A/N: Hey guys. Hopefully, now that things are mellowing out for me and I'm not in a foreign country, I can get back to writing. Expect new chapters on the weekends.
Enjoy!
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"Dad?"
Li Shan turned slightly, acknowledging his son's presence while not turning his head away from the elder he was speaking to. When the conversation had finished, he turned, smiling widely.
"Lotus, my boy!" His arms were outstretched, smile wide on his face, but the worry lines on his forehead seemed more pronounced than they were the last time Po was there. "Glad to see you are awake!"
Li Shan wrapped his arm around his son's shoulders and they began walking together through the urgent atmosphere of the panda village. Po, for the life of him, couldn't remember how he got there, but his side ached with every breath and there was quite the gauze cast around his leg that was difficult to move in.

"How did I-"
"We found you passed out in the woods." Li Shan's smile faded.
It came back to Po in flashes. He remembered running, ducking through the undergrowth with sopping wet fur. The memory of howling pierced his ears.
"Tigress." The name fell across his lips in a panicked whisper as he remembered what happened in the gorge. "I need to find Tigress." He spoke up. Li Shan watched him cautiously, holding him back as he tried to jerk forward.
"Po!" The older Panda stopped him rather harshly. Li Shan looked around as though determining whether someone was listening, before dragging his son onto an empty path. "I understand, believe me I do, but the Valley of Peace was overrun. You go back there, and they will kill you."
"I have to find her-"
"I know, son." Li Shan relaxed his hold on Po, voice softening. "But for now, you need to rest and heal."
Deep down, Po knew his father was right. Now, he needed to focus on the evacuation. The entire village was moving up the mountain for their safety. He could find Tigress once they were settled. He followed as his father led him to the dining hall, intent on getting some food.
But the bad feeling in his gut would just not go away.
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"Where are we?" Yu called back softly, avoiding yelling in case they were being followed. But the thunderous bursts of lightning overhead would probably drown out anything they were yelling to each other anyway.
"No idea." Kai slowed until they were jogging side by side through the trees. They could still hear cannon fire in the distance.
Yu looked over and noticed that Kai was not only slowing down, but that his brow was creased deep with worry. "What is it?"
"I can't leave her." He breathed, finally coming to a stop. "I just,-I can't."
"Kai, we have to get this back to camp. Going back there is suicide, you know that." She urged, but in reality, she agreed with him. She wished she could help instead of running away like a kit. "What did you have in mind?"
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"This is not what I had in mind when we said we should come back to the valley!"
"Po, focus!" Tigress urged, yanking him down just as another explosion rocked the courtyard. They had managed to make it up the hill to the kitchen, which would buy them a little time until they could figure out their next move. From what they could gather, the cannon fire was coming from the valley below. It was safe to say that the wolves didn't specifically know where they were, and were firing randomly at the mountain.
"How did they even know we were here?" Po huffed out, looking angry and hiding his shaking paws at his side. They had barred the door with the kitchen table, and he leaned against it, feet splayed out in front of him.
"Probably have been patrolling the valley for a while, Po." Tigress' voice dropped. "We need to figure out how to get down from here." She winced as another cannon blast shook the building. "They'll bring down the whole mountain!"
"Can we hold out until this storm hits?" Po replied, casting his wide green eyes out the window at the approaching thunderheads bringing rain. Lightning flashed in the distance.
"Maybe." She winced at another explosion. The wooden walls rattled around them. Two pots clanged together from where they hung on the wall. She looked to Po and finally noticed just how bad he was shaking. "Po, what is it?"
"It's-it's nothing." He stood from where he sat, obviously avoiding her gaze.
"It's okay to be afraid." She replied softly, waiting for him to say something, anything. Another explosion, the walls shook. The pans clanged together in her head, and she suddenly got a really bad, probably deadly idea.
He finally looked at her, but only after she had turned her back and neared the wok hanging on the wall.
"I think they only brought one cannon." Her eyes remained focused on the wok, wondering where the hell an idea like that had come from. Usually Po was the one with the insane ideas.
"What makes you say that?"
"If they brought multiple, they would have obliterated us by now."
He knew that look on her face, the way her tail flicked back and forth. Despite all these years, he knew her body language just as well as though they hadn't been separated for a decade.
"What are you thinking?"
She turned towards him. For a moment, the room was quiet. He noticed it at the same time she did, and their eyes locked in mutual dread and understanding.
The cannon fire had stopped.
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"Excuse me, gentlemen," Kai tried to hide the fact that his paws were shaking by folding them behind his back and tightening his jaw,"But what exactly are you doing?"
Yu watched from the edge of the tree line as the entire pack, at least twenty wolves, turned towards the young tiger. The air seemed thick with tension, and with the cannon fire halted, the courtyard was completely silent. Only the thunder overhead broke the silence.
"You!" One of the wolves snarled, stepping forward a few paces. "I know you!" Several of his comrades growled low in response to the small escalation in hostilities.
"Do you now?" Kai smirked, trying not to look absolutely terrified at the several angry snarls directed his way. He just hoped that his mother would get the hint and run while she had the chance.
"You're that brat from the palace." A second wolf stepped forward.
"Oh, how clever." Kai nodded. He knew then that challenging them wouldn't be smart, so he decided to try a different tactic. "Bai Liang will be impressed."
The wolves seemed…confused for a moment. They watched him with a mixture of apprehension and distrust as he took one step forward, and then another.
Truth was, Kai had no plan when he decided to walk into the center of town to confront them. All he knew was that hopefully, by doing so, he could halt the cannon fire long enough for his mother to escape. With Bai Liang's communication network totally scattered (thanks to the rebels little uprising) and his wolves scattered all along the east, he hoped that they hadn't yet heard that he had escaped from the Imperial City, even though that had been at least two weeks ago.
"You look so confused. Surely you have heard?" Kai scoffed. "Bai Liang has requested your presence in the port cities. I assume you read the letter he sent many hours ago."
The first wolf that had stepped forward looked to the second, obviously confused. "We were given orders to remain here with the cannon and protect the valley from intruders."
"Those were your orders yesterday." Kai fired back, eyes stony. "I can assure you that the orders have changed." Out in the distance, he could see something moving quickly the thousand steps. He only hoped he could hold the wolves until his mother could get down to the village.
"And why should we believe you?" A third wolf stepped forward. As though psychic, several others also moved, their lips raised in a snarl. "You ran away from the Imperial palace, did you not?"
Shit, Kai thought to himself. They had heard. He forced himself not to show the dread that sat low in his belly and the ice that clung to his paws.
"You can believe whatever you'd like." Kai shrugged, remaining aloof. That moving shape going down the stairs had disappeared, and he hoped he hadn't been imagining it. "Just don't believe the wrong thing."
It seemed his words did the trick of making several of them second guess their actions. However, the big bad in front of the pack only snarled, not fooled by his words. Kai suddenly felt stupid for thinking this was a good idea at all.
"Take aim." The wolf replied, but he wasn't talking about at the mountain. The cannon swiveled, the wolves parted.
Yu bolted from the trees, trying her damndest to get to him, but he was too far away.
"FIRE!"
Kai was too surprised to move fast enough. There was an explosion, something collided into him.
And then darkness.

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A/N: I fixed the stupid format errors (hopefully)...