There were street revolts at every corner as the foreman entered back into the city. Finally coming out from the safety of their dwellings and into the broad daylight above, the people from the underworld seemed to have sensed a significant shift in command. The oppressive number of troops that had once kept the city's hegemony intact diffused from the liege's focal point, departing all together in that boat the foreman had just sent away. Now, only a dwindled unit of infantrymen surrounding the canine kept his control weakly centralized.
While the foreman had predicted these consequences way before he carried out the gambit, he did not at all anticipate the speed at which they took effect. It was supposed to be a regular commute back to the palace-where he could clear entire extents of streets and make nearly all people want to grovel as he passed by. But news did move fast. And people were no longer ceremonious. Their rapid switch in demeanor was expectedly traitorous. At any given opportunity, they would indulge in their own self-destruction.
As it conveyed past the thick of the crowd, the wolf's resplendent litter was assaulted by the continuous hailing of street food. The curtains enclosing him had once projected a brilliant royal red into his headroom, but now the culmination of grime that caught on to the luxurious cloth made the inside increasingly dark.
A hounding voice managed to miraculously set itself apart among the din of other curses. "Hey Carpetbagger! You're nothing but cheap goods!"
Heedless of the moment, the foreman began pouring himself a cup; the liquid within it was only a drop away from going over the brink, but he still managed to lift it up to his lips with a stabilized calm. Turbulence may have been everywhere around him, but he had it all together.
The journey into the city had been a long one, but they were drawing closer to their destination.
"You don't look at your foot on the ground. You watch the next step." Ju Lung muttered.
The urgency in their pace encountered an out-and-out stop as an impressive common expanded beyond them. While the success of their pursuit tallied closely with their haste, Crane had to simply marvel at the palaces and high-rises. To plumb a pagoda fully was to simultaneously look directly up the high-noon sun.
But a different story was told when glancing down towards the more humbled grounds the city stood upon. Evidenced by the decay of unkempt gardens, the bevies of tallgrass in the shattered streets, and the abandonment of debris everywhere, the burgh's grandeur of architecture was the only good thing that remained. It appeared that even a deluxe standard like this place suffered the same apocalyptic fate as the lower settlements of the town.
"Walk along clucks." The bear spoke.
Crane half-heartedly trotted, still ensnared by the poetic duality of the cityscape.
Definitely gotta paint this.
A while longer, the avian spotted a convene of people inside one of the ornate homes gathered around a fire pit. There was this sort of funeral look in their assembly. He slowed to prolong his observations, interest piqued.
Ju Lung glanced to his side a little bit, answering the unusual for him. "One good thing that happened when this city turned to shits. The fall of the entire oligarchy."
Oligarchy? Before Crane could badger him for more details, the bear had already disengaged, promptly turning back ahead. The bird mused into Ju Lung's actions a bit longer, for his uncharacteristic silence had long been unnerving. Some danger of great magnitude rid the bear of even his most inconvenient erraticness. There was surely a watchful danger here.
Decidedly, the young bird tipped his hat below his browline and strolled along, overplaying an unassuming personage.
Minutes of persistent walking were put to an end when Crane folded over Ju Lung's extended arm. He was nudged behind a merchant cart.
"Eyes forward." Ju Lung ordered.
Once recovering, Crane poked an eye out from the retreat: there was a short-run street ahead which yielded all together to the steps of some central pagoda. The stately building was of the same size as the ones around it, so it was not much to perceive from afar. But what sets it apart presently was the maintenance of its surrounding premise. The garden brushes were recently trimmed; its effigies and fences were not at all rubiginous.
Looking into the building's foyer, the bird finally recognized what made the tower truly significant.
Soldiers.
He counted a dozen or so, but he was sure there were more. With such a considerably small coalition of sentinels, he wouldn't have much concerns. Except the mein in how they stood, from their strapping builds to their tidy, precise poses, gave an air of militant practice that easily surpassed whatever numerical threat several armies of random goons could send forth.
All the more did this make the bird sink into full cover. "That's the foreman's place?"
"Yes… now come this way." With a prolonged sequence of gymnastic rolls, Ju Lung dove into the alleyway between the two structures abutting the pagoda.
Crane strutted into the pathway shortly.
Halting at the end of the lane, the bear began facing back and forth several directions, his finger rigidly pointed out as if it was a needle on an indecisive compass. When logic eventually crossed his slower thinking, he flared his nostrils and allowed the natural strength of his olfaction to guide him in navigation. "Most of the guards are concentrated by the entrance. A few on the side. I'm thinking we could get in from behind."
"Alright." Crane said, moving quick.
Travelling through buildings, the duo had reached the rear side of the pagoda's outskirts unnoticed.
Ju Lung rolled across the final byway that separated the foreman's property from the rest of the neighboring temples and flattened himself against the building's circular fortification; after inspecting around, he gestured for Crane to proceed in the same manner.
The bird tried to depict the string of code the bear was signaling out, but he concluded that they were either too technical, or too gibberish. The question lingered in him whether Ju Lung's espionage maneuvers were even reasonably applied: if they weren't an outright exaggeration, the bird had every reason to be worried about the severity of the operation with its necessitation for such extra steps.
Following his lead, the bird peeked into the street on either side and ended up quickly beside his giant companion.
"I can smell a stink on our left." Ju Lung stirrred the wind towards him. "A bear, maybe. You think you could handle that for me?"
"Sure…" Crane muttered.
Having a limited view on what's around the curve, the bird can only inch forwards. Some lofty bear eventually did pan into his sight, and while his announcement was nearly instantaneous, at the very least he had his back turned towards Crane. Evaluating the enemy from head to foot, the young warrior determined that his own measly muscles would not fare well with the man's deep-plated, full-body armor.
How to knock this guy out?
There was a pile of garbage across the street that Crane had immediately fixated on. He left the wall straightaway and fell by the refuge heap, breaking up its conglomeration by-and-by for a silent retrieval of the best pickings. Once he felt up an adequate weight buried in the mound, he heaved it out and brought it back with him into his original position.
Alright. Let's do this.
Not the slightest scrape on the floor was produced by Crane's talons as he approached the bear. Lightness was a mitigator of raw strength, but it certainly helped in stealth. Standing flushed against the enemy's back now, the bird cranked his head straight up to assess the whereabouts of the hitspot, which he intended to be at his temple.
It appeared that the man's head was a tower away.
Could I even reach that?
He thought again.
Of course you can, you idiot. You're a bird. You can fly!
Garnering energy from this consideration, Crane thrust himself into the moment. He leaped vigorously high. With his wings twisting out for propulsion, the avian swung the load held in his talons on a harsh course straight to the bullseye.
Wam!
If they weren't on such a stealthy mission, the bird would have cried 'Caw caw!' on that remarkably flawless hit. With the sheer force, the unknowing guard's head snapped in a complete changeabout before stiffly falling down
Ju Lung tiptoed over. "The awakening of Oogway. You really just put a dent on his damn noggin!"
"Yeah… that was a bit rougher than what I wanted." As he drifted down with opened wings, the upsurge of triumph drained away from Crane.
"A bit rougher? Hell there was intent of murder in that swing. I'm sending out prayers for this guy."
Guilt ticced the bird into scratching his chest. "Yeah. Well. I really didn't want that."
After disposing the body, the pair were finally able to scale and vault over the fortifications. They descended on the other side slowly, timid to set their feet on total enemy territory.
The spacious yard behind the main estate was more or less barren and brutalist land. Zig-zag tessellations were the same constant groundwork that laid upon the entire property from every distant corner. In the center, a single garden bush shaped into a skinny dragon was the only token of compositional care within this area.
They sprinted to the pagoda, hiding beneath its overhang where no other patrol could see them from above.
As if operating a periscope, Ju Lung grabbed Crane, who had stiffened conveniently at the sudden act, and leaned him over the building's corner. "Do you see any guards?"
"Uhm… no?"
The bear dropped him back on his feet. "Good."
Before the confused avian could even recover from the outlandish turn of events, an unexpected heaviness on his back pancaked him to the ground. Every pocket of air within him deflated at once. "What the hell!"
The bear had just mounted him.
He continued to stay on top despite the bird's obvious discomfort. "Go on now, send us up."
"Are you crazy!" he wheezed. "I-I can't even hold us up! Can you get off?"
"What. You think my fat ass's gonna magically climb thirteen stories? Do you see any stairs around?"
"Well I didn't expect this!"
"Then what the hell's the use of you? Come on! Yip Yip!" Ju Lung slapped the bird's bottom. "Soar. Flap flap, fly flutter float flight. Do something…"
"It doesn't work that way!" Crane puffed his cheeks, building up enough pressure within himself to finally piston the bear off his back.
"Oh aren't you such a pillar of strength." Ju Lung leaped from the ground, grabbing hold of the fleeting bird's leg and yanking them to him as if they were trigger ropes. "Come on. If you could push me off, you could pull me up."
"No. Get off!" Accumulating his aggravation, Crane at last had enough enraged passion to pump his wings in their largest, swooping form. The moment he sent them downwards, they soared up.
The shocked atmosphere from the point of take off undulated, rippling out a blastwave that reached far and wide and blowing off all the leaves from the dragon bush.
Crane and his mammoth passenger were suddenly above the clouds.
But just as fast as they reached the zenith of their flight, they were quickly dropping to the end of it. The weight of the bear had increased their terminal velocity to literal light speed, and even Crane's outstretched parachute-like wings couldn't form any sort of drag to save them.
With quick thought, Ju Lung swung his legs outwards, altering their trajectories straight towards one of the pagoda's windows and easily breaching through the closed panes. They darted inside as a singular form, but exploded apart upon impact, flying into their own respective collision course; as they began to hit many things, their collateral damage expanded rapidly. A hurricane of debris flew into the air.
After careering against several more obstructions, they were finally decelerated across the glossy floor, thoroughly soft-bodied.
Darkness was quick to start enveloping the fragile avian, but he had no plans on giving in. Turning over, he pried his eyes open to the ceiling above, studying its elements. The black tint on his vision slowly receded. Painted a simple dull red, the roof gave little to stun about—but the act of concentration itself started to align his consciousness.
Ju Lung had recovered much more quickly, already afoot and taking in the more important qualities of the room. Massive shelves bordered all sides, enclosing them in a uniquely repository environment. There was a set of stairs leading to a lower library located at the very middle of the wide space. A terrace on the far corner sent in an intense beam of light. Meanwhile, sheets of blown paper and other articles drifted back on the floor—the delayed aftermath of the numerous things they had just upturned. "We've damn lucked out!" He moved towards one of the desks which had remarkably not been touched by the clash. "We came, we saw, and we've conquered. Shit, and now we're inside his office. Haha!"
Crane sat up, idly propped on his elbows. What office? Who's office?
At last, he looked around, gradually brought up to speed with the present. Oh. The evil guy's office.
Absentmindedness immediately left him. Coming to terms with his enemy surroundings, the bird was quick to count the hostilities that were in the pipeline. The guards! They're coming. They must be… An urgent spur invigorated him to stand. He sprinted slackly towards Ju Lung, touching his shoulder. "We have to go."
"Wow. Wait a damn minute." He shoved the wing away. "I haven't even finished my celebration speech, nor have I started getting intel. I need my intel!"
"Whatever, leave it for now - we've created too much sound, we have to move out." As the bird started to progress to the window, something was swept away from his head. A cold breeze swiftly settled in its place.
Crane turned, slow as to send a warning. "Did you just take my hat?"
"Yes I did." The bear extended the invaluable headpiece away from him.
"Why?"
"I'm giving you a reason not to pussy out!"
He shifted in to take it, but was only pushed away. "I would like it back. Please."
"No."
"You do know I could just take it from you, right?"
"I know. But attempting that defeats the purpose of trying to escape early, doesn't it?"
The avian twitched his eye; the pettiness that was taking place here was not at all befitting to the dormant threat they desperately needed to respond to.
Ju Lung started his reasoning with a groan. "Oh stop with the long face, long face! We're on the top floor. Everyone's all the way down the temple. No one's heard us. if they did, they'd be here by now. So, let's Chop chop."
In a show of irreverence towards the bird's prized object, the bear flattened the straw hat to his head, practically fusing its once perfect tip with the shape of his own crown.
Crane wished he was blinded from the sound of the crunched straws. He murmured, defeated. "Fine. But let's just make this quick."
Letting such an impracticality ride without much resistance led to some serious self-imposed disappointment for the bird directly afterwards. He could only groan at his decisions. A pagoda's inside was mostly empty vertical space: nothing could stop the sound of a pin drop from echoing across its entire volume - he knew this from random trivia.
Trivia… maybe his ultra geeky knowledge lacked a certain grounded experience that Ju Lung had. He had never really set foot on a structure like this before.
He trudged to the head-table where Ju Lung had returned promptly. Inlaid on its grand wooden surface was a sprawl of various charts pinpointing vague locations. There were also some documents... charters without names. Rifling quickly through the sheaf of what looked like key expository records, the bird— in his haste— could only briefly understand the spread of gibberish. He took a stack of paper under his wing for further reading somewhere else.
"It helps that I can't really read too good." His companion muttered. "Can you?"
"I consider myself pretty scholarly. So… yeah I guess." The bird raked the sea of paper a little more, revealing colored pamphlets and posters underneath.
Ju Lung slid aggressively into the bird's place, attracted by the brilliance. "How interesting..." He brought up in line with his eyes two of the vibrant sheets, dedicating some time to compare them; but the brute completely missed the redundancy of his action, because both posters were the exact same except one was held upside down. "'Come to the newly built Xiwang Cun residences in the great city of Mu - Mudi Zhen? 'Your best future awaits here.'" He read.
"What the heck is that supposed to mean?" Crane groaned.
"I don't know. But it's definitely something important."
"Ehhh…" The bird racked his brain in an attempt to connect the triviality towards some greater schematic. It only took him seconds to become unimpressed about it. "No… I don't think so."
"It's simply the perspective we're lacking." Ju Lung insisted.
"No. That's simply some homelife retirement plan. Let's get on with it." Crane was already hell-bent on the rest of the desk's content aggregate, rummaging through them.
A wooden stump landed right before his wings. "Here here." The bear started. "The sun is a mega, ancient, ultra powerfully massive celestial object that could be blocked out all together by just the palm of my paw. Isn't that absurd? But while I could block it with a hand and cast a shadow over my face, the weather still continues to be bitchin hot and I didn't really do anything. We can't just ignore things that look ignoreable. Right? That's exactly where the bad guys would hide their bad guy things—the big stuff made to look small."
Persisting, Ju Lung pulled on the hem of His companion's pants and fisted down the posters inside for safekeeping.
Before Crane could fully process the harassment that just occured, a whizzing sound ripped the air beside them. Attached instantly to the sudden foreign tumult, the panic-stricken bird traced the noise linearly to a missed arrow pegged into the far wall.
Another high-pitched shrill coming from outside warned the duo to collapse to the ground. Fire blazing arrowheads above sniped their previous position. A multitude of flaming combustions took place as the missed arrows came into contact with all the wood and paper that were strewn about. The smoke that was being rapidly emitted turned into a thick blanket that tucked the bear and bird from all sides.
"Oh hell! We've been caught!" Ju Lung cried, totally paralyzed on the floor.
"Really?" Crane yelled. "Don't you think we had this coming?"
"Shut up! Go find us a place to exit!"
Remaining within an unmarkable level, Crane crawled steadily to the door on the other side. A volley of arrows flitted overhead, making the journey across the building turn into a no man's land battlement. Once there, the bird pressed an ear against the closed entraway, gaining sense of what was going on in the approximal space behind. There were tramping and shouting-and they were only growing louder. Now desperate, he grabbed an accessible table-leg that had been ripped out from their initial crash and jammed the thing into the handles of the double-entrance. "That's not gonna hold…"
"Crane my boy!"
Turning around, the bird found Ju Lung successfully making his way next to him.
The bear plucked an arrow that had struck his asscheek. "Do me a favor and take out the archers."
"Like hell I will." Flipping a table to its side, Crane created a temporary fortification amidst the field of airstrikes. He looked over and discerned the situation outside. Several marksmen were positioned next to a neighboring tower's roof. They were only an army of five, but they had already created such havoc.
Just before he could begin thinking of ways to get themselves out, a winged combatant suddenly cut across the open air, flying closely in parallel to the pagoda's long row of windows. Midway through its mach speed flight, it had tossed something of a hard metal shell right into the heart of the library. In mere seconds, there was a hot flash.
Crane coughed. Gunpowder mote had filled his lungs, replacing the subtlest draft of air.
There was an immense weight all around him. He forced both wings against the pressing denseness, but felt no give. Turns out the table that had covered them had been reduced to rubbish and was now piled all on his back.
"That was a bomb!" Ju Lung gasped rasply, far off. "Who the… who the fuck throws a bomb into an office!"
"I don't know-" the bird wasn't even sure if he could be heard, or if he was even saying anything. Blood clotted in his throat, a metallic taste on his tongue. The tear-inducing smoke encroaching from all sides only allowed Crane a small ambit of perception. With wilted thew and nowhere to go, he had no urge to move.
Ju Lung withdrew from the wall of soot, stumbling by the fallen bird. He placed a possessive paw on the shoulder of his capitulated ally. "Crane! Thank heavens you're alright. Let's do something about this." At full boar, the bear towed him out just precisely enough to unearth the rest of his feathery torso. "You're live bait. Alright? Just stay where you are."
"What?" Crane moaned, still in dazed.
"I mean it. Sit pretty." The bear snatched the papers that had been stuffed in the avian's dressings, retreating before he had the cognizance to resist. "I'm going to hide downstairs. Pass some time, then skedaddle after. Distract them for me."
Tipping his victim's straw hat in a farewell, Ju Lung scrambled back into the smoke.
Awhile after the bear's department, Crane jolted into a rude awakening and finally became receptive of the graveness of his entrapment. He began paddling his wings in a crawling motion, but there was no amount of repetitious force that could tug his legs out of its current burden. His efforts slowed, anguished. "Damn it Ju Lung!"
A familiar scent in the wind.
There was something troubling close by, and the foreman proved himself this by withdrawing the curtains at the head of his litter. He processed what was on sight with a detached discernment, his face never contorting once. "Tell me, why does my temple look like a chimney?"
The worn out bull who manned the vehicle's front leg knew his superior was rhetorically pointing to the smoke exhausting out of the pagoda's top floor; he answered regardless. "I'm not sure sir."
The procession of bovinae escorts were finally ordered to stop as the yak ahead of them raised an alarmed hand. They stood idly by the front steps of the palace, cautious whether to proceed any further.
A guard from inside hurried towards them, disoriented in his footing after evidently having just stumbled out from the incident himself.
"What the hell happened?" The same yak jostled the bovine from his stupefied condition.
"In-intruders came. So Feng bombed them."
"Oh flaming ancestors- that deranged bird. Someone ought to put him on medication." He turned to the foreman. "I told you to let him go!"
The foreman simply answered. "I have no plans to fire that man."
Stepping down from his casing and into the open space, the wolf briefly gazed at the men circling him. It was a feat of great resolve for each one to simply survive the ire of the insurgents. Those barbaric fools had no mercy—why else would they proudly harass such a small retinue and think it was a type of way to dutifully remit their feelings of injustice to a, more or less, mob-made tribunal? His men were still visibly aggrieved by it, drenched in every sort of food and substance, covered in bruises and bumps. "Men…"
The prolonged command made all ears focus anxiously to the higher source - it was clear that they were disinclined to do any more rigorous work.
"Go take a bath." He simply concluded.
The convoy dispersed immediately, leaving only the foreman to deal with the yak, who had resumed interrogating the young bovine.
"Ju Lung." His advisor hissed once he had approached.
"Ju Lung?"
"The man himself, started whatever happened up there."
"I'm impressed."
"Well don't be too much." The yak dropped his horned victim and set motion towards the temple. "He's got a bird pal with him."
"Ah, I see..."
The strained quietness as they strolled up the steps begged for the advisor to continue. "They found Ju Lung hiding inside the library - not quite the jaw dropping thing for him to do. Heh. Both are in the dungeon now by the way. Which begs the question. What of the prisoners?"
"Round up the mentioned lords - I'll take them with me tonight. You know exactly who I want left behind."
The yak grinned. "And I know exactly what to do with them."
The two prominent figures eventually entered the building's concourse. A bustle of guards lined themselves to the sides of their pathway in hasty reverence, still out-of-breath and reeking of explosive fumes. With this air of unwanted disturbance, the two men could only carry on their conversation once they made it alone to the base of the central spiral staircase.
The yak thought about his next words, fearing that they might insult his lord. He slowed his climb up. "You'll be leaving a power vacuum in this hellhole once you go back."
"I am aware… China does not need another place like Huángjīn Chéng, could you imagine?" The foreman—consistent in his speed—shouldered past his more hesitant advisor. "That's why I've already sent out a summon in advance - a prefect should be here shortly to take my place."
The yak gripped the railings, launching himself up several steps to catch up. "I'm glad you've thought of that. You know what I think? I'm thinking you're a damn good man."
"I can't lose like this!" A shoulder banged against unbudged prison bars.
Crane's eyes zipped from side to side, following the bear's back and forth pace as he tried developing a more devastating lateral impact; the tiny prison space did not brook for such acceleration. "Congratulations Ju Lung. You are, without a doubt, the biggest idiot in the country."
"Oh shut up!" Exhausted, the bear fell to the ground. "It's your damn fault. You know, I had hoped that you could've formulated a sort of genius plan out of some provoked fighter instinct in you. Only thing closest to 'genius' that you could've pulled out of your ass was a fat log of bullshit, and you know what? I really doubt you were even able to hold that in. Pussy."
The bird twitched an eye. "Well I'm all you had. Me. So, I think- I think, maybe you could have dealt with what you got a little better if you could've just understood—you know just a little bit—that a whole imperial army wasn't gonna be there to back you up."
"Hey! You agreed to whatever I decided. The fault's cut fifty-fifty. We're both half stupid."
"No, no, no. There's no sharing of blame here, okay. You take it all. You tied my hands."
"I only took your stupid hat and plus you have wings. I didn't force you into anything you little shit."
"You know what… you know— ugh! Never mind!" Too aggressively overwrought with what the quarrel may lead up to, Crane disengaged preemptively, looking aside. The dungeon currently was filled with commotion—guards taking out struggling inmates, orders from higher-ups, screams from the desperate. It had been the allaying backdrop for their tensed banter.
"Was it useless?" The bird prompted after a while. "Did we at least learn something from the 'intel'?"
"Well they patted me down and confiscated most of the stuff we took. But, they wouldn't touch me junk." The calmed bear dug into his pants, taking out a crumple of papers. "Had to look a lil' aroused to keep these with me. It wasn't hard. One of the guards was good looking—objectively speaking."
"...Okay. Good. We'll check them later." The bird had to choke down his puke. "Yeh, umm. Please, keep those in there. Only thing we have to do now is to think of a way out."
"Easy process. We've eliminated a few possibilities. If I can't break through these bars, certainly you can't. But luckily I have a few other stuff going." The bear twisted his prosthetic stump, popping it off from the rest of his limb after a resounding click. Pumping the hollow capsule downwards, odds and ends began clattering out.
Crane need not bother to give the scraps a closer look, for he already knew their applications upon first glimpse. "Welp, those things are utterly useless. Safe to say we'll be stuck here forever."
The bear flicked away litters of twigs and rotting vegetables that had been stored in his provisional hand. He raised a metal wire to both their eyelines. "You know how to pick a lock?"
"No…" Crane murmured.
"Ugh. Son of a bitch."
AN
Welp. After three and a half months, I finally updated! I think my schedule from now on is only gonna get better and better now that I'm super invested in this shit lmao. I 102% guarantee that the next chapter will be out within a few weeks!
Also thank you all for reading! It's crazy that this story just passed a thousand views. The support is greatly appreciated. I literally love and cherish all the reviews so please drop one if you could! It's such a huge help to my progression.
Once again, big thanks to TheDragonChronicle for beta reading!
