Hello there!
(Insert fanfare here)
Welcome, welcome! Finally, we have come to the end of this seven-part collection! For the final one-shot, I'm proud to present something you might not have expected…
The following piece you're about to read isn't complete. In fact, it's about six pieces shy of being complete.
You see, the one-shot Supper's Ready is what I like to call a "long-shot," named from it's length, despite still all being posted on one page. I have plans to create seven of these in total (but really six, since I've already written Supper's Ready). Seven long-shots that'll cover a variety of different topics and each have different tones.
From a dark action story to a parody of KFP fanfiction to the reality of getting old, there's still so much fun to be had!
Today, you'll be reading part I of The Power to Believe. This one-shot is incomplete because its form takes inspiration from King Crimson's Lark's Tounge in Aspic. It's a multi-part song that has pieces of it broken up and scattered through different four different albums. Its first part and final part are on albums that were written nearly thirty years apart, the first in the '70s and the final in 2005 (I think. Or maybe it was 2000?).
I thought that was a pretty cool concept, to break up a single piece throughout different collections, so that's exactly what I'm going to do.
So, without further ado, I present to you this… multi-shot?
Summary: Master Shifu is a rather complicated person. From having his own father abandon him as a small child to the glories of being a kung-fu master, this red panda's life is riddled with unexpected events. The journey of life is a strange one, for sure…
The Power to Believe- Part I
"AAAHHHHHH!" Tigress screamed out at the very top of her small, yet potent, lungs. Her small fists were raised, and, as she opened up her right palm, wooden shavings and splinters fell out of them. Some of those large splinters stuck in her paw, causing it to bleed, but she was much too angry to feel the pain.
"No," Shifu calmly, yet sternly replied, pointing his paw out and pointing at her. "Control," he said. "You must learn control. Not only of your strength, but of your emotions. Come, let's try again."
As the small tiger cub panted and shook with rage, she realized something.
This small red panda, just about her own size, didn't run away. He didn't scream, or hide, or flee in terror. He didn't grab anything, such as a broom or staff to keep her at a distance. He only seemed mildly irritated, yet still perfectly patient.
Who was this person?
The caretakers of Bao-Gu Orphanage had summoned Master Shifu of the Jade Palace when one of their children proved to be a little too much for them to handle. And so, this legendary kung-fu master, who was rather busy with the whole saving-the-Valley-on-a-near-daily-basis sort of business, including training with the great Grandmaster Oogway, took the time to come out to Bao-Gu to see what could possibly be so horribly wrong with this child.
Master Shifu himself wasn't fully sure of the exact reasons he had decided to come. Of course, part of him was able to discern from the letter that, based on the fear the caretakers had of her, there must have been absolute terror from the perspective of the other children. There could be no doubt that she must have been living a very tormented life there.
But another part of Shifu was traveling for a different reason. He hadn't known anything about the girl's situation until he had arrived, but he knew the feeling of being abandoned quite well. And he didn't want anyone to have to feeling that for too long.
When he had arrived at the orphanage, and he had tolerated the caretaker's rambling and ranting over how "dangerous" this six-year-old was, he finally met her.
The first thing that struck him as he approached the door was the fact that it had bars on it, and also that the wood was reinforced with metal. It seemed a lot more like a cage than a room. Not to mention it was far away from the other children's quarters.
But it wasn't until he had opened the door that he knew the true meaning of pity. The room itself seemed to be something similar to a prison cell in Chor-Gom. The stone walls had claw marks running down them in various areas, some of the floorboards had been smashed, with the broken planks still sticking up or tossed to the side, and parts of the mattress had been ripped open and scattered across the room.
What was most surprising was that, at the center of all this carnage, huddled by the corner of the room, was a small child.
"Tigress," he had said. "I'm Master Shifu. I am -"
"Afraid?" the child responded, turning her head halfway to look at him. He could see that she had been crying, with drying tears staining her face and bloodshot amber eyes.
Shifu had been slightly taken aback by the child's comment. Her response had come so automatically that he knew this belief had been ingrained into her thought process by the people around her. Part of him felt like punishing these people for all they had done to her. How dare they make a child believe something like that!?
But, wrath would not get him, nor the girl, anywhere. So, to prove her words wrong, he stepped forward and shut the door behind him, so that now he was in her room with her, alone.
"No," he replied, keeping his voice calm and steady despite the anger building inside.
"You should be!" the tiger cub answered, "I'm Tigress! Tigress the Monster!"
But, the cub's anger soon turned into sorrow, and she lowered her head and spoke in a barely audible tone.
"A monster no one wants…"
"You're not a monster," Shifu quickly refuted. "You're just a little girl."
The red panda knew right then, at that moment, no matter what happened next, that he would never forget the look of hope on that little girl's face when she lifted her chin to look at him.
It had been only a few days since their introduction to each other, and Shifu had been staying in an inn during the nights so that he could come back each morning. Every morning, when he arrived at the courtyard, the other children in the orphanage would flock over to him and swarm him, all fanboying or fangirling over such a well-known figure such as Master Shifu.
The red panda always managed to keep his composure, but a part of him wanted to snap at the kids and scold them for what they'd done - and what they were still doing - to another child. How could they be out here playing in the Sun, enjoying themselves, while she was suffering in that dark cage?
But, he managed to ignore them and make his way to Tigress' room.
On the first day they met, shortly after their introduction, Shifu had pulled out a small box and placed it on the floor. He had gestured for Tigress to sit down by his side, which was a gesture that greatly surprised Tigress. No one wanted to be within twenty feet of her, much less right next to her. But, after he gestured once more, she complied, timidly walking up to him and sitting down. She didn't know it, but she was much more afraid than he was.
Shifu had opened up the box and began pulling out a domino collection. One by one, he began setting them upright on the floor, placing them close together so that they could easily knock one another down should just a single one of them fall. He set them in such a way that, when they fell, the different colored sides of the dominoes all came together to create a beautiful yin-yang symbol.
Then, he placed the fallen domines back in the box and slid it over to the cub and told her to try.
Still very cautious of this stranger, believing he was playing some sort of game with her - which, he was, but just not a malicious one as she suspected - she timidly reached for the inside of the box.
As soon as her paw grasped one of the wooden toys, a soft sound was heard.
Crunch!
As Tigress felt the structure of the rectangular wood give way in her paws, she turned her paw over and opened it up, revealing a smashed-up set of wooden splinters.
Usually, situations like this never ended well for Tigress. The caretakers and the other children would get these terrible expressions of fear on their faces, and who knew what would happen next. Perhaps they'd all run away and leave Tigress on her own, or perhaps one coward among them, pretending to be brave, would try and scare her off by telling her what a freak she was - usually if they were at the back of the crowd.
"Uh… I'm… Oh…" she stuttered, desperately hoping that this stranger, the first person to show her any semblance of kindness, would not turn out to be just like the others.
Much to her surprise, he didn't.
He looked down at her outstretched paw for a few seconds, and said nothing. His eyes held no fear in them at all. Then, he held out his own hand, took the girl's paw, and wiped off the wooden splinters.
"Try again," he calmly said.
And so she did. Again… and again… and again.
"I need to go and buy some more dominoes," the red panda systematically noted in his head as they made their way through the eighth domino.
Eventually though, the little cub managed to pick up a domino from the box and balance it on the floor.
There it was, a single domino, standing upright, looking quite alone without any fellow dominoes to fall down with. But when Tigress retracted her paw, her eyes were wider than ever before.
She had done it. She had actually done it.
The cub turned her shocked gaze to the red panda, who was sitting there, staring at the lone domino. The corners of his lips were slightly curled upwards, and Tigress could see that he was happy that she had finally done it.
But then, he turned back to her and said -
"Do you think you can place down a few more? Like I did?"
It may have seemed a simple request to most, but to Tigress, it was like asking her to fly right after she just learned to crawl.
A few days, later, currently, Tigress stood, calming down after her small roar. She now had several of these dominoes laid down in a circular pattern, and, most of the time, she didn't even crush the frail wooden dominoes in her paws. Although, it was starting to get quite frustrating when a domino shattered in her grip.
She looked back over at Shifu, who still was calmly sitting down over by the side of the room, seemingly unflinched by her display of fury. He raised his brow, suggesting she should continue as he had instructed.
A little reluctantly, she did so, not looking forward to reminder after reminder of her shortcomings. Yet, she had made tremendous progress from only a few days before, and so she had hope that this stranger knew something that she didn't.
Soon, after several more minutes of work, of broken dominoes, and of dropped wooden shavings, the figure was complete.
"Very good," Shifu told her as he walked over, his arms folded across his chest, with each arm inside the other's sleeve. "Now, all you have to do is tip it over."
Tigress was hesitant to do so, as she had spent many hours trying to lay down these many. Of course, there had been many incidents where she had accidentally knocked down an already-standing domino while trying to place another one next to it, which ruined the whole effort, so she was in no hurry to destroy the small work of art she had created by tipping all of them over.
Perhaps she should just leave them like this forever, and never touch them again. At least then, she would be able to wake up every morning and see what she had done: proof that she was more than what everyone else said she was.
But, as Shifu egged her on, she reached over and knocked over the first domino. It fell, falling into the second one, which fell into the third one, making a clicking sound with each collision. Every single click sent tingles down the cub's spine.
Finally, after the last one had fallen, lay an image of a yin-yang symbol. Tigress' jaw dropped in shock.
She turned to Shifu, who was smiling once again. Now, the same question burned in her mind once again.
Who was this person?
And so, we end this collection by… embarking on something new. Irritating, I know!
Let me see what I can ramble about now… Oh, yes! The Dragon Knight!
If you're interested in other people's opinions on the show, then I will offer mine. The show is… pretty bad. I have a few reasons why, although I already stated them in the review of Lion Warriors Lion's Second Book of One-Shots (an excellent collection, by the way! I'd by lying if I said that I wasn't partially inspired to make this very collection from his…) those reasons, so it feels pretty repetitive to repeat them.
Although, I think there's just one important point I missed. While it was great that they got Jack Black for the show, he's simply unable to help the trainwreck that the show is. Now, it's not his fault, or any of the other voice actors, for that matter, they all do a fine job, but, unfortunately, they're at the mercy of the writers, who are in turn at the mercy of the corporate folks over at Dreamworks who demand that the show come out now.
So who do I blame? I blame greedy corporates. Damn, this got political real quick.
Anyway, enough of my opinion. I'm sure you have your own, and, in all honesty, you should probably watch the show so you can have your own opinion. Maybe you'll see the hidden art that I just can't.
Keep being awesome!