Tigress had climbed out of the frying pan and into the fire.
In other words, she'd escaped captivity and was now running for her life.
The soldiers had come out hunting hours after Tigress had escaped the black fortress. As the sky began to darken she raced through the harsh, rough land, aware that it was only a matter of time before she was found.
She stopped to catch her breath, leaning against a tall stone with amethyst purple engravings. She didn't get a chance to read them before she heard the sound of approaching soldiers and started running again.
She ducked into a ravine before they could see her, finding a good hiding spot between to big angular boulders. She held her breath and waited as the two dozen men passed by, climbing further into the ravine. When the last man had disappeared from sight, Tigress climbed out with agonising difficulty and started heading out the way she came. Keep moving down the mountain, she told herself. You have to get find Po.
"What the hell..." She whispered when she saw the wall of rocks blocking her path, the wall that had definitely not been there five minutes earlier. If there had been a rockslide she would have heard it. Even stranger was the perfect round hole that looked like it had been melted into the rock and then cooled. It was big enough to crawl into. No, Tigress thought at first. I don't trust this for a second. She heard the sound of the soldiers coming back. Her wounded body reminded her that she was in no condition to fight. But she could try. Tigress went into her stance and waited.
That was when the rocks far ahead turned red and started to melt. White-hot molten magma slowly trickled down and pooled at the bottom of the ravine. Even from this distance Tigress could barely breathe from the heat.
Fine. We'll do this your way. For now.
Tigress quickly climbed into the hole.
All alone in a dark, silent forest shrouded in snow, a little panda cried.
He'd never meant to get lost. He'd only been trying to get away from those mean kids who always called him fat. He'd strayed off the path, fled into the forest that surrounded the forest where he lived, and hadn't been able to find his way back. For hours he had wandered, desperately trying to find the village so he could go home, but the forest seemed endless. Now night had fallen. It was dark, it was cold, and it was quiet. The child held one end of his plain red scarf in both paws, twisting the fabric as he sniffled.
He hated this. He hated getting picked on. He hated that it was his fault. If only he could see his toes past his stupid big tummy, then maybe he would be left alone.
To top off a perfect day, he was tired from running all day. He'd found a little dry, snowless spot beneath a protruding rock, where he'd hoped to sleep until the next day. He hoped that with the daylight back finding the village would be easier.
He sat down in the dry spot, leaning back against the stone wall that may as well have been ice. He rubbed his arms and closed his eyes, trying to sleep but was too scared to...
Somewhere far to his right, there was a thunderous sound.
"Huh?" He opened his eyes and looked in the general direction of the sound. "What's that?" Maybe it was someone chopping down trees for wood. He left the protruding rock and trudged through the snow towards the sound, hoping that whoever it was had a thick blanket and some steaming hot dumplings.
The child soon found the cause of the sound. A great big tree had fallen, half its branches broken and evergreen leaves all over the place. The child scratched his head as he found two things that looked really weird. The tree looked like it had been snapped, not chopped in half. That and it was covered in black marks and smelled funny.
The child rubbed his fingers on the black part of the bark, and they came away covered in black powder. The tree had been burnt like the firewood in his daddy's stove.
There was a shout up ahead. The child looked, feeling fear welling up inside him. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea. Then again, he may never get home otherwise. The child very slowly walked towards the source of the sound.
As he walked, he heard a woman's voice so cold it could have frozen his heart.
"Still feel like following orders?"
The child approached a bush, with a sinking feeling that something very bad was on the other side.
"Die, witch!" said a man. There was a whooshing sound and the man screamed. The little panda reached the bush and stopped. He could see through the tangled branches. A black figure with a demonic looking head was standing over a big rhino clad in armour, their back to the bush. The rhino's right arm sank into the deep snow, dousing the crimson fire. "You vile little creature!" The man sounded both angry and in pain. The child stepped around the bush so he could see better. "You burned my arm... how dare you..."
Crunch.
The man screamed so loud the child had to cover his ears. He screwed his eyes shut, trying to forget what he had just seen happen to the rhino's left arm. Arms shouldn't bend like that. They're supposed to have one joint, not four.
Just as the child opened his eyes the rhino spoke again, but with a lot more difficulty. His mad eyes stared up at his torturer as he spoke naughty words and threats. "You wait... just you wait... I'll survive this... when I do, you will beg to go join your baby."
The masked woman didn't move an inch. The child saw two tiny red ripples appear on the rhino's knees and shoulders for a split second, and then the man started howling, flailing his ruined arms as he cursed at the woman, screaming nasty threats.
"Mission's over." The woman said.
The child gaped as from out of the frozen ground came a tendril of sizzling lava, rendering the snow around it to steaming water. It reared over the woman's head like a serpent, the glowing tip pointed at the rhino's face. The child started to back away, shaking like a leaf as he realised that this rhino was about to be hurt really badly.
Snap!
The child's heart stopped as his foot stepped on a twig.
When he looked up, the woman was looking right at him. The pitch black eyeholes seemed to stare into his soul.
The little panda panicked and ran.
He ran blindly through the forest, tripping over stones hidden beneath the snow, losing his scarf on a branch but not having the courage to go back and get it. Then his foot landed on something flat and slippery. His leg slipped out from under him and he fell hard on his back. He skidded across the narrow frozen river, stopping right in the middle.
The child had had all the air knocked out of him. He could barely breath. Snow fell from the snow and melted on his body.
In a flash the masked woman in black was kneeling over his stunned body, peering at his terrified expression through her eyeholes. She silently reached out towards his face.
Her gloved hand stopped right before she touched him. It hovered over his wide eyes, and then slowly worked its way down his body, not quite touching his fur. Down past his neck, turning over as it passed his chest as if reacting to his rapidly beating heart, turning over again as it stopped over his lower torso. Her hand lifted, then finally fell on the curve of his belly.
Po's eyes snapped open. His heart nearly jumped out of his chest when he saw Ember staring back at him, her hand resting on his stomach, her fingers slightly digging into his fur. Somehow in his sleep he'd ended up on the floor, and waking up to find his stalker at his side. Top Dog was nowhere to be seen.
Ember's gaze moved to the hand she had placed on the panda's body. She closely examined the white fur, which Po realised was soaking wet. Had she done that? Po was frozen, wanting to fight but too scared of what she might do. This was beyond creepy.
And then Ember stood up. She moved slowly, stiffly, a body language Po recognised before. Tigress sometimes acted like that when Po did something stupid and she had to struggle to hold down her anger. He was getting a similar vibe off Ember right now, and this scared him even more. He'd done something. Something that had ticked her off big time.
Without so much as a glance at the panda, Ember turned and walked to the trapdoor that had been filled with cement. She stopped at the edge, and turned her head to looked at Po. Her helmet betrayed nothing, but Po knew she was glaring at him.
"It is not enough."
She turned back to the blocked passage, and held a hand out over it. Po watched with terrified awe as the cement glowed red and turned to lava, melting and sinking until there was a big circular hole in the trapdoor. The glowing edges rapidly cooled and turned grey.
Ember disappeared in a red flash.
Po stood up, full of cold trepidation. What had he done to upset her? What if she tried to make him pay for it later? What if that newly reopened secret passage was a trap?
"Top Dog?" He called when he remembered the guy. "Top Dog, where are you?"
He found Top Dog in the corridor outside, frozen in a combat stance on the floor with a sword in his paws. He must have been coming back from the armoury when Ember came to visit. Taking cold comfort in the fact that Ember hadn't killed him, Po carried the paralysed man back into the office and laid him on the rug.
"Sorry, buddy. If I knew how to get you out of this, I would." Po walked over to the trapdoor, biting his lip at anger at Ember. He looked one last time at Top Dog. "I'll come back."
With that he jumped down into the hole.
He landed on solid ground ten feet down. From there he made his way down a single tunnel so low his head was level with his shoulders. It was so dark he was afraid of tripping, but he quickly found the floor to be smooth as paper. He turned a corner, and the tunnel here was wider and littered with singled crates and weapons covered in soot and dust. No-one had walked through here for a long time. Po tried not to disturb the inches of dust as he walked, seeing another corner up ahead.
Instinct stopped him dead and made him look up. A pitch-black arm was descending from an opaque shadow on the ceiling.
Panic and horror nearly paralysed the panda, but he saw a table and ducked beneath it as the creature's head emerged. Po stood as still as a rock as its entire body dropped to the floor and it stood upright. Its legs were all that Po could see, but he could also see its hips twisting as it looked around. The panda held his breath. He didn't dare try to unwrap his rock and chain. He didn't know why he was so scared of it, or what scared him more; its demonic features, the memory of the warden's death at its tendrils, or the aura of cold hate and rage that seemed to radiate from the beast.
Po's whole body slumped with relief as it strode off, around the corner up ahead and disappearing.
Then he realised that he still had to go around that corner himself. Oh great.
Only the possibility that Tigress could be at the end of the tunnel could convince Po to come out from under the table and continue on.
He slowed down as he reached the corner and took a peek. He found the tunnel empty and led out the breath he'd been holding. He kept walking as the floor sloped upwards. Po saw a pinprick of light up ahead. As he continued he found that the light was coming from a crack in a wall at the end of the tunnel. Po put his eye to the crack, and saw a black, broken bed. There didn't seem to be anyone on the other side of the wall, so Po very carefully began to push.
The wall opened like a door, and Po stepped out into the room.
At first he thought the bedroom had been painted in a weird combination of black and grey, but then realised that a huge fire had happened here. The bed and other furniture were charred beyond saving. There were holes in the ceiling with bits of wood sticking out. In a corner by the window, the remains of a crib lay in a pile of colourless ash. Po's heart ached at the sight.
He went to the blackened window and looked out. He saw other majestic buildings, beautiful gardens, all surrounded by a big wall crawling with enemy soldiers, and a very familiar red building in the centre of it all.
Ember had led him into the royal palace. Right past all the guards.
