One day before the Jade Palace's destruction...
Viper was one of the few people aware that Su wasn't enjoying her membership with the Dragon Warrior Fan Club. In fact, Su's account of the first two meetings had only three words; it was hell.
It wasn't that she thought the other kids were dumb, as she insisted. However, couldn't say the same for the stuff they talked about. Totally bodaciously awesome Dragon Warrior this. Extremely amazingly cool Dragon Warrior that. It wasn't that Su didn't like Po, but the tales the kids came out with were more than often total fibs. Po never dived headfirst off the top of the bell tower. Po's first kiss wasn't with Master Tigress. And he certainly never vomited up those bad bean buns into this very bag. Viper had laughed pretty hard at that last one. And of course Su would know all this. She lived with him.
But that was the problem. She lived with him, and was the only kid ever to do so. That meant that the first two meetings consisted of three hours of endless questions of life with the awesome Dragon Warrior and the Furious Five. Then the third meeting came, and Su's account of it was more positive. Apparently some bodaciously awesome someone had told the club that Su wasn't appreciating the constant interrogation and asked them to knock it off. There were no names, but Viper knew. Anyway, on the third meeting they had a poster drawing contest. Su told Viper the little rabbit girl who fainted a lot won.
Today, Su would be going to fan club meeting number four, and she wasn't exactly looking forward to it. Viper could tell from her body language when she found her in the kitchen that afternoon, having a late lunch while Po was washing dishes nearby. She wasn't happy. Viper couldn't help but smile at her pouty face. "Oh cheer up, sweetie." Viper said. "Today's the last time you have to go before your parents arrive to take you home."
Po spun around, sending dirty dishwater everywhere. "Oh man, I forgot they're coming today! Dad's coming, too!"
Su looked at the dirty water soaking into her dumplings and shoved the bowl away. "Now look what you've done!"
Po's shoulders slumped. "Sorry. I'll make some more once I'm done." He turned back to the dishes.
Viper slithered onto a seat beside Su. Today may be Su's last day with them, and Viper was not going to let it end on a sour note. "Tell you what, sweetie. Your parents should be here by the time you come back. When you do, we'll do something together. We'll have a great dinner, maybe play a few games. How does that feel?"
Mentioning her parents did the trick. Su lightened up considerably and she got down from her chair. "Okay." She took a deep breath. "It's only for a little while, anyway. I should get going."
"See you later, Su!" Po called from the other side of the kitchen.
As Su headed towards the door, Viper looked to Po with a grin. "Are you excited about tonight?"
"Yeah!" Po started rinsing the bowls with a bit of flair. "I haven't seen my birth dad since we got back from the Himalayas. I so totally can't wait to see him again!"
Viper giggled. "I meant tonight. With Tigress."
"Oh." Po blushed. "You darn bet I'm excited! If tonight goes great, we could finally have a real relationship! Of course we'll still have Master Shifu to deal with, but one thing at a time!" Po turned round and pointed a shiny wet spoon at Viper. "One thing at a time. In the order of..."
He trailed off, the grin of anticipation sliding off his face. He dropped the spoon as he grabbed the bench. With his other paw he grabbed his head. Viper knew at once that something was wrong. "Po?"
Po was grimacing. "I heard it again. The hate. Su, you... Su?"
Viper followed Po's confused gaze. Su had stopped at the open doors, her back to them. She was hyperventilating. Her shoulders rose up and down with each gasp. "Don't..." She whispered. "Don't..."
Viper tried to ask what was wrong, but then the girl turned her head, her eyes like sapphire flames.
"DON'T EVER MENTION THE ORDER AGAIN!"
Right after her hateful scream, Su had taken off like a shot before either Po or Viper could react.
She didn't stop running until she reached the village and nearly collided with a heavy barrel of wine in the marketplace. She put her weight against the barrel and slid to her knees, gasping and shaking.
She would be in big trouble when she got back, but that wasn't why she started sobbing. Ice cold tears stained the pavement, and she quickly rubbed them from her face. But no matter what she did, she couldn't rub away the fear and the pain. She hit the back of her head against the barrel hard enough to give her a headache, but the voice and the hate wouldn't go away.
She was a little girl. A little girl named Su who was supposedly either super smart or had a habit of conjuring up knowledge she shouldn't be capable of possessing. Kids were supposed to be happy almost all the time, except when they're having tantrums or had just broken their favourite action figure. Su supposed she used to be like them. She didn't have tantrums, but she was still able to feel anger. She didn't have normal toys, but would panic if her lucky coin went missing. She only started feeling happy most of the time when she came to the Valley of Peace. It felt more like home than her village did.
But ever since she made the mistake of going to the Himalayas, she would feel some dark emotion tightening around her heart whenever anything someone said or did reminded her of Ember or the bad people who hurt her. She didn't understand. Why would she feel this about the Order when no-one had ever mentioned them in front of her? Every time someone reminded her, a voice that somehow felt like it belonged to her would scream, and scream louder every time. "Kill him! Don't let him get away with this! Kill them all!"
Why? Su asked herself between hiccups. Why would her brain think stuff like that? She'd never met the Order before. She didn't understand. She didn't like the screaming and the hate. She wanted it out.
Suddenly she felt a knife stab her from the inside. She cried out and wrapped her arms around her tummy. The knife twisted and pushed at the inside of her tummy, trying to force itself out. People glanced at her as they passed, maybe thinking that she had too much tanghulu. Eventually the knife eased up on the pushing and the pained eased up enough for her to stand up again. The pain didn't go away entirely though. Even as she continued on to the Dragon Warrior Fan Club Headquarters, she could feel something pushing at her insides. At long last she reached the small building and knocked on the door. Time to get this meeting over with.
It was Pong who answered. "Su! What took you so long?"
"Tummy ache." Su growled.
"Oh. Anyway, your big brother's waiting for you inside."
Su blinked. "I don't have a brother."
Pong blinked back. "Really? He does kinda look like you?"
Su was in too much pain to be polite. "You doofus! I told you I'm an only child!"
With that, she pushed past Pong to get a look at the big fat liar.
One look. One look was all it took.
The big fat liar was standing with folded arms by the bench where the club kept the Dragon Warrior related artefacts. He was a young panda a head taller than she was. He looked less like Su and more like Po, except instead of patched tan pants, he wore a fancy midnight blue robe. His eyes, instead of emerald green, were ruby red and narrowed in cruel amusement at the blank shock in Su's own sapphire blue eyes. "Hello, princess. Long time no see."
One look was all it took for the rage and hate to blaze like a hell pit, but shock kept her rooted in place. "You?!"
"Yes. It is good to see you again... 'Su'."
The three founding members, Lam, Chen and Yang, were standing to the side, fidgeting nervously as they too realised their mistake.
"What are you doing here?" Su hissed. "I haven't seen you since..." She glanced at the kids. "Since certain events."
"You mean since you and your filthy worm of a bestie screwed me over." The liar said. The voice in Su's head screamed for his blood. "You always did have skewed priorities."
"Hey!" Pong punched his hoof and started forward.
"He's not talking about you!" Su blurted out. "You stay out of this!"
"And so I thought, well it's your last day in the Valley of Peace, right?" The liar went on. "I thought I might as well come down and see how you're doing. To think you of all people would sink so low..."
The owner of the voice seethed. "Very high and mighty coming from the fool who tried to destroy the universe."
The liar didn't look so amused now. "And for good reason." He glanced contemptuously at the fan club members.
Su and the voice had had enough. "Get out. You have caused us enough suffering."
Chen gulped. "Su, we're sorry. We shouldn't have let him in, it was stupid..."
The liar stepped forward until his and Su's chest were almost touching. He looked down on her with his vivid red eyes. "And if I say no?"
"Then I will make you."
"And how will you do that? You're one of them, now. A pathetic little girl with low self esteem. Even back then, you were too much like those ugly mortals." He smirked and grabbed her wrist. "Touch a mortal once, and it breaks."
That did it. Su punched him so hard he nearly collided with Pong.
The liar pushed himself away from the pig and rubbed his jaw. "You're coming with me."
Kill him! Make him pay! The voice screamed. No, Su replied. I'm too young to kill.
The knife in her tummy shoved at her insides with the force of a charging bull. Su screamed and fell against the doorframe. "Su?!" Pong rushed over to her.
"Get your filthy hands off her!" The liar stormed forward. "You are not fit to touch her!"
Su seethed as she bent double in agony. "Neither are you."
She didn't know what the liar was capable of in his current state. She had to get out of here, away from the others. She pushed Pong away and staggered out the door. She heard the liar curse and go after her, but Pong grabbed a wooden sword and blocked the doorway, yelling at him to leave her alone. She didn't stay long enough to see the outcome of Pong's recklessness.
With aches and pains all over his poor, abused body, Po dragged himself from the river two miles from what was left of the prison. The riverbank was muddy and shifted like soup between his fingers, but Po succeeded in pulling himself out of the water and onto relatively dry land.
Po fell on his back and rested, even though he wasn't really that exhausted. Though colder than it looked, the river was so gentle he hadn't needed to fight to reach the surface and then swim to the edge. Lucky for him. As for Viper and Su, he didn't have a clue. Po wasn't so stupid that he would try to yell for them when they had fallen for miles in the opposite direction. Were they even still alive?
Of course they are, Po thought as he lay in the sloppy mud. This is Viper he was talking about. And she'd never let anything happen to Su. Well, he might as well get off his black and white butt and find them.
Getting to his feet in the slippery mud was tough. He slipped twice before he was finally standing and looking up in the direction of the prison. He had a clear view of the mountain from where he was standing, and what he saw made his jaw drop. Two thirds of the prison was gone. All that remained were two smouldering corners that were once part of the building's exterior wall. He thought he saw cooling lava. But that wasn't the worst of it. The summit of the mountain on which the prison had been perched looked like it had been torn off by a giant pair of hands. Massive cracks in the rock surrounded the decimated prison, glowing reddish orange.
Most frightening of all were the embers drifting gently from the sky like red snow.
Po sank to his knees as it finally dawned on him exactly what he was dealing with. Ember was powerful, he had already known that. But so were Tai Lung and Shen's cannon. The shape shifting Sword of Heroes and the Yeti. But none of them had torn apart a mountain through raw power alone. Ember was truly like nothing he had ever faced before. Was she a mortal? Or was she a demon? Po shivered as it occurred to him that she might be neither.
Only the thought of Viper and Su gave Po the strength to stand back up. His side of the river was under the shadow of a high cliff with protruding roots. He couldn't go upriver, for that led towards the prison, and there may still be soldiers looking for him. So instead he walked downriver. On the way he realised he had lost his frying pan, but the chain and stone were still coiled around his arm.
After what felt like hours, he found a tiny dock that looked like it had been abandoned for some time. On the drier lank next to the dock was the rotten skeleton of a cabin. Fixed to the dock itself was a little boat. Burnt onto the sail was the royal insignia.
Po stared at the boat. The wood was burned black in several places. It had danger written all over it. No way was he getting on. Fortunately next to the cabin a path cut through the cliff, a narrow rocky path that led into the forest. There was a small boulder in the entrance, but he could climb over it. Finding the path much more promising, Po started towards it.
When he was three feet from the path, crimson light flashed across his eyes and there she was, hunched up on the boulder and staring at him through the glowing red eyeholes of her dragon helmet.
Po, where are you going? It's not over between us. Are you afraid of being burned to a cinder if you let me in?
His heart pounding, Po stood his ground. "The heck with that. You don't scare me."
You claim you are not afraid, and yet the mere thought of me made you weak at the knees.
Po felt the sting of embarrassment. "Once I find my friends, we're going to stop you. I'm the Dragon Warrior! I will destroy you!"
Is that your answer? Destroy anything you're afraid of. Destroy anything you don't understand. Just think of it, Po. You'll never have to accept the truth.
Po had only meant that he would kick her butt in battle, but something told him she already knew that. "Truth? What truth?"
We have met before, Po. You are too afraid to acknowledge it.
Strange images flashed before Po's eyes. A forest in winter. A red scarf. The tears of a scared little panda. His heart thudded so violently he blinked and forced the images away. He blinked again and pressed his fingers to his throbbing head. When Ember spoke again, there was a vicious edge to her words.
That's right. Embrace the fear. Bury the past deep inside. Then you'll never find your precious Tigress.
"What did you say?!" But she was gone in a red flash, in her place leaving behind a landslide blocking the path into the forest. "What about Tigress?! Where is she?!"
When Ember didn't answer Po gave a shout of rage and kicked the muddy landslide. He kicked it again and again until his foot was sore. He was getting tired of Ember's games. Obviously she wanted him to get on that boat, and there was a pretty big chance that it would lead to the Imperial City where Tigress was supposedly being kept. Supposedly.
Regardless, Ember wanted him to go there. Whether he wanted to or not. Po kicked the landslide one more time before making his way to the boat.
He would get Ember back for this. He swore on it.
