AN - To remind you...
Ying - Tigress
Yu Ting - Viper
Jia - Crane
Wu Cong - Monkey
Fan Hai - Mantis
Hopefully this chapter will answer some pending questions...
Cong retracted his fist as quickly as Po collapsed, lifeless, on the sofa again.
He looked at it and back to Po. "Shit." He repeated.
Yu covered her face with her hands in horror. "Oh my god we're screwed." She whispered into her fingers.
"More like fucked!" Fan added, sounding much more strained than usual.
"Oh shit!" Cong cried again, as if the severity of the situation had only just dawned on him. He scrambled away from Po as if he'd caught the plague. "Shifu's gonna kill us!"
Yu made a noise in the back of her throat, looking as if she were about to hyperventilate. She grappled desperately for her forgotten phone. "We need to tell Jia!"
"No!" Fan grabbed it deftly from her trembling hands. "He'll tell Ying who'll tell Shifu!"
"But he's gonna find out eventually!" Yu reached over aggressively to grab her phone back, but Fan wasn't giving in.
Cong had collapsed onto shaking knees. "Oh no, oh no what do we do?!"
"We need to hide him! Shifu can't find out! If he does we're over!" Fan gripped Yu's phone as if it were a lifeline and backed away from her, bumping clumsily into the kitchen countertop.
"What are we hiding from Shifu?" Jia's cold voice reverberated through the hallway, seemingly still frustrated over the previous events. "I heard something loud, I hope you guys haven't-" He stopped upon entering the kitchen.
His eyes wandered to Cong in distress, Fan holding Yu's phone and Yu looking as if she were going to cry. Turning to the sofa, he frowned at the sight of Po sprawled across it with a blossoming bruise on his forehead, and his usual cool composure was gone in an instant.
"What the hell did you do?!" He hissed, looking more worried than angry. "We said we weren't going to knock him out again!"
"He – he knows!" Yu whispered weakly. "Jia, he knows who we are!"
"He-" Jia's eyes widened in horror and he reached two hands up to grasp the hair under his hat as he gaped. "Oh shit." He breathed deeply. "We're so fucking screwed." He muttered, turning away and pulling his hat low over his eyes as if that would make the situation disappear.
This did not help Yu's panicking. Her hopes that Jia, as the most mature out of all of them, would be able to solve everything with a calm head had gone out the window. She slid to the floor and drew her knees to her chin, even through the complaint of the rough denim she was wearing.
Cong, it seemed, had the same crisis. "What do we do?!" He asked to no one in particular, and wrung his hands worriedly
Jia put a hand on his racing heart. "I don't know, but we need to tell Ying." He said, deadly serious.
"Are you crazy?" Fan spluttered. "No way are we telling Ying!"
"This isn't something we can just hide from her!" Jia retorted, his voice louder than they'd ever heard it.
"Guys be quiet!" Yu hissed, but was ignored by the others.
"But Ying will tell Shifu!" Cong blurted out, still on the floor.
"Ying has to know!"
"I have to know what?" Ying commented, from where she was leaning on the doorway with her arms crossed.
They all stared at her with equally panic-stricken faces. She frowned, confused for a moment before turning to look at Po. She muttered a tense curse under her breath and glared at her friends. "Why did you do that!" She growled.
"He knows who we are!" Yu cried.
"How!" She demanded.
"An educated guess, I think." Jia muttered.
Ying made a noise of frustration and threw her hands in the air. "You didn't have to knock him out! Just deny all accusations! It's not like he had any solid evidence!" She put her face in her hands, not believing their stupidity. They had their moments, but this was definitely becoming the worst.
Everyone deflated as they realised that she was completely right. Po Ping was just a random guy with a weird obsession with kung fu. If he ran down to the city and told everyone that the Furious Five were the Jade Palace employees he'd sound absolutely crazy. Who'd believe him?
Fan kicked Cong idly. "Idiot." He muttered, and held out a hand to help him up.
"I panicked okay!" Cong argued, getting back up and ready to regain some of his dignity.
"Guys…" Yu started again.
"But this means we've reached the point of no return!" Ying carried on angrily. "When he wakes up we can't just say 'oh sorry, Cong's fist just collided with your face there'!"
"That's if he wakes up." Jia supplied, unhelpfully.
"Guys…"
"Excuse me but two fists to the face is not enough to kill someone." Fan said grumpily. "God it's so obvious I'm the only one who's medically trained…"
"Guys!" Everyone finally turned round to look at Yu, who closed the kitchen door with a snap. "I don't know what Shifu's doing but with you idiots yelling he'll hear you and then we'll definitely be in for it." She looked thoroughly annoyed, almost enough to match Ying's current mood.
Jia grimaced apologetically. "You're right, sorry Yu, let's just… sit down and… not panic."
Cong drew up a chair at the meagre dining table. "I wasn't panicking…" He muttered, glaring at Jia.
Everyone took a tentative seat, all eyes on the reason for their current predicament. Their minds each wandered to what was going to happen next. And truth be told, they had no idea. The possibility of the Furious Five becoming just a simple memory was horribly close. It scared them. Po Ping, even in such a short amount of time, had impacted their lives more than they could say. Neither of them wanted to say anything, except for the most talkative…
"Off topic," Fan started, breaking their rumination and ignoring their exasperated looks. "but what are the details for our flight next week?"
Jia immediately slumped over the table, head in hands. "Don't remind me…"
Yu patted him in reassurance while Ying got out her phone. "The flight leaves at ten in the morning-"
"UGH!" Cong groaned loudly. "That is so unfair! I'm not waking up at four again!"
"And don't forget, it's your turn to drive!" Fan snickered evilly and poked him like an annoying fly, enjoying his friend's pain.
Jia ignored them. "I hate flying." He uttered, the fact well-known between them due to it being the only thing he constantly complained about.
"I know honey, but it's only a two-hour flight." Yu consoled gently, ignoring them also.
"Ying has yet to learn how to drive!" Cong exclaimed, and glowered darkly at Ying. "I swear you're putting it off on purpose."
She smirked. "If it means I can still sleep in the backseat, I'm not driving." She said smugly.
"You're like what, eighteen?" He remarked, knowing it would rile her up.
"I'm nineteen you –" She slapped his arm half-heartedly. "-moron."
"Wait Cong interrupted you," Fan put an impatient hand in front of Cong's face. "what do we need to pack and what exactly are we doing in Malaysia?"
Ying pushed her phone across the table with her signature annoyed look. "It's all in the five emails Shifu sent us to make sure you knew what you were doing."
He raised an eyebrow at her, the subtext very clear in her speech. "Are we still going on about this?" When she nodded he rolled his eyes in a typical Jia fashion. "Look, I'm telling you it was Jia who started arguing with me in the bank-"
"Liar." Came the muffled voice of Jia.
"He doesn't argue anyway." Yu frowned at Fan, putting a protective hand on Jia's shoulder.
"He does." Ying said simply, to Jia's glower. "But either way, it still got us caught."
"Okay, I know you worry about these things Ying, but they only got photo of Fan running away." Cong said loudly, taking over the conversation, to which Ying gave an exasperated sigh. "And remember that all they were examining was Fan's arse anyway!" He laughed gleefully at the memory, slapping the table and continuing even when Fan elbowed him in the stomach.
"He's right, that was funny." Jia interjected again.
Yu giggled behind her hand. "Oh don't look so annoyed about it Fan Hai, you're always laughing at us! So think of it as payback!"
"Ugh, don't bring in the full name Yu Ting." Fan bit back, joining in the mock-teasing.
"Fan Hai, you still have to read the emails." Yu put heavy emphasis on his name, getting back to the task at hand by sliding Ying's phone closer to him. "Shifu will be mad if he knows you skipped out on that."
"Fine," He took the phone and held it up with a grin. "someone read this out to me?"
Ying looked affronted. "Read them yourself, as you should have done in the first place."
Fan tutted. "I'm a busy guy, Ying, I have other priorities."
She snorted. "Trying to get laid doesn't count." Cong sniggered behind his hands at this remark.
Fan clutched his heart dramatically. "You hurt my soul, Ying."
"You hurt our image, Fan Hai." She countered almost instantly.
Jia's head popped up. "Do you plan your comebacks Ying?" He asked cheekily.
"I'll take that as a compliment only because I feel sorry for you."
"Does that mean you'll sit next to him on the plane?" Cong asked. "I don't wanna have him whinging into my ear for two hours straight about motion sickness-"
"I will sit next to him!" Yu cut in. "And that's by choice because you lot can be insufferable."
"Aww thanks." Jia smiled up at her, then smugly at the others.
Ying rolled her eyes. "Whatever happened to solidarity between –"
A loud groan came from the sofa.
"Ugh… my head…"
"He's waking up." Yu whispered, and everyone sat up straight, sobering quickly.
"That was fast." Fan commented, sounding a little shocked.
Ying now started to look a little scared, something they rarely saw from her. She gulped and stared at them intently. "Right, he might have amnesia or something, okay?" She said, sounding like she was reassuring herself more than her friends. "Or maybe he won't even remember what happened. I don't know. I don't know what we're going to do. But either way – we deny everything."
They nodded readily at her instruction. As absurd as it was, it was their only option.
Po clutched his head with both hands, face contorted in pain. A collective sense of guilt passed over them, the poor guy really didn't deserve what he'd got…
It was by pure luck that Po had chosen to read the news that day three years ago. The top headline grabbed his attention instantly as a notification on his phone.
MYSTERIOUS GROUP CAUGHT DURING DRUG BUST
He didn't quite know why it spiked his curiosity the way it did. But he was suddenly wide-awake, despite having just woken up in the early hours of the morning.
The article detailed of a group of five males aged approximately late teens to early twenties. They were clad in all black. With masks and hoodies to hide their faces. The press had managed to get a few blurry photos before the mysterious group could get out. They were bad quality, but enough for everyone to go crazy over. Some people were scared, that a group of youths could be more skilled than the police, or even government-hired investigators. But Po knew they were just being ignorant, as far as anyone was aware, this group had dealt with a huge illegal drug smuggling system in the blink of an eye. And even managed to get away with it.
Another little tidbit the article contained was the fact that instead of using weapons, they used the ancient art of kung fu to fight their way out. That sealed the deal for Po. Kung fu used as fighting was such an old concept, one that was ingrained in history but could never carry over to the modern day. And to know that they used it for good was reassuring to the rich history and beliefs. Plus, hiding their faces was seriously cool.
It sky-rocketed them to his height of interest.
And apparently, the press too.
The ten blurry, flash-lighted photos were all over the papers and social media. The countless articles were twisted and distorted into almost entirely different stories. One fake article Po found was a conspiracy theory that the group consisted of five child celebrities who were after Hollywood and had hatched an extensive plan to take it down one by one. That got a good laugh out of him. As if the celebrities named in the article would learn kung fu. Although each story got wilder than the last, everyone eventually seemed to agree on a name for them.
The Furious Five.
Dubbed by a random internet blogger after it leaked out that one of their members was reportedly furious at the cameras for taking photos of them. He didn't lash out too violently, but caused injuries bad enough for hospitalisation... or just some bruising. Well, that depended on which click-bait title Po chose to believe.
After those fateful few weeks where the internet was full of conspiracy theories about the Furious Five, no one saw them for a while. Hungry journalists were vying for another record-breaking article to write, and it was only recently that they were spotted again during a bank heist. One photo was timely snapped, but only showed one of the Five running away in a hurry. Despite it being absolutely useless information, the public still ate it up. Cue numerous YouTubers creating ten-minute videos "exposing" the secrets of the Furious Five and weirdly obsessive Tumblr blogs dedicated to conspiracy theories about them.
Though that was a bit rich coming from Po.
Too many times to count, his dad had burst into his room without warning, leaving Po to snap the lid of his laptop shut in panic. The fifteen tabs he had open on kung fu history and the mystery of the Furious Five was too embarrassing to expose. His simple interest now bordered on stalkerish, and he prefer it be kept secret. He was an adult now (even if it really didn't feel like it) and instead of going off to university like all his schoolmates did, he stayed behind in the city and worked in the noodle shop. There wasn't much else he could do anyway, school wasn't exactly his thing, and the only talent he'd found in himself was cooking, hence assistant manager of Ping's noodle shop went to him.
So yes, he was a bit of a loser, as far as society was concerned. Plans of going to culinary school were pushed back in favour of living with his dad for a little longer and "figuring out exactly what he wanted to do". The last part was a bit of a lie, and as he came close to his twentieth he realised that he needed to actually start figuring out what he was going to do.
Consequently, he found himself looking towards the Jade Palace. Aside from food science, history was his other strong subject in school. He supposed the high grade he got in his final exam would help him out in the job interview. The job itself… well, Po didn't really know where it would get him. He just knew it would be another distraction from the looming closeness of needing to move on to higher education.
A very small part of him wished he could be like the Furious Five. For all he knew, they could just be normal young adults secretly making a difference. But even then, they had everything figured out. Everything was going to plan. Unlike Po's spiralling life. So he found comfort in the wild stories and random photos of them in the paper. Real or not, it helped him escape from reality for a while.
But in the last month or so, it seemed that these youths had disappeared into obscurity. Completely and utterly vanished. Po was slow to admit that this saddened him. He almost wished that they could get caught again, and those Five figures could appear all over social media once more. One tall, one short, one muscular, one of average height, one furious. His slightly embarrassing knowledge on what little of their appearances he could get would never come in handy. It was useless information. China was huge, what were the chances that five young men matching in body type were just walking the streets around him.
The information was useless. Until Po really needed it…
Po opened his eyes to a horrible yet very familiar throbbing pain in his head. He grunted, and shifted himself up, finding a tired ache in his limbs to add to his head problem. Managing to wriggle into a sitting position, he rubbed his eyes roughly, trying to remember how he got himself into such a situation.
"It's… complicated."
"Sorry, we don't have any vacancies here."
"You're the Furious Five."
Po turned his head achingly slow and stared at the five people he'd obsessed so much over. Their faces were passive, and unreadable. They were sitting around the antique table he'd spotted in the corner the last time he was conscious. It was almost like they were having some sort of bleak meeting. Their backs were straight and rigid, and all heads were turned towards him. His eyes passed over each face, even though the punch he'd taken was pretty hard, he could still remember their names. (How could he? These were the names of his idols!) Their less than inviting tension didn't deter Po from blurting out the first thing on his mind.
"You're the Furious Five!"
Fan Hai muttered unintelligible swear words, Ying face-palmed, Jia's jaw dropped to the table, Yu Ting winced and Wu Cong raised his fist again.
"Don't you dare!" Yu Ting growled, smacking his hand down. "We are not doing that again!"
Po couldn't care less about their poor reactions, and didn't even flinch at Wu Cong. "I can't believe it!" He gasped, a wide grin taking place even though his head complained. "This is crazy!"
Jia laughed nervously. "Well, uh-"
"I mean you guys are awesome!" He carried on, he was sitting with his idols! What else could he do apart from tell them how he felt? "I almost thought you weren't actually real because no one knows who you are!"
"Well, the truth is-" Ying started, seeming like she was trying to dispel his excitement.
"The public is crazy over you –!"
"NO!" Yu Ting shouted, turning all eyes on her. She stumbled over her words before making a coherent phrase. "They're – they're crazy over the Furious Five!"
"And as you said, no one knows who they are!" Fan Hai tailed along quickly.
Ying nodded rapidly. "Yeah, identities are hidden and all that."
"We only know those wild conspiracy theories anyway." Jia waved a hand, as if to waft away Po's memory of the previous events.
Wu Cong made a chuckle that sounded very forced. "Funny that you think we're the Furious Five! They're all guys anyway…"
The others nodded in agreement. "You must have hit your head pretty hard to think all that." Yu Ting said with a grimace.
Po blinked at them. Did they seriously think he was this stupid? What did that say about how he came off to people? He didn't want to think about that…
He crossed his arms over his chest trying to make himself look at annoyed as possible (a hard task considering all he wanted to do was jump up and down with delight). "I know you're lying."
"Of course we're not!" Yu Ting insisted tensely, not-so-subtly gripping the table.
"She's right, why would we lie when the Furious Five are so – err – cool." Jia's pathetic finish only did more to confirm Po's belief.
"And they could be literally anyone in China." Wu Cong said casually. "So again, we're not the Furious Five."
Po frowned at them. "Yes you are. You punched me in the face when I first pointed it out." He said accusingly to Wu Cong.
He rubbed the back of his neck guiltily. "I – uh – panicked."
"And I saw you doing kung fu." Po pointed to Ying, who drew a sharp breath. "So don't deny it."
Fan Hai opened his mouth but Wu Cong put a warning hand on his arm to silence him.
"And by the way, it was literally the best kung fu I've ever seen!" Po gushed, quickly dropping the angry façade. "So you're obviously the Furious Five!"
Despite the high praise, Ying deflated, and turned to the others. "The last resort… is no longer a last resort." She sounded completely resigned, defeated.
This was their last resort? Po was completely baffled, maybe the Furious Five weren't as slick as he thought they were. Surely they had other backup plans if an obsessed fan found out who they were.
"It can't be that bad Ying." Yu Ting started, trying weakly to dissipate the apparent severity of Po's revelation.
"Yu, he remembers everything." Ying sighed deeply in resignation and put her elbows on the table, head resting atop her hands. "Let's just enjoy our last few hours here."
Her pessimism was almost infectious.
Almost.
"Wait, what? What do you mean last hours?" Po questioned instantly, sobering up a little but still not enough to match the mood of the room. She was acting as if it was the end of the world. Was this surely that serious?
Yu Ting gave him a sad smile. "You know now, so that means our secret is out." Po stared at her, this didn't make any sense. Nothing was making any sense.
"But – but it's not like I'll tell anyone!" He insisted weakly, not knowing much else to say.
Fan Hai sighed and leaned his head on Wu Cong's shoulder tiredly. "We can't guarantee that."
"There's no one to tell anyway! Who's gonna believe me?" He pointed to himself self-deprecatingly. And it was the truth. If he went running down to the city and yelled out to the streets that the Furious Five were employees in a museum then everyone would think him deranged.
Jia grimaced. "Honestly, your fate is up to Master Shifu." He created a shadow over his face with that odd rice hat and leaned back in his chair. "If it was up to us, we'd probably let you go if you prove trustworthy, or let you in if you prove useful."
Did he just say…?
Yu Ting nodded. "That's right, we needed someone else anyway."
It was like a dream come true. The Furious Five, his idols, were telling him that he could join them! This would change everything! His brain went into overdrive and in zoomed a mental image of him doing kung fu in that famous black attire and mask. The dream was so close, so close to becoming real. If he could, he'd grasp it and never let it go.
His mouth worked quicker than his mind and he couldn't help verbalising his thought process. "So that means -!"
"Only if Master Shifu says you can stay." Ying said sternly. "And that man has no mercy." She added as an afterthought.
Yu Ting snorted. "Way to kill the mood Ying…"
"Isn't that her job anyway?" Fan Hai muttered.
"Wait wait wait," Po clutched his head again and groaned as the world started swimming around him. Everything was so confusing and his head hurt so much. The pulsing behind his eyes was getting on his nerves.
"Sorry about that." Wu Cong winced, and jumped up with the agility only a careful practitioner of kung fu would have. "I'll go get you another ice pack."
Po's gaze followed him curiously as he jogged round to the freezer, still amazed that such a simple task could be done with such ease simply because he was kung fu trained. "I have so many questions. So could you guys just – slow down?"
"Shifu's busy anyway, so we've got time." Wu Cong smiled warmly at him and handed him the ice pack. "Ask away."
Po took a deep breath, readying himself for possibly the most monumental event of his life. "First, what exactly do you do?"
AN - They seem a bit ooc in this chapter only because when people panic, they're completely not themselves. And remember, they're younger than in the films, hence their initial mistake at knocking Po out in the first chapter.
The only bit of dramatic irony/fanservice I'll do in this fic is probably just Crane hating planes haha. I don't plan on putting a load of pop culture or animal references in because this could so easily turn into a bad story.
Also, nothing has been fact-checked. It sounds lazy but I'm writing this just for my own pleasure (because I know this won't appeal to many readers) and I honestly don't feel like having everything completely accurate.
This fic will probably get updated once a fortnight or once every three weeks. It's last on my list of priorities due to it being so niche and I also have a lot of other WIPs to attend to :)
That being said, thank you for the comments :)