"...I don't get it," Po whispered as he peered over the ridge. "He's just standing there." He glanced over at Tigress, who was lying beside him, her eyes fixed firmly on the lone figure which kneeled in the center of a ring of candles. "Are you sure we're in the right place?"
"Definitely," she murmured back, her amber eyes gleaming in the darkness as she ran them across the dilapidated arena. "If nothing else, there's probably not a lot of twelve foot goats running around China in iron armor."
"Oooh, good point, that's definitely him! That's definitely Iudex Goatyr" Po agreed, taking a second look.
Twelve feet might have been an exaggeration, but if so it wasn't much of one; Goatyr was definitely one of the largest people that Po had ever met, with a powerful, predatory form almost completely concealed beneath thick plates of intricately carved metal. Even his face was covered by a sternly staring mask, the only sign of his species the pair of magnificent horns that spiraled out from underneath.
Kneeling in the center of that burning ring, Goatyr was the picture of power barely contained, waiting patiently for a reason to walk up and begin his march.
"Sooo…" said Po when he realized he'd just been staring at their target in silence for the past thirty seconds. "What do we do now?"
"Weren't you listening to Master Shifu?" Tigress sighed, even as she rose from her hiding place.
"I, uh, might have drifted off a little towards the end there," he admitted with a sheepish grin.
She rolled her eyes, but couldn't quite hide a small, indulgent smile. "Shifu said that Goatyr is guarding an important artifact of some sort. Our job is to beat him, and bring it back, preferably without bringing down the whole mountain or something."
"Right, that doesn't sound too bad," Po said as he peeked over the ridge again. "I mean, he's been waiting here for almost a thousand years, right? Dude's gotta be ancient by now. I bet he can't even lift that hunk of steel in his hands cause his joints are aching too bad."
"Don't get cocky," she retorted as she crept out of hiding and started prowling towards Goatyr. The closer she could get before he noticed, the easier this would be. "Master Shifu didn't send both of us because he expected this to be easy."
"C'mon, how hard could it be?" Po countered as he stumbled after Tigress, his relatively clumsy passage a calamitous racket compared to his comrade's noiseless steps. "So what if he's sort of a legendary warrior? I'm a legendary warrior too, you know, and I ain't ever heard of this guy."
"That, young panda, is because I have long out-lived the legacy I once fought for." The voice was smooth and dry, like the silken sand back at the Jade Palace, but Po could feel an almost subconscious rumbling beneath the quiet monotone, the sound of rock grinding down steel. It was almost identical to the course grinding that filled the air as Goatyr's head rose to regard them both, his eyes gleaming a bloody red within the darkness of his helm.
"Take note," the guardian continued as he rose to his full, impossible height, reaching out to wrench up the thick metal pole set into the ground beside him. The length of metal was so big and thick, that Po had mistook it for part of the ruins, and he couldn't quite help his frightened whimper when he saw the size of the blade that had been buried in the ground. "Such is the fate of all guardians who fail in their appointed tasks."
"This doesn't have to end in a fight," Tigress pointed out, even as she started circling the warrior, falling into a familiar stance. "We're only here to borrow the Coiled Sword. You have my word, we'll bring it back."
"You speak of avoiding battle, and yet you claim to be after the very thing which I guard," Goatyr sighed, not reacting as Tigress tried to circle behind. "Do you even know the power of that which you seek, child?"
"Well, yeah?" Po said, before quickly reconsidering. "I mean, sorta? I might not have been completely paying attention when Shifu talked about it, but I definitely got the gist of it. We're gonna take the thingy, and we're gonna use it to beat the bad guy and save the world, just like we always do."
"Hm," Goatyr hummed thoughtfully, tilting his head towards Po. "You speak as a fool does, and an earnest fool at that. What of you, warrior of orange and black?" He swiveled to face her, moving with the sort of calm control she was more used to seeing on Shifu, or Vipress. "Do you share your comrades' confidence?"
"I have faith in my master's judgment," she replied, falling into a crouch. "And if he says that the only way to save the world is with the treasures you guard, then I'll be bringing them back with me, one way or another."
"Yeah! What she said!" Po chimed in with a cheer.
"Foolish," the guardian rumbled, letting his weapon fall into his other hand. "So very foolish, just like all the others. You stand before Champion Goatyr, sentinel of the last shrine, Belated Champion and tester of champions! None have bested me in a thousand years, and none shall ever best me again, for only a true champion of ash could ever defeat me."
He raised his blade until it was aimed unwaveringly at Po's heart, falling into a basic stance of his own. "Come then," he growled as he waited for them to begin. "Fall, like all the others have. You are not worthy to wield the treasures I guard."
"Uh...I don't think he's gonna do this peacefully," Po pointed out, moving to mirror Tigress as she prowled around Goatyr. "And I gotta say, I'm a little nervous about fighting a guy with a weapon that's taller than I am." There weren't a lot of people who could make Po feel short, so he was feeling a little nervous about having to look up just to see Goatyr's chestplate.
"Just follow my lead," Tigress retorted as she tensed for a pounce. "We've got this." She leapt.
"Whatever you say," he sighed, before jumping in after her.
"Oh my god, run away! Run away!" Po shrieked, arms flailing wildly as he fled in abject panic, barely keeping ahead of the metal-bound colossus at his heels.
Goatyr wasn't just incredibly huge, or dangerously strong, he was also impossibly fast. Not Tigress fast, or Mantis fast, but faster than anyone wearing that much armor could possibly be, and definitely faster than Po. The ancient warrior didn't just stomp across the battlefield, he trampled it, so that the whole ruins were set to shaking by his passage.
"Whaaoh!" Po shrieked as he leapt over a near-miss, before spinning away from the follow-up kick. Goatyr didn't let up, his bladed staff dancing through the air as lightly as a razor-edged snowflake as he chased the panda down. "Tigress, I could use a little help, he-oof!"
An attempt to get inside the reach of Goatyr's weapon was abruptly aborted by a sudden charge, which flowed into a powerful sidekick that sent Po soaring across the courtyard until he bounced off of the far wall.
"Ohhh, owwowow," he groaned, clutching his head as he rolled back upright. "Tigress?" His eyes widened despite the pain when he saw Goatyr winding up for another charge, the head of his weapon pointed directly at Po's head. "Tigress!" he shouted as the ancient goat launched into a rumbling charge meant to be stopped by nothing short of a literal mountain. "Tigress!"
He struggled upwards to meet the charge on his feet, desperately trying to sidestep it but knowing he was moving far too slowly, and it was very likely that would have been the end of Po the panda if TIgress hadn't leapt out of hiding to knock the blade to one side.
Po stared, dumbstruck, at the quivering blade currently embedded into the stone right next to him, so close that he could see shreds of his fur drifting off of the edge. "Uh...I think I'm gonna need a change of pants," he said, feeling his knees go a little weak.
"Po!" He jerked up at Tigress's cry, just in time to watch her get sent flying for the second time. She caught herself quickly, sliding to a stop across the rocky ground, but her stance was clumsy and uneven as she rose back up to her full height. "I need you!"
"Right, right!" Po called out, forcing his legs to stop trembling as he staggered back into the fight. Goatyr watched his approach, the ram's empty hands hanging loosely at his sides and his expressionless mask tilted in something approaching curiosity.
"So…" Po said as he fell into a clumsy stance of his own. "Had enough, yet?"
"...no," Goatyr declared, sinking into a simple brawler's stance. "Not yet."
Then he moved, and suddenly Po was too busy scrambling to stay out of his way to watch what Tigress was doing.
It wasn't just that the massive goat was disastrously fast for his size, with the sort of reach that could end a fight all on its own, but he was also smooth, moving with the sort of graceful precision that Po was more used to seeing with Master Shifu or Oogway. Every punch flowed into a kick that shifted into a charge, before stopping short and lashing out with a [forearm punch] that should have taken Po's head clear off.
It definitely didn't help that he was also shrugging off the Dragon Warrior's counter-attacks without so much as slowing down. Po had quite literally broken stone with his fists, and tossed aside flaming cannonballs with his bare hands, but he found his strikes slipping off of Goatyr's armor like water across glass. It was uncanny how easily the ancient goat managed to catch blows on the thickest parts of his armor, when he wasn't simply slipping past them.
Then Tigress charged back into the fray, and the battle became a little more even. Suddenly, Po wasn't being driven back by an endless barrage of blows, because that simply encouraged her to attack from behind. And whenever Goatyr tried to drive Tigress back, Po started putting on the pressure. So maybe his punches weren't doing much, but Goatyr still only had two legs, and it wasn't hard to start tipping all of that uneven weight off balance.
Unfortunately, Goatyr lost patience with that tactic particularly quickly, and Po found himself getting another flying lesson as the massive ram grabbed him by the wrist and hurled him away.
"Po!" Tigress shouted, but then Goatyr was on her again, and as good as she was he was just that much better. This time, he didn't settle for knocking her aside like he had before. Instead, he took his time about it, pummeling her down into the ground one limb at a time, punishing every pained stumble with another bone crushing blow. When he finally let Tigress fall, she dropped to the ground in a bloody heap, still shuddering weakly from the pain.
Goatyr left her there with a grunt, stalking over to his weapon and pulling it free. It danced in his hand like a living thing, whirling up and around as he wound up and chopped downward-
Only to find almost three hundred pounds of enraged panda crashing into him from behind. This time, Po didn't bother with punches or kicks, simply planting his feet and hauling ass across the battlefield, until they crashed into the far wall together.
"You! Don't! Touch her!" he roared in between strikes as he poured blow after blow across Goatyr's shoulders and face. "You don't *ever* touch her again!" He reared back for a stone cracking blow, only to find a thunderous kick planted directly into his chest to send him soaring back.
"It seems you, at least, still have some spirit," Goatyr rumbled, planting his weapon on the cracked stone to lever himself to his feet. "A shame your comrade could not equal it."
"Oh, she's got plenty of spirit left, and you're gonna get to see all of it if you don't back off," Po retorted, slowly rolling upright. He rubbed gingerly at the spot that Goatyr had kicked, and the monumental bruise forming there, but the panda stood irregardless of it, unbent and unbroken.
Goatyr, on the other hand, was finally starting to look like he'd been in a battle. His armor was dented and battered, marred by dust and streats of dirt, with a crack through one of his horns from a lucky blow.
Still, he moved with as much ease as before, his weapon dancing and twisting in his hands as he marched forward. "This need not end in your death, young warrior," he suddenly declared, pausing just out of reach, his [naginata] never resting. "The gate stands behind you, your comrade lies beside you…simply take her and flee into the night, and I will not persue you."
Po glanced back at the age, and he felt his spirit ache at the sight of it. He didn't want to be here, fighting this battle, he wanted to go home…
But then he glanced down at Tigress, and felt his heart sink. "But if I do that, I won't have the coiled sword," he said.
"No," said Goatyr without hesitation. "But is such a thing truly worth your life? Is it worth her life?"
"Yes," said Po at once, before reconsidering just as quickly. "No. I don't know," he eventually admitted. "Honestly, I don't even know what's going on right now, but I know that it's bad. Real bad. And I know that our best chance of fixing all of this, whatever this is, is with the coiled sword."
"You trust your master that much?" said Goatyr, his voice thoughtful.
Po didn't even hesitate. "Yeah," he said.
Goatyr nodded, and lowered his lance. "Then you are even more of a fool than I thought."
And then, with no further warning, he drew his weapon back, and lunged.
Viper was getting worried. Traveling to the Muenbochi mountains was no small trip, but even Po should have been able to make it back by now; and yet, there was no sign of him and Tigress both.
Deep down, she ached to go after them, to make sure they were all right, but whatever her worries she was needed here. The Valley of Peace was in a state of barely controlled disaster right now- the shambling hordes which beset them had all been driven back, but there were still wounded to tend to, and fires to put out.
It was as though the whole world was shaking itself to pieces all around them, and right now it was taking all they had to keep the ground solid beneath their feet; going off on a desperate search was simply out of the question, no matter how much she wished otherwise.
"Where do you think they are?" she asked from where she had collapsed, looking up at the stars…or at least, what little of them that could still be seen. The now quietescent fires had left great smears of smoke all over the sky, lit from below by thousands of lanterns and campfires, leaving only small patches of the night sky visible with the naked eye.
"Hm?" said Crane from where he was crumpled beside her. They had both been ordered to rest by Shifu, only to end up colliding with each other in one of the quieter corners of the Jade Palace, where one of the balconies overlooked the front courtyard. "Who?"
"Po and Tigress," said Viper, hiding her frustration. They were all exhausted, and at their wits end; it did nobody any good for her to lose her temper about it.
"Oh," said Crane, before letting out an enormous yawn and shaking his head. "I'm sure they're fine," he eventually continued, laying his head back down on the stone. "Po might be silly, but...well, there's a reason he's the dragon warrior. And as for Tigress, well…" He let out a little laugh, which quickly became another yawn. "I doubt some old dude in a mountain could even slow her down."
"Yeah," said Vipress, pasting a smile on her face. "I guess you're right."
Even in his exhausted state, Crane couldn't help but notice his friend's distress. "Hey," he said, reaching out with his wing. "Tigress and Po are tough, and they're smart. There's no way this Goatyr guy could take them down. Heck, it wouldn't surprise me if Po stumbled in through the front gate right now, complaining about the damn stairs-"
For some time now the air had been filled with the sounds of suffering, a whimpering and wailing which grated against the heart on a level beneath true thought, but the first screams cut through the noise like a spark through a line of black powder. Crane immediately jerked upright, his hat nearly tumbling from his head in his shock. "What the devil?" he spluttered as he leaned over the parapet to stare down at the surging crowd. Then he spotted a familiar figure at the gates. "Is that…?'
"Po!" Vipress launched herself off of her perch without hesitation, ignoring the protests of her body as she landed on a handy roof, sliding along the peak to leap out into the courtyard proper. The ground was crowded with spectators, but she refused to let them slow her, slipping around and between churning legs as she rushed towards her friends.
"Po! You're ba-!" she started to shout as she came out into the open space left around the gate, only to freeze when she got her first good look at her friends. "Oh, sweet ancestors," she breathed, as she heard Crane land behind her.
"Heya Viper," said Po with a weak, trembling smile. "Little help?" The portly panda was barely on his feet, staggering beneath the weight of the body laid out across his shoulders, with a striped tail dangling across his chest.
"Oh my gosh, Po," she said as she took in her friend's wounds.
The Dragon Warrior looked awful, his entire covered body covered in cuts and burns, with only a few patches of fur left behind. One of his eyes was swelling shut, and his left arm was immobilized in a crude sling, hanging limply against his chest; his other arm was busy holding his burden steady.
Then one of his legs gave out, sending him sinking to the ground with a pained groan, and Viper found herself snapped out of her stupor. "Help him lay down!" she commanded the others, once more cursing her lack of hands. "Gently!"
A few moments later found a handful of pigs and rabbits holding Po up at the elbows, as Crane divested him of his burden. "It's Tigress," her friend announced, laying their last member out along the ground. "She's alive."
Viper felt a part of her heart that she didn't know was there unclench, but she couldn't bring herself to relax just yet. "Po," she said again as she coiled up beside him. "What happened?"
"Oh, uh, nothing much," he said, letting out a weak cough. "Just, you know, had a bit of a tumble with that Goatyr guy. Do you know, he's even tougher than he looks?"
Viper exchanged a worried glance with Crane. It was clear that Po was rambling, practically delirious, and that wasn't something they'd ever expected to see. The dragon warrior had always been startlingly durable, even by the standards of kung fu; it was hard to imagine anything pressing him this hard.
"Was he the one who hurt Tigress so badly?" she asked, only to be shocked when Po jolted upright.
"Tigress! How is she?!" he demanded, fighting to get to his feet despite the crowd's efforts to hold him down. "Is she going to be okay?"
"Po! Po, she's alright!" Viper shouted, shoving herself directly into his face when he didn't appear to hear her. "She's going to be okay!" she continued, as he slowly calmed. "You got her home, and the doctor is on his way. Everything is going to be just fine."
"Oh. Oh, that's good," he sighed, sagging back down to the ground. "I, uh, did my best, after the battle, but I couldn't really remember Shifu's lessons, so I kinda just wrapped everything and hoped for the best. Glad I got that much right."
"Po? Po, I need you to keep your eyes open," said Viper, her heart sinking when he failed to respond. "Po, I need you to stay with me, please."
Eventually, Po dragged his eyes open, but it was clear that he was barely hanging on. "Oh, hey Viper," he said, giving her a weak wave. "Could you tell Shifu that I found the…you know, the thingy he wanted me to look for? I kinda found it, after I beat Goatyr, only I can't, uh, quite remember where I left it."
"I'll tell Master Shifu, I promise, but right now I need you to stay awake for me," said Viper, trying to keep the panic out of her voice. "The doctor is almost here, I just need you to stay with me for a little longer…"
Po didn't seem to hear her, though, his gaze going off into the distance as he let out a deep, tired sigh. "Just wish I knew why it was so important," he murmured as he let his eyes slide closed one last time. "Just looked like a regular sword to me…"
"Po? Po! Po, I need you to wake up! Please, please wake up!" But Po remained silent and still, and even as she heard the Doctor reach them, Viper realized her friend had already stopped breathing.
"Po?" She reached out to him, only to let out a quiet gasp when his body crumpled beneath her touch, falling to pieces before her eyes. Great clouds of ash filled the sky as his body deflated like a hollow shell, leaving only a quickly fading outline and a long blade with a twisted hilt.
She watched unseeing as the wind picked up, carrying the ashes up into the night sky as a great wailing emerged from the crowd.
"Po?"
There should have been rain.
Not a downpour, or a storm, but a fine, steady drizzle which would have left miserable clouds of mist all over the mountaintop. Instead, the funeral happened on a calm, clear night, beneath empty skies and the unloving gaze of a grudging gibbous moon.
There were few people in attendance. There should have been hundreds of thousands of them, every soul in the Valley of Peace crowded together until the grass was lost from sight beneath their feet. Instead, a miserable few dozen held vigil in the night, clutching flickering candles as they paid homage to one of their own.
Crane had tried to attend, but there were simply too many demands for a Warrior with wings, and Shifu had refused to leave the dlibrary, so determined was he to make something of his student's sacrifice. Tigress almost hadn't made it; she'd woken up less than a day before the ceremony, and only her stubborn insistence had convinced her caretakers to help her out of bed. As it was, she was barely on her feet, with a pig on each elbow to keep her upright, and one leg hovering above the ground in a thick cast.
It was taking everything Viper had to keep herself from bawling her eyes out, and Po's fathers had found no reason to be so restrained, blubbering into each other's shoulders as they mourned the son they had lost too soon. Mantis stood in silence, as did Master's Ox and Croc, united by a shared respect for a fallen hero, and a friend. Song the cloud leopard was there, as was the old soothsayer, Princess Mei Li, and many others that Po had saved, but it was not enough. It would never be enough.
The worst part was that there wasn't even a body to bury. If there was even a scrap of Po's ashes left in the valley, nobody had managed to find it, and the sword had gone to Shifu for study. The only thing to mark that Po had ever been there at all was a small marker on an empty grave, and a priest to conduct the ceremony.
"May the spirits guide you to enlightenment, oh dragon warrior," the old goat intoned, his voice steady despite the tears in his eyes. "May the wheel of samsara welcome you with kindness, and grace, for never has a soul shown such wisdom and kindness as you. May your rest be sound, and your next life as grand as the one which came before."
The priest knelt down before the grave marker, and the other mourners knelt with him, though Tigress needed the support of others to manage it. "Thank you, Dragon Warior, for all that you have done for us," said the Priest. "Know that your sacrifice will not be wasted, no matter where you might be, or where you might go."
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!" screamed Po as he ducked beneath the swing of a massive hammer, fleeing desperately for the lone open doorway. Behind him, a corpulent behemoth with tiny wings and a massive bad temper pounded after him, rearing back with its weapon for another swing.
"Ahhhhhhhhh!" he continued to wail as he dove for safety, slipping into a narrow doorway mere moments before a second, powerful blow could smash the brickwork into pieces. None of it reached him, but the impact was still enough to knock him off balance, and send him tumbling off the edge of a rickety stairway to land flat on his back.
"Ow-w-w-w," he wheezed, trying to catch his breath. His eyes, only shut for a moment, snapped open just in time to see the rusty stub of a sword about to be jabbed into his throat.
"Whoa!" he rolled out of the way, and rose to his feet just in time to block a follow-up strike from a rotten, hollowed out figure in tattered rags. "Hiyah!" he snapped out as he kicked his opponent to one side, only to see a second enemy just behind the first.
More than that, he also heard the sounds of groaning and shuffling coming from behind, accompanied by the discordant ringing of steel rattling across stone. "Aggh," he groaned, clutching his head as he spun in a circle to see the enemies closing in all around him, before throwing his arms up into the air. "Where the hell am I?!"
AN: Honestly, I have no idea where this idea came from. I'm pretty sure the entirety of my inspiration can be summed up as 'hey, let's have the legendary monsters from Dark Souls, only they're all animals instead.' Honestly, writing the end of the fight was the hardest part; I managed to write Po into a corner, and I had no idea how he was supposed to win, so I ended up just not writing that part. Honestly, it works pretty well.
