A/N: I do not own Kung Fu Panda or any of the characters. Just Marie, my character.

Chapter Two

Marie wasn't sure how long she was sleeping when she slowly started to come to, her body feeling extremely heavy and achy. It was like she had a really bad cold that put her out of commission for days on end. For several minutes she just lies there, struggling to open her eyes. What happened to her she wasn't sure, her thoughts muddled and confused, her head slightly pounding for some reason unknown to her. She finally forced her eyes open, wincing a bit when bright light hits her eyes, groggily moving her hand up to shield her eyes as she slowly sat up. She closed her eyes as she cradles her head in her hands, rubbing her forehead as she tried to clear her head. She runs her fingers through her hair, her hand pausing when she touches a piece of cloth wrapped around her head.

It then hits Marie like a ton of bricks, the deer, the crash, her head bleeding, and then blackness. She gasps sharply, her eyes snapping open as she takes in her surroundings. Instead of perhaps finding herself in a hospital, or even lying by her car, she finds herself surrounded by bamboo. She sits there stupidly for several moments, blinking at the bamboo like forest all around her. "Bamboo…?" She murmurs softly to herself, looking up to see a bit of sky and light filtering in from the top of the bamboo forest. A soft sound of trickling water catches her attention, and she suddenly realizes how thirsty she is, her throat horrible dry that causes her to start coughing.

She pulls herself to her feet, stumbling a bit when the world suddenly spins all around her, before she manages to steady herself against some bamboo. With a soft groan she starts to slowly make her way towards the sound of the running water, the sound gradually growing louder as she walked. She finally finds herself by a small brook, falling to her knees and dipping her hands into the ice cold water, cupping her hands and taking a small sip of water. The water tasted crystal clear and clean, and that only encourages her to drink more of the water to satisfy her thirst.

Marie breathes a soft sigh of relief as she dries her hands against her jeans, looking down at the water as she tries to gather her thoughts. She reaches up to touch her bandage head, frowning softly to herself as she examines her reflection in the water. Someone had taken the time to clean her face, wound, and bandage her up, but not take her to the hospital? And… drop her off in the middle of a bamboo forest?

Her brow furrows a bit in confusion, biting down on her lower lip as she tries to think what could have happened to her. Every possibility and every scenario she comes up with hits a dead end and she ends up concluding that, for now, it will have to remain a mystery. She knew one thing for sure: she didn't think there were any bamboo forests in America. She shakily gets to her feet and starts to walk, following the brook down the hill. Marie wanted to stick near the brook, hoping that maybe the brook became a river, and the river might lead to some sort of civilization. She knew there were many flaws to this plan, but it was the only plan she could think of.

As Marie continued her little walk she has time to observe her surroundings, taken aback at how much bamboo surrounds her, along with trees and plants she's never seen before. She notices how clean the air feels and smells like, like pollution has never touched this place. It's like she was dropped off in the middle of a forest in China or Japan even. If she was in either of those places, then how did she get there? Would someone actually find her on the side of the road, and go 'Hey, lets mess with her! We'll put her on a plane and ship her to China/Japan, and dump her in the wilderness before she wakes up, it would make great TV!' It just didn't make any sense to her.

She didn't walk very long, maybe only fifteen minutes when she see's a small clearing ahead, the small brook filtering into a small pond. The ground around the pond is made of grey brick, which makes Marie smile happily as she darts forward to the clearing, her feet hitting the brick covered ground. What she see's next stuns her, standing completely still as she looks around. It was like she was transported back into ancient China, a Chinese pavilion in the middle of what she could call a garden: flowers, trees, and plants neatly placed around the area. Further on over a wall separating the area from the next she could see an extremely large building at the top of a hill, so huge that it had to be like a palace!

It oddly looked like the Jade Palace…

She scoffed at the thought. It had to be a coincidence, it was probably just an old building that was kept up really well, that's all! But still, this made her wonder if she really was shipped off to China somehow… She can only hope she would come across someone and have them tell her where she was, and maybe where she can find the nearest phone. Problem was, she didn't speak Chinese, and so if she really was in China, she might be in trouble, especially since she could very well be trespassing.

Lovely.

She started to move forward towards the pavilion, pausing to look at the numerous flowering bushes around it. The flowers were a beautiful red, but they were the strangest flowers she has ever seen before. She took a cautious sniff before smiling a bit; the scent was pleasantly sweet, almost like a mixture of honey and a light smell of rose. Suddenly Marie heard a startled squawk to her left, causing her to whirl around to look towards the sound. Her eyes widened and her entire body stiffened in surprise at the sight before her, her breath freezing in her chest.

Before her was a grey goose. What was most odd though was that it wore clothes. Bright yellow, traditional Chinese clothes with a little hat on top of it's head. Don't panic she was thinking, it's just an abnormally tall goose that someone put clothes on, it's no big deal. However, she noticed in his wing, curled like a fist, was a container of what looked like gardening tools. No goose that she knew of could carry tools that way.

She and the goose stared each other down, both of their expressions showing how frightened they were of each other. Suddenly the goose released a loud, terrified yell that caused her to scream out of reflex, the goose dropping the tools and taking off to the sky. "Master Shifuuuuuuuuuuu!" He screamed as he flew towards the palace, leaving several feathers behind in his fright. Marie stared back after him with wide eyes as he franticly flew as fast as he can.

He talked… The goose that she had thought was just a normal animal, talked. It suddenly dawned on her who he really was, remembering the goose from the movie, called Xhen, the messenger goose for Shifu. Suddenly it felt like her blood became like ice, terror and uncertainty gripping at her with its claws. If that was really Xhen, then… Then that means she's in a world not her own, which means there are no humans around. No one she could turn to she thought with dread. Suddenly what the goose said registered in her mind, causing her to gasp and take several steps back.

He was calling for Master Shifu, which means that if they found her a serious threat, he, the Furious Five, and Po would track her down, and maybe hurt her. Panic gripped her as she turned and ran, not knowing where she was going or what she would do, and only one thought entered her head as she fled. –Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore.-

***At the Jade Palace***

It's been around four months since the defeat of Tai Lung, and Master Shifu was feeling more at peace then he had been in years. Po had helped him more then he knew, releasing the weight of guilt that Shifu carried on his shoulders. Shifu opened up to his students more then he ever had, which was a relief to everyone. He would openly compliment them, and treated them like they were his own children, carefully guiding them as they continued their training in Kung Fu. Po over the course of the months had improved greatly with the help of the Furious Five, but he would still have his clumsy moments now and then, which caused the others to laugh openly at him and help lighten the atmosphere.

Shifu chuckled softly to himself as he watched his students at it in the training grounds, training in their own arts and helping each other out with their weaknesses. Po was balancing on the jade turtle, trying to fend off the Crane as he worked to keep his balance. While he had improved Po still remained unsteady on his feet while on the turtle, having trouble figuring out when was the right time to shift his weight or adjust his stance to counter-act the constant tipping motion of the moving turtle.

Crane was at home on the jade turtle, but he was slowing his strikes down a bit for Po so he could keep up. Only a tad bit mind you, barely enough for Shifu to notice, but he didn't call Crane out on that, he knew that the Crane and Po practically became like brothers after Tai Lung was defeated. They looked out for each other, like Viper and Mantis looked out for one another, as well as Tigress and Monkey.

The others were training on their own this time, some days they paired up to train, and other days they would train solo. Mantis was trying out a new move he learned from Shifu on the training dummies, Tigress training with the moving hazards that represented enemies coming at her with weapons, and Monkey training with his knife rings. Today was a rather normal day it seemed like, and Shifu liked having things stay constant, balanced, and have nothing unexpected happen.

Suddenly a loud yelp from Po echoed across the room when he slipped, once again, and landed inside the turtle, tumbling around inside it until he finally came to a halt. A few moments later Po's head come over the edge of the jade turtle, smiling sheepishly towards Shifu. "I'm ok!" Shifu couldn't help but roll his eyes and laugh softly at the Panda. Every time Po would slip and fall, or even get hurt he would always say his trademark line 'I'm ok.'

"It's alright, Po. Resume your stance and try again. You're fighting the way the jade turtle moves, do not fight it, move with it." Shifu smiled as Po's eye lit up with understanding before climbing back up on the rim, with a little help from Crane and resumed his stance, looking a bit more confident.

Before Shifu could tell them to begin the doors to the training hall suddenly bursted open as a frantic, out of breath Xhen collapsed on the ground. Shifu instantly became worried, for Xhen never entered the hall of training unless it was an emergency. His students also were aware of the fact that something was wrong and instantly stopped what they were doing, watching the goose as Shifu quickly made his way over to him.

"Xhen, my friend, what is wrong?" Shifu started, helping the goose to his feet and helping to keep him steady as Xhen struggled to regain his breath. "You've looked like you've seen a ghost!" Xhen started to try to speak, but was unable to get any words out between his gasping breathes. He stayed silent for several moments until he caught his breath, tilted his head to look at Shifu, trembling in terror.

"Master Shifu, I saw a strange creature in the gardens! It was so strange, stood about shoulder length to Po, wore strange clothes, its skin pale like a white flower, like it had never been in the sun. It was…" Xhen stopped for a moment, a memory suddenly resurfacing that caught him off guard. "It was like the creature that was in Master Oogway's stories! About these creatures that once shared the lands with us until they disappeared hundreds of years ago. What was it called? H….Hu…. Hum?" An exasperated look crossed Xhen's face as he tried to remember the name from the story Oogway told him so long ago when he was only a gosling.

Shifu frowned, his ears lying flat on his head as he tried to imagine in his mind what Xhen was talking about. He knew without a doubt Xhen would not lie as he was one of his most entrusted personnel, but his story was just odd, and made him wonder if Xhen was suffering a delayed reaction of stress from his experience in Grohm Prison. As Xhen began to try to pronounce the name of it, it did begin to remind him of the same story he heard from Oogway long ago.

The way Xhen described it was like the paintings Oogway showed to Shifu and described in his stories. However, he thought the stories were only fairy tales, something imaginary to tell the children when they were young. The name suddenly came to his mind, and the name slipped past his lips before he even knew it. "Human…?"

Xhen suddenly looked back at Shifu, smiling and looking relieved that someone else knew of the story and that he wasn't crazy. "Yes, that was it! It had to be a human, it's the only thing that comes close to what I saw. I don't know if it's a nice human though, I sort of… flew off. It looked scared though, now that I think back, and it looked like it might have been injured-"

Shifu's attention sharpened when he caught the word 'injured' come from Xhen. "Injured?!" Xhen looked a little uneasy at the tone of Shifu's voice, knowing that the deepening tone signaled that he was worried.

"Well, it had a bandage wrapped around it's head, and one side of it had dried blood on it-" Xhen was interrupted when Shifu turned to his students suddenly, all of his students were standing at attention, waiting for his orders.

"You heard Xhen, this human is afraid, injured, and in need of medical attention. Do not attack it unless it attacks you, and try to not frighten it. You could be very imposing to it, and it's already frightened as it is. You'll know it's a human when you see it, it's unmistakenable. Start out at the gardens and fan out, leave no stone unturned! Go!" Shifu barked out his orders, his students immediately taking this situation seriously and leaving the training room to start their search. Po tagging along behind them, a bit slower, but was rushing as fast as he could.

Shifu took a deep breath and turned to Xhen who has managed to pull himself together and was ready to accept his orders. "I want you to go through Oogway's personal library and find every scroll you can about humans, he may be the only one that might have the precious information that I am looking for. I'm going out to help with the search. I only pray to the gods that we find it…" He turned to leave, only pausing to pick up his staff (carved to match Oogway's staff) as he exited the training hall and made his way outside. His mind is filled with uncertainties as he started his search, worried about what this sudden appearance of the human might come to.