By the time Po reached the Imperial City, night had fallen, and the closer he got to the city on the singed little boat, the sicker he felt.
Something horrible had happened here. He could see smoke rising from certain parts of the city. Entire buildings had been ripped apart by what he suspected was cannon fire. Falling embers were everywhere.
There was no doubt that he was looking at a warzone. That same people who invaded the Valley of Peace had now done the same to this unfortunate city. There was smoke, but no fire, and the city was unsettlingly quiet. The city had been under siege for some time. Which meant that the civilians... Po couldn't see any. Even when the boat reached the dock and bumped against one of the wooden posts protruding from the water, he saw no sign of life.
On the blackened deck, Po fell to his knees, his eyes threatening to shed tears. All those people... and it was all the Order's fault.
Po bit the inside of his mouth, hard. His shoulders started to shake. Until now the one thing he hated had been food going to waste, or one of his action figures getting damaged, or someone hurting his friends and family really badly, but even then it hadn't felt like true hate.
Po stood back up as he began to understand what true hatred felt like. Once he'd found Tigress and dealt with Ember, he was going to make the Order wish they'd never been born.
He leapt from the boat onto the dock, which had no other boats, and then realised something else. Not only were there no civilians, there were no soldiers either. Why wasn't anyone guarding the dock? Never mind that now, Po told himself as a frightening thought struck him. The only reason someone would attack the Imperial City was if they were after the royal family. Po had to get to the palace. He had come here for Tigress, but he still had a duty as the Dragon Warrior.
With the rock and chain still wrapped around his arm, Po strode into the city. He stuck to the alleyways, growing more concerned by the minute at how quiet it was despite the destruction he witnessed at every turn. It was like the entire city was deserted. Was the battle already over? Was he already too late?
The deeper he ventured into the city, the hotter it became. The embers falling from the sky seemed to be heating up the air like a flame heating up the water in a kettle. By the time he found his path blocked by a fallen building, he had to pull off the vest of the weird black bodysuit he had woken up in. Instead of discarding the vest he wrapped it around his waist, just in case. No longer pressed against his chest by the cloth, the Heart of China emerald bounced freely. It flashed black in the light of the ember snow.
Even Po wasn't stupid enough to try climbing up that unstable looking pile of rubble that looked like it was once a shop. So he found an open window in one of the intact buildings and climbed through that instead.
And then wished he hadn't.
At first he was sure he was staring at a bloodbath. In the middle of the large living he had climbed into, he appeared to be looking at seven bodies lying in a horrifically massive pool of blood. He looked away, shutting his eyes in horror. Then he summoned his courage and looked again. The 'pool of blood' was just a large torn rug. The 'bodies' were breathing. But they were frozen like fallen statues, their eyes bulging and fixed on the ceiling, the victims of a nerve attack.
"Ember." Po whispered.
The air grew hotter than ever. Po turned his head and there she was, crouched on all four on a small table.
How did I do it, you wonder? She spoke. How did paralyze these poor souls without even touching them? You already know the answer, Po, and yet at the same time, you don't.
"Kno-Knock it off, Ember." Po said, setting his jaw just like Tigress did to hopefully look more intimidating. "I already got enough riddles from Master Oogway and Shifu. Cut the crap and tell me what the heck you want!"
I sometimes ask the same question about you, Po. How do you do it? How do you hold it all in, so no-one ever sees your pain? But I see it, matter how deeply you try to hide.
"You're crazy. You say you know me, but before the Himalayas, I didn't even know you existed. You're talking to the wrong guy. Now go and torture somebody else!"
Ember's low, infuriated hiss startled him. Do not speak to me of torture, you insolent child. You know nothing, and you have no idea of the meaning of true pain.
She was gone in a red flash. Po felt a moment of satisfaction at finally getting under her skin, but then the moment was gone as he remembered that dark room in Shambhala, the one with the blood-stained bed. Losing his mother to Lord Shen's genocide when he was a baby probably had nothing on what she had been through. She had a pretty good reason to be crazy. "I'm sorry." He said, surprising himself. If she had heard, she gave no sign.
Somehow feeling like a jerk, Po crossed the living room, making a silent promise to the paralysed soldiers to come back with someone who knew how to de-paralyse them. Maybe he did know her. Maybe he forgot, just like he forgot what happened to his parents. When he reached the front door, he stopped and tried to remember, but all that came to him was a forest in the middle of winter, a bush, and the screams of a tortured soul... wait what?
A tortured soul? Why would he remember that of all things? What exactly had happened between him and Ember that he couldn't remember?
Po pushed open the door and entered a wide street packed to the brim with stalls bearing all kinds of merchandise ranging from fruit to pottery. Just like the rest of the ruined city, the marketplace was abandoned. At least there weren't any bodies here, dead or paralysed. Instead there were a couple of cannons the size of boats sitting abandoned near the end of the street.
He stepped into the clearer space in the middle of the street, trying to figure out exactly how far from the royal palace he was, but he saw no sign of the massive building. He was starting to consider climbing one of the taller buildings and risk being spotted by any invaders still lurking, when a kung fu chill rose up his spine.
He 'nonchalantly' unwrapped the chain and rock, gripping it like a meteor hammer. He took a deep breath and spun on his heel.
Nothing. He was the only soul in the street.
Then he heard the sound of something bouncing off wood and looked up just in time to see a black shape flying right at his face.
"Yah!" Po ducked and rolled as the masked man struck the ground where he had been standing a second earlier, sinking his fist into the pavement in an explosion of rock.
Po stood back up, glaring defiantly at his attacker. So the masked man was indeed allied with the order, just as he thought.
"Nice try, metal head." He said.
The masked man pulled his gloved hand from the hole in the ground and faced the panda. "I've been looking for you, panda." He said, the metal mask slightly distorting his voice. "Lady Hei Nuwang has been worried about you ever since you left the prison."
"If she thinks I'm going back without a fight, she's an idiot." Po said. "And you're an even bigger idiot if you think you even have a chance of taking me back."
The masked man crossed his arms. "Still the same arrogant little upstart. You're coming with me if I have to knock you out and drag your massive rear myself."
Po twirled the chain and rock. "I'd like to see you try."
The masked man stepped forward once, and then froze. Immediately after, Po heard the same thing. A strange clanking sound, like stone on stone, and also a metallic scraping. Like a person made entirely of stone dragging a sword along the ground.
The masked man tilted his head as he studied Po's expression. "You know what that is, don't you?"
Po's eyes narrowed. "For once, I think I do."
The approaching sound was coming from the end of the street where the cannons sat. Both Po and the masked man turned toward it.
From around the corner stepped a terracotta dragon warrior taller than the crocodile statues Po had fought before, lifting up a terrifyingly large sword with a black hilt. Po thought for sure the Order was pulling his leg. Brainwashing people was one thing, but terracotta warriors? At least it was just one warrior this time. He could take it.
Then he heard a scrape coming from other end of the street. He turned his head and saw a second warrior hefting the biggest black axe he had ever seen.
"You've got to be bloody joking." The masked man muttered. He took the words right out of Po's mouth.
Po went into his stance. He could hear Shifu's voice inside his head telling him to wait. Wait for the opponent to strike first, then dodge and strike back before he can recover. He felt the sleeve of the masked man's black vest brush his arm, and wondered what was his own strategy. Po knew from experience that terracotta warriors were strong but slow, and only a special note from a flute could destroy them. There were no flutes in this desolate marketplace, but perhaps Po could outrun them.
Then both statues broke into a sprint.
Oh crap!
Po braced himself and spun his makeshift meteor hammer as he faced the sword warrior, while behind him he heard a series of rapid chinkchinkchink sounds. The masked man must be using throwing knives on the axe warrior.
In seconds both statues were upon them and swinging their huge weapons in an overhead arc. Po and the masked both stepped to the side, allowing the blades to embed themselves harmlessly in the pavement. Po sent the chunk of rock flying at the sword warrior's head. It made contact and left a crack in the side of its head. Then the sword was pulled from the ground and the warrior swung again. Po ducked, barely avoiding decapitation, and started running. If he could just make it to that alley over there, he could lose them in the labyrinth like city.
He heard a wooshing sound and turned his head. "Wah!" He bent double as the sword flew inches above him, tearing through two market stalls before impaling a building.
When Po straightened up, the sword warrior was mere feet away and swinging its fist. "Woah, time out!" He blocked the blow with his forearm and felt the impact rattle his bones. Striking with punches and kicks would be useless, but maybe Po could trip it up. As he ducked under its outstretched arm, he caught a glimpse of the masked man dodging the axe warrior's swing and throwing a shuriken at its already riddled head. Pulling at the sword warrior's arm to propel himself, Po slid across the ground and struck the clay man's leg with both feet. The sword warrior fell on one knee. Just when Po was thinking that this was his chance to get away, the sword warrior punched him in the face. Po rolled across the ground, and when he finally stopped he found himself behind one of the rows of stalls lining the street. His face aching, the stunned Po slowly propped himself up on his paws and saw the sword embedded in the wall thirty feet away. The warrior silently strode over and retrieved its weapon before stepping out of sight behind the stands.
Still too unsteady to get up, Po crawled backwards along the row of stands, and then the sword sliced through the stand and tore a gash in the ground where he was just lying. Po kept crawling, his head throbbing, and the sword came down again, smashing another stand. Then a shuriken struck the sword warrior in the head and it turned round and stepped out of sight.
Po supposed the masked man had been ordered to take him alive. When the throbbing in his head finally subsided and his strength returned, Po stood up and rushed back into the street, keeping an eye out for the nearest escape route. He quickly found that he'd ended up at one end of the street, near the cannons.
He saw both the sword warrior and the axe warrior chasing the masked man, swinging at him with their respective blades, as he rushed towards the cannons. The masked man somersaulted over one of the massive weapons, evading the sword and axe and they sank into the nearest cannon.
The masked man landed right beside Po, but he was more interested in the second cannon standing some distance away. The direction it was pointing in and the position of the warriors gave him one of the greatest ideas he ever had. And what luck, for one of the masked man's shurikens was lying at his feet. Po picked it up, grinning.
"Hey, clayfaces!" He said, stopping them dead. "Time to feel the thunder."
He tossed the shuriken right at the second cannon. It struck the metal next to the fuse and sent out several bright sparks.
KABOOM!
The sparkling red cannonball tore through the axe warrior as it soared towards Po. Just as he had done that night in Gongmen Harbour, he caught the projectile with his paw and redirected it like a raindrop. A hundred pound flaming raindrop that exploded the sword warrior into a gazillion pieces before taking the roof off a fruit stall.
Po stretched his arm, gazing at the charred clay pieces before turning to the masked man. "Not bad." The masked man said. "But I'm still taking you back."
"And you're still an idiot for thinking you can." Po said. "And furthermore, you can tell this Hei Nuwang to stick it where the sun don't..." The top of his peripheral vision caught something standing on the roof of one of the taller buildings. "... shine." It was a certain something that was tall, black, and had tendrils all over. He felt the blood drain from his face. "Uh oh."
Before he could move, a tendril caught him around the waist and lifted him in the air. It swung back with him helpless in its grip, then swung him right into the masked man's body, catapulting him across the street. On the verge of passing out from the brutal blow, Po was limp as the black tendril lifted him up to the rooftop where the shadow creature was standing. But it wasn't looking at him, but rather at the masked man struggling to his feet far below with blue eyes burning with tranquil fury.
Po knew that he was going to die.
Then the creature dropped him and leapt from the rooftop.
