Sorry for the long delay, school has been getting really in the way, as well as other distracting stories (i.e. "Learning To Love", if you haven't seen it yet :D). But anyway, here you go! This was fun to write, but make sure that if you see any mistakes, tell me! Read, review, follow, favorite, eat pizza, etc.!
I do not own Kung Fu Panda.
Chapter Five: Of Peaches, Tigers and Wolves
Tai Lung's feet were heavy and dragging up a hill. The path he was taking lead to a sturdy tree, fragile peach blossoms waving gently in the summer night wind. Tai's pupils were wide and black from both the warm glow of the lantern held in his paw and the cold light of the silver-blue moon. He shut his amber eyes and sat down, stiff, on a nearby decomposing tree limb.
"That was a messed up day," he sighed. Out of his patchy pant pocket he drew out a small notebook, bound in soft, scratched leather and the pages dark with smudged charcoal. He squinted up at the moon, his nose wiggling uncomfortably at the feel of glasses and managed a tired smirk. Today the moon was a good model to sketch.
He sharpened a piece of charcoal with his claw absently. His mind wandered through the day as his pencil worked furiously across a blank white papyrus page. And gods, what a day it had been.
He sketched until his fingers cramped and his eyes were bleary, but it was relaxingly difficult. Almost nostalgic to feel the comfort of mild discomfort.
When he was done, the page was dark with well-defined lines and lazy smears to fill in for shadowing. The moon shone across the peach tree, casting a shadow over a lonely figure. Tai Lung felt satisfied. The end product, this time, was rewarding.
Not like the training this evening. The leopard thought gravely. He reached up and plucked a low-dangling peach. The fuzz and flesh were warm against his skin. Ripe to the point of perfection.
Tai Lung glanced back furtively and opened wide to take a bite of the chuicy, mouth-watering peach, when someone cleared their throat with a purpose. His teeth had already sunk in when Oogway spoke.
"I see you have found the Sacred Peach Tree of Heavenly Wisdom."
Tai Lung's eyes widened anxiously, but now the peach was firmly clamped in a delicate position in his fangs and he couldn't pull it out. "Ohpf! I'mpf fo forry. I-I didmft knowf it was facfed!"
Oogway tilted his head. Tai Lung grinned sheepishly and pulled out the fruit, smacking his lips in slight pain. "I said, sorry, I didn't know it was sacred. Ow." He pulled out a string of peach from his teeth and cringed.
"I-ha, I thought it was just a regular peach tree. Good, you know drawing material. Trees, I mean."
"I see." Oogway nodded, plodding over to the feline. "You draw to express your feelings, and to release them."
"I'm not upset."
"I never said you were." Oogway smiled softly. His clawed fingers tapped delicately on his rough staff.
"There's no reason to be upset," Tai laughed uneasily, lying to himself as well as the tortoise."Why would I be upset?"
Oogway nodded in understanding. "So tell me, why are you upset?"
The spotted cat sighed. No way to get around this. "I probably sucked more today than anyone ever in the history of kung fu. Also, in the history of China. And probably i-in the history of, just, overall sucking."
"Probably." Agreed Oogway.
"Aaand the Furious Five, my idols. Man, they totally hate me."
"Totally."
Tai Lung looked up to the sky and frowned deeply. "Master Oogway, how can Shifu turn me into the 'Prophesied Warrior' or whatever? I know Panda's already well-prepared and like an absolutely awesome fighter and all, but what about me? I'm a scarecrow that wears glasses and took dance classes because I was too scared to join the wrestling team, for Cheng huang's sake. Did you see me in the Training Hall? I failed. Miserably."
Oogway listened patiently.
"I'm not a Kung Fu Warrior, Master Oogway. I'm barely anything but a peasant cook." Tai Lung sat back down, dejected, and placed his head on his paws. "I should probably just go back, and, like. Cook noodles. At least I'm only disappointing myself then."
The Grandmaster stared at him with a puzzled sadness. "You are very unhappy with who you are."
"No kidding," The big cat groaned.
"You are also very dramatic." Oogway smiled. "Quite like Shifu himself. Short fuses, I suppose."
Tai Lung glanced up with hidden surprise and finally grunted, "Well, there was no drama this morning, when all I was expecting was a day of noodles. I should quit, honestly. It would be better for everyone."
The reptile chuckled solemnly and stared off into the stars, distant. "Quit, don't quit. Noodles, no noodles."
Tai Lung squinting at Oogway, bewildered.
"You are too concerned with what is and what will be." Oogway waltzed over slowly to the edge of the cliff and turned to look at the leopard kindly. "Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That, is why we call it the present."
He smiled to himself knowingly and proceeded to head down the hill, striking the peach tree trunk with his staff. One of the soft pink-orange fruits broke off a twig and fell down into Tai Lung's open palm.
He blinked at it, processing the words of the Grandmaster, and then absently continued sketching out the thoughts of his day.
Tigress ignored the hesitant warning crawling up her stomach and slid down the vertical rock wall, leaving trails of white behind her. She stopped abruptly, then pushed herself off as silently as possible, a wisp of dark in something even darker.
The cat flipped through the air with trained agility and landed in the stone island in a crouched position, pressed low to the shadow. She snuck around the side of the incarcerating tortoise shell and inserted the feather in the jigsaw lock on it's patterned back.
"Tigress, what are you doing?" Whispered Lingdao, eyes slitted and bewildered.
"Shush, you impulsive dog," Tigress choked down a fond, nervous grin. "I'll explain later."
She quickly flicked the feather through the lock, the cell's pieces relaxing and slowly breaking apart. Lingdao let out a heavy moan of relief, his muscles decontracting after years of tight, unmoving paralysis.
"Shut it." Tigress hissed. The wolf nodded, then went on to burst out of the shell with a loud growl. The pieces scattered loudly across the cavern, and Lingdao fell to his knees, weak. An alarm blared out through the walls, loud and ringing in the sensitive feline's ears.
"Oh, you idiot!" She growled, picking him up. "You just compromised the whole-"
"Are we going to break out the others or not?" Lingdao grinned at the feline.
Tigress sighed, shaking her head with a distinct affection. "The Master will hear of this."
"You won't tell him," The wolf smirked and looked up to see Zeng and Commander Vachir staring down in horror. "I'll let out the others. You clear the path. Improvision was always my thing, anyway."
"Idiot."
"Stripes."
"Ah, but. What about the shackles?"
Before they could figure out what to do, the gruff, hoarse voice of Vachir shouted out, "Fire crossbows!"
"There's your answer." Tigress nodded. Two of the crossbows fired missed, digging into the rock like needles. Lingdao and Tigress ducked, and the third one speared right through the wolf's chains.
He flashed a triumphant pair of smiling fangs at Zeng.
This would be fun.
"Lingdao is free! I must warn Shifu!" The servant duck gasped, flapping away wildly. Vachir grabbed him out of the air and snarled.
"You're not going anywhere. And neither are they."
"Let go of me!" Zeng struggled vainly and watched on in horror.
Tigress growled and uprooted the crossbows deftly from the stone, kicking them towards the rock wall into a makeshift staircase leading up the wall. The force of the spears caused the stone to tremble.
"Let's go," she ordered, jumping up the poles of the weapons. Lingdao followed without question, grunting with exertion.
"Bring it up!" Vachir commanded above, signaling towards the elevator; hurriedly, the two turned the winch and hefted it up. Then they tried to jump on, but it was already to high.
"Hey, wait!" They panicked.
"They're coming this way!" Zeng, also, panicked.
"They won't get that far," Huffed the rhino chief with stubborn certainty. "Archers!"
The archers aimed at the two scurrying up the wall and fired without question. A wave of weapons dove down towards them as they made one last desperate leap towards the safe shield of an elevator, and then the arrows plummeted down.
Tigress held onto the wooden shafts for dear life with one paw and clutched Lingdao's paw in the other, dangling through the air and watching the arrow tsunami miss them by inches.
"Too close," Lingdao bared his teeth.
One of the rhino guards swiped through the elevator's chain with his axe and watched it crash down towards the darkness of the pit.
He and his neighbor guard chuckled darkly and clanged axes in a weird sort of high-five, just as Tigress and Lingdao swung up into the elevator house and promptly knocked the two out.
"You unlock the others," Tigress ordered, grabbing the broken chain and staring through her mask with narrowed, crimson eyes. "I'll clear the way, as planned."
"That's my girl," The wolf saluted and jumped backwards into the darkness. Tigress rolled her eyes and, still carrying the chain, lunged over the edge and swung around and upwards to the next tier.
A crowd of hefty, growling rhinos greeted her with anxious evil-eyes, and she responded with a sadistic snarl.
Tigress let go of the chain and jumped into the mass of grey, her fists furiously pounding into thick skulls and armor. She spin-kicked one, twisted midair and delivered an unrestrained strike to another's head. Grabbing a nearby mace, she swung it around with practiced sharpness and precision. No targets were missed.
Nearly finished; another double palm-strike, another crescent kick, another block and strike. Twirling two over her head, the feline threw them into the wall and used the vertical rock face as a springboard. She pounced onto the next tier and unleashed the next bout of fury,
Rhinos flew over the bridge's sides, not able to even keep up with the blur of black-clothed orange spinning, dashing, clawing her through the sea of guards.
Lingdao easily administered a swift punch to the jail cell guard's head, who slumped down onto his face. The canine snatched up the keys and scampered towards the cages.
"Lingdao!" One of them gasped, jolting from his tired, broken position. "How did you-"
"Didn't I always tell you that cats and dogs can work together?" The Wolf Boss grinned snarkily.
"Huh?" The other dogs tilted their heads, bewildered.
"Ah..whatever. C'mon," He sighed, quickly unlocking the cell door.
As he unlocked each one, the wolves gathered in a collective, brutal howl, until it was the harmony of freed prisoners bearing down on those who had kept them hostage, with Lingdao leading the way.
Tigress reached the top tier, and an army of anxious, angry rhinoceri greeted her, flaming arrows nocked and ready. Commander Vachir's mouth slid down into a hash sneer, and the duck clamped in his meaty hand looked paler than the moon sure to greet her outside.
"We're dead," the duck gasped out, quivering. "So very, very dead."
The feline calculated her chance against 80-so men and their weapons, and came to a pretty unfortunate conclusion. So she waited instead, staring them down across the bridge. She unsheathed her claws, fur bristling under her slimming suit, and her eyes flashing warningly.
Vachir grinned in reply and challenged the messenger, "Not yet we're not!"
The rhino guards fired arrows at the ceiling, and looming stalactites cracked. The explosives attached to the shafts crackled into the rock notches, breaking the stone teeth from the roof, and it started to rain.
Tigress held back a gasp when the first stalactite hit the bridge, thundering, fissures splitting apart the pathway. Rock crumbled with a groan, and the earth slid down into the abyss below. The air shook, and Tigress struggled to keep her balance.
Then came the howling. The malicious glint in Vachir's eyes faded. And the wolves burst out behind Tigress and parted around her as if she were Moses and they were the Red Sea.
Lingdao stalked up to her with hunched soldier and a ferocious smirk. "Got a plan, Zhínǚ?"
"Yep. And-"
"Don't bother." Lingdao winked, and then barked out to the soldiers, "Start jumping, dogs! This bridge ain't gonna last forever!"
The wolves streamed out, leaping from pieces of the bridge suspended or lopsided, sinking slowly down into the prison below. Rhinos began firing arrows, and the canines dodged frantically while playing leapfrog with death.
Tigress and Lingdao went a different path, climbing up the sheer rock walls and up toward the cracking ceiling. A lit fuse sprayed out sparks in the notch between the two biggest stalactites, and the pair shared a communicative look. They'd pinpointed their goal.
They lunged towards a falling stalactite, clawing up to the top, then pouncing up to one higher up in the air, trying to keep up with the ever-falling staircase. The fuse was shortening. The smell of gunpowder and burning rock poisoned the air, smoke hissed in their eyes. Lingdao could hear the ragged breathing heaving out of his chest, his eyes slitted against the whiplash. They were so close...
Vachir laughed maniacally. The wolf army was barely scraping forward, and Tigress's world was full of blinding fireworks.
Tigress made one last desperate surging bound towards the tip of the rigged stalactite, and suddenly her heart was pounding louder than any of the explosions quaking the cavern. Her paw reached out to the sharp tip and the Wolf Boss jumped just a few inches behind her.
Her claws barely scraped against the rock, and she dug in, pulling herself up into the surface. She'd made it.
Lingdao panicked momentarily as his grasp came just a few millimeters, but Tigress quickly snatched his hand and hurled him forward. He caught onto the surface, barely, nearly hugging the stalactite. They crawled their way up the surface, and Lingdao finally grabbed the dynamite. He could practically hear Tigress grinning behind him.
Leading the way, the wolf propelled himself down and slung the dynamite into the horrified faces of the rhino army.
"Can we run yet?" Zeng gulped, his face numb.
Commander Vachir's voice trembled when he answered.
"Yes."
Everything was suddenly bathed in blasting red light and shrieking sound. The first thing that ruptured from the prison was a golden rhino horn. Then rhinos flew back into the snowy mountainous outside, flopping pathetically into the snow. The wolves followed out much more victoriously, skidding on the rock and forming into uniform segments at the sides of the blackened cavern entrance.
Tigress stalked out, and the wind whipped against her body. Refreshingly, it didn't smell like acrid smoke nor the stench of rhino sweat.
Lingdao followed, and a sigh escaped from his lips. It was cold and dark and stony and the most stunning thing he'd seen in twenty years. The stars and moon beamed down their light on his grey face and he relished in the beauty of it's simplicity.
The cat in front of him trudged through the snow, cracking her back, and paused when her foot hit a lump of smoking bird. She reached down and came up with a squirming messenger duck.
"Nurr...urghhh…URK!"
When her claws tightened around his neck, Zeng gasped out a puff of gunpowder.
"I'm glad Shifu sent you," Tigress breathed out. He was trembling in her paws, and he cringed when she reached over and unexpectedly smoothed down the feathers on his head.
She chuckled creepily, and Zeng faced a mouthful of pristine tiger fangs. Lingdao hovered behind her and broke in, "Yes. I was beginning to think he'd forgotten us."
"Fly back and tell them," Tigress's grin soured into a low growl, "That the fire he's been trying to avoid is going to rain, and when it does, it will pour."
Tigress let her grip loosen and gently pushed him up into the air. Zeng fluttered away hysterically, and lightning flashed behind him.
The last thing he saw was the terrifying silhouette of a wolf and a tiger stretching out against the silver ground.
A/N: Zhínǚ-Niece
Leave a review, please! All those so far have really inspired me!
-DOTS