chest started to heave as she fought back tears, but it was too late. The tears burst out, and Tigress ran away down the halls. The caretakers all fearfully followed her. Some of them had nets and staffs in hand.
But the image of Tigress, looking up with an expression of primal hate, with her paws, lips, and teeth covered in blood and her clothes stained with it too; that would inhabit Shao's nightmares forever. He never slept well after that. What if it came for him in the night, he wondered? What if she decided that there would be no mercy for her next victim?
After the incident, the caretakers had imprisoned her once again in her cage. The pig did live, but many of his teeth had to be picked up from the floor, and one of his eyes was now scratched out, and his head looked like a rotting piece of fruit for several weeks. They had decided that it was time for her to go. So they brought in the expert. The student of the great Master Oogway himself. When he came into the orphanage, many of the children ogled and ran up to him, but he only had eyes for the door that contained the monster. He went in there, and many of the children were afraid that he would leave like the pig; sprawled over a stretcher, his face covered in his own blood.
But a few hours later, the kung-fu master emerged intact, much to everyone's surprise. He came back again and again, until one day she was able to stack some dominoes without crushing a single one in her paw. While it was impressive, it didn't do much for Shao. She would always be a monster in his eyes. Fortunately for the orphanage, Shifu took the monster away from that place. Shao had never experienced relief like that before. He could finally sleep again. He was so glad that he never had to deal with her again.
Shao, wide awake after his memory/ nightmare, now lied in his bed with his eyes open. He just couldn't get the memory of the young tigress with all that blood on her paws and teeth out of his head.
When Shao had finally been adopted and taken to the Valley of Peace, he was so glad to get out of the place that he had so many nightmares in. When Shao learned that Shifu was actually training the monster as a student, he was dumbfounded. He had always thought Shifu had taken it away to dispose of it, not to care for it. Didn't Shifu know that she could snap? What would happen then? She was no longer a cub, and her harsh training only increased her already deadly strength.
When the Furious Five came together, and eventually the Dragon Warrior followed, Shao could only shake his head. How could they sleep in the same mile radius as her!? He came to the conclusion that she must have been hiding her true self. That was the only explanation he could think of. Who else would live with that thing?
It took a few years after living in the Valley, but Shao remembered when he realized the cause of his problems.
Predators. The bandits that had taken his life away were all large predators, and the creature that tormented his nights at the orphanage was also a predator. It was a fact that they were prone to violence and aggression, and they had the physical tools to make their aggressive nature do a lot of damage. It was no wonder that crime appealed to a lot of them. How many predators did you see walking through the streets, Shao wondered? Maybe one every week or so. The people in the Valley were mostly bunnies and birds, such as ducks and geese. But the bandits? Sure, there were some rhinos and boars, but they were mostly made up of lions, leopards, crocs, and wolves.
Shao had voiced his opinion to his boss on many occasions when he was having a particularly bad day; when he had made the mistake of running the memories of his childhood through his head.
"Yes," he thought. "It really would be better if there were no predators. They're part of an outdated system of nature that no longer works. But then again, what am I going to do? I'm afraid you can't just go around exterminating an entire population, even if it might be best for everyone."
But one thing bothered Shao, a thought he couldn't get out of his head. Maybe he couldn't do everyone the favor of disposing of predators, but he could do one thing.
"I could remove them from positions of power. At least they won't be able to make any important decisions then. Let's see, who all is there? Master... " he struggled to actually think about her by her actual name. "... Tigress, Master Mantis, and Master Viper. But three? I couldn't do that, I'd get caught!"
Then, Shao remembered something else.
"Wait, don't Master Ox and Croc lead Gongmen now?" Master Croc… one would definitely be easier than three." Shao stood up and relit the candle on the wardrobe, reassuring himself that what he was planning to do was really for the best. The words of his boss echoed in his head once again.
"So you mean you don't have what it takes to make the world a better place."
Shao reached over and grabbed the wooden object the same way Qian had, with his hoof holding the curved end with a tip of the hoof over the metal trigger.
"No, he's wrong," Shao thought with a sense of resolve he hadn't ever felt before in his life.. "I do have what it takes."
It was dark outside, and the rain gently fell from the skies. Most people were asleep, but there was no sleep for some. This group included the drunks in the bars, who religiously came every night to forget their problems.
But this particular bar also had a second function. There were a surprising number of young waitresses who worked at the bar. They made quite a good amount of money in tips, in exchange for going behind the curtains with some drunk going through a middle age crisis.
Needless to say, it wasn't a very family-friendly restaurant. That's why it was such a surprise that outside, where a few tables were set up with umbrellas to hold off the rain, was a teenage leopard and his mother. They each had menus in their paws, sitting them up in a way where passersby couldn't see their faces. They used the light coming in from the restaurant windows to read the words on the menus, but they never actually ordered anything, despite the waitresses coming to prod them. They sat in silence for a few minutes, until the boy finally sighed.
"I don't think he'll be coming out anytime soon, mom."
It was then Lianmin's turn to sigh. "Well, I guess we'll just have to wait, then."
So that's what they did. They pretended that they were reading the menu once again, but anyone who looked at them for long enough would figure out that they weren't actually reading it. The boy put his down after a few more minutes.
"Why can't we just go in there and get him now? You know I hate waiting like this."
Lianmen rubbed the top of her snout in frustration. "I've told you many times, Peng, we need him to be alone before we catch him."
"Oh, come on! You know the two of us can handle ourselves in a bar. It's not exactly a fortress, mom."
A small growl came from Tai-Lung's lost sister. "Just do what I tell you. One day you'll understand why I make these decisions."
Peng leaned back in a mixture of frustration and boredom. Ever since he left his kung-fu club because he realized that it wasn't doing enough to help people, he had been accompanying his mother with her profession. She was employed by the government of the city of Ningjang because of her exceptional ability to find anybody. She could walk in an empty room and tell you exactly what had happened in it. Who came in, what they did, and how long they had been there. Of course, the government was more than glad to offer a generous amount of money for single criminals on the loose.
Peng had decided that he could help the world better by helping his mother. While she did know a little kung-fu- just enough to defend herself- it wasn't anything over the top, and Peng, despite being young, was still growing in ability. He initially didn't want anything to do with kung-fu after he had learned the fate of his uncle a few years ago, but he now realized that it wasn't kung-fu that was corrupt, it was his uncle himself. So, he had continued to train himself and his mother the best he could, as some criminals didn't have any desire to go to prison.
They had already bagged a few lower level criminals, but they had only recently started on some harder challenges. Peng pulled out the sketch that his employers had given them. On it was a middle aged rhino. In his mug sketch, his eyes weren't even looking at the person who drew it. They were half-lidded and glazed, which gave the impression that he had been drunk when they drew his picture. On the bottom, it read Murderer Wanted.
When he had escaped, the guards couldn't find him. He stayed in hiding for quite a while until they gave up and handed the job over to Lianmin. She had taken the job, as she knew it was going to be easy. The rhino was clearly a lifestyle drinker, and all they had to do was wait outside a bar. It was just a matter of finding which one he went to.
This was the fourth night they had stayed outside a bar, each night spent outside a different one. There was only one other bar in the city, so Peng felt pretty confident that they would find him here.
After a few agonizing hours, the rhino stumbled out of the bar. Lianmin shook her son by the shoulder, who was leaning back against the chair with his feet on the table and the menu over his sleeping face.
"Hmmm," he groaned. He leaned forward and looked at his mother, who gestured towards the rhino slowly walking down the streets, moving diagonally around, terribly singing some broken parts of a song. After he got a short distance away, Peng and Lianmin gently folded their menus, got up, pushed their chairs back towards the table, and casually headed in his direction.
Ahh, I kind of liked this chapter, if I do say so myself. I mean, I feel like the kids in the orphanage weren't really at fault for their treatment of Tigress. They were kids, and they didn't know any better. No, I've always thought the real monster of Bao-Gu was the caretaker, who instilled fear in everybody and made Tigress' life hell for really no reason.
I was also excited to introduce some new characters. They'll play an important role throughout the story, so their introduction is pretty important. Oh, by the way, a huge thank you to Frozen Wolf heart 22 for providing the name of Tai-Lung's sister! (Edit: it's Chinese for "mercy") I apologize if there weren't any of the main characters in this chapter, but there wasn't much room for them. Next chapter, next chapter, just wait a bit. Other than that, I can't really think of anything else to say, other than…
If you liked it, feel free to leave a review!
Keep being awesome!