13
"Last Chances"
The War Room - as it was often subtly called - was abuzz with activity.
It was packed to capacity. The most important figures in the room - Commanders Po, Viper, Monkey, Mantis, Crane, and Shifu - stood side by side, all around a crisp white table. Mineral floors and natural rock ceilings and walls kept most unnecessary ears or electronic interference outside. The room was typically used only for the most desperate, private of matters - hence why it was buried underneath three hundred feet of rock, deep underneath one of XX-0's bunkers lying on its rocky, craggy surface.
Two figures' entrance opened the sliding chrome doors. Po was the quickest to react, gasping.
"Ti - Tigress," Po asked, surprised. "Scout Zero?"
Tigress looked at Alpha, who had - for a brief moment - changed out of his white-arrow armor and into simple black and grey rags. This difference in appearance was confusing to the rest of the group - who merely remarked on the change with scrutiny.
"Why'd you take your armor off?" Viper asked, confused.
"Guess everything got too hot for him," Monkey speculated.
Tigress sighed, moving forward. She wanted to take a moment to look at everyone's face - all of the original Furious Five, Po, and her father, Shifu… she wanted to picture how carefree they all looked, before the inevitable news.
"You called us all here, Tigress," Po noted, snarling. "We're here - and you're not saying anything."
"We're planning to assault Earth, and possibly lose all our lives in the process," Crane emphasized, flapping his metal wing.
"Yeah, so please skip the suspense," Mantis finished.
Tigress merely turned back to Alpha, nodding her head.
He walked to the center of the table.
He sighed.
Alpha slightly pulled back his robes, revealing the neck scars underneath his cloth.
Tigress waited.
Everyone did.
It took a few solid minutes of silence before anyone said anything. Tigress watched all their faces - all the faces of her former team, slowly change from confusion to surprise - and most worryingly - horror.
"The hell is this?" Po whispered, the only one to speak up amidst the shocked faces. "Some kinda sick joke?"
"I wish it was," Alpha gently whispered back. "Po… everyone… I'm sorry."
"Sorry for what?" Po growled, marching up to grab Alpha by the collar. "SORRY FOR WHAT?!"
Alpha merely kept silent, but Tigress attempted to intervene. "Po, just - "
"Stay out of this," Po spat, snorting. "You - you… Zero… what kind of stupid joke are you playing on us?"
"I never wanted anyone to know," Alpha begged, sighing. "I… never wanted a single one of you to know."
Shifu moved forward, eyes tearing up a bit behind aged, craggy folds. "Daughter… did you know?"
Tigress merely kept silent, her own eyes glistening a bit before she closed them.
Then a sudden sound.
WHIP.
WHAP.
WHIP.
Tigress opened her eyes, shocked to see Alpha holding his cheeks with calloused palms - both sides reddened. Po stood, paw raised for some more slaps.
"You let us believe… let us believe…" Po gagged out, sniffling.
"Alph…" Viper cried out, shutting her eyes. "... how could you?"
There was a prolonged silence after that. Tigress - perhaps to soothe the awkward tension of the situation or just out of past habits - moved to Alpha's shoulders, keeping a paw on them. She glanced a look at him, reminiscing on the days when she would tower over him - now, she barely passed his shoulders.
"I knew going in, that the plan for self-designation would lead to all humans dying," Alpha spoke out calmly. "I… I didn't want anyone to go through watching me… die twice."
Another silence. Alpha watched his old friends - those whom he had meticulously watched and tracked for fifty-plus years - struggle to grip with a realization that was perhaps torturing them on the inside. The range of reactions varied - at the low end of the spectrum, Monkey, Viper, and Mantis appeared to be shell-shocked, almost in disbelief… while Crane and Shifu seemed apprehensive, almost angered. The worst of all was Po's - the panda merely kept silent, tears actively falling and trailing down his fur, running past his black armor. And for the first time in years, Alpha genuinely wished that Omega had truly killed him back at the ruins of Gongmen City.
"You should hear how he survived," Tigress noted. "Because that's even more cra - "
WHACK.
Tigress gasped, seeing Po's outstretched paw. Alpha again was holding his face - this time, a bit of blood was leaking from his lip.
"I don't care how you did," Po snarled. "I don't care about what's happening now. All I know is we have a planet to siege. Anyone interested in the truth… and not endless lies... come with me."
The panda marched out, closely followed by Crane, Mantis, and Monkey. As the doors closed however, Viper and Shifu stayed.
Tigress shut her eyes. She couldn't fault them, of course - her first reaction to Alpha was complete, and utter denial. Little did they know that it was the least painful step to come.
Viper gasped, holding back a sob. She gently slithered up Alpha's leg - a feeling he hadn't felt in so long - moving to see his face clearly, hissing a bit.
"Alph never had fur," Viper noted, poking at the beard.
"It happened with time," Alpha gratefully noted, happy to be less tense.
Shifu started approaching, first looking at Tigress before morosely staring at Alpha.
"I'm… I'm so sorry," the red panda sobbed, grasping onto Alpha's leg, shocking all the inhabitants of the room. "Alpha… I'm… so sorry…"
Tigress was baffled by her father's sudden outburst of emotion. Nothing had made him crack thus far - learning that Po and the others were alive, learning about the Resistance, learning about the plan to siege planet Earth… nothing was enough to make her father crack, even seeing his own daughter alive.
But seeing Shifu like this - sobbing and wheezing at Alpha's leg - made Tigress almost cry herself.
"Shifu, get up man," Alpha stated bluntly, dragging the red panda off. "What - ergh - what's wrong with you?"
"All those years…" Shifu sniffled. "All those years… back home… I spent torturing you, shocking you… hurting you… keeping you from being a part of the - the Jade Palace family."
Alpha gulped. "I… I remember."
"Alpha, it took me too long… it took me years but I know now… I know what I put you through…" Shifu gasped, breathing heavily. "Living under the Alliance… it taught me all the things I should have learned long ago. How to treat… those different…"
"Now I understand as well," Alpha concluded. "If I knew what humans were capable of back then… I'd have killed myself, believe that."
"You're nothing like them," Tigress quickly piped up, eyes brimming with emotion.
Alpha merely gave a sad smile. "I led them home."
"What?" Viper asked, confused. "What are you talking about?"
"The shock collar ended up being a homing beacon, right?" Alpha recalled, earning a shudder from Shifu. "Sure, none of us knew what it was doing… but if it hadn't been set off so many times, who knows… maybe they'd have never found our home planet."
"Reformation wasn't your fault, Alph," Viper quietly mentioned. "Wait a second, speaking of which… how the hell are you alive?"
This earned a mild chuckle from Alpha, who leaned against the table as he folded his arms.
"When Omega blasted me through the chest, back in Gongmen - I didn't die," he merely stated.
"That is apparent even at my age," Shifu emphasized. "How did you… not die?"
Alpha shut his eyes. "You remember… remember Kai? Remember when we were studying chi?"
Tigress pursed her lips. He had already told her everything of course, so she took the time to enjoy Shifu and Viper's perplexed expressions - the same expression she had given Alpha once he had told her.
"I - I do," Shifu let out, although his memories were a bit hazy. "You're saying you chi'ed your way out a plasma cannon blast at point-blank range?"
"That seems far-stretched, Alph," Viper noted. "I mean… the technology and understanding of nature we had back then was nothing in comparison to the stuff we know now."
"We were such fools, in retrospect," Shifu sighed. "Focusing on moronic efforts like kung fu and chi… we should have been performing nuclear fission, learning to create anti-matter, obtain rare chemical compounds…"
"Actually, that's where everyone's wrong," Alpha called out, standing back up, moving away. "Turns out that kung fu… and chi… they represent things that humanity still can't quite understand. But we did."
Blank glances followed. Tigress chuckled, having given Alpha the same glare at the same period in time.
"You're speaking nonsense," Shifu quickly uttered out, flashes of his old self starting to show. "It's just metaphysical nonsense. The bending of life and wind, energy, nothing…"
"That's it," Alpha interrupted. "Energy. But let's say we change the word and just say… the fabric of reality."
Another long pause.
"Are you really Alpha?" Viper asked, curious. "The Alph I knew was smart. Not high on cocaine."
Tigress chuckled, folding her arms whilst leaning back on a wall. "Trust me, it took me a while to understand too."
Alpha shook his head. "Kung fu, and chi… we thought that they were just ways of fighting. Martial arts. But we were really doing was something deeper… we were tapping into cosmic energy. We called it chi."
Shifu stood back, confused. "You're saying… the crystal essence that the Alliance is so desperate for… is chi?!"
Alpha nodded. "A purified form. Something that can be pumped into ships and fuel… but yes… and we know how to use it, better than any humans ever could."
"But you never mastered chi!" Viper interrupted, annoyed. "None of us did. There's no way you could have used it to heal yourself after a plasma cannon shot. And besides… we watched your body burn in the ship furnace, remember?"
"But I found myself in the Spirit Realm anyway," Alpha observed. "Or rather… in quantum limbo."
Tigress smiled. "Now here's where it gets really fruity."
"I wasn't dead, but I wasn't alive either," Alpha tried. "I… I can't describe it. How it feels… the sensation… I saw my own body getting tossed into the ship furnace, saw Tigress and Po crying… and then nothing."
"How'd you get back to the land of the living then?" Viper uttered, still somewhat in disbelief.
"I… I don't know," Alpha honestly delineated. "Time doesn't work the same in quantum limbo. I saw a whole bunch of things… the Reformation, all of the Five working on production planets, Po… a bunch of disconnected visions, for a long, long time."
"And?" Shifu pressed.
"And then I came back," Alpha forced. "Found myself naked and cold on XX-0."
"What?" Viper asked, again perplexed. "That's it? You just… appeared back to life?"
Alpha nodded. "The only proof I have… is that I'm standing before you, right now. After that… I took on Scout Zero's identity, after figuring out he had died… and well, you know the rest."
"Terrorist and freedom fighter," Shifu announced calmly. "By the - all this time, it was you…"
"I still don't understand what happened," Alpha continued. "I was… hoping to ask the Designators that, before we - you know…"
Another silence.
"Oh my - the self-termination order!" Viper called out, slithering around Alpha's leg. "Alph… that'll kill you too, right?"
Another prolonged silence. Alpha did his best not to look at Tigress, who - despite having heard this before - turned away and subtly hid a wipe at her face.
"If the last few decades have proved anything, it's that my species destroy everything they touch," Alpha noted almost regretfully. "Maybe it's best that we stop ourselves from destroying the whole universe."
"But you're different," Shifu quickly countered, eyes shaking in genuine admiration. "Since day one… you've never acted like mankind."
Alpha gently chuckled, shifting his head down.
"Well… maybe that's because I was raised by animals."
. . .
"Is it really gonna go down like this?"
"Yeah…"
Loki was nervous.
It had all come so fast. All the news.
Commander Wang had been a spy. The terrorist was actually someone Commander Po knew, back on his home planet. And perhaps most shockingly of all - they were planning to start sieging Earth soon. The last bit wasn't news, of course… but it still felt surprising to think about.
The massive bear growled, brown fur a bit nervous under the stress of the activity. The problem seemed to occur with the mounting stress of the occasion - and his team of course, wasn't helping. It also didn't help that they were currently cramped together in Anna's bunker, armor discarded in favor of their loose-fitting rags: a bear, a leopard, a snake, a beetle, and a very tired monkey all exhausted from all the excessive resource gathering they had been doing in the recent hours. Most of Loki's team was - in fact - slumped against the silver chrome walls of Anna's tent. The leopardess herself was not keen for company - she seldom was - but it felt natural, given the circumstances.
"Anyone know how we're gonna even get close enough to Earth?" Bong the monkey queried, sighing in his rags. "Did any of the commanders realize we just have fifteen ships?"
"Thirteen," Anna corrected, groaning from across the bunker, yet seated. "We lost two a few hours ago."
"Dammit!" Bing, the beetle chirped up - perching himself on Loki's furry shoulder. "This whole thing is suicide."
"We might already be dead," Jazz whispered, the snake slithering around in boredom. "We have no idea what that scum Wang revealed…"
"Deep down, I always knew he was dirty," Hatrix the peacock noted, snarling "I mean… an animal AP? That should have set off some red flags alone…"
"We have no choice now," Loki interrupted, sighing. "Thirteen ships can maybe hold… five to six thousand fighters?"
"There's more than twenty thousand fighters on XX-0," Anna growled. "I dunno how the hell Commander Po's supposed to put us all on that suicide mission."
"There's a high chance we might not even be able to penetrate past Earth's atmosphere," Bong indicated, leaping up in importance. "Atomic destabilizer cannons, wormhole traps, black hole destructors… I mean, it's the capital planet of the Alliance. It's heavily guarded."
Loki nodded in agreement. Of all the members of his team, Bong perhaps knew the most about Earth (which was in fact, quite little) - he was one of the few animals who had been a pet for an Earth-dwelling human not too long ago, before Commander Po and other fighters had managed to rescue him - in a high-octane gunfight on a transport ship, heading for a production planet.
"Wang might have already leaked our plans, which means Earth will be even more guarded," Jazz speculated. "And if by some miracle, we plan to get past the atmosphere - we still have to find the one building on the damn planet that has the Designators."
"Then we fight through countless APs with probably the highest-powered tech in the universe," Anna finished, smirking darkly. "We're screwed - aren't we?"
"If they're heading over to XX-0 now, we might as well be dead," Loki corrected. "At least this way… we go out on a bang… right?"
Collective silence. Loki wasn't sure what he was expecting - for the most part, he was enormously grateful to have met his entire team, all newcomers from across the galaxies who all united under the banner of Resistance against the Alliance… but the more he thought about it, there was a strange feeling that it was all an empty pipe dream. Perhaps in the early stages - when he had arrived on XX-0, like so many others… and heard Po speak platitudes and inspiring quotes, it all felt real.
Only now was the reality hitting.
"I wish I had more time to get to know you guys better," Loki sighed.
Anna closed her eyes, standing up as her holographic panel started flashing.
"Commander Po's calling a meeting. Let's make moves. "
. . .
It felt grand.
At least - it seemed that way. In light of recent events, Po had called together virtually anyone he could find - human, animal, hybrid - almost 20,000 Resistance members banded together in a massive crowd, sitting squarely on XX-0's rocky surface, surrounded by citadels. As Po looked around, he was amused by the circumstances - the buildings and massive crowd of people, all arranged in a circular fashion - it almost felt religious. This, combined with the beating downpour of rain - a rare occurrence on XX-0's semi-poisonous atmosphere - made everything feel memorable.
He was not alone. Underneath the drizzling rain, a single figure leaned on top of the podium next to him - a golden-furred lion, dressed in rags, AP armor stripped from his body and disbanded.
Wang.
The lion had his head down, not saying anything. Po snarled at him before looking at the front of the crowd - the Five, Shifu, Alpha, Karla, Naja, Sigma, and Henderson - all the usual figures. Po didn't bother returning Alpha's longing gaze - he clearly wanted to desperately meet eye contact with Po, but the panda felt too disillusioned with everything to look back.
It all felt like lies. Nothing made sense.
And now - now, he had to give the most rousing speech of this life.
"You can thank this trash for leaking our plans!" Po shouted out. "And - from what we interrogated from him - the Alliance is sending warships to end the fight, and destroy XX-0 right now!"
A massive din of noise followed. It was the hurtling cries and roars of nearly twenty-thousand Resistance fighters - animal screams and human yells all mixed together in an abundance of growling anarchy. Taking advantage of the shouts of approval, and taking another look at the Five and Shifu, who all nodded - Po approached Wang, yanking his head up.
Po fell silent, quietly pulling out an energy pistol. He took some time to just sit there, ignoring the jeering from the crowd. He watched the ran drizzle down Wang's face, who solemnly looked back at him - eyes firm yet regretful, a bit of tears guzzling down.
The Jade Palace.
Him arriving to see them all.
Him trying to poach Alpha from them.
Helping them fight Kai.
Everything Wang had done.
Everything he was.
"I hope you know I have to do this," Po whispered, close enough in Wang's ear so he could ear it over the crowd.
Wang merely smiled, closing his eyes. "I know Po… I know."
Po shut his eyes, will determined. He pressed the tip of the pistol onto Wang's forehead.
"Po."
The panda stopped, opening his eyes.
"I deserve it," Wang noted, closing his own eyes. "But if I had the chance… I'd do it again. There's no winning in this world. Only survival."
Po took a second to process.
Then fired.
BOOM.
Po opened his eyes, as the crowd erupted in applause. The panda turned back to the crowd, voice and will stronger than ever.
"We'll be breaking into two teams!" Po shouted out. "The majority of you will stay here, and hold off any Alliance forces. You will most certainly all die!"
In strange fashion, this only brought more applause from the crowd. Perhaps it was the frustration, or the feeling of being stuck. Something had finally crossed the line - for everyone.
"The rest of us will be storm and siege Earth," Po vaguely shouted again. "And when we do - if we do - I promise, we'll fight the Designators till death - or victory."
The shouting grew even more. The crowd was swallowing all other noises. The rain continued. Po kept quiet, soaking it all in.
. . .
It was night. In fact - the night before the siege.
They were all in a small citadel, or rather bunker. They really just referred to the most recent group of outcasts - Sigma, Henderson, Naja, and Karla. They had chosen to sleep in the same bunker to conserve space - and they were exhausted from gathering resources all day, and considering the siege would begin in about seven hours… perhaps this was the last time we'd all be together, inside the relative safety of these chrome, cracked walls and mineral floors.
"I don't know about y'all, but I'm picking to go on Po's mission to siege Earth," Karla, the lioness let out, smiling as she cleaned her energy rifle. "Seems a more exciting way to go out than stay here and get massacred."
"We're all in denial," Naja emphasized, the female gorilla-human hybrid sighing deeply. "It's like choosing to get stabbed or shot - why does it even matter?"
"Right about that," Henderson noted. "Right Sigma? Sigma?"
Everyone twirled around, staring at the lone former AP Commander, who stood at the other end of the cramped room, hands resting against the wall.
"I never realized the cost of all this," Sigma noted, eyes grim. "I never thought for even a single second that all the planets I helped Reform… I never imagined it would end like this."
"None of us did," Henderson piped up, standing up. "We were both fooled by the system."
"It must have taken some courage, especially as APs - to stand up against humans," Karla noted. "Can't believe it."
"Neither can I," Sigma concluded. "I… I think I'll stay on XX-0."
"What?!" Naja let out, confused. "Sigma - you remember what Po said? The warships… they'll be stopping here first."
"They'll annihilate the fighters here," Henderson emphasized. "Sigma… why not come with us, on the mission to Earth?"
"Somebody needs to hold off Omega and his ships, giving Po enough time to infiltrate Earth undetected," Sigma emphasized. "Once they discover XX-0, they can wormhole back to Earth in moments - the fifteen thousand fighters who stay here, have to hold them off long enough… we have to."
"Why does that have to be you?" Karla asked, confused. "Why does it have to be you? Let someone else take the job… so many martyrs are gonna end up dead, anyway."
Sigma didn't understand how to put what he was feeling into words. "I want to look Omega in his eyes. I want to look at the Alliance in their eyes as they kill me… and tell them how screwed up humanity got over the millenia…"
Henderson closed his eyes, turning to address Karla and Naja. "We… we weren't always like this. At a time… humanity were a kind of steward for life… we actually helped the planet, instead of destroying everything."
"We lost our way," Sigma emphasized. "We grew and grew and grew… until our population couldn't survive without expansion. Greed… greed is what killed us, in the end."
Another silence. Henderson turned his head, looking up at the ceiling in boredom.
"Po isn't planning to reason with the Designators," Sigma noted. "If he does what I think he'll try - he's gonna force the self-termination order, ending all human life around the universe."
"Why did he tell the rest of them that he was planning to reason though?" Naja asked, confused - perhaps a bit worried that her human side would be lost in the self-termination. "Well… actually, considering the Resistance is about ten percent human soldiers… I guess no one would give up their life, knowing the plan."
"A lie to cover up an inevitable truth… statistically speaking, we will all perish."
The four were shocked at the new voice - all except Henderson, who merely smiled as his holographic assistant - A.N.N - popped into existence.
"It's been a while since we last spoke, Ann," Henderson asked, but pleased. "How much do you know about - well, everything?"
"Wait, you've had an A.I companion with you all this time?" Sigma asked, confused. "I thought your A.I died along with your AP armor when you ripped the tracking device offa it."
"Ann is different," Henderson emphasized, watching Karla and Naja prod in confusion at A.N.N's shining blue figure. "She's… almost alive."
"I know about everything," A.N.N confirmed. "I… I am sorry."
Another silence. All four heads looked down at the ground, frustrated. It was more painful to hear than anything else - to hear a machine essentially say they were doomed.
"Hey Ann," Henderson asked. "You believe there's a heaven?"
Another long silence.
"I would hope so," A.N.N merely repeated.
A/N
I know, I know… a month between updates, but I'll try to do better next time. :)
So here we are. Last Chances. Here we see everyone - from Loki's team, Po's team, and even Sigma's team - prep for the inevitable end. Notably, most of the fighters have to stay back on XX-0 to throw Omega off the trail - while the rest will siege Earth.
Everyone expects to die.
Po also executes Wang. They have a kind of... understanding before he does it.
We see that chi is actually a raw form of crystal essence! Yanno, the thing that powers everything... a lot of you kinda called this, which was cool.
We see how Alpha's secret hurt most of his friends. But we see a lot of philosophical debate too, from all characters. Also, a cameo from A.N.N again! (remember her, XD)
I don't have much to say. We're very close to the end.
4 chapters to go until the end of this damn fic.
Just four chapters.
Damn.
~TW
