One hundred years after the arrival of Master Oogway and kung fu, China came under attack from a new threat hailing from the far north, beyond civilized lands where all who inhabited it were barbarians and demons. Thus it was an initial impression that the Great Zhanglian Khan, who came to plague and pillage the empire with his horse hordes, was in fact a demon, or at the very least an incredibly uncivilized person indeed: these days people know better, or at least the learned ones do, but it is still a generally accepted fact that the warlord was a capricious, impolite and self-served, and an otherwise incompetent ruler and general, and that the only reason he saw any success at all was China's own internal conflicts at the time, combined with kung fu being a relatively new art that had not yet spread very far, leaving very few to stand against him.
Needless to say, these very few included among themselves Master Oogway and his students, the first two generations of kung fu practicioners. The raids and other conquest, initially relatively unopposed and storming through the known world, were suddenly and utterly pushed back at Wu Dan Mountains by an art completely unknown to these foreign devils, entire armies of horses being destroyed and thrown down the mountain by barely two dozen peaceful animals. The Khan himself, baffled by this display but unwilling to retreat from a mere handful, saw his death at the hands of Oogway (though the sage himself claimed it was done by the hands of one of his finest students), his body tossed down the ravine and never confirmed to have been found or recovered.
This is all that the history books can tell us for certain. But there are persisting stories, legends and hearsay, claiming that the warlord had hidden beyond the mountains in his homeland, these days known as Mongolia, all the gold and treasure he had claimed for himself through his at first successful attacks. Depending on the exact story heard, it could contain literal mountains of riches, warriors sculpted out of stone to defend it, deadly and vicious traps, Zhanglian Khan's body that had indeed been salvaged in secret, a shriveled doll of Master Oogway, full of pin needles - and even what some tales claim to be the Greatest Treasure in the World, something the Khan had never, in all his travels and conquests, found any equal to.
None of these can be verified, and no such vault has never been confirmed to exist or having been found. There have been many expeditions to the north, of course, both by the Chinese and the Mongols themselves, but all have returned empty-handed. Some scholars do claim that the Master Charging Rhino, who led a small group of students and scientists, -did- in fact discover the tomb: this estimation was made on the account that he was never seen again nor were any trace of him found, which, for those that knew anything of his skill and competence, obviously meant that the vault and its defenses had been the thing that got him.
Perhaps the vault will indeed be found one day, but one should not hold their breath.
The Great Wall of China in the far north marked the line between civilization and barbarism, where knowledge and rationality ended and through which only utter savagery could be found, where some of the finest warriors in the empire - and thus, in the world - were stationed and had to remain ever vigilant for hordes of wild horses, illegal immigrants, vandals seeking to harm or deface the Wall, and children armed with snowballs. None had ever escaped swift retribution and justice in the shape of rout, deportation, made to scrub off their inappropriate remarks of the Emperor, and notes handed to their mothers.
Travellers heading to Mongolia instead of from it were, in comparison, much less common. Not many of the learned and mighty would wish to take a single step on the other side, but here the guards were presented a small, weak-looking red panda, who at first glance did not seem like the type to have any business in the land of the demons and other nasties. Eventually they just made him promise he wasn't up to no good and let him go, figuring they did not really want to know what he was doing there (as long as it wasn't conspiring against China) and that judging from his size and posture, he was probably a great kung fu master anyway, none of them very willing to try and stop one of those.
A couple had said he looked familiar. Like they knew him from somewhere else... "Someone famous. I can't remember from what, but he looked a mighty bit like this guy we had here."
Still preoccupied with this, none of them saw someone else pass by a couple hours later - but they would have had to be quite perceptive to see it in the first place.
There was not much snow in the Mongolian plains: there usually was, oh so much more, but this was an early summer. This was the time the grass grew, all over the place, and as such the time when the grass farmers were at their busiest. It was a boring and thankless job, there being something to gather more or less absolutely everywhere, but if they did not take all this grass higher up to the mountains where it did not grow, to all those hungry horses who were just too poor to have anything better imported for themselves, then who did?
And of course, there were bandits.
"That's a very nice cart of delicious grass ye've got there, miss," said the apparent leader of the group of ne'er-do-wells, surrounding a rather nervous mare and her cart full of grass. "Ya don'ts mind if we take care of it from here on, would ya?" His tone was that of false friendliness and outright threatening.
"P-please, good sirs," she attempted to stutter diplomatically. "I spent the whole morning collecting this grass! It-it is going to my family up in the mountains." A small smile was managed, although it did not reach her eyes. "And besides, isn't there more than e-enough for us all...? Look around you, plenty of grass everywhere: you are standing on so-"
She was rewarded with a strong, heavy hand grabbing her by the neck and pulling her closer, getting a terrified squeal from her. "Don't ya get smarts with me, lady!", the horse bandit growled. "Me and me folks come from the war with them southern prettyboys! We's far too important and great to pick up our own grass!" With a malicious grin, and a chortle from his cronies, he tossed her away from her cart and down to the ground. "Don'ts worry, tho: if yer family's hungry, we'll sell 'em what's left for some good pri-"
"Is there a problem?"
Everybody present turned to look at the newcomer on the scene, a small creature in brown and green, a dark-brown cloak to cover himself from the weather, and a long wooden staff. He looked from the bandit to the bandits to the mare, and seemed to regard the scene with a calmness unfamiliar to the thugs.
"Ain't no problem here, lil' guy," was the answer, accompanied with a low laughter. "Unless ya wanna make trouble with us."
The response was one none of them expected. In their minds, any sensible person would mutter a negative response and hurry off before they would have the chance to hurt him. Indeed, any sensible person would not have asked about problems to begin with. And the small thing continued to surprise them: "Yes, actually, I do. You are a lazy, weak, stupid, and brutish bully who should be taught a lesson he won't soon forget. Do you disagree with this?" Under the hood, he smiled at them.
This fetched a low, guttural laughter of the entire bandit bunch - although exactly why they did so was a little less clear - as their leader took some steps until he stood right in front of the newcomer. "Oi, ya guys hear? This lil' feller here's got a deathwish on his plate! Maybe we oughta hurt him a little, teach him some respeEEAAAAAAA"
The smaller figure had barely moved, yet the forked end of his staff had briefly struck forward, painfully hitting both the horse boss's eyes at once and getting a scream of anger and agony out of him. He tried to back away, but the pronged end of the staff caught him from the back of his neck and pulled closer, forcing him into a face-first dive towards the assailant, who now thrusted forward with his left hand, resulting in a sickening crunch as two fingers broke his muzzle and simultaneously tossed him away by several feet, soon hitting the ground with a heavy thud. "Owwww, my dose... get 'im!", he managed to command his underlings, who did as was told, slightly intimidated by the performance but not enough to back away.
The innocent grass gatherer could but watch in amazement as the thugs tormenting her, five in all, were taken out in seconds with similarly little trouble. The harmless-looking creature moved with the speed of a lightning, its tiny fists and fingers striking with an unerring precision and yet having the force of a massive boulder behind them, and his staff becoming a blur in the air that seemed to be everywhere at once, much to the confusion and terror of the attackers. In a matter of few moments, all were down, groaning and holding various bits that had been hurt. He ignored them and moved on to her, helping her up and making sure she was all right: she could but nod.
"They will not bother you again," still smiling, the stranger said, looking back at the thugs: their leader was lying face-down on the ground, chewing on some grass and clearly wishing he was someplace else, with an unbroken nose at that.
"Oh, thank you so much! I don't know how I could ever repay-... would you like some grass?" She smiled as she offered him a handful.
"Oh... um, thank you for the offer, but I've only just eaten," was his response. His smile never left him, although his eyes looked a wee bit hesitant. He leaned on his staff as he took on walking once again, northwards, soon leaving her alone to the fields.
Mere minutes after he was gone, a fair bit away and above, another shape headed north.
Up in the mountains it was far colder, and far more snow, but regardless warmer than most of the time, driving most of the inhabitants of Zhen Leng to their local inn/tavern, to escape the heat and the unusual lack of snow. The establishment was owned by an elderly Mongol named Crazy Horse, his mane greying but with eyes that betrayed a vast amount of elderly wisdom and cunning. It was just a small inn he had, but he had made it clear that he was very fond of the place, and did not abide brawlers.
Most listened. Those that did not, were unceremoniously tossed out.
Zhen Leng was a small town, residing a bit on the outskirts of the main roads, and independent on the goings of the rest of the country: rarely did anyone there need to leave the town for any reason, and rarer still would someone visit it.
This day was one of the rare exceptions. For it was on this day that the relative peace and calm of the only inn in town was interrupted, as a stranger walked in. Covered in a cloak, with an unusual and rather fragile body structure that clearly marked him as a foreigner, all eyes were on him as he walked at the counter where the old bartender was cleaning up a clay mug, in a way that suggested he would have preferred something else there, but that the times were not ready. "What'll it be?", he grunted unceremoniously, making no comment about the person's origins: a paying customer is a paying customer.
"Do you serve noodles here?", he asked.
Crazy Horse nodded, and the customer carried on: "Then, may I have a cup?" He paused. "...Make it two."
He picked himself a corner table at the end of the tavern, and soon got his order, the entire time having all eyes on his back. Still, no one had the reason to bother him, nor did they wish to pick fights here (the bartender had indeed been very adamant on this fact), so besides some muttering and an occasional glare, they left him alone.
A little later, this small guy with a long wooden staff showed up.
The mean looks and mutters raised up in frequency and octave with the second arrival: having one foreigner up here was odd enough as it is, but another in the same decade, let alone the same day, was extraoridinary indeed. Unlike the first stranger, who had only wished for a meal, the second one ended up in a longer chat with the old stallion, which, to the people observing, was clearly unusual.
"Long time no see," the horse said as he served some bean buns to the tiny stranger, who was clearly no stranger to him, although no one could hear what he was saying. "I never expected to see you up here, to be honest. What sort of business would you have at my humble establishment?"
"Why would I need to have any ulterior motives to see an old friend?", the guest responded mysteriously.
"So, you only wished to see me for the old times' sake?" The Crazy Horse did not sound convinced.
"Well, I did not say that."
He snorted. "Master Oogway's habits are getting into you. So, how may I help you, then?"
Under his cloak, Master Shifu smiled. "Wouldn't you like to exchange pleasantries first? How is your beautiful wife?"
"Dead," Crazy Horse responded somberly. "Three winters ago. She had just gotten too old."
"Oh. I am sorry to hear that: I didn't know."
"You needn't be. It was quite peaceful." He smiled. "So, what of Master Oogway? Or Tigress? I have not seen her since she was a cub: has she grown up well?"
"Indeed she has. That is, in fact, the very reason I am here: she is getting married in three weeks, and you are invited!"
"Really? That sounds wonderful... it has been a long while since we have had real a reason for celebration."
"Well, there was that whole Dragon Warrior thing, a while ago... I'm fairly sure you missed it."
"Oh." A silence fell between the two, still illuminated by all the red eyes all over.
The first stranger seemed interested of them as well. His cloak and the shadows hid his facial features fairly completely, but it did not hide the movements of the deeper shadow that was a person, and the movements of his head went left, towards the counter and the two old speakers. In other words, he did precisely what everybody else did: follow the little creature, watch him, observe him, but do nothing themselves. Finally, Crazy Horse spoke again:
"But you did not simply send a messenger to me: you came in person, and it was established you could use my help as well. So, how may I help you?"
Shifu chewed on his bean bun, looked around for the other patrons, his eyes briefly stopping at the other stranger, then speaking once more. "What do you know of the Galloping Canyon?"
No one had heard what they had been talking about in the first place, but there was a point when the Crazy Horse got quite interested. He was rather old, and none of them had seen him do that in a while, as in several decades, but now, after sitting straight and looking around for a second, he leaned back in, even closer, and they lowered their voices some more. The horse and the weird little creature chatted away for some more time, the latter having a second helping of his food, before they parted ways, seeming pleased about the turn of events. The bartender went back behind his counter, serving more drinks (several were ordered), while the other one went busy finishing his plate, still quite undisturbe-
"Oi."
Ah, there it was now. One of the many patrons, now having drunk enough for some confidence to go against the bartender's wrath, had sat down in the same table with the small stranger. He ignored him entirely and kept eating his bean buns, even when he was joined by half a dozen more, all sitting down or just standing around him. The other cloaked person, still hidden within the shadows and observing intently, was more or less ignored, having come earlier and not asking any questions.
The one that had first arrived eyed the still feeding, cloaked stranger. "So... what'd you and the old horse talk of?"
No response. The chewing of his bun could be heard intently.
"I mean," the other continued, "he never speaks much about anything. And we're his pals! We live here! And now you show up, with your fancy foreign things," he pointed at the foreigner's very foreign chest, receiving no reaction whatsoever, "and he opens up like a chattermouth, and you keep going for like, hours or what! So what was that all about? Who are you anyway?"
Still no response.
Clearly annoyed by this turn of events, he leaned in, lowering his head almost on the table and looking at the foreigner intently from no less than a foot away. "I see you like to chew," he began, then lifted his fist high. "Then maybe you should chew... on my FIST!" He slammed on the table, yet still the other one did not react - possibly because his mouth was full. He did raise his small hand, then hold up just one finger, and then he swallowed. And then he spoke:
"Hey, why the long faces?"
An ice-cold silence filled the common room of the inn. Slowly, two dozen pairs of eyes, gleaming red and furious, turned towards the corner table, at the hitherto ignored foreigner. The temperature fell by several degrees in mere seconds as their attentions fell entirely to the poor cloaked person that had just said one of the worst things one could say in a full Mongolian tavern. They decided to ignore the person they had been trying to torment so far, after all, instead walking over to the other one, who finally found his words, and said, meekly and with a very different voice indeed: "Hehe... that wasn't me who said that..." The two bowls in front of him were empty, or almost so: the final string of noodle in one of them was swiftly sucked into the stranger's chest, to a clear surprise of everybody watching - including the stranger himself.
It surprised them even more when something small and green suddenly erupted from the very same chest area. Likewise, right outside the inn, one mare in the middle of her daily chores got a bit of a scare when a horse crashed right through the wall, toppling down unconscious and leaving a sizeable hole behind him. Inside, everything remained surprisingly the same, with the exception that there was one Mongol less within, a great deal more light, and a small, green insect standing on the table, in a battle stance and looking at each of the remaining locals, as if daring them to attack.
The hooded stranger from which the bug had emerged was looking down at it. "...Mantis, have you ever considered, you know, thinking before actually speaking?"
"Yes," the insect called Mantis responded, "but you have no idea how long I have wanted to say that to a horde of Mongols. I saw an opportunity and caught it!" An opportunistic inn patron saw his chance here, with the opponent having turned his face around, to try and squash him against the table without fear of counterattack or other sort of retribution, only to find, to his dismay, pain, and swift unconsciousness, that he was wrong. His bravery was rewarded with being crashed against a table, and laying limp and motionless in its rubble.
If there was discord here before, now there was a pandemonium. Basically the entire contents of the inn attempted to simultaneously jump in a single small corner, only to be thrown back by the mantis, as well as the cloaked stranger, that had thrown his disguise away and kicked two more horses away with his thin avian legs. More fists tried to land at them, and hammers and spears were drawn to cause some more damage, but all attacks were relatively clumsy and sloppy: even if many were professional warriors, they could not be compared in the bird and the bug, who moved swiftly and fluidly, not a step mistepped, each movement clearly calculated.
Someone tried to hammer at the insect, but although his strike did go all the way through the table, smashing splintering wood to the floor, his victorious mood lasted precisely a second before his weapon was lifted from the ground, flipped around, and used to smash him in the face instead. Two others focused at the bird instead, and received a gust of wind powerful enough to throw them to the ground: the third coming from behind them was grabbed and picked up by two so-weak-looking legs, swung upwards, then tossed right through another wall, making one more hole to the now rather hole-y looking establishment.
A few more impressive battle feats, and the entire building fell into silence again, only broken by the murmurs of the people outside, having come to witness the event, and the north wall, which had been left with one large hole and several smaller ones, and which chose this as the opportune moment to collapse entirely. Master Shifu was standing on top of his staff, still holding the bowl and eating the last bun - his table had collapsed under the weight of two horse warriors - giving the two students of his a disapproving look. "What are you two doing here?"
"Well...", Crane began, walking to his master and bowing. "At first we were just going to wait for you, but then we saw the scroll on your table, the map missing from it, and put two and two together."
"We could not just let you go and risk your life all alone!", Mantis picked up. "It already claimed Master Charging Rhino, and who knows how many else. So, we thought that since Master Crane was the only one that could catch up with you, and I was the only one he could carry without slowing him down, the two of us should come along to back you up."
Crane nodded adamantly. "We couldn't let Master Tigress lose her father while she was being wed. That would have been awful!"
The red panda nodded, with a sarcastic smile, leaving the now empty bowl on top of an unconscious horse's head, then looking around. "Indeed, and look what you have already done: started a bar brawl!"
"Mantis did, not me!", Crane defended himself. "I'm sure he thought you were in danger: I did too." Mantis nodded at the words of his fellow warrior.
"I could have survived, certainly without... this."
Mantis bowed, looking apologetic - though perhaps not quite as much as Shifu would have hoped. "I apologise sincerely, Master, and I will accept any punishment you might have for me."
"And it would still be worth getting to call a roomful of Mongols 'long-faces'," Crane added with a mischievous grin.
"You bet!" The insect chuckled, then saw the face of his master, and stopped very quickly, with a very silent "Sorry."
Shifu was still smiling, no less sardonically, and pointed to his right. Looking there, the two students saw the last horse still standing in the inn. Indeed, the old bartender had not partaken in the battle at all, and was now looking at the two disapprovingly, though not really all that angrily, his arms folded over his chest. "Students of yours?", he asked Shifu.
"Indeed." The red panda nodded. "Students, meet Master Crazy Horse. We used to be friends in the days long past - though never all that good ones, I will admit, and he did not stay for a long time before moving on."
Crazy Horse nodded, then turned to look at the two students, a small smile slowly spreading to his lips. "May I?"
"Oh, by all means."
"That went well," Crane said, completely deadpan, two miles after the village, and a fair bit higher up.
The first two miles had gone entirely silent between the three. Master Crane was limping, one wing of his twisted in a strange way, both eyes black. Master Mantis was almost unconscious in his own master's arms, having no strength left to move himself around anymore. It was getting a little bit late, some snow fell down even though it was almost summer, and all in all the mood was rather sour.
"Of course, the payment for the damage you two caused will be taken from your share of the treasure," Shifu finally opened his mouth. "We should still reach the Galloping Canyon tonight, if the directions I got were accurate, after which the entrance to Zhanglian's vault itself should be a day or two away."
"So...", Crane began. "Just to make this clear... in order to pay for Master Tigress's dowry, we are going to a dungeon crawl?"
Shifu nodded. "Her dowry... and perhaps a new temple roof. We could really use a new roof."
"How does...", Mantis began. "How does that... gentleman... know that the vault exists, and where it is... when we have all been looking for it for centuries...?"
"Because he has visited it," his master responded matter-of-factly. "He was younger back then, of course, and spent a fair bit of time looking for it and cracking open its secrets. Unfortunately, its defenses proved too difficult for him, and so he shut the door and never returned, nor told about it to anyone."
"Ah." The other two nodded.
A pregnant pause. Finally, Shifu spoke again: "Students, you have had the opportunity to learn a very important lesson most of us can go decades before knowing it. Do you know what?"
A silence, as the crane and the mantis thought of this. "...Never start fights if you can avoid them?", Crane tried.
"...Be diplomatic...?", was Mantis's guess.
"Both good lessons," the red panda nodded and smiled, "but the one I was specifically talking about was this: every old bartender, innkeeper, shop owner and a landlord, is a retired kung fu master. No exceptions. So, try and be a little more careful about whom you get as an enemy."
"Even Mr. Ping?"
"Especially Mr. Ping."
Nobody spoke again until evening, when they made camp right at the mouth of a vast, thin canyon between two mountains. The Galloping Canyons were named for the sound frequently made by the falling rocks, as they detached from the top and fell all the way to the bottom, hitting the walls and cliffs as they went: although the master slept peacefully, the two students felt strangely like a ghostly horse horde was just beyond their sight, and as such did not get too much rest.