Mantis and Viper walked through the narrow hallway by themselves, making sure to stay close to each other whilst they trudged through the darkness.

"Ugh, I can't believe I encouraged us going in here in the first place!" Viper muttered her breath and lowered her head in shame, beating herself up and making Mantis' antenna droop in sympathy, "I-it's not your fault, Vip." He soothed her with his rarely gentle voice, "I'm the one who practically came up with this stupid idea. Don't blame yourself for something I did..."

When he thought he was gonna get his own words of comfort, he was only met with silence. Confused, he turned to Viper whilst she simply ignored him and continued to slither forward.

"Uh... Viper?" He called again, still being seemingly ignored by the serpent. "Hey! Vip! Aren't you listening to me!?" He screamed, desperate to get a reaction from her, perhaps just even a hiss... anything so that he knows that she knows he's there. But there was nothing...

It almost seemed like... he was invisible to her.

Soon it wasn't just Viper who was walking past him, simply ignoring his existence; somehow many other animals were just zooming past him. Some even tried trampling over him, which he quickly had to dodge just to avoid any damage. "Hey! Watch where you're going!" He exclaimed in a panic at a random rhino, who didn't even turn to blink an eye at him.

Mantis looked at his surroundings, confusion and fear starting to take over him.

"H-HELLO!? DOES ANYBODY HEAR ME!?"

His lungs started to heave and he started to sweat, desperately looking around at the crowds of people trampling around him... and even over him.

"Oh no... no no no... i-is it already happening!?" Mantis hopelessly looked up and around for a escape, a hint to get him out of this, assistance, something, but it was all for not.

No one can hear him, and that made him feel inadequate...

It made him feel terrified.

"HEEEEEEEEELP!" Viper froze when she heard the sudden scream of her insect companion, and whipped her head around in order to search for him. "Mantis!?" She called back, now dreading the fact that she was now alone. She retraced her steps a little (or... slithers?) in order to see if she would be able to find him, but gasped at the sight of her very friend... crushed to the ground.

The sight obviously horrified her as she felt tears bead her eyes, before slithering fast towards the poor bug. "MANTIS! W-WHAT—WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU?" She cried out as she held him on the tip of her tail.

"Y... you weren't... there.." Was all he was able to eek out before his weakened state took over... making him pass in Viper's embrace.

The sweet snake felt her eyes widen but only felt them gush more as the tears streamed down her cheeks. "No... no, no, no, no—MANTIS!? Mantis, please, wake up! This isn't funny! WAKE UP!" She desperately called out to the bug master, trembling and choking on her words.

"W-wake up, Mantis... please..." Finally giving up and letting the events right in front of her sink in, she simply dipped her head low and covered her face with her tail to sob...

That is, until, she heard a small cough in the distance. She raised her head up, still in tears, but pulling herself into a weak defensive stance. "W-who's there!?"

The coughing grew closer, and with it did her heart pace pick up, until she realised the figure in the distance was her dear friend, Crane. "OH CRANE! THANK GOODNESS! Y-YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT I JUST SAW— W-WE NEED TO HELP MANTIS—" She stopped her rant when she saw her coughing avian companion collapsed to the ground suddenly.

"C-Crane? CRANE!" She slithered towards the sickened bird, horrified at the sight of her usually composed friend coughing up blood. "H-help... help m-me..." Crane weakly yet gravely called to the snake with a ill rasp in his voice, reaching out to her with his stiff, mangled and broken wing.

Viper felt herself grimace at the sight, but still did her best to lift the bird up, "I-it's okay, Crane, I'm here, j-just hang on! Please hang on..." Before she could carry the bird on her back, he suddenly gagged and seized up on top of her, causing him to plop down and shake rapidly. "CRANE! CRANE!?" The female reptile yelled as she tried to cease his seizing, but when she thought she did... she realised he had stop breathing too.

"Crane...? CRANE!? OH NO PLEASE, GODS, NO, NOT YOU TOO!" She screamed and wailed, trying to pick up the bird's head, only to have it limp out of her grasp. "NO NO NO! WHAT HAVE I DONE!? CRANE! PLEASE! I-I CAN'T LOSE YOU TOO!"

As if things couldn't get any worse for her, she saw shadowed-like figures of her remaining friends, Monkey, Tigress and Po, all seemingly zombified by their own deaths, crawling towards her.

"G-guys!? GUYS!? WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU!?"

"What did you do, Viper?" They all asked in a synchronised, demonic monotone, freaking out the serpent master even more as she glanced to the body of Crane that they were referring to.

"I-I just... wanted to help... I-I wanted to help! I JUST WANTED TO HELP!" She screamed and sobbed to the shadow mirages.

"That's all you ever want to do." They all replied. "But you never succeeded. You simply let us all perish."

"No... I-I didn't mean to..."

"You weren't there. You didn't save us. Why didn't you save us, Viper?"

Viper wanted to speak—to protest to the figures, to whoever was playing this sick trick on her, that she had pure intentions... but all that came out was rigid breaths as the shadowed copies of her friends crawled closer and closer to her.


Monkey and Crane both cautiously moved through the narrow halls of the jaded atmosphere, staying close with the primate taking the lead. Each step they took shook a little more than the last.

"I-I really don't have a good feeling about this, Monkey.. i-it can be any m-moment until that... Hàipà menace uses our darkest fears against us.."

Monkey shrugged, trying his utmost hardest to keep his inner paranoia about this in tact, "Well... maybe it will be less scary if we just say what our fears are now, so that we know what to look out for! Thoughts?"

Crane simply deadpanned at the ape's attempt of being 'positive', causing said ape to scratch under his chin, "Right, forgot, you're almost scared of everything..."

"WHA—HAH—WHY YOU—" The avian started sputtering, making the mood ease for Monkey as he was admittedly fond of the large bird's flusteredness. "OH, AND I ASSUME YOU DON'T HAVE ANYTHING TO BE SCARED OF, TOUGH GUY?" Crane flew in front of Monkey and accused, quickly putting his companion on the defensive himself.

"I'm scared of things!"

Crane scoffed, "Oh yeah? Like what?!" He crossed his wings impatiently.

Monkey had to ponder for a moment. It's not like he didn't know what his fear was, in fact he knew exactly who he was afraid of, but unlike Crane, Po or Viper, he wasn't one to wear a lot of his vulnerability on his sleeve. Compassion, yes, but vulnerability? Having people truly discover his weaknesses? He would rather perish.

Still, he had to think of something just to give Crane some kind of answer, even if it was small.

He suddenly snapped his fingers. "Aha! I am lactose intolerant!"

"Monkey," Crane groaned and face-palmed... or... face-winged... himself, "Be serious!"

"I am being serious!" Monkey remarked, "Why do you think I treasure my almond cookies so much? Do you know how much it costs to get almond milk like that? Oof, and the fear that dairy products cause for me are seriously no joke..." The snub-nosed primate cradled his stomach, getting woozy just from the thought of a dairy product.

"I said 'scared', Monkey, not 'intolerant dietaries'!" Crane simply rolled his eyes and moved forward, feeling annoyed. "Gods, would it really kill you if you would just be honest about how you felt for once?"

Crane stopped when he wasn't returned with a snarky or goofy remark from his monkey companion, which internally freaked him out. He looked back at the paralysed, trembling ape in confusion. "Monkey? What's wrong?"

"...F-father...?"

That was all Monkey could eek out, alarming Crane even more as he turned towards the same direction Monkey was forced to stay still for, widening his eyes as he saw a bigger, but scrawnier and older primate of the same species as Monkey. With the noticeable differences being the older ape had thicker, greyer beard with his fur dulled out, his back was more arched to the point where it was abnormal, and his face and body were covered with stories worth of scars. He wore black rags, and carried an almost empty bottle of sake.

Monkey cowered at the sudden sight, feeling his legs give out under him, making him submit to the ground. "F-father... w-what are you doing here—y-you're supposed to be in prison..."

The primate spoke with a sudden softness—maybe even weakness in his mind—that Crane had never heard before now. And that only made the bird more worried. "Monkey? What—"

"You thought you could get rid of me, boy?"

"I-I... no... please, l-leave me alone... please..." Monkey started crawling back into the nearest wall of the looming cave with tears glimmering in his eyes, showing such cowardliness that his avian companion could have never comprehended the context of.

"Monkey! Snap out of it!" But it was too late for the bird, for he has been caught victim to the mindgames of this retched cave as well. Whilst he tried to fly over to his friend to help him, he was suddenly blocked by a caged wall coming down right in front of him.

Crane started to breathe heavily. "Oh no..." Before he knew it, cell bars erupted from every direction, forming a makeshift cage around the bird... trapping him in the process.

Now he was hyperventilating, trying to find any kind of escape out of this cage, flying against every single corner of his entrapment. "HELP! LET ME OUT! LET! ME! OUT! PLEASE, LET ME GO!" Though that only served to make things worse as the more he tried to force himself out of this predicament in order to mask his anxiety, the more the walls seemingly started to close in on him.

He retreated into a corner, feeling his breaths speed up evermore and his heart pound as he watched the world close in around him, making him spiral. "S-stop... STOP!" He buried his head in his wings and heaved, "I—I CAN'T BREATHE! PLEASE! STOP! I-I NEED... I NEED..." He turned back to the events playing outside his cage, trying to pry one of his wings out of the thin gaps of the metal bars to reach out to his poor friend, who is starting to get cornered too by the figure of his father.

"M-MONKEY! MONKEY! PLEASE!" He called out eagerly for his paralysed friend, only feeling himself get further pulled away from the primate than closer.

Meanwhile, the poor primate himself has been caught in a terror of his own, a sudden deja vu washing over him as he watches his clearly drunken father raise his sake bottle, ready to strike at his own son.

"F-father... Father—PLEASE, NO!... PLEASE, I BEG... I-I'M SORRY FOR SENDING YOU AWAY... I-I'M SORRY FOR CAUSING T-TROUBLE... I PROMISE I-I'LL BE GOOD! JUST... DON'T... DON'T HURT ME...!" Monkey hid his face, already knowing where this was gonna go.

The elder monkey simply sneered. "Still the pathetic boy your mother and brother abandoned, I see." And with that, he thrusted his bottle down, ready to come into contact with the young, terrified ape.


The panda and feline warriors cautiously moved through what seemed like a never-ending, narrow maze, with Po nervously gripping on Tigress whilst she wore a more brave face, keeping her ember eyes on every corner of her surroundings.

Whilst they were more so tiptoeing across the halls, Tigress started to speak, hopeful to get more information on this place out of her companion.

"Po... what else do you know about this place?"

The Dragon Warrior gulped, trembling behind her and gripping onto her hanfu sleeve tightly, "W-well... It's said that he would p-play tricks on your mind by showing you all of these i-illusions that represent your fear to keep you captive, b-but I d-don't know much other than the stories m-my dad told me when I was a kid... I-I always just thought it was a simple folktale to scare me into s-sleeping during bedtime..."

Tigress looked back at Po sceptically after hearing that last part. "Scare you into sleeping?"

The panda shrugged, "Hey, it worked."

The tiger just rolled her eyes and continued to walk forward calmly.

"S-speaking of which... are you"

"No, I'm not scared of anything." Tigress interrupted, quick enough to catch the Dragon Warrior off guard just a little bit.

His nerves stopped for a moment and was replaced with worry and compassion, as he ceased walking to move his paw down the tiger's arm and hold her paw. "Hey..."

Tigress stopped too, but refused to turn back to face him. Yet, her twitched ear did show that she was still listening to Po.

"I know what Hàipà is capable of. He's... very merciless to his 'victims'. I know you're all cool, brave and hardcore and all, but..." He trailed off, intertwining their fingers in the process and gently tightening his hold, making heat rise up to Tigress' cheeks from the contact.

"It's okay to be scared sometimes, y'know... like you said, we're going through this together, right?"

Tigress slowly turned her head to finally look at her dear friend, making him smile gently. "You don't have to be all tough and brave all the time, Ti. Not around me."

But when Tigress was about to open her mouth to say something, the two masters were suddenly interrupted by a familiar voice.

"Po?"

The panda, facing his back towards the figure, was quick to whip his head around and, to his shock, see his goose father Mr. Ping standing there, looking around in fear.

"Dad?" Po tore his paw away from Tigress, who was supposedly just as surprised as the Dragon Warrior was. Yet she couldn't help but also sense something... off about the endeavour. Something that wasn't right.

Nevertheless, the panda, understandably feeling a tidal wave of emotions, didn't hesitate to rush to the old noodle chef to tend to him. He knelt down in front of his father, not believing his eyes. "Dad, what are you doing here!? You shouldn't be here! It's not safe!"

"Wh—what is this place? Po, what's going on!?"

"We're in Hàipà's territory! He's real! And he's put us all through his sick game to scare us all!"

Tigress' ears perked when she was reminded of that. And suddenly it caused her eyes to harden into a suspicious glare as she kept close behind Po.

"Hàipà's real!? That wrenched beast!? Oh no, this can't be right! I knew something like this would happen! Did that ludicrous red panda force you on this mission as well!?"

"Ludicrous..?" Po was taken aback by Mr. Ping's choice or words, wincing at the words he used to describe Master Shifu. Especially since, even with the two's disagreements, they still respected each other.

Po was shaken out of his trance when Tigress gently put her paw on his shoulder, "Po, I don't think that's your father..."

"Of course I'm his father! How dare you accuse me of such just because I'm not the same species as my son!"

"That was not what I—"

"ARGH you kung fu masters! This is why I don't like you all! So righteous, so careless, ALWAYS putting my son in danger! If I had known he would be on all these horrid missions I would have shut down his SILLY kung fu phase a long time ago!"

"D-Dad!? What is going on with you!?" Po got up quickly and started to move back slowly, With Tigress of course aiding him and urging him.

"Po, we need to leave, now."

"Not so fast!" Another familiar bold voice that the two warriors recognised, making them turn their heads to the left where they heard the voice, being more shocked and confused when they saw their own Master Shifu come out into the light to face Mr. Ping with rage in his eyes.

"You dare impugn my honour!? Righteous? Ludicrous!? CARELESS!? It's not our fault your son CRASHED into our lives and caused havoc in the Jade Palace! HE'S the one that gets HIMSELF into danger, and WE'RE forced to pick up his mess!"

"W-what...?" Po, heartbroken from the words of his master, felt himself freeze and slump from where he was, seemingly put under another trance.

Tigress, desperate to look out for her friend, moved in front of the paralysed panda and gently shook his shoulders. "Po, please, these are probably those illusions you were talking about! I mean come on, you don't really think we think this way, right?"

Despite her compelling argument, instead of receiving a reassuring reply from the panda, he stood still and silent, which caused Tigress' eyes to widen even more and her ears to falter in sadness at the quiet realisation.

"...Right?"

"Don't you DARE talk about MY son like that!" Yet another booming voice, coming from the right in the cave's shadows, only to reveal the sight of Li Shan, coming into the war between Ping and Shifu.

"YOUR son!? You waited UNTIL HE WAS AN ADULT to come searching for Po, and within the first FIVE MINUTES of your return, you were pulling him away from me and his home!"

"Please, I LED him to his ACTUAL home! At least I'm his REAL father!"

Mr. Ping, Po and even Tigress understandably gasped at that statement. "That's enough from all of you!" Tigress snarled at the three older parental figures, who all seemingly ignored her, as they continued to argue amongst each other whilst she moved behind Po again to pull on his arm to grab his attention. "Come on, Po! We're leaving."

And yet, through some compulsive hold, the panda warrior stood still. More so, he even pulled his arm away from Tigress, despite her desperation.

"Po!" She pleaded, but Po nor his fathers and Shifu budged. It was as if she had fallen upon deaf ears whilst the ursine looked at his elder figures in fear like he was a small child watching his parents fight.

"You guys... stop it..." His voice was weak, saddened, even dull, but his fathers and his master didn't relent.

"Oh, for goodness sake, you two and your senseless bickering!" Shifu intruded, walking between the two dads, "Po has no time to focus on any of you! He must uphold his duties at the Jade Palace with NO distractions!"

"DISTRACTIONS!?" Mr. Ping and Li yelled, completely offended by the small red panda.

The elder goose turned to his son with a heartbroken face, "You don't think I'm a distraction, do you son?"

Po felt his ears droop at the question, "Dad, you know that's not—"

"OH YOU DO, DON'T YOU?"

"WHAT!?" Po finally yelled, exasperated at his avian father, "No, dad! That's FAR from the—"

"AHA! SEE!?" Li butted in, causing the younger panda to groan. "He doesn't need you, NOR does he need his fancy shmancy kung fu! What he truly needs is to be back with his kind!"

"No, what he needs is to stay at the palace and obtain his duties to compensate for his infinite mistakes!"

"You're BOTH wrong!" Mr. Ping cut in between Li and Shifu, "What he needs is to come back home and run the noodle shop with me for the rest of our days!"

"Stop it, stop it, stop it..." Po pleaded under his breath. He covered his ears and even pounded his fist at his own head, which made Tigress worry more about the Dragon Warrior's mental state.

She tried to force Po's wrist down, but her persistence couldn't seem to get through to Po, almost as if he was put under a compulsive spell.

"Po! Please! Snap out of it!" Tried as she might, even with her strength, she couldn't pull the panda away. Not this time.

Tigress turned to the suddenly echoing walls, hearing the familiar maniacal laughter that got her and her friends into this mess bouncing between the barriers. She growled in fury at the very sound, and to make matters worse, her surroundings became enveloped by the same mysterious purple fog, officially tearing her away from Po.

"ALRIGHT, HÀIPÀ! WHAT IS THIS MESS YOU GOT US IN, NOW?"

"Oh~ you like my game setup, kitty?" Hàipà's voice tormented the feline further. "I made sure to make it extra special for your precious panda~"

"SHOW YOURSELF, YOU COWARD! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH PO?!"

"Now hang on there, feisty! You know the rules; there is only ONE WAY to get out of this! If you want your panda back, then play nice." The intimidating dragon stated with a level of firmness that could freeze someone solid.

Tigress, however, scoffed. "And what if I don't?"

Suddenly, the infamous face of terror that was Hàipà appeared right in front of the feline, making her slightly flinch. "Oh, I'll make sure you do. You see, when I said I was going to have fun breaking you, I did truly mean it when I really found out what your REAL fear was."

The hardcore master took a deep breath to keep herself composed as Hàipà faded back into the purple smoke. "I don't have a fear."

"Bullshit."

That was the last thing she heard the fowl dragon say as the purple fog faded into a familiar, dark and cold place that Tigress seemed to have a distant memory of. A memory that once filled her with immense unease.

The clawmarks scratching up the walls, the broken down and torn up furniture, the little breakthrough at the top corner of the room that gave dim lighting to the evermore dark atmosphere.

What really set the tiger ablaze was that door at the end of the room, the one she tried throughout her whole childhood to constantly break free from.

Tigress' heart started pacing as everything clicked around her.

"...My... My fear isn't Bao Gu." She heaved her chest up and down in defence, trying to control her nerves.

The horrid dragon hummed, "You know, for a brave, 'cool' and... hardcore master such as yourself..." Tigress whipped her head around at the specific descriptions depicted for her. "I can't help but wonder if I'm the cowardly one... or if you are."

"I'm not a coward!" The feline protested.

"Yet you deny you have anything to cower for."

Tigress simply stayed silent, but quickly flinched back when she saw a rigid, orange and black blur swoosh behind her from the corner of her eye.

Once she turned to the direction the blur, she found a eerie shadow curled up in the coldest corner of the secluded room.

"You see, I know that you're not afraid of Bao Gu... but there was something—or someone, that you were truly terrified of whilst here, wasn't there?"

As Hàipà's voice ominously faded away after that statement, Tigress cautiously walked up to the shadow, as if some greater force lured her to the figure.

As she reached the corner, she slowly led out her paw to touch the shadow, only to have her nerves shaken when the shadowed figure suddenly turned to her and growled with a terrifying shriek, making her pull back. Her eyes widened when the eyes of the shadow glared through her. The eyes, the pointy ears, even the outlines of the shadow's razor sharp teeth all matched but one person. The very person that Tigress knew answered Hàipà's inquiry.

"..Me."