Po squatted in the bushes, his knees aching from the prolonged strain. When the squad of four soldiers passed and disappeared from sight, he crossed the emerald green grass to the big stone well that stood at the centre of the garden.
That was easier than he thought it would be. Then he looked down the well, saw nothing but darkness, and got worried. If something went wrong, there was no telling how far he might fall.
Stop being a wimp. Your friends need you.
That thought convinced Po to reach for the thick rope that dangled from the big beam above the pit. "Come on, come to daddy..." the tips of his stubby claws tugged at the rope, bringing it closer until he wrapped his entire paw around it. He pulled it over and grabbed it with his other paw. He started sweating as he put one leg on the low stone wall, then the other. He swallowed and stepped over the edge.
"Woah!" He just managed to keep his voice down as he swung once, twice, and then simply hung over the abyss. He gulped, forcing himself to not look down.
Come on, Po! Are you a Dragon Warrior or a wuss?
Po inched his way down into the well. Soon he could see nothing but stone bricks all around, and even that was growing less visible by the minute. It had been dark enough outside with the sun almost completely gone, but down here it was like night had already fallen, with no moon in sight. After what felt like forever, he finally looked down. To his great relief he saw a faint golden glow, almost certainly from torches. He may have some distance to go yet, but at least he wasn't descending towards a dead end.
Soon enough he reached the bottom of the pit, which opened up into a large chamber with loads of cells and no windows. Right beneath him was a big fenced pool where the rope ended, the bucket underwater. Po went lower until he was almost touching the water. By now his arms were too tired to try swinging to the side. I haven't had a proper bath since before I was captured. I've been singed, pummelled, and dropped through roofs. I might just end up poisoning the entire city. Oh well.
Po let himself drop into the water. It was cool and crystal clear, an absolute blessing after the heat and falling embers. Po lingered before the water until he had no choice but to resurface. Feeling cleaner already, Po swam to the side and pulled himself over the stone fence.
"Well, well, well..."
The air had taken on a red tint. Po saw her standing before the cell right in front of him. She walked slowly and almost casually towards him, yet Po could feel the anger coming out of her. In fact he could see it. A red aura enveloped her entire body, manifested as translucent fire. It lashed violently in the air as she continued to advance. Po unconsciously brought his paws up as he recoiled before her fury.
"Is this about me not remembering anything about that burnt room? If it is, then you're not being fair!" Horrific pain tried to push into his brain. Po summoned the hero's chi and his own to keep it out. He gripped the fence with both paws and screwed his eyes shut, not opening them again until Ember relented. He took deep breaths. After that, he was more ticked than terrified. "You're not going to break me."
"After everything I have done, you still resist me?" Ember replied viciously, all casualness gone. "I released you from your prison, showed you a way into the royal palace. I even saved your-"
"Cut the crap! You didn't do any of that to help me! You're not my friend!"
"THEN WHO AM I, PANDA?"
The aura pulsed, sending out a wave of heat that threw Po back against the stone fence. It broke apart, and Po fell back into the pool with a thunderous splash. When the panda surfaced, coughing and spluttering, she was gone. He clambered back out, angrier than ever. "Yeah, you'd better run! The next time you try to pick on me, I'll bring the thunder down on you so hard your ancestors' hair will stand on end!"
He brushed the water off as best as he could, and then walked to the door. Again, he really hoped he hadn't made a mistake.
Still inside his cage, Mantis was starting to get cramps when Izumi stepped, followed by two soldiers. She strode right up to Long Feng, who was mumbling to himself at the map table. He looked up, and his brow arched. "What's the status of the mission?"
"Our men are setting up a trap as we speak." Izumi said. She looked a little afraid, but not of Long Feng, even though he still looked like a sizzling powder keg. "But we thought it best if I gave the news personally."
"What is it?"
"There have been sightings of the target in the prison. He's here."
Oh man, Mantis thought. His friends looked like they were all having the same thought.
"Then what are you waiting for?"
"I-"
"Just go!"
Izumi nodded and left, passing Colonel Sao. "What's the status of your mission?"
"It's taken an unexpected turn, sir." Sao looked much more fearful. "I was on my way into the city when I was told that Ember had been sighted several times in the palace. We know that for some reason she's fixated on the panda..."
"Indeed." Long Feng said, putting a hand to his stump. "Once we have the panda back in our hands, that vile witch will have no choice but to- what?"
Sao leaned close and spoke quietly, but Mantis's ears were nearly as good as Shifu's. "Sir, I think we should pull back all the men and form a defence strategy."
Long Feng looked affronted. "Need I remind you that Lady Hei Nuwang personally instructed me to recapture the panda and the creature, at any cost?"
"I know how much trust she has in you, but the situation has changed."
"We've taken the city. We're in control. That's all that has changed."
Sao shook his head. "You don't understand. Ember has powers we have never foreseen her having. She's even stealing our own men from us! And then there's the creature we know nothing about. It just won't die, but our men are. All this is because of a war we've started." He was gripping his sword now. "Sir, we're in over our heads. We need a new plan."
Long Feng turned his head to glare at Mantis and the other prisoners. "Do you think they know anything?"
"Who?"
"The masters."
"Look at them, sir. I doubt they know anything."
"And what's that supposed to mean?" Mantis muttered.
"Colonel, I want you to stay here for now." Long Feng said. "The guards should find the panda soon enough."
"If they live long enough." Sao said.
So far, so good.
Po opened the heavy door and stepped into the prison, where he found it to be just as he expected it to be. A great big room that could fit three Jade Palaces, with six levels of prison cells on all eight sandy brown walls. On each level, every cell was connected by a series of walkways shaped like a star. All the cells were empty. Emperor Xian and his family were being held elsewhere. "Darnit." Po was disappointed, but knew he had to stick to the plan. Get through the prison, get to the guard tower, get into the central building from there, and find his friends.
That plan sounded a lot better thought out in his head.
The more Po treaded across the cobbled floor of the prison, the more he realised that there was something really weird about it. It wasn't just the empty cells. Everything that should be inside the cell, wooden benches, icky buckets, were gone. The bottom floor of the prison was unusually empty. There were no weapon racks, chains, cages or guards. Weirdest of all were the hundreds of purple crystals placed everywhere. They were on the walls, the floor, the walkways, under the walkways and on the ceiling. They looked like they had been placed recently. Po kept as far away from them as possible as he looked for the other exit.
He saw it, a big archway on the opposite side.
Hidden in a balcony three levels up inside the secondary prison hall, the one reserved for temporary prisoners, Izumi kept a close eye on the archway that connected this hall to the bigger hall. The archway was a crucial part of the plan, second only to the hundreds of crystals that had been placed everywhere in both halls. The crystals in the big hall were just a precaution in case the target somehow managed to get through the archway in time. The small hall was where the trap had been set.
The soldiers were in place, hands gripping the ropes that held up the buckets of water that dangled over the burning torches that kept the crystals from activating. Izumi reminded herself to ask Hei Nuwang where she had acquired them afterward. One soldier had their hand on the lever that would spring the trap. Izumi had her paw held up so the soldier could see the signal when it came.
The third most crucial part of the plan would come in through the exit any minute now. Izumi stayed crouched behind the fallen table as she waited. She saw a shadow coming from the archway and tensed.
Po walked through the archway to find another empty, but smaller prison. This one had a couple of balconies high up with exits of their own. There were even more crystals here than they were in the last room. Stranger still were the buckets dangling above the torches that lit the room. Po stared at them, utterly puzzled by their existence. People often called him odd, but even he knew that there was no sane reason for all this.
"What the hell?"
"What the hell?"
The heavy looking door up ahead had just opened, and in had walked the masked man. He'd stopped dead when he saw the panda.
"You!" Po jumped into his stance.
The masked man advanced. "Get out of here! You'll ruin every-"
He froze and looked up. "Damn it!" He rushed right at Po. Po threw a punch, but it missed as the masked man rushed right past him.
A clanking sound filled the hall, and by then it was too late. The masked man cleared the archway just as the bars came down, blocking all exits and completely sealing the prison.
A trap?! Dangit!
It got worse from there. The ropes holding the buckets went slack, spilling water over the torches.
For a thousandth of a second there was complete darkness. Then the whole world turned bright purple. Po yelled and covered his eyes, staggering from the violent intensity of the hundreds of crystals that had come alive the moment the torches were doused. He opened his eyes just a crack and saw the exit doors, forced shut when the bars slammed down. They were his only way out. Holding his arm over his screwed up eyes, Po slowly staggered towards the door.
He heard the sound of a monster dropping to the ground behind him.
And that was when the bars slid back up.
Tigress didn't know if it was just luck or the disguise was better than she thought it would be, but no-one had recognised her since she'd been enlisted along with ten other men on a special mission in the royal prison. That made it easy for her to save Po's big bahuna.
Under Izumi's command, they'd been sent to set a trap using the prison's innovatively designed defence system.
Tigress had hated that she had no choice but to participate. For all she knew, something she cared about was down there, maybe even Po himself, and here she was working with the enemy to capture them. However, she had also been in the best position to do something about it. She knew everything there is to know about the defence system, so she'd known just what to do to sabotage the trap if and when the opportunity came. She'd grinned behind her mouth cover as she imagined the look on Izumi's face when her own soldier foiled her plot.
So she'd listened intensely along with the other members of the party as Izumi detailed every aspect of the plan, up to including the intended bait. It had been quite a surprise when she learned that their intended target was a monster.
Her place by the lever that activated the defence system, on a balcony at the top level, had given her a clear view of the archway. The trap was simple. Wait for the creature to follow the bait into this hall, and then on Izumi's signal Tigress had to lower the bars, sealing the room. Then the other soldiers doused the flames, allowing the crystals' natural luminescence to flood every inch of the hall with light, leaving no shadow for the creature to escape through. An ingenious plan. No wonder Izumi's former boss had made her second in command.
Tigress had been focused on Izumi, hiding on a lower balcony, when the bobtail gave the signal. She'd pulled the lever. The bars had come down. The torches were doused. She'd shielded her eyes from the purple light.
That was when she had heard Po yell.
She'd looked over the balcony and seen Po staggering, blinded by the light. Her heart had leapt with joy while her stomach lurched. She had seen the creature, eyeing Po from a walkway above him. And now she was pushing the lever back up as the creature dropped down behind him.
The sound of the bars receding from inside the archway caught the creature's attention. Turning away from Po, it sprinted through the archway and was gone. Po stood there for a moment, clearly shaken by what had almost happened, then ran for the doors on the other side and disappeared himself. Izumi shrieked vicious curses from her balcony.
Tigress sighed in relief behind her mouth cover. At least for now, Po was safe.
She heard footsteps heading for her balcony, but stayed collected. No-one had seen what she did. Time to take advantage of that.
A red-eyed horse stepped onto the balcony. "What happened?" He asked with the emotion of a woodblock.
Find the enemy's weakness and take advantage of it. That's what Master Shifu always said. Izumi and her superiors had very little knowledge of the creature and its abilities. An unorthodox weakness, but a weakness nevertheless.
Tigress put on the best disturbed male voice she could. "I don't know what happened. I pulled the lever, but then it pushed itself back up. I couldn't move it at all!" She pulled the lever and feigned shock when it worked. "I-it was covered in shadows! The creature must have moved it somehow! You have to believe me!"
"Izumi must know about this." the soldier left. He appeared on Izumi's balcony minutes later. One dull explanation later, Izumi tossed him onto the walkway.
Tigress relaxed. Her cover was safe for the time being. Her smile faded somewhat as she thought of Po. It was so tempting to just leave and find him, but there would be no helping the royal family if they both got recaptured. She couldn't take the chance of anyone becoming suspicious. At least not yet.
"Po..." She whispered. "I'm sorry, but now is too risky."
