Hey guys here's the next chapter! Thanks for the feedback on the first one and the follows! It means a lot! Anyway, I hope you cats like this chapter and that it's interesting enough for ya ;) This will be the start of the 'Crucible,' if you will, and I won't reveal all that goes down; but I will say that the cult leader villain will be revealed sometime in a future chapter. Species and everything and no, he's not a crocodile! So, without further ado, let's Bruce Lee flying kick right into it!
It was almost daybreak and the wolves were advancing in towards the valley. Their leader commanded a handful of wolves to come in with him, the rest lying in wait atop the mountain, only a select few coming with their master. As they made their way stealthily towards the entrance of the valley, he unsheathed his second sword, now wielding two matched sickle blades.
"There is a reason why I picked only a few of you at first." the figure in the dark hooded cloak began. His red eyes glowed a blood red from the darkness of the hood. "I have carefully studied the Furious Five over the years, and have learned that they are quite difficult to beat." he said almost with a growl. "They can take on many at once but how many... I'm not sure. So this is a test; we'll call the rest once we need them." he said as the wolves nodded.
"Understood, Master!" they said subserviently, ready in an instant to give their lives without question.
The hooded figure then motioned for the wolves to pour into the valley and begin their work of fiery destruction. With their torches, they began to set fire to the various stores and homes in the village - it was chaos. Using their spears, they began to terrorize the villagers, shedding blood and killing the ones that tried to fight back or weren't fast enough to run away. Mr. Ping hid some of the villagers in his shop to escape the attack, barricading the entryway with tables and anything else they could find. As the carnage continued, some wolves with heavy hammers knocked out the supports of a nearby building, and it crumbled to the ground, crushing all the villagers in the vicinity.
Up at the Jade Palace, Shifu broke from his early morning meditation to see that the village was under attack. Pillars of black smoke could be seen, and horrible screams could be heard even from the mountaintop where the red panda watched all of this in horror. The aged master quickly broke from his trance and ran to the barracks to wake up the five and Po.
After rushing into the barracks and waking up the Five, who hearing of such a disaster arose with lightning speed, Shifu made his way to the Hall of Heroes to collect Master Oogway's staff, which he'd learned to use in battle. Tigress realized that one of the masters was missing, and dashed over to Po's room to wake the heavy sleeping panda up. However, when she opened his door and saw the panda curled up on his bed hugging his pillow, it almost made her regret having to interrupt his pleasant dreams with a real-life nightmare - but they had more urgent important matters at hand. She went over to him and, placing her paws on his shoulders, gently but firmly began to shake him awake.
"Po..." she said with a hint of urgency in her voice. "Po! Wake up!" she shouted a bit more firmly.
"Ahh!" the panda groaned, jumping awake from his slumber. "I'm awake, I'm awake!" he said somewhat sleepily. "Who's there? What's going on?" he asked as he turned around to see a pair of golden fiery amber eyes in his room.
"It's just me." Tigress started gently, before her facial expression quickly became serious. "There's trouble in the village - it's under attack: there's fire and people being attacked and slaughtered in the streets."
A look of horror came over Po's face. "What!? We have to stop this right now!" he said seriously, still horrified that someone had killed some of the villagers he was sworn to protect. "Who did this?"
"We don't know yet, but we're going to find out right now and stop them." Tigress said firmly and Po quickly jumped up, not wanting to waste a single second more.
"Alright - let's go! Those cowards better get a head-start on running away, 'cause it is on!" he said, balling his fist and running out of the room, Tigress following closely behind.
The now-awakened masters ran and met Shifu at the top of the steps leading to the village below.
"I'm coming with you. The fate of the valley depends on us today." Shifu said, grasping Oogway's staff firmly in his paw.
"Yes, Master Shifu!" they said, bowing before they quickly began making their way down the thousand steps; with Mantis perched atop his hat, Crane kept a tight flightpath above the rest as Tigress, Monkey, and Shifu leapt along the outer edges of the stairway, leaving Po and Viper to rush down the center steps.
Everyone took note of the flames and smoke in the valley below as they ran, and it was an unforgettable, horrifying sight. As the valley came into view, Po and the Five noticed the ones who were attacking the village looked familiar. While the seven were still-half way down the mountain, deciding to speed things up and not waste any more time, they jumped off the steps, falling through the air towards the wolves to make their surprise entrance. Once they landed the Five, Po and Shifu immediately got to work and began to fight and take down the wolves.
Tigress quickly found one wolf with a spear extended, heading straight for a villager who was running in sheer terror. The tiger, thinking fast, jumped in front of the wolf stopping him in his tracks. She then broke the spear in half with her ironwood-conditioned paws and it fell at his feet; the wolf was surprised and smirked under his mask. He then went to charge the tiger by throwing a wild punch swinging it towards her head. As if by complete reflex, Tigress effortlessly blocked it with one paw, and snapped his arm in half with the other - before he had time to yelp in pain, she then roundhouse kicked him on the side of the head, knocking him out cold. Another, seeing his partner was down, then charged the tiger but to no avail. She perfectly timed their approach and executed a spinning tornado kick sending the wolf flying into another that was heading in their direction, knocking them both out.
Meanwhile, Mantis and Crane worked on a small pack of wolves together. Mantis kicked the ends of the spears off and sent the ends flying up where Crane swooped in and caught the tips in his talons; Mantis finished the wolves off, paralyzing them stiff by hitting their various pressure points with lightning speed. Crane then followed through, sending the spear tips down accurately knocking the weapons and torches out of the wolves' paws from above.
The leader watched from behind a nearby wall. "So it's true. They really do work better as a team. At this rate, we will need the others quicker than I first thought." the cloaked figure said to himself while his scaly tail hit the ground a few times.
Meanwhile, Po knocked out one wolf with a belly butt, and after quickly kicking the spear from another's hands, he sent him flying into a wall. "Take that, weird mask-wearing dudes!" he shouted excitedly - but his triumph was interrupted, however, as a wolf hit him over the head with a bamboo pole.
"Oww!"
When Po turned around to face the one who'd done this, he saw some wolves with rope and acupressure cuffs coming towards him.
Po knocked out the wolf holding the pole with a snap punch before turning to face the wolves with the cuffs.
"Ohhh! The eight-point acupressure cuffs! Haven't seen some of those since…" he gushed fanboyishly, momentarily forgetting about the task at hand.
"Po, focus!" Monkey shouted as he took out two wolves with a double back fist.
"Oh, right! Got it!" he said, now getting more serious and deflected the cuffs and the rope and followed through with roundhouse kicks to their heads.
Shifu had six wolves on their knees after paralyzing their legs with Oogway's staff end. He planned to question them as soon as one of the Five or Po got whoever the leader of this army was.
Po was about to run after a few more of the wolves, who were obviously in some sort of cult, when he was stopped by a sharp double-edged sword as he came around a corner. Po stopped dead in his tracks and froze as the sword almost cut his throat. The panda saw the cloaked figure holding the sword had eyes that glowed red from inside the hood, and Po jumped back a bit, frightened.
"Who are you?" the panda questioned, and the figure pulled out his other sword from his cloak.
"Your worst nightmare – as you will soon find out, panda." he said in a rough, dark voice.
Po at this point was very creeped out. He couldn't make out his face from the darkness of the hood and his voice alone sent cold chills down his spine. The figure then began to slowly approach Po with his swords towards him and the panda nervously began to walk backwards.
"W-what d-do you want?" Po stuttered out and the figure rose the blade to Po's throat, and he shrieked.
"I want the masters! You especially, panda!" he growled in a low tone. "Now come quietly or else there will be more bloodshed." he demanded.
As Po was backing up, he was entering a street where some of the Five and Shifu were fighting wolves.
"G-guys! I-I found their leader!" he shouted nervously, still a bit frightened. This, however, drove the cloaked figure to anger and he slashed his right and left swords, and Po just barely dodged them.
Just then, Tigress heard him, and after knocking out two more cult wolves with a perfect split kick, she quickly ran over to where the panda was calling from. Shifu and Monkey did the same, coming to his aid after a few seconds.
"What is it, Po?" Tigress asked, examining the figure but not quite making out his facial features.
"Yep! And he's no pushover either." Po added, raising his paws as he touched the tip of the blade at his throat. "Apparently, he wants all of us for something."
Just then something started to make sense in Tigress' mind. "Oh, so all of this is just you trying to get our attention, correct?" Tigress questioned, folding her arms and the figure nodded silently. The surreal surrounding scene of murder and pillaging made this revelation and subsequent admission by the figure somewhat unusual.
"Well, no one is going anywhere with you! You've killed our people and you won't get away with it." Tigress stated as her and the others got in their stances.
The figure then growled angrily and scraped his swords together, creating a spark before he got into his own stance.
Po was the first to charge, throwing lightning speed punches and kicks to which his opponent dodged effortlessly, deflecting all of them. Po was surprised he was this good, and the figure began to slash at him with his dual swords. Po tried to dodge the razor-sharp blades as best he could, but he sustained a few small slashes on his white belly and left cheek. Po winced a bit and then Tigress quickly came to his aid.
The tiger threw ferociously fast punches that the cloaked figure could barely even dodge but he dodged them, nevertheless. The feline did land a solid kick in his chest sending him flying back a ways, but he quickly picked himself up and charged back at her. Po and Tigress at this point met him at the same time, punching and kicking in sync; and still, the figure seemed to be doing an excellent job and blocking most of their attacks.
While Po and Tigress fought in the front, Shifu and Monkey decided to take him from behind as the rest of the Five covered them. Monkey's attack was blocked but he followed through with a snap punch to the back of the figures head. Shifu then kicked him directly in the back and with his staff, he struck the back of his head causing him to groan as he fell to the ground. The cloaked menace was now on his knees next to the other wolves who Shifu had put there to question.
The figure in the hooded cloak growled. "That was a grave mistake." he said with a dark, sinister tone.
Po and the Five gathered by Shifu in front of the leader and the rest of the wolves who were on their knees. The panda looked around to make sure everyone was okay and that there were no more wolves running in the village. At this point, it was almost sunrise but still a little dark in the valley.
"Po... are you ok?" Tigress asked, concerned, seeing the now bleeding gashes on his chest and left cheek. "You're bleeding."
Po nodded with a small smile catching his breath, "Yeah, I'm fine. It's not that bad..."
"You sure?" Tigress added after seeing some blood begin to trickle down his cheek, turning the white fur red.
"I'll be fine... I promise." Po stated gently wiping the blood he felt on his face. Tigress nodded softly but mentally took note to keep an eye on him.
Viper slithered up over some rubble and addressed the rest of the masters. "Seems like this was all of them – the village has gone quiet."
Po then quickly turned back to the leader and gave him a glare. "Give it up. It's over, hood guy!" he said excitedly as some of his fear was starting to dissipate.
The figure in the black hooded cloak cocked his head to one side. "Over? You have no idea... what's about to begin." he stated in a tone that sent cold chills up Po's and everyone's spines.
He then turned to a wolf to his right and giving him a sharp nod. The wolf smirked and threw back his head and let out a piercing, sharp howl and the other wolves that were on the ground and those with him did the same. Po and the Five including Shifu were confused and didn't know what this meant. Then it dawned on Tigress what it was: a signal!
The tiger immediately began to knock out several wolves with sharp powerful crescent kicks, "Shut up!" she shouted - but it was no use.
The leader chuckled evilly, "It's already too late..."
Tigress's eyes widened in realization as everything started to make sense. It was a set up! "No..." she whispered faintly.
Just then, a feint tremor could be felt from the ground by all of them. After a few seconds, the shaking grew in intensity.
Po furrowed his eyebrows and looked into the distance towards the entrance of the Valley of Peace. "Earthquake?" he asked openly.
The cloaked figure just shook his head with an evil grin under his hood. Then the Five, Po, and Shifu began to see what looked like more wolves running towards them. A few dozen at first then the number doubled, tripled, growing steadily larger as they approached. Everyone's eyes began to widen as they saw an army of approximately five hundred strong, come their way.
The figure in the black hooded cloak then rose up dusting himself off along with the others next to him. "Did you really think you could defeat me that easily, panda?" he scoffed. "I want the masters - all of you! And I will not be denied!" he said in an ominous tone as the masters then turned to him with looks mixed with horror and anger.
The figure and a few of his wolves who regained consciousness then ran over towards the incoming army. The cloaked figure decided to watch the upcoming melee from on top of a nearby roof. Po shook his head a little, trying to process what was about to go down. Just then, Tigress came to his side and the others behind him in their stances.
The tiger placed a firm paw on his shoulder to snap him out of it. "You ready, Po?" she asked, and the panda nodded with a nervous sigh.
"Just a little nervous. Never fought an entire army before." he said, turning his head towards the feline.
"Well, there was that time in Gongmen…" the bird master quipped from where he stood on their left flank.
"That was different, Crane." the panda shot back.
Ignoring their banter, Tigress kept talking to Po. "Do you remember our game of chess from the other day?" the panda then nodded in response with a faint smile. "Good. Then we'll use that to help us in this fight, ok?"
Po smiled with a nod. "Ok - let's do this!"
Tigress and Po got in their stances in front of the four and Shifu. Po however chose the inner peace stance hoping that would do some good. In what seemed like no time at all, the army charged them all at once from all sides, clashing with the masters. The force of the collision was heavy, but they stood their ground and fought with precision and lightning speed. Shifu handled a dozen or so at once, hitting various paralyzing pressure points, immobilizing every wolf he hit. The masters were outnumbered greatly, but they refused to back down.
Mantis used his size and speed to his advantage, quickly leaping from wolf to wolf, severing spears completely in half and knocking out countless others. Crane had the advantage from the air to not only remove their weapons but also take out several using his powerful wings. Viper whipped and tripped many of them over while Monkey used his wits and speedy punches to take down about a dozen.
Po and Tigress fought together in perfect sync and coordination; they nodded at each other and connected paws for their signature move. The panda started by throwing the tiger over his shoulder at a large pack of wolves in front of him and she would corkscrew kick them to the ground powerfully before landing on her feet to do the same with Po. After throwing and swinging each other back and forth for some time, they'd defeated over fifty wolves, but the duo were still horribly outnumbered and nearing exhaustion.
As the army grew denser around them with many wolves and others charging them, many of the Five were beginning to become fatigued. Their strength and endurance were fading fast after taking out so many at once and not stopping even for a second. The massive numbers of enemies began to slowly but surely take out some of the Five and capture them. Mantis was the first to fall - as fast as he was, the insect could only take so much. As they carried him away, Crane was eventually taken out of the sky followed by Monkey soon after.
Shifu noticed his students beginning to fall, and as many as he and the rest defeated, their efforts seemed to be in vain - their numbers were just too much.
"Furious Five, retreat!" Shifu ordered as a blue and yellow chi aura hummed around him. "Back up the stairs!" The ones that remained listened to their grandmaster and began to make their way to the thousand steps.
The wolves kept coming however; Po fought hard to save his friends as did the rest, but it seemed to be no use. Viper was the next to fall. She struck down as many as she could, but her defeat left only Po, Tigress, and Shifu still standing. These three continued the battle some distance up the stairs.
Po, Tigress, and Shifu were all tired, beaten, and bruised, but they kept fighting. Tigress, as intelligent as she was, then had an idea as she was getting more flashbacks from her and Po's game of chess.
"Po! Let's create blockade on the stairs; only so many can come at once this way!" she shouted clearly so her voice could be heard over the sounds of combat.
The winded and bruised panda nodded, "Ok! Just like chess, right?"
"Of course! A 'v' shaped formation should create a funnel preventing them from coming all at once!" she stated and Po and Shifu nodded and agreed to this idea and got into the formation.
This idea seemed to work very well as the wolves where now having difficulty taking out the remaining masters from high up on the steps. The masters were still very skilled even though they were tired, and they defeated even more attackers than before, and the wolves began to get frustrated, getting stuck in a perfectly constructed bottleneck formation. Soon, the masters had now backed all the way up to the top of the stairs, and had the advantage of fighting from level and higher ground.
The cloaked figure watched from a distance in frustration, and now he realized it was time to send in his special elite bodyguards.
"You won't defeat these so easily hahaha! Oh, no. Five should suffice to finish you off in your tired state!" he thought evilly then signaled his elites.
As they approached the masters through the much narrower formation, some of the wolves began to have second thoughts, and started to run the other way in fear. The three remaining masters began to relax at this apparent victory, but this relief soon turned to despair. Through the ranks of fleeing wolves, five or so figures could be seen coming up from the opposite direction. They moved with unnatural smoothness, and wore dark grey and black robes with a black silk wrapping around their waists; under slim black hoods their faces were obscured by silver animal masks - the middle one, apparently their captain, had tall curved horns protruding off of his mask. These elites were taller than the hunchbacked wolves all around them, and as they made their way through the crowd, they cut down every wolf that had run smoothly and effortlessly in complete silence. The shiny longsabers that had been sheathed on their backs cut through the air without making any noise as they snuffed out the pathetic lives of the wolves. These soulless, dark assassins obviously didn't view cowardice very highly, and would even kill their own to dispose of it.
The masters, when they saw this, horror and a twinge of fear began to grip their hearts at once; a fight with these warriors didn't look like an easy win. The remaining wolves departed, allowing the elites to move in, and they killed the others that ran or got in their way. The five darkened figures came up to the top of the stairs, and the masters and assassins faced each other down on flat ground. The wind played with the drapery of the long, dark-grey robes, and it was impossible to tell the species that lay beneath them. After a short standoff, the horned one nodded subtly to the others and the two sides collided in an epic duel; the martial artists used their flexibility and vertical movements to dodge the precise jabs and cuts of the silvered sabers. The masters fought with all they had left, but their efforts seemed to be in vain. The elites were skilled at blocking and countered nearly their every move. Tigress had the better of one of them on the far flank, but the leader who was dueling Shifu saw this, and launched a throwing star at the tiger, forcing her to back off. It wasn't long before Tigress and Po came together to fight side by side, but their enemies were on the verge of separating them. They swiftly dodged their every attack and with a three-sixty spin, they countered, landing kicks and slashes. However, these elites were beginning to get bored of the fight and decided to end things. Backing away, they twirled their blades and sheathed them on their back once more, and the red panda knew this was a bad sign.
Shifu turned to Po and Tigress, who were losing strength fast. "Po, Tigress - get out of here! There's too many!" he ordered, as the chi aura was long gone from the elderly red panda.
Just then, the elites drew tranquilizer sleep darts from their belts and began to throw them with precision at the masters, violently flicking their wrists as the projectiles shot outward. Tigress blocked three before one hit her in the side of the neck, it only having made contact due to her extreme exhaustion.
"Tigress!" Po shouted in horror as the feline then collapsed to the ground, struggling to get up.
The effects were already taking place, as much as she tried to fight it. The cloaked assassins began to close in around them.
"P-Po... just... go. You... can... escape." Tigress said drowsily, fighting the effects, but it was no use.
A look of worry and fear came over the panda's face. "No! I can't leave you... I won't!" he insisted, his tone becoming caring and desperate.
The tiger fell to the ground again and Po caught her. "Just go... save... yourself..." she slurred, and then at last succumbed to the sleep dart. Po fought back so many emotions as he held the passed-out tiger in his arms, feeling his heart sink. Grief, anger, fear… and hints of sadness.
Then Shifu spoke up, "Po, leave now!" he ordered as he was taking on all five elites at once with Oogway's staff, and the panda rose up with a blank hopeless expression in his face. As the warriors cornered him and Shifu, the tired red panda began to slowly walk toward them.
"What about you, Shifu?" Po said quietly as Shifu revealed that he too had been hit with a dart on the arm.
"Run! Just go right now and save yourself!" he said, fighting the effects of the dart, but just like Tigress, he too collapsed and slowly began to give in.
Po was about to come to his side but Shifu ordered him with his paw to leave, and he struggled but then obeyed; he began to make a run for it as the elites surrounded him to complete their victory. While he ran, one of the bodyguards threw several sleep darts at him, but he dodged them just in time. He had no idea where to go, so thinking fast, he then ran to the cliffside of the Jade Mountain and made the instantaneous and foolish decision to jump. Before he made it to the edge, two darts from the elites hit the back of his neck. The elites went to grab him, but it was too late - he had already jumped. While falling through the air, all he could think about was the look on Tigress's face just before she passed out in his arms. It was haunting. Soon the effects started to take place and Po too passed out before hitting a few boulders and rocks on the way down. The panda landed on his back on a piece of flat ground at the bottom of the cliff, out cold. The elites went over to the edge where he had fallen to look for him, but he was nowhere in sight – having fallen into the darkness below.
And that's the end of Chapter 2! Woohooo finally got it done and I hope you guys liked it! This took a while, but anyway - what's going to happen to the Five? Did Po survive? Find out in the next chapter. The scene of Tigress getting taken down by sleep darts from the elites was inspired by an early draft KFP3 sequence by Jennifer Yuh Nelson. Originally, she was going to get poisoned this way, and Po would have to take her to the panda village to heal her… that would have made for a much cooler way to find the village than what ended up happening in the movie! And I know I haven't revealed who the hood guy is, but I will soon, I promise! No spoilers about him except a recap that he is connected to Shen. His plan and how he obtained this army will be revealed as well! Stay tuned and follow and favorite or even review if you like it so far. More to come!
- Tipofan4life