I have been writing this since APRIL. For context if any of you have read my other stuff - I wrote this BEFORE writing "Affirmations". No idea why it took me so long to finally post it... anyway, here ya go:
If it wasn't already obvious, this is a "five plus one things" story and each of the characters will get their own chapter - I'm not one to leave anyone out haha.
Pay attention to the titles otherwise the chapters don't fully make sense.
Also, big thank you to my friend Kitt who came up with the title! You may know them as kfphumans on Tumblr - and if it weren't for them this fic would be stuck with the name "5+1 personalities" haha
Crane was a think first kick later kind of bird.
He couldn't say the same for the Furious Five though.
Fond as he was of them, their strong and conflicting personalities often made room for some very avoidable mistakes. Mistakes that, if they had just listened to him or used their brains (that probably didn't exist) everything would have been fine. One instance was a time that became known as the "Exploding Building Episode".
"No. No way. Absolutely not."
"What do you mean?" Viper looked at him accusingly. "We have no other option!"
"Tigress told us to-"
"Tigress is also the one who's currently chained up with Monkey and Po over there, I don't think she really has a choice." Mantis said gruffly.
Crane looked over to where their three other teammates were in a very dire situation. "She said don't do anything." Tigress usually knew what she was doing, right?
"Tigress was worried about her plan anyway!" Mantis said, voicing what they'd all thought the night before. "And if you think she knows what she's doing, Po doesn't look too sure about that." Mantis pointed out.
He was right, Po looked ready to call it a day and go running.
Viper, currently holding the title of kindest member of their team, let out a little sympathy for his worry. "It'll be fine, Crane, everything will work out."
Crane deflated, it was two against one, he had to go with the majority.
"Yeah, what could go wrong?" Mantis said optimistically.
The next few minutes had them hurriedly loading ridiculous amounts of explosives into barrels and various other wooden or flammable objects into a large cart. Viper and Mantis were far too eager to be considered normal. They, along with some of their other teammates, were always excited over blowing things up. It wasn't to be expected from the kind, sweet and understanding Viper, which, in all honesty, surprised Crane greatly in their early missions. Mantis' eagerness was easily foreseen because the guy had some insane ideas sometimes, along with a temper shorter that Tigress', it was a hilarious but dangerous match.
While he grabbed and threw explosives there was the little voice in his head telling him that this was all crazy and Tigress would murder them all if it went wrong. And not for the first time, he ignored that voice. Big mistake number one.
"We're loaded!" Viper called from the front of the cart; lit lantern held in the corner of her mouth.
"LET'S GO!" Mantis roared from the top of the cart, pointing with one of his pincers the building they were about to demolish. "BRING 'ER UP CRANE."
Crane wanted to roll his eyes at the aggressiveness displayed, was he the only sane one around? He obediently secured his talons round the grooves they dug into the roof and took off with a strong flap that made the wind shake. It was surprisingly heavy. He almost fell down after getting inches off the ground and that caused his little heart to beat furiously up his throat. Flapping with all his might, he focused on calming his breathing. This is too heavy, his consciousness said. A strong gust of wind meant the cart scraped dangerously close to a very tall tree. But I can't go back now, he argued. But he could. He was the one holding them up. He could just turn around. They were such small animals they would never be able to get the cart to the building. And that meant Tigress wouldn't kill them. Ignoring his mental argument, he tried to focus on the plan. Big mistake number two.
Oh god we should have thought this through.
Crane felt his stamina slowly decline. And along with his stamina, went his altitude.
"Is it just me or are we going down?" Mantis voiced.
Viper glanced up at him, unable to read his expressions that were hidden by his hat. "I think so. Crane? Do you know what you're doing?" She looked at him hopefully.
"Yep." He attempted to sound confident, but it came out more exhausted.
"He doesn't sound too sure about that." Mantis commented.
"You're not helping!" Viper hissed at him angrily.
Crane secured his eyes on the growing building. Don't screw up this landing or it won't be just Tigress who'll be mad. Just a little bit further... He let out a huff of exhaustion, his wings were really starting to hurt and he wanted nothing more than to let go of the cart.
"Crane!" Viper yelled up to him, she was hanging off the edge of the cart with her tail wrapped around one of the wheels. "When you land make sure to do it softly otherwise this will blow up before we can get off!"
"Sure." Did his voice seriously sound that strangled?
Mantis said something to Viper but Crane couldn't hear it over the sight of the building. They were so close! Spurred on and suddenly feeling a wave of motivation, he sped up tremendously subsequently jerking the cart ungracefully. Mantis and Viper both yelped in surprise. Big mistake number three.
"TOO FAST!" Mantis' shout was almost loud to enough to make Crane stop and use his logical thinking. "SLOW DOWN!"
But, he argued, if I don't get there soon I won't be able to hold the weight any longer and everything will fall. Crane knew he was stuck between a rock and a hard place and he had only one solution.
As he flew over their target building, he stopped for a split-second to gather himself for landing. Except it seemed the gods were against him that day. Not adding more friction to the grooves his talons were currently gripping on to was added to the growing list of regrets, as the cart was slowly and very slightly slipping down. Crane supposed he didn't have to necessarily take all the blame for their upcoming failure, Viper and Mantis held just as much responsibility. The two in question were oblivious to his current predicament, as they both held wild and excited grins, which only grew when he sped up even more. They knew Crane always flew at extreme speeds just for the fun of it, but this was more of a I need to land before I drop everything sort of flight. However, this really wasn't his day as his strength started to abandon ship and give up on him. Honestly! Could his stamina have picked a worse time? When Tai Lung beat them all up and turned them into stone statues of tension, he managed to fly everyone all the way back to the Jade Palace, albeit reduced to an exhausted and traumatised mess. Adrenaline was probably the thing that kept him going, and, of course, the necessity to get home. Right now, he was severely missing the latter, because if Mantis and Viper had just listened to him the cart would not be mid-oh for the love of-
The fall was as imminent as his swoop down to grab them both. Flying straight up they had a good view of the destruction caused by dropping the cart. The building didn't immediately go up in flames, but the cart left a small explosion.
Viper snaked herself around his body, put her head next to his and followed his eyeline, staring down at their consequences. "This - this wasn't part of the plan - was it?" She whispered in horror.
Mantis managed to hold his silence for a total of ten seconds before asking the obvious question. "So - what do we do now?" He said slowly.
They exchanged a tense look. If Tigress wasn't already going to be angry, after this she was going to straight up murder them and spear their heads on the ends of Monkey's bo staffs. And Crane knew deep down that he'd get the brunt of it. She'd once told him secretly during one of their first missions that due to his careful thought process she trusted him the most to keep the others from doing anything stupid or impulsive. He didn't want to burn that bridge with her so he kept his beak shut about how his logic would do nothing if they didn't listen to him.
Viper saw the look on his face and tried to provide some comforting words. "It's not that bad!" She insisted. "We meant to burn the building down anyway, and you just - uh - sped up the process." Crane had to appreciate her for trying.
Mantis, on the other hand, looked at her as if she was deranged. "Are you kidding?! He just ruined the whole plan!"
"Well we'd all be fine right now if the cart wasn't so heavy in the first place!" Crane retorted; he was not taking the blame for this.
"Guys, don't..." Viper muttered.
"How would we burn the building down if we didn't have all the explosives! Huh?!"
"Guys..."
"If you'd just listened to me then-!"
"GUYS!"
"WHAT!" They yelled with such ferocity that Crane momentarily thought it was just Mantis's voice.
Viper looked affronted and whipped them with her tail. Crane felt a shocked sound escape him, forgetting how much power Viper had in her tail whippings. "It's not going to help our situation if you dimwits are arguing!"
Crane certainly felt the guilt, and luckily Mantis didn't object to being called a dimwit.
She took a deep breath and turned her head towards Tigress, Monkey and Po. "Ok, Crane we need to go down there and free them, the explosion is a good distraction so it should be easy." Her authoritative tone was something they rarely heard, with usually Tigress or sometimes Po taking the lead. "Mantis, when we get there cut the ropes and we all run like crazy, agreed?"
They both nodded readily. Crane was about to add his usual sarcastic quip about how he didn't do running he did flying, but he knew Viper was not in the mood, so he left it.
As they got closer to their target the three of them collectively grew more frightened by the second. Tigress had thunder written on her face and Monkey and Po were looking apprehensive. Upon touch down Mantis whizzed round and cut the ropes, then promptly tore off into the night, with Monkey and Po hot on his tails. Viper, still wrapped around Crane, muttered a small apology to Tigress, who gave them a terrifying warning look before following the others. Crane and Viper exchanged a look as he took them to the sky.
Yeah, they were definitely in for it.
Another perfectly avoidable example with more dire consequences than Tigress' wrath was the "Never-listen-to-Mantis Fiasco", helpfully dubbed by Monkey.
"Master Shifu strongly advised us-"
"AAAAAARGH!" But it was too late and Master Bear went running into the ship with a battle cry, closely followed by Master Croc.
"-not to engage." He muttered the rest of his sentence, knowing it would do nothing. Though a relieving thought was that Mantis would probably take his side after what happened with the recent "Exploding Building" episode.
"We've gotta get in there!" Crane almost sighed, once again, Mantis disappointed him.
"But Master Shifu said-!"
"Are you seriously afraid?" Mantis said disbelievingly from the top of Crane's hat. "Even Master Chicken's going in there! And he's a chicken!" He added the last part so savagely that Crane didn't bother to remind him of Master Chicken's brave battles.
And sure enough, Master Chicken was brave enough to run determinedly into the ship, unsheathing his blades as he did so. Crane wanted to roll his eyes (a common feeling that followed him in his daily life with the Furious Five), he understood not listening to him but Shifu? He was a Grandmaster and had more wisdom than any of them combined.
Right after Chicken had disappeared there was a shocked squawk followed by a flash of green light that made Mantis gasp in horror and jump off the brim of his hat. "That's it! I'm going in."
"Mantis!" Crane hissed. "We have orders-!"
"We have to help, come on!" With his mind made up he scurried his way into the boat. "I go high you go low."
"No, wait!" Crane was desperate now, Mantis was severely not thinking straight
"Fear the bug!" He yelled his (now signature) catchphrase as he sprung to the top of the boat and dropped into a hole in the roof. "Alright you little-" But the rest of his threat was cut off at a flash of green. Crane was seriously starting to panic now.
"Hold on buddy! I'm coming!" It was a last resort really; he didn't feel like being on the receiving end of Shifu's wrath but there was a possibility that Kai could be a lot bigger than what Mantis could take on.
"Antenna of power! Gah it didn't work!"
"MANTIS!" His worst fears were confirmed as he half flew half ran into the ship and struck a kung fu pose.
He didn't see any trace of a fight or scuffle. Or anyone for that matter. It was completely empty, devoid of all the previous masters who ran in. Fear started to sink in after he registered the deafening silence. Crane wasn't one to get scared easily, sure the others teased him a little about being a little more careful than them but he definitely didn't get scared of their enemies. He was, after all, the only one (tied with Tigress) to keep a calm head during battle. So the answer was always no Mantis I'm not afraid I've just got common sense.
But right now, he was downright terrified. Who knew what Kai did with the other masters? Were they already jombies? Dead and gone forever? Crane fought valiantly against the urge to fly all the way back to the Jade Palace with his tail feathers between his legs. He did not want to die because Mantis couldn't control his impulses. But Mantis could still be in here, his morals reasoned. An unhelpful image of a squashed and bruised Mantis begging to live zoomed into his mind. He gulped at what his mind provided. On we go then…
"Mantis?" He whispered, looking around for any speck of green. "Mantis!" He felt movement behind him, he wasn't alone.
The last thing he wanted to do was turn around.
The thing behind him was definitely not Mantis, too large. The movement felt fluid, so not robotic enough to be a jombie. Breath on the back of his neck. Tall, maybe the same height as him? Though possibly bigger. The sand shifted massively. So it was heavier than him, maybe Po's size? His split-second analysis of the thing behind him made him brave enough to turn and look.
His gasp echoed through the empty ship.
Kai was huge. Up until then he thought Po and Tigress or even Shen to be the largest animals he'd met but Kai blew them all out the water. His size came at such a shock that at first Crane was lost at what to do. So he did the first thing that came to mind: he tipped his hat and pretended that he'd never seen Kai. Sure okay, maybe it wasn't the best decision he could have made but this was also the most terrifying experience of his life.
Suddenly he was pushed into the ground by a giant hoof. With all the wind knocked out of him he managed to wrap a leg round the arm holding him down and twist Kai round, taking him by surprise. He used this time to ready himself into a battle stance. Okay calm down, you've got this.
Kai huffed and smirked. "Your qi is strong." He said. "Just like your friend," he reached down the belt around his waist and showed Crane the glinting green amulet of Mantis. "the bug…"
He was still alive! "Mantis!" Crane sped forward and came only inches from the amulet –
- only to be thrown back with an incredible amount of force from only a flick of Kai's finger. The small, deprecating part of him was relieved that Mantis wasn't there to witness his pitiful defeat. He couldn't deny that being thrown against the wall of the ship was painful. His body wasn't designed for heavy duty, birds are fragile, and Crane was no exception of that. And besides, he generally wasn't the one in the group to get hurt anyway. Monkey was notorious for bruising, his carelessness along with his acrobatic fighting style caused him to get some short-lasting but still unnecessary injuries. Viper also, always seemed to get bent into some weird and painful position. Contrary to popular belief, she was not infinitely flexible, something Po was pretty disappointed to learn.
Crane recovered roughly from his collision, though he very much felt the absence of his hat. Taking another trembling battle stance, he realized with humiliation that Kai had waited for him to get off the ground. The embarrassment was heavy, never in all his years of fighting had an opposer waited for him to recover. It meant the fight was fair, but it also meant that Kai pitied him. I must look pretty pathetic right now.
"Don't worry little birdie, I'll put your qi to good use. Destroying the Jade Palace and everyone in it!" Kai's eyes glowed green as his voice boomed with his threat.
This was the last straw for Crane. Get yourself together! "No!"
He took a barrel in his talons and kicked it at Kai. This didn't phase him, but was enough to let him shoot up through a hole in the roof.
Crane prided himself on keeping a level-head in high-pressure situations. He was, after all, the calmest of the group when in battle, with maybe Tigress as a close second. He proved himself time and time again to be reliable and trustworthy, Shifu trusted him to get back to the Palace safely, and he was determined to not let himself be turned into a jombie.
However, the one damn time his life was on the line of a blade-swinging maniac with abnormally long chains he did not think straight enough to fly anywhere but up.
"Wings of – REGRET!"
Regret indeed.
One of the times they actually listened to him was one of their first battles together as the Furious Five. It went down in legend with a name given by the public, but Viper always called it "The Breakthrough of Crane", a name that Crane himself hadn't fully agreed with but became stuck when the others found it to be fitting.
"I say we go for it."
"When's Tigress getting back? I'm sure she'll know what to do."
"I agree with Monkey- "
"Of course you'll agree with Monkey…"
"But what else do we do instead? Wait for them to find us?"
Crane stuck his beak into their little conversation. "They'll definitely find us if you carry on like that." He said with a lowered voice, his eyes roaming around the pit they were in.
"But do you think we should go for it?" Monkey asked him, ignoring his previous quip.
"But Tigress might have another plan." Viper chimed in. "I'm sure she'll think of something."
Crane made a shushing sound which caused Monkey to retaliate. "We are in a hole, in the ground." He gave Crane a weak glare, enunciating all his words.
"Monkey, I don't care, just keep your voice down or they'll find us." He said flippantly, he could not be asked to deal with their impulsiveness. The tinge of guilt for ignoring Viper crawled its way up the back of his neck, I'll make it up to her later.
"He's right about that." They all turned around to see Tigress land a jump down into their dirt pit.
"Tigress!" Viper exclaimed happily. "What's the plan?"
Mantis crawled onto her shoulder. "We're outnumbered a thousand to one, it doesn't look pretty." He debriefed gravely.
Her face had the same expression that showed itself whenever they failed in a mission or when Shifu berated them. "I – I don't have a plan."
They looked at each other worriedly. Was this the end for them? Only two years together and they were going to die at the hands of the army of the Weeping River. It was their second mission branded as the Furious Five. If they died, which was a certainty at that moment, they would go down in history as failures of kung fu.
Tigress' eyes went downcast and she wrung her paws, looking increasingly more worried. "I don't – I don't know what to do." Fidgeting was something Crane had never seen her do, as well as her shortness of breath interrupting her sentences. "I don't know how we can win, there's – there's too many of them and we'd never – we'd never make it – it's too much, – we need help."
It honestly looked as if she was going to cry. Crane was actually worried at this point. If Tigress of all animals had given up, then they didn't have any hope.
Viper climbed up to her shoulders and rested her head next to hers. "It's alright sweetie, we'll think of something."
We'll think of something, Viper's words echoed through him, but who? Who's going to help us out? Crane looked out from where they were hiding and saw the giant army. It consisted from a variety of rhinos, gorillas, bears and rams. They all carried weapons of spears, blades and axes. Their amour, made of metal, looked uncomfortably heavy. Crane's brain went into overdrive. This means that we need to-
"Tigress, are we going to – not make it back?" Mantis asked apprehensively, voicing the big question hanging between them.
Tigress opened and closed her mouth a few times. "Probably – probably not." She said miserably.
A tense silence passed between them as they contemplated their death. Crane knew it wasn't his time, the gods didn't want him, and he still wasn't good enough at kung fu to make it to the Spirit Realm. And besides, who's to say they would be together in the afterlife? The last two years with the Five had been the best in his life and even in such a small space of time he considered them his family. The memories he'd made with them were wonderful, and though it was sappy, he wasn't ready to let them go. He had yet to teach Tigress calligraphy, paint a portrait of Viper, play a game of mah-jong with Mantis or give Monkey an old family recipe of cookies with almonds. He deflated, remembering his promises that would probably never happen. No! Think of battle tactics! He looked to the battlefield once more. Wait a minute-
"That's it, I'm not going down without a fight!" Monkey growled, climbing swiftly out, hackles raised and ready to punch something into oblivion for causing his friends pain.
Again, Crane was not in the mood to deal with their impulsiveness. He did not want to suffer the consequences of Monkey's protectiveness. "What are you doing?!" Crane hissed, instinctually picking him up and throwing him to Tigress' feet. "You're heading towards an early grave! We need to think about this first!"
"What do you suggest other than brute force?" Mantis said almost sarcastically, though it came out more frustrated. "What else have we got?" The second part sounded as though he was pretty strained himself.
"He's right Crane, we have no other option." Viper said sadly, locking sympathetic eyes with him.
Crane gripped the ground with his talons and flapped his wings slightly, his body's usual reaction to frustration. If Viper of all animals had given up hope then they needed his logic more than ever. "Stealth, we have stealth and height." He said forcefully through gritted teeth. "They're all big animals, they won't notice someone as small as you." He nudged Mantis with his beak. "And they've all got such huge weapons that they can hardly carry, they'd never be agile enough to hit you." He stared hard at Viper, trying to relay something, anything, through their shared look. "Plus, their metal is made of armour so it's too heavy to jump and take down someone who is flying," He pushed his wings out slightly and gestured to Tigress and Monkey. "so dropping you two on top of them should be easy."
This was met with silence and for a moment Crane had wondered if he'd got it all wrong,
Tigress looked at him through wide eyes. "Yes! Yes that's it!" Crane almost smirked at her revelation from his little analysis. "You're completely right!"
Monkey stared at him in shock and slowly raised his hand. "I second that."
"And I third that!" Mantis said with delight, raising his pincer.
Viper smiled widely. "I think we might just have a chance now." She muttered and patted him gratefully with her tail. "So, Tigress and Crane, what's our plan?"
A grin grew on Tigress' face, the one that Crane hadn't seen for a while, and she nodded to herself. "Right, right, yes." She took a breath and put on her usual stronger tone. "First we use Mantis to run between their legs and take them by surprise and then Viper comes from the other side as a distraction…"
It was in that moment, Crane supposed, being a pragmatist was extremely beneficial.
I have to say that the chapters are in no particular order apart from the last one, and I started with Crane simply because this was the second fic I'd started writing for this fandom and my first one was Crane-centric so I felt it would be easier to start with him lol
1) I took inspiration for the first scene from when they blow up the building in the second movie but with minor changes haha, I'm not very good at coming up with stuff like this
2) I coined Viper and Mantis as the aggressive types. Mantis is pretty obvious I think - but Viper I think has that trait because of the scene in the second movie where she says "let's burn down the building!" and she just looks so into it with a lil evil smile haha, she's totally aggressive in battle
3) Crane definitely is the type to unintentionally get into petty arguments - his whole character can get pretty snippy and with his avoidance of confrontation that's a recipe for arguments
4) If you're familiar with my other stuff you'll have noticed I use the whole "Guys..." dialogue for Viper a lot haha, I feel like I've used it fifty times already - but it really suits her
5) Crane's scene with Kai really shocked me when I first watched it because that guy is huge! Crane really was little birdie there lol - and he also looked terrified.
6) Also I've never seen a more panicked move from him than when he flew straight up instead of sideways haha
7) This is quite prominent in the last scene and I've said it a lot in my other fics, but Crane and Viper are definitly close friends, I feel like their personalities would really click
8) I feel Tigress wasn't the only one to make plans, the others would have a say in it I think
9) The last scene is also an ode to the fact that Crane is really needed in the group. To be honest this whole fic is an ode to how all the characters are needed to make their group function.
Anyway, sorry for the long author's note, but I wanted to explain my thought process behind this since this is one of the fics I worked a very long time on to get right! The next chapter will probably be out in three weeks or so, I've got other WIPs so remain patient please! And concrit on this is welcome with open arms! Hit me with anything I could improve on please!