I don't own Kung Fu Panda. Kung Fu Panda is the property of DreamWorks Animation, and are not my intellectual property. There is no financial gain made from this nor will any be sought. This is for entertainment purposes only.
"HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I TOLD YOU IDIOTS TO STOP FOLLOWING ME, WHEN I GO GROCERY SHOPPING!" Yelled Zhi as she slapped both of the masked animals upside the head.
"But master, she led you right to that trap!" One of them said only to be slapped again.
"I WAS USING THE SHORTCUT, YOU FOOLS!"
"That explains it..." Said the other masked figure with the same result.
"How big dose did you give her?" Asked the cheetah.
"The same as we gave the bears."
She took a calming breath.
"Do I even need to say anything?"
The twins just shook their heads.
"Just get some guards here to take care of those thugs, I'll get her to the doctor."
They just silently nodded and disappeared as did the bears.
Zhi sighed, put one of Tigress' arms over her shoulder and picked up the baskets and the bag of coins with her free hand.
"I am sorry, they can be a handful. I can't even imagine, what's going inside your head right now." Said the cheetah softly as she started dragging Tigress slowly back to the base.
-In Tigress' mind-
Okay, what is this place?
She was here for just a few minutes and her patience was already running out.
Everything felt so fake yet also awfully real. The sky looked like a painting, the clouds were not moving neither did the sun blind her, when she looked at it.
That's when she looked at her feet only to discover that she was floating a foot above the grass.
Am I a ghost? Well, this doesn't look like the underworld.
Only thing that could be seen were miles and miles of grass around her.
"Hello? Is anybody out there?" She shouted only to get no answer.
What would Master Shifu do in this situation?
"I would probably ask Master Oogway." Said Master Shifu as he appeared to her right, scaring her.
"Master Shifu?! Where are we?"
"I don't know, Tigress. I don't even know, how I got here." he said calmly with confusion in his face.
That's not a good sign...
And just like that Shifu disappeared again.
"Master! Where did you go?"
"Oh, hi there Tigress." Said Baihu from behind her making her jump.
"Baihu, what are you doing here?"
He looked to the left, looked to the right, at the sky and back at her and gave her a shrug.
She sighed.
At least it's nice outside.
As soon as the thought entered her head a heavy rain started falling down.
She couldn't feel any water on her skin and so she looked at the sky only to see a red umrella blocking the cold water held by the white tiger.
"Won't you get wet?" Tigress asked.
"Rain is just natural way to take a shower and I am not madeof sugar to melt." He said with a slight smirk.
"Wait, are you saying that I am made of sugar?" She asked accusingly.
"No, not at all, but you sure are sweet."
Out of nowhere, that strange thing she felt before came back stronger than ever, it felt as if something was crawling in her stomach and around her heart making it beat faster.
"Uhm...so what do we do now?" Tigress asked nervously.
"Just pick a direction and we will see where it takes us."
They just started calmly walking.
-In the evening-
Zhi was sitting next to Tigress listening to her breathing and checking her heartbeat and temperature.
She was getting very scared for her, when they started experimenting with the poison it made some animals sleep for several days leaving them extremely exhausted and vulnerable.
"Could you explain to me, why are your students kidnapping mine?" Said Baihu from the corner of the room.
Zhi jumped from her seat into a defensive pose.
"Calm down Zhi, it's just me."
"Baihu, what is wrong with you?! Seriously why do you have to always sneak up on me like that, you old fool."
"To speak like that to your poor old Master..." He said with an exaggerated fake sad voice.
"Don't even try to guilt trip me, bastard."
Baihu laughed loudly.
"At least you still have your fire." The white tiger said as he slapped her shoulder.
"Wait, so you are back in training business?"
"Not willingly, but these kids have some great talent." he gestured to Tigress "This one especially, she was even able to tear my lip."
"No way, she got you in the face?! We should really have a chat when she wakes up, I might learn something." Zhi gave him a sly smile.
Tigress picked that exact moment to start mumbling from her sleep."At...at least...it stopped raining."
"It seems that the poison is starting to wear off, now all she needs is a reason to wake up."
"What do you mean by that?" Asked Zhi as Baihu silently picked up a pillow.
"Sleeping body can sometimes ignore pain, but if you take away something it needs, you give the body no other choice than to wake up." He said as he placed the pillow on Tigress' face and pushed it down.
"Are you crazy?! You could kill her if you aren't careful enough!"
Tigress suddenly started flailing her arms and gasping once he removed the pillow.
"I hate gloating, but I love it when I'm right."
"Where am I?!" Tigress asked in between her coughs.
"You, young lady, are in deep trouble. Do you know what time it is? Today is a school night." He said sternly.
The young master got up from the bed and looked questioningly at the cheetah.
"Wait, I remember you, we were attacked. What happened?"
Zhi turned around and ran out the door only to return a few seconds later dragging two large heavily muscled horses by their ears with her.
"Now tell her what you did."
"Wow bro, she looks even cuter up close..." said one of them as he laid eyes on Tigress only to get his ear painfully twisted.
"I swear to god if you two don't apologize right now, I will multiply your daily training tenfold."
Both pairs of eyes went wide and they fell to their knees.
"WE ARE SO SORRY, WE DIDN'T WANT TO DRUG YOU! WE THOUGHT YOU WERE GONNA HURT OUR MASTER, PLEASE FORGIVE US!" They said quickly in unison with panic in their voices.
"Uhhh sure, I forgiv... Wait you drugged me!?"
"Damn it!" Said one of them.
"So close!" Said his brother.
Zhi sighed.
"Master Tigress, I am so sorry for what they did to you, but it was mostly my fault, I should have taught them differently." The cheetah said as she lowered her own head.
"You are their teacher?" Tigress asked dumbfounded.
"Yes? Who did you think I was?"
"Maybe their caretaker or something like an adoptive mother."
Zhi laughed a little.
"Well, I sometimes feel like one."
"I thought moms don't hit their kids..." Said one of the twins.
"They don't if they have nice, well behaved children, which don't go around attacking my students." Said Baihu with a smug smile.
"Who are you anyway, you don't look like anyone we've ever seen in the city." Asked one of the brothers.
"I have many names, in the west they call me "the striped menace" in the east they call me "the white idiot" in the south they call me "Paʻepaʻe paepae" and in the north "Zver' s yuga", but you can call me Jam Bon." Baihu said as he silently counted on his fingers.
"Are you using that stupid nickname again, Baihu?" Asked Zhi angrily.
"Baihu? You see I told you, she's getting senile." Said the second brother before a hard slap sent him to the floor.
"I don't even have my eyes anymore and I can tell he's covered in black paint." Zhi started to massage her forehead in frustration, this was just embarrassing to hear from her own student.
"Wait, so you really are Baihu, THE Baihu?!"
Oh god no. Went through Baihus head.
"Well, seeing that Tigress has already accepted your apology I don't see any reason to take away any more of your time." Baihu said quickly as he pulled Tigress from the bed and threw her over his shoulder before jumping from the window he opened when sneaking in.
-After five minutes of jumping from one roof to another-
"WOULD YOU PUT ME DOWN ALREADY?!" Tigress shouted, when they finally stopped moving in a small park.
"If you wish so..." Baihu replied before he gently sat her down on the dry grass.
Tigress immediately tried to get up, but her legs wouldn't listen to her.
"What's wrong with my legs?!"
"That's just a bit of sleep paralysis, you'll live, at least until Shifu gets his hands on you. He was pretty scared, you know?"
Tigress sighed regretfully.
"Yes, I understand, but it wasn't my fault...I just wanted to help."
The white tiger sat next to her and Tigress felt both relieved and reassured at the same time.
"Don't worry I believe you, besides Zhi can sometimes be a handful, but she is a great teacher."
"Why did you run away from there, are you really that scared of being recognised?"
"It's not just that, being recognised is just the start of a chain of events, at first you see your fans, then some of them come saying how they want to be like you and ask you for training and of course you give them a chance, but then they discover how hard it is, they always give up on their dreams, leaving with their spirit broken by me and..." He paused for a second sorting his thoughts.
"...breaking someone's spirit is the worst thing you can do to them." He finished.
Tigress has never seen it from that angle and it only raised more questions.
"Then how do you know who to train and who not?" She asked carefully.
The white tiger just smiled kindly.
"Now, that's a question I've never really figured out myself. I just feel this strange connection to my students after getting to know them and it has never failed my judgement. That's why I think that you and your friends have the potential to become even greater masters than you are now, just like Fan and Zhi."
Tigress was filled with renewed confidence.
"How did you meet them?"
Baihu began rubbing his chin in thought.
"I think it happened sixty years ago... I was just visiting the town on the other side of the mountain, when I nearly tripped over a young wolf half burried in the snow. I began digging him out of it, when I noticed that his left arm was missing and that he was still conscious. That's how I met Fan Min."
-Flashback-
"Just leave me alone, will you?" Fan said in anger weakly.
"Do you want to freeze here?"
"YES!" The wolf shouted as he tried to push the white tiger away with all of his remaining strenght, which wasn't nearly enough to discourage Baihu.
The old master slowly pulled the smaller body from the snow and ice and hooked the wolf's arm over his shoulder and started walking back home.
-End of flashback-
"After I brought him back to the palace and nursed him back to health the young fool tried to take his own life two more times."
"But why would he do that?"
"He just always said "I have no honor" after I stopped him. After some time I finally managed to get the truth out of him. He was a young captain in emperor's army until he was accused of stealing weapons and selling them to bandits, while the real thief remained hidden and before they kicked him from the army they cut of his arm leaving him to live out the rest of his life in shame."
"That sounds terrible. How could they do something like that?"
"It's the same reason as why I never fought in any kind of war. The constant battle and fear changes you into something much worse."
"So what happened that?"
Baihu smiled slightly.
"It took me six long months before I was able to restore who he was and another five years to give him a purpose and believe me it was not an easy feat, but it was worth it. He even had a few students of his own and one of them even became his wife. They are now living near the capital."
"And what about Zhi, how did you meet her?"
Baihus smile immediately fell.
"Are you sure you sure that you want to know? This is not a very happy story to tell."
"You just talked about how you stopped your student from suicide. How can this be any worse?"
"Oh believe me it was. I was traveling through the three kingdoms of Korea, when I intercepted a large slave transport heading to China. After getting rid of the slavers I opened every locked door to every cage and once their freedom was restored all of the slaves ran away without a second thought. All but one. Just when I was about to leave I noticed a lone figure in one of those wagons."
-Flashback-
Baihu slowly approached the young cheetah sitting in the corner of the carriage facing away from him.
He knew that she was breathing and could tell from the beating of her hearth that she was healthy.
Why didn't you run away? He thought as he calmly placed his hand on her shoulder, only to realise how thin she was.
She didn't even move nor make any sound when he slowly turned her around and saw her burned eyes forever shut tight.
"You are okay now." The white tiger said silently and gently picked her up in a bridal style even though deep inside he knew that it was a lie.
Deep inside Baihu could feel the emotions of this tortured soul and he could tell that she has given up on her life.
-Two days later-
Why won't she eat anything? If this goes on any longer I will have to resort to force-feeding.
He slowly opened the door to the room, where he left her after trying to establish some sort of communication for the entirity of three hours without any success. She didn't respond to any of the twenty eight languages he spoke and neither did she move in any way. She could be deaf for all he knew.
He put a tray of fresh food right in front of her before he took away the one he left there an hour ago.
"Not giving up on you..." Baihu said quietly and just as he was about to leave the room he turned around and opened a large window facing his garden to let some fresh air inside.
He was about to leave the room again when the thin figure moved in the chair and carefully stood up and walked to the window.
The white tiger watched in amazement as the smaller animal slowly climbed out of the window and started picking flowers.
-End of flashback-
"After that we began talking in korean and after a while she learned chinese, Zhi even learned a way to see without eyes, it's something which still baffles me to this very day."
"But why did the blind her? I thought that slavers need their slaves healthy."
"I guess that's what happens when you try to run away sixty times."
Both tigers just sat in the grass in silence before Baihu finally got up.
"Let's stop talking about the past. Your legs should be alright now and it would probably be the best idea to return before Baihu burns the city down looking for you."
Tigress got up and they just started calmly walking.
