Hey everyone! This will be another short chapter like I said before. So I heard that a new Kung Fu Panda show is in the works, and after reading the premise of it, what do I think…..um. I have some issues with that but I won't rant about it here. I'll leave it at the end of the chapter if anyone is curious. So get on to the next chapter!
Chapter 20: Mission Accomplish
By the next day, Master Shifu sends Crane to scout out, hoping to find any clues to where Gang might be. The trip to the bad village didn't go so well and the team didn't want to make a second trip. Instead, they trained while waiting for Crane to return.
Po and the four masters were training to perfect their skills, while Shen was training his inner peace by himself. Shen has been at it since he woke up, he lost count but kept pursuing to succeed. He used the fallen leaves from a tree to trained, but they were more of a hassle than handling a dewdrop. Every time a new leaf falls it either gets blown away or fly right at the peacock's face. After what seems like an hour or two, Shen took a break and sat next to Po.
The team sat down to catch their breath and watched the red and yellow leaves dancing with the wind. It was clear that summer was over and fall was coming around the corner. The wind got colder and the grass turned to gold.
"I'm gonna guess Shifu will ask us to clean this up," Mantis comment, staring at the training area covered in a blanket of fallen leaves.
"You know, we should see who can pile up the tallest pile of leaves," said Po cheerfully as the idea pop in his head.
Shen rolled his eyes by the panda's childish antics, but he was so used to this behavior that he only gave a small smile.
"I can actually go for lunch really," said Monkey.
"Let's wait for Crane to come back," said Tigress looking up to the skies, "Hopefully he'll have something about Gang because I'm not sure what should we do at this point."
Just then Viper looked up and saw something from the distance coming to them. She realized that it was Crane.
"Oh there he is!" she cried.
Crane flew closer to his friends and landed to the ground, he seemed to be more alert than before. He quickly faced everyone with some important news.
"I found something!" he cried.
"What? What is it?" Po asked.
"I found the mountain where the crows are hiding, we got to hurry," said Crane, "And we need to bring carts with us."
The team looked at him with confusion.
"Carts for what?" asked Tigress.
"Wow, look at all of that food," Po said with amazement. Now he understood why Crane said to bring carts.
On a tall mountain, a large cave stood in the middle, and inside was a large amount of food. Some were pile up together and some were kept in a small basket. This was definitely the crows' hideout and the evidence to prove that were the scattered black feathers. The team was impressed that Crane was able to find the hideout so easily, but it raised questions.
"So, you found it like this?" Tigress asked looking around and making sure there was no else was in the cave.
"Yeah," said Crane, "I was sure it would be guarded but there's no one here."
Viper was curious as she checked the basket of food, "Why would the crows leave this place unkept?"
"I don't know," said Crane.
"Well it looks like they're long gone," Po said grabbing a few apples, "Which means more for us."
The panda was about to eat one of the apples but Monkey stooped him, "Po this is not our food."
"Sorry, kinda got a little hungry" Po said sheepishly, putting back the apples.
After Shen looked around himself he turned to Tigress.
"What should we do next?" he asked.
"Get the carts ready. Let's try to get as much back to the villages," ordered Tigress.
Throughout the day everyone grabbed the basket food and climbed down the mountain. They only brought four carts, meaning that they have to make multiple trips. They took the food to a nearby village, the villagers were thankful since they were the first victims of the crows. Po, Shen, and the Five spent hours bringing food down and taking it back to close-by villages. Later they collected all the food they can carry and tied it on the carts. Mantis hopped down and landed on Tigress's shoulder.
"That's all of it, the cave is officially empty," he announced.
Po was getting tired of going up and down and felt his legs were going to give out any minute.
"Can we just stop and eat for a second?" the poor panda suggested.
"You'll be able to eat as soon as we're done," Shen said as he places the last basket in the cart.
Po groaned but didn't complain further. The team took hold of the four carts and pulled them down the road. Within every hour, they stop by a village and give out the food to those who need it the most. They traveled to twenty villages down to the very last one, the Harvest Village. The villagers stopped what they were doing and saw the masters coming to their homes with carts. They saw the carts filled food and they cheered.
"Oh, thank goodness you found our supply of food!" cheered a local pig, "Now my wife and I won't starve during winter!"
"Thank you so much!" cried a mother sheep.
The masters passed down the baskets of food to everyone in the village. They smiled by all the 'thank yous' and apparition from the people. Then, Shen noticed a family nearby waiting for their turn. The peacock picked up two baskets of food and made his way to them. They were a family of chickens with only one child. The chickens saw Shen approaching and stared at him with curious eyes. Their young child was the one who approached him first. She stared at him like she never saw a peacock before, it made Shen almost nervous but he brushed it off.
Shen gently placed the baskets by the girl, "Here. This is for you."
The little chicken looked at the basket for a moment and turned to smile at Shen.
"Thank you," she said.
Shen honestly thought the child would be scared or cautious in his presence, but for her to smile at him was surprising. His only guess was because the chicken didn't know who he was or she was too young to understand. But Shen reminded himself that it shouldn't matter, in return he smiled back at her. The chicken's parents picked up the basket and bowed in respect. Shen did the same, he felt good that he didn't need to show force to earn respect from others. While he was doing this, Po was watching from afar and smiled by how much progress Shen has been making in the last months.
As Po was giving out the last basket he felt something brushed his fur, something very cold. He looked down at his arm and saw a small flake. Then he saw more land on his arm, Po looked up to see where it was coming from and gasped. Soon everyone began to look up as they were surrounded by falling flakes. The sky was heavily clouded as more snowflakes fall.
"Oh my goodness," Viper spoke up, "It seems winter is coming way earlier."
"This is really unexpected," said Monkey as he rubbed his arms, feeling the wind was getting cooler.
Tigress felt everything around her getting cooler and windy. Seeing that all of the food has been returned to everyone in the village, she tells her team that it was time to head home. They took the empty carts with them and waved their goodbyes to the villagers.
Shen turned to see the young chicken giggling and running around to catch the snowflakes. He grinned to himself as it reminded him of the time of his youth. Only this time, he only focusses on the small yet good memories of his past.
When the team made it home, finish their mission, they saw Master Shifu waiting for them.
"Did everything go well?" he asked.
"Yes Master," said Tigress bowing to him, "We returned the stolen food to everyone, but there was no sign of the crows."
"Very well, I write to Master Eagle and give the good news," said Shifu as he walked back to his room.
Everyone went to the kitchen and Po started to make tea for everyone. While waiting for the water to warm up under the fireplace, Po joins his friends at the table.
"Man, did anyone expect it to snow?" the panda asked as he tried to shake off the melting snowflakes on his fur.
"Not me," Mantis replied, "Fall barely started and snow decided to show up out of nowhere."
"It is a bit strange that the weather would change like that" Shen pondered, "It's almost unnatural."
Monkey only shrugged as he ate his cookies, "Maybe the Gods of nature decided to mix things up for a change."
Crane gave a slight chuckle, "I don't think so Monkey but Shen is right, it is strange."
"Is it something we should be worried about?" Viper asked.
"Why should we?" Po asked, "If winter is coming early then maybe we'll have an early Winter festival!"
Tigress rolled her eyes and smirked, "You just want to try out the new recipes the chefs may cook for this year."
The panda rubbed the back of his head, "What can I say, I'm a fan of awesome food."
Po stopped and had an epiphany, "Hey wait, Shen, you make fireworks, right?"
The peacock blinked by the question like he wasn't sure why Po was asking him this since he knew this knowledge.
"Um yes?"
"So, you can make all kinds of fireworks?"
Shen went straight to the point. "What is this leading to?"
"I just realized we have fireworks shows during the festivals," Po explained, "How about helping out by making the fireworks!"
The Five were surprised by the panda's idea and they all turned to the peacock, waiting for a response. Shen, on the other hand, felt he was caught off guard and didn't know how he should about this.
"Are you asking me to be in charge of the Winter festival's shows?"
"Yeah, I mean why not? We always have someone different doing the fireworks show and you're like the master of it. You make this Winter festival awesome!" said Po.
"That's not a bad idea" Viper agreed.
Shen's crest twitched, "Are you sure of this, I did try to take over China with weapons inspired by fireworks."
"But you can make colorful fireworks to inspire folks," Po beamed, "You have made a firework show before, right?"
"Once or twice, but it was not as amazing as my father's work," Shen admitted, "When I experiment on fireworks it was always chaotic."
"I wouldn't mind seeing something like that at a festival," Tigress said, standing up to get the tea ready for everyone.
"You got me intrigued," Crane said to sound encouraging.
"Please, I'll probably end up burning up the village if I try," Shen said deadpanned, only thinking about the worse outcomes.
Monkey, who was sitting next to the peacock, patted his back.
"C'mon, don't be so hard on yourself," Monkey said heartening.
"We trust you Shen and it could be fun for you" Viper smiled cheerfully.
Shen thought for a moment. He did kind of miss making fireworks, he missed the smell of it, he missed studying it. But he felt he shouldn't go back to his old habits. It was as if he was afraid he would turn back to his old self, which sounds preposterous now that he thought of that. His friends also didn't seem to mind for him make more for a festival, so why stress out about it. Coming to his own conclusion, Shen nodded.
"Alright, I'll see what I can come up with," he said with ease.
Po cheered, "Whoo! I can't wait to see it! I hope the fireworks have all my favorites like green or yellow or maybe have all the colors like a rainbow!"
Shen only gave a look of disapproval, "How about leaving it to professional, and no rainbows."
Po frowned but understood and everyone laughed at his reaction. Tigress handed over each cup of tea to her friends.
"I think Master Shifu wouldn't mind approving this," She said as she handed Shen his tea and sat back down to discuss more on the manner.
While everyone continued to talk, Shen thought of blueprints in his head to create perfect fireworks. He never expected he would be given a task like this after what he tried to do with explosives weapons. Although there a feeling in him that he couldn't shake off. He stared down at his tea, looking at his reflection in the small cup, wondering why he suddenly has this bad feeling.
If there are any mistakes in this chapter let me know.
So let's talk about the new KFP show. When I first heard the news I got really hype up for it. I really wanted to see where they do differ on the show that they couldn't with the films. But reading the show is about Po teaching four panda kids who have super chi powers…yeah, I don't know how I feel about this. Maybe I'm a bit disappointed because I see a lot of potential in KFP. I mean, DreamWorks already has a good setup, they have great characters and villains they can explore outside of Po's story, yet they don't take advantage of that. This show sounds like what Nick did with LFA, where they disregard what was canon and treated Kung fu like it was magic or something, it was weird. But overall, I really do hope I'm wrong and this show ends up being good or at least decent. Who knows, it might even surprise with something we never expected. I'm still gonna give a chance and watch it, Maybe I'm overacting about this but I really want this show to be good and better than LFA. But if it does end up being bad, just pray to God it's not part of the canon.
