Hey cool cats - ya dig it so far? Here's Chapter 3! A lot is going down, but all will be revealed in due time; this is the start of our heroes' crucible. Now I have many references in here so far to tv shows (specifically on the CW) and movies, if you caught them let me know! This chapter is the aftermath of the destruction that took place before and Po has fallen down Jade Mountain. So, let's get right back into it!
At the bottom of Jade Mountain in a small forest, the panda laid wounded and out cold as the morning sunlight began to hit his face. Po's face twitched, and he slowly began to open his eyes, waking up with a groan. He winced, feeling the pain of his injuries from the day before coming back to him. The panda had bloody scrapes on his head, back, and sides from the fall, along with the other slashes and cuts he received from the battle. Haunting memories from the day before came rushing back as well, and he knew he had to force himself up. He did so, but with difficulty, as his body was wrecked with various pains. Po knew he had to go back to the village to see if anyone was still alive and to find out what became of his friends.
While struggling to get up to his feet, he felt a sharp pain in his neck, and felt around with his paws until he found two sleep darts still embedded into his neck. He then pulled them out and threw the bloodied darts to the ground, shutting his eyes and gritting his teeth in pain.
"The fall certainly left a mark." he thought, inspecting his wounds before once more remembering what he needed to do. "Ah! Gotta find everybody! Where's Tigress and the others? Where's my dad? Is anyone still alive?"
Po then ran – or limped, rather – as fast as he could out of the forest, making his way into the valley. Negative thoughts of all kinds began to fill his mind as he worried about his friends. Most of all the person closest to him: his dad. But he couldn't help but think of Tigress, too. That look on her face before he jumped was still burned into his mind, and this plus the thoughts that his dad may have been killed in the battle worried him sick. Soon he finally made his way into the valley and ran to the edge and stopped in his tracks.
He was horrified by what he saw: many buildings were destroyed or burnt to the ground, and among the ashes several bodies of villagers lay dead from either the fire or the battle. It was a horrifying sight. Tears threatened to come to his eyes, and hints of anger started to consume him. The valley was in ruins, and the people he'd sworn to protect now laid dead in the streets. He then ran through the streets and over the rubble towards the noodle shop. When he arrived, he saw the shop was barricaded, and he couldn't quite see inside.
"Dad! You ok... you in there?" he called out softly, the smoke hanging in the air nearly choking him, but he heard no answer.
Po fought back tears, fearing the worst, but then he heard a small pan clatter. The panda pulled the barricade down as quickly as he could and jumped inside, looking around for any signs of the old goose.
Just then, Mr. Ping and the surviving villagers looked around the corner from the kitchen area. Once they saw it was only Po, they breathed a sigh of relief.
"Shhh! They'll hear you..." Mr. Ping whispered.
"Dad!" the panda exclaimed happily, and ran up to the goose, hugging him tightly.
The panda set his father down, and the goose led him into the kitchen. "How did you end up here, son? And what happened to you? You're all banged up." the goose whispered.
"I wanted to see if you were alive. And yeah, that kinda happens when you fight an entire army and fall down Jade Mountain." he stated, rubbing the back of his head.
Mr. Ping gasped. "You fell down a mountain!?"
Po nodded, and then got right to his own question. "Dad? Have you seen the Five and Shifu by chance, or know where they may have been taken to?" the panda asked with worry in his voice.
The goose thought for a second, and then he remembered. "Ah, yes actually… I saw some unsavory figures in dark hoods drag Master Tigress unconscious through the street not too long ago."
The panda brightened up a little bit in relief, knowing that at least she must be nearby. "Ok good! Now which way did they take her? Please, I really need to know!" he said desperately, as he hopped from foot to foot, eager to run in any direction.
The goose smiled a little seeing this, and pointed to the right of his shop with his wing. "I'm certain they took her that way. But be careful - there are wolves everywhere still occupying the valley!" he warned, and Po nodded as he was now running towards the exit of the shop.
"Ok - thanks dad! See you later!" he called out, and before the goose could wave back, the panda had already run out of the shop.
Po ran down the street his dad had pointed him to, and as soon as he approached a corner, he saw a wolf standing guard. He quickly and silently knocked the wolf out with an elbow horizontally to the head, and then drug him away into a nearby ruined house.
Po then tip-toed down the alleyway, following the freshly stirred up dirt on the street. By the time he was approaching the end, he heard wolves laughing and someone grunting. Po wondered what this could be about, and looked around the corner; he saw a small pack of wolves, two of which were holding a female tiger who was too weak to fight back by the arms. One wolf with particularly thick fur was laughing while throwing merciless punches at her face and stomach, trying to beat her into submission. Po was furious seeing them do this to her, and a fiery rage began to burn in his eyes.
Not wasting another second, Po ran out from behind the corner; just before the wolf landed another blow to the tiger's striped face, Po ran at him from the side and threw a hard strike to the right side of his head. Po had hit him with tremendous force, and the impact of the punch sent him flying to the ground some ten feet back. He was so angry, he didn't even use any of his catch phrases.
"Po..." the tiger whispered faintly through her blurry vision.
To see Po alive, and the fact that he'd come for her raised her spirits, for most of the fight had been taken out of her since the previous day. Blood trickled from her lips and she smiled weakly - happy to see him, before collapsing to the ground due to the other wolves releasing their hold of her to go fight Po.
Po growled, and just as he was about to go finish off the wolf who was hurting Tigress, a yet-unseen wolf charged him from behind; sensing him, the panda spun around with a hook-kick directly to the head, knocking him out cold with a definite concussion. The two that had been holding the tiger came at him next, and Po threw a hard right punch at one and a precise crescent kick at the other, dropping them both. Just then, a wolf latched onto the panda from behind, but it was to no avail, as he elbowed him in the solar plexus and threw up a backfist, knocking this wolf out also. One more tried to take the panda down, but his plan failed. Po grabbed the wolf by the throat before he could reach him, and he slammed his head against a brick wall, knocking him out with a concussion also.
Po sighed, releasing some of his rage, and then made his way over to the first wolf he hit who was trying to crawl away, holding the side of his head. Po stopped him and turned him over on his back, and began throwing hard right and left punches at the wolfs face.
"You're not gonna hurt her anymore..." Po said breathing heavily trying to catch his breath. "Or do what you did to her ever again!" the canine grunted and groaned as Po continued to punch him as hard as he could - knocking a few of the wolf's teeth out.
At this point, Tigress managed to get up from the dirt, and she was touched the panda cared for her this way – but she understood that they needed information.
"Po!" Tigress spoke out weakly trying to get his attention. The panda froze and turned his head to where she was kneeling nearby. "He's had enough – try to find out where the leader is and where they may have taken everyone." The tiger held her paw to her stomach where she had been repeatedly hit.
Po nodded, and punched the wolves face one more time for good measure. "Where's your leader? Where's our friends, you jerk!?"
The wolf laughed weakly and gave him a bloody smile. "I'll never tell – and besides, they won't let you get away with this..."
Po raised a brow in confusion. "Who's they?" The wolf was silent, and Po shouted in his face. "Answer me!"
All of a sudden, three of the hooded elite bodyguards in black robes and silver masks came in from different directions to the street corner, surrounding them.
"Oh... them." Po whispered, and Tigress came to his side after mustering all the spare strength she could in her weakened state.
The wolf laughed again before leaning his head back, passing out on the ground; the rest of the hunched canines cleared out of the area.
"Tigress, are you ok?" Po asked warily as the elites started to walk towards them slowly.
Tigress got in her tiger stance and smiled faintly. "Yeah, a little sore but... I think I can manage."
"So strong. So hardcore. I can always count on you, Tigress. You're so amazing." Po thought to himself with a smile, seeing her toughing it out like she always did.
"Ok that's good to hear - so how do we take these guys down? They gave us trouble before." Po asked as the three approached even closer, unsheathing their blades with disorienting whirls.
"Follow my lead. We attack as one and take them down together." she whispered under her breath, and Po nodded silently.
The masked figures started by launching a few of the sleep darts in the direction of the masters; but Po and Tigress were ready this time, as the panda quickly dodged side to side, avoiding them, and the tiger did several impressive backflips to evade the tranquilizing needles. The three elites then charged them with a ferocious display of slashes and acrobatic attacks. Po and Tigress did their best to block and counter them, but the hardened bodyguards moved with an unnatural smoothness, defending and countering with a speed that outmatched even their own. Po would block one punch and they would come right around with a strike of their own or a kick to his exposed side. Tigress, in her weakened state, wasn't having any better advantage either. She would block quite a few swings and kicks, or even knock one back with a double palm strike; but they would always come back with more speed and sharper techniques. These weren't easy foes to beat like regular bandits, and Po and Tigress found that trying to execute their usual techniques was much more difficult when having to avoid the wide reach of the silver sabers.
But just when things were beginning to look hopeless, Tigress spotted an opening, which she exploited with deadly efficiency. When the closest elite to her overextended with a stabbing attack, she grabbed and twisted his wrist – causing his blade to fall from his paw. She reacted instantly, side-kicking the falling weapon with unbelievable velocity; the flying sword impaled another elite that was approaching Po, killing him immediately. Still having the elite by the wrist, she kicked him back a short distance to re-engage in the fight. Watching this move closely, Po tried to imitate it when the other dark warrior came to strike him, but he was unable to twist the weapon from the soldier's grip. Instead, he just headbutted the elite – which, due to the silver mask – probably did more damage to himself. Nonetheless, he succeeded in dazing the elite just enough to make him drop his weapon.
Now fighting one less attacker and having disarmed them, Po thought the fight might be nearly over, but he was wrong. The two remaining elites then drew their secondary weapons, paired black-steel shortsabers, deciding to end things quickly and prevent the masters from resisting being taken to their leader. The elites swung and slashed with these small blades in tight patterns and it became difficult for Po and Tigress to dodge them for very long. Po managed to block one of their slashes by stopping his arm and disarming the blade, but when he did, the elite did a complete spin and a horizontal slash across Po's right arm, cutting him deeply. The panda yelped in pain and, catching the elite off guard, he front-kicked him into the nearest wall – knocking him down, dazed. Blood gushed from the wound and began to run down his arm.
"Po!" Tigress yelled, seeing the panda's injury.
Po tried to show he was fine, but held his limp, bleeding arm with his other paw. As his elite was still somewhat incapacitated, he rushed over to try and help Tigress with her opponent. Feeling the pressure of being outnumbered, the remaining bodyguard fought with even more ferocity. Tigress had by now grown very fatigued, and when she attacked next, the hooded fighter made her pay dearly for striking a second too late; with a rapid burst of strikes, he slashed her first across the thigh, then the stomach, and finally cutting her in the shoulder blade as she ducked away. As tough as the hardy tiger was, she couldn't hide the impact of the deep wounds, and buckled under the flood of pain. Seeing this, Po felt a rush of enraged adrenaline come over him, and charged right into the elite and sent him falling to the ground. The panda threw a bone-crushing punch at his fallen enemy, but the dark-robed fiend rolled away to the side before he could make contact. Surprisingly, Tigress had already recovered somewhat, and – finding herself behind her enemy – put every ounce of strength she had left into a double-palm strike. The hit sent her opponent only a short distance away, but it was clear by the way the elite twitched awkwardly that she had just done a lot of damage to him. The assassin leaned over, and blood dripped from the slits of his metallic mask.
"Give up now – you know you can't win." Tigress threatened between long panting breaths.
The fight now seemed to slow to a halt as the standing elite was looking to the one incapacitated against the wall where Po had launched him earlier. They seemed to be having a conversation with each other, debating something without speaking a single word. At last, the silence was broken.
"انتهى. افعلها." the one leaning against the wall muttered in a foreign tongue that the masters couldn't understand. The elite facing down Tigress nodded slowly, and started to lower his blades.
The tiger approached, thinking he was about to surrender; but in another instant, the hooded assassin reversed the short blades in his paws to face into himself, and drove them into his abdomen with lethal force. The masters watched in bewilderment as the elite slumped to the ground, now dying by his own choice. Tigress finally put it together, and abruptly turned towards the other incapacitated bodyguard – just in time to watch him stab himself in the throat with a black-steel dagger. Their opponents had preferred death to being captured.
Po started to cautiously approach the nearest dead elite, the one Tigress had indirectly impaled earlier, and slowly lifted away the silver mask. The face below was an unfamiliar one – a leopard of some kind, speckled with small black spots; instead of grey, its fur was a pure white, save for the streaks of red blood that came from the mouth.
"I- I don't understand…" But that was all Po got to say, before he saw the tiger in his peripheral vision begin to sway uneasily.
Tigress had just removed a paw from her side, and it was stained dark red. "Po… I, uh…" she mumbled incoherently.
"Tigress – no!" Po screamed in horror, seeing her collapse to the ground.
And that's it for Chapter 3 – sorry about the cliffhanger! I simply couldn't resist! I really hope you like the story so far, and if you did, make sure to drop a review! The elites in this chapter are revealed to be Arabian Leopards, so the Arabic part translates roughly to "It is over. Do it." Also, a shoutout to Dragon Chronicle, who is beta-reading for this story now. Thanks for reading, and the next update is coming up very soon!
- Tipofan4life