Far, far away from villages or tribes, where nobody had had any reason to come for decades - and several centuries more, before that one time decades ago with Master Crazy Horse - this was a region of Khangai Mountains utterly unmolested by civilization. A vast network of endless canyons and catacombs, where the sun did not shine even during midsummer, where it was forever cold and dark. 'Twas a place of serenity and calm, where nothing would ever come to disrupt the nature: other than the howling wind, and the haunting galloping sound emanated from the falling rocks, there was naught here but deep, endless silenc-

"YEAH, THERE ARE NO TURNS LEFT FOR THE NEXT TWENTY MILES AT LEAST," echoed a voice from somewhere far above, to be heard all across the area and making several rocks fall with the sound alone, "SO I AM PRETTY SURE WE SHOULD HAVE TAKEN THE TURN BEFORE."

"See, Master, I told you we should have taken the left turn," someone said from a cliffside, far below, rather more silently, before picking up the volume and yelling to the sky: "COULD YOU TAKE THAT TURN AND SEE WHAT'S AT THE END OF IT?"

"OKAY, I-"

"DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT," said a third voice. "THE VAULT COULD NOT BE SEEN FROM THE SKY, ANYWAY. AND BESIDES, I AM STILL SURE WE NEED TO TAKE THE TURN LATER."

"With respect, it doesn't look like you are reading that thing right. Let me see."

It is generally considered easier to travel in groups than alone, because that way you have someone to complain to and vent your frustration, or put the blame on somebody else when you are lost instead of admitting it was all your fault. And although Crazy Horse may have been the first person to enter these lands in centuries, this was the first time in that long time (plus several decades) that anyone could have heard any voices from here that were not the wind or rocks. The three bickering masters traversed the labyrinthine corridors of the Galloping Canyons, relying only on a map drawn by someone who might as well have had hooves for hands.

"See," Mantis pointed at it. "There are two turns left here... one ends up in a dead end, the other to our destination."

"But we have only seen one of the two," Shifu pointed out the obvious.

"Yes, but Crane scouted ahead and there is no other canyon, so we must've missed it, or it was just an error in the first place! So, I think we should go back and..."

"It is no error." Shifu tapped at a... well, to Mantis, by all appearances, it was a strange smudge in the paper between the two crossroads. "This is the Dragon Skull Rock. We should see it before the correct turn."

"Wait wait wait..." Mantis narrowed his eyes and looked at what was pointed at him, chirping. "Are you telling me that is a landmark? I thought it was just a bit of ink."

"Indeed." He looked up and around. "And you must have noticed that most of these canyons are pretty narrow, sometimes even tunnels from which you don't see daylight at all: it's not impossible for Crane to miss out one or two that're very important."

Looking closer, the ink did sort of have the shape of a dragon skull, with two holes to resemble eyes and such, but it was still rather a stretch. Indeed, the entire thing was very poorly drawn: it was basically just a bunch of squiggley lines to depict the circling passages of the canyons, a few more ink smudges that probably were all important landmarks after all, notes written in some of the poorest handwriting Mantis had ever seen, and several places where the author had just plain admitted he had forgotten the details, or made something up to make this place look like something a little more exciting. But he was, according to Shifu at least, still fairly certain about what the correct route was.

Some would have called the place beautiful, in its own rugged sort of way. To Mantis, it was plain boring. There was not a single sign of life, not even grass or trees, and the sun did not light or warm it up much even now that it was almost noon. Cold, grayish darkness everywhere, chilling wind hitting his face and threatening to blow him away, and talking about it with two other, increasingly more frustrated masters, all served to slowly but steadily chip on his admittedly vast reserve of patience.

And then Crane started to sing.

He went on about something like blazing a trail and changing myths into facts and something else, and Mantis, in an attempt to lock it all out, began to think about home and how the others were doing. Surely they could not have it this hard?

Another needle pricked through her flesh and made her wince, prompting an apology from the pig lady fitting cloths over the larger female. Tigress reflected on how absurd it was that she could take a cannon blast to the chest without feeling it, but tiny needles used to fit a wedding dress and occasionally hitting her by accident would always be felt through and make her jump and wince.

And as the other women harped on about how gorgeous she looked and how this was all going to be so much fun, how their whole families had come to check it all out, the to-be bride thought about her master, and two friends, who had had the excuse to go on an adventure, actually putting their skills to some use and having a good time. Certainly it was much easier and more fun for them than for her?

"Quite unusual nowadays, virgin vistas, undefiled..."

"Minds and bodies running wild..."

He was trying to tell Crane to shut up, but instead, somehow, the avian had managed to lead the other two masters into an impromptu singalong. This made being lost in an endless wasteland a much less tedious endeavor for them all, and-

Wait, wait a second. This isn't how it was supposed to... hold on...

There we go.

Tigress was not used to being at the center of the attention like this. Yes, there had been the whole Dragon Warrior tournament, but it was one thing to perform in front of a thousand spectators for a few hours, sharing the spotlight with four of her comrades, only to lose it all to a big, fat, wonderful panda that had crashed into her life from the heavens, proceeding to take not just the title that she thought belonged to her but also her heart, and...

She took a deep breath, managed to wipe the smile from her face, and continue on in a much more stoic matter. "But I digress. It is a completely different matter altogether to have a huge, weeks-long celebration involving more people than I can count, all dedicated to myself and the aforementioned panda. I have been doing martial arts for all my life, not prepared myself for social events of this level, and it all just popped in from around corner too. It's all a little overwhelming."

She finished up to the sympathetic Viper, as measurements were taken and pieces of expensive cloth finally removed, allowing her to return to the vest and pants she commonly wore. Dressing up to the outfit she had been wearing since she was a small kitten (well, not the exact same one, what with she growing up and needing a new one every now and then, but...) felt like she had come home from a long and treacherous journey across snowy mountains. "It's all right, everyone's going to feel like that when they're about to get married," her friend reassured her. "It's just the usual sort of jitters. You don't need to be a martial artist with no social skills to feel that way."

"I suppose... I still don't see why most women would think it to be the best day of their lives. I am just going to be happy to get it over with." She stretched up in her usual pants, kicking high up and catching her toes with her hand.

"Well, you'll get to have Po all for yourself!" Viper smiled happily.

"He was already all mine."

"Yes, but officially! And you'll be the center of the attention, and everybody thinks you're awesome, and..."

The feline just sighed. "Well, it makes Master Shifu happy, I suppose. But honestly, I don't much care about all that, attention and the like. I did not become a kung fu master because of the fame." She made some more experimental kicks. "Why would I want to have the fanciest dress in town when I can't even kick in it? How am I supposed to fight?"

Viper tilted her head and gave the other a confused look. "...If all goes well, you're going to wear that dress precisely once in your whole life, for one day."

As a response, the serpent got a long silence and a blank stare. "...And?", Tigress broke it. "Go on."

"Er..." She closed her eyes, shook her head, and tried to collect her words for a bit before continuing. "Tigress... if you are going to get in a fight in your own wedding, of all times, then... something has gone very, very wrong."

"Yes, but you admit it could be possible. I should be prepared for any event, however unlikely." She looked through the crate of dresses and outfits that had arrived in the room along with the pigs a little earlier, although completely ignoring a different package of perfumes and scents: they had spread all around the room already, filling it with a powerful aroma of flowers and such, and she would not have wished to add up anything to that. Instead, upon feeling around the clothes, her paws caught the sensation of something incredibly soft and silky, and she lifted them back up, along with another dress. She narrowed her eyes as she examined it.

"This doesn't look like a wedding dress..." Whereas the one they were planning for her appeared to be a long and formal, coloured in red and blue, this one was much shorter, revealing, and pink in colour, with a little gold here and there. Not looking like a wedding dress was an understatement: it could be easily said it did not look like anything to wear in public in any case.

"Yeeeah... that's because it isn't." Viper stared everywhere but her friend, swaying around a little bit, all in all embarrassed. "It's for the, you know... night after."

"...Oh." She nodded in a full understanding, then, largely on a whim, tried it on. It seemed to fit her well: truth be told, it made her feel like she was not wearing anything at all. ...Which was actually not that far from reality. It seemed a little chilly, but considering what sort of a situation it was for, this would probably not matter a fair bit anyway. She turned around, examined herself... then kicked, managing about as high up as she would have in her usual clothes - though also revealing a fair bit more fur to anyone present, which at the moment, perhaps thankfully, consisted of only Viper, who blushed.

"Much better."

"Would you stop measuring how high can you kick in those things? It's seriously the least of your problems."

"Even disregarding the possibility of an assassination attempt at our wedding night - which is admittedly not all that likely," she added after seeing Viper's face, "I just like to feel mobile and unrestrained."

"Well, yes, but-"

"Hey, what're you ladies yelling about in he-", said a third voice from the doorway.

The alleged ladies turned to address the other protagonist of the upcoming event, who appeared to having been passing by along the corridor with a stack of clothing in his arms. The stack fell down to the floor, the small thud it let out being the last sound anything made for several seconds, as he looked at Tigress, his jaw following the route the clothes had made and only stopped by being attached to the rest of his face. The rise of temperature could be intimately felt by everybody present.

"...Hi," Po finally managed, the single syllable being strained out from a dried throat.

"Hi," came the vastly eloquent and well-thought response.

"You look... nice."

"Thank you," she smiled. "So do... you." Po was wearing the usual cloth pants and sandals, although the clothes he carried around seemed to be vastly more stylish and high-quality, at least from whatever anyone could discern from their usual shape.

"That's...", he looked her up and down, pointing at what she was wearing, "...not your wedding dress... is it?"

"Yes. It uh, isn't." She smiled awkwardly. "I have no idea how it got there... then tried it on to see if it would fit, and... yeah, turns out it does."

"Right, right," he nodded knowingly, finally starting to pick up the stuff he had left on the ground. "So I've got a bit of time right now, I suppose you weren't g-" What he was saying turned into a short yelp as an invisible force behind the door picked up his hand and began to drag him away. Tigress was about to respond, when she too felt something wrap around her arm and pull her towards a side room, with someone going "Actually she's pretty busy right now we were just going to, er, try some more clothes!"

Po managed to grab the doorframe briefly and smile at her, going "See you later!", before he was once more and very decisively pulled away from her view. She immediately turned to the one responsible for her own dismissal. "Is there actually a reason for pulling me away like that?"

"Other than you wearing nothing but that... thing?", she responded with a hissing whisper.

"I was going to take it off!"

"That's even worse." She got a glare and wisely decided to not play that joke any longer. "Okay, but seriously, Master Shifu told us to..."

"...Try and keep you two from doing anything stupid until after the wedding, if you know what I mean," Monkey explained, "and we figured it'd be safest if you two didn't do much anything at all."

"What? Oh come on, I can't spend any time with the girl I'm going to, you know, marry in about a week?", Po protested, spreading his hands and pretty much filling the entire hallway. "I just want to hang out with her for a bit. Is that really so much to ask?"

"There's no problem with just hanging out, but how do we know it'll stay just with that?" Monkey was giving him an almost pleading look.

"And what's that supposed to mean?"

"Weeell," he continued, looking a little awkward, "from what we heard, you two were pretty busy over at the mountains before this all started... Master Shifu said you were like..."

Viper was interrupted with a *GAK!* when the feline, rather roughly, grabbed her throat and squeezed. "His words, not mine...!", she managed to wheeze.

"We can handle ourselves," Tigress said, loosening up a little but not letting her go entirely. The snake curled around her arm.

"Look, try and think this from our perspective, too. We were told by Master Shifu to keep an eye on you two, and if we fail..." Tigress could feel her entire body shudder. "I trained with him for over ten years before he became nice. Po isn't the only one here that could get Wuxi Finger Hold used on him."

Po gave an awkward, sad grin. "Yeah, well, I'm going to get of one too if I end up trying anything, so... you know. I can wait for a week if it'll save me my life."

"What about the mushrooms?", Monkey reminded almost mischievously.

"Hey, I'm still alive!"

"Barely. We told you you should have let them boil first, to get rid of the poison. It would have taken half an hour. But nooo, you had to eat them right away, said it would be no big deal..."

The panda sighed. "Look, I'll promise you, just one mushroom."

"Meaning...?"

"First base."

"No! No, no." The simian shook his head vigorously. "That's already too much. You're playing with fire here."

"What? I got all the way to second when we-" He was stopped by a simian hand reaching his mouth and silencing him. Monkey looked around to see if anyone else had heard anything (they hadn't), after which he put the hand on Po's shoulder and began leading him along the corridor.

"How about we talk about the exact terms on the way to the kitchen? I believe we were going to meet the newly-arrived chef." He managed to get the Dragon Groom to follow him without much of a trouble. "Find a compromise that'll let you get what you want while not make Master Shifu blow up anyone..."

Tigress casually tossed the cloth away, replacing it with her usual outfit once more, while Viper looked after, concerned. "Promise to be careful and not let him do like... well, like with the mushrooms? You remember the mushrooms, right?"

"I remember the mushrooms, and I promise to not let it go that far." She smiled genuinely, the first time in a couple days as much as Viper had seen. "I will try my best, for his own sake. Also..."

"Yes?"

"Do you think there are any others of those... dresses? For the night, I mean." There was a curious glimmer in her eye.

"Well, I'm not responsible for them, but... I guess? Why?"

"Oh, Po saw me in that one, so it won't surprise him anymore. I'll need something else." She grinned.

Although neither Mr. Ping nor his son was particularly happy about the arrangement, it had been decided that the one doing the cooking for the event would be someone else than the two: being the groom, and his father, everybody else seemed to consider them far too important to handle such a lowly chore. Thankfully, Po had a replacement in mind.

"Oh, you have no idea what an honour it is for me to have a chance to cook you again!" The small rabbit bowed so low he nearly hit his head to the stairs. "I thank you from the heart of myself AND my entire clan for seven generations!"

"Yes, yes, you're welcome, now let's not take this to that kind of an extreme..." He raised his hands in front of him defensively and managed a friendly, if somewhat strained, smile. "Just do your best, like the last time, and try to not get yourself killed. In fact, I am going to specifically order you to not commit a ritual suicide or to charge against a bandit army or anything, for any reason you might think of."

The sun had begun to set when they had caught up at the top end of the Jade Palace stairs. It was a nice, warm spring evening, with little wind and much beauty: Po was rather hoping on getting to spend some time with Tigress while he still could. "You have my word, Dragon Warrior, that I shall never fail you to such an extent," Wo Hop the chef proclaimed solemnly. "At worst, I may have to cut off an ear or both should I let something burn in the oven."

"Yeah..." Po's smile froze on his face, even as it was drained away from his eyes. "I'd really not like that either."

"Not even a little bit?" He sounded almost pleading.

"No, not even just a little bit. Look... how about instead of saying what you do if you fail me, you just, you know, don't do that." The smile became somewhat more genuine again. "I called you in here for a reason: I know you won't mess things up, right?"

He gave that question, rhetoric as it was, perhaps a little bit too much time to think through for Po to feel entirely comfortable with, but in the end he managed to smile as well and nodded. "Let the heavens themselves bear witness to-"

He was cut off by a distant blast, almost like a thunder, from the fields right outside the Valley. This was an odd thing to be heard at the time because there was nary a cloud up in the sky, let alone an approaching storm. The iridescent object swiftly approaching likewise came as a surprise for them both, although a little less for the panda than the rabbit, as he had heard the use of such explosives before and knew what it meant.

The projectile went wide and struck a cliff next to the palace, exploding in fireworks and blowing apart chunks of rock. Long before it had come even that far, Po had used his own large body to protect the much smaller bunny chef, but the explosion was far enough that it ended up not mattering that much anyway. "What is going on?", Wo Hop inquired curiously, unaware of the danger. "Are those the fireworks for the party? They are rather strong... and early."

"Oh no, this seems like a different party." He began to usher the rabbit inside, with some geese helping out with his (extensive) luggage. "It's the kind of a party you're not invited, because frankly we don't need a chef there at all. Also you'll die. Find Zeng - he'll show you your room and kitchen - I kinda gotta go to deal with this thing..."

With their chef safely within the courtyard walls, or relatively so anyhow, Po wasted no time taking the stairs down to the Valley, mostly tiring himself out halfway through, stumbling, falling down for the rest of the way, before finally stopping at the end of it and being joined by the Furious Three. From the other way, that is, them having been much faster in getting down and consequently having the time to assess the situation before he got there at all. Tigress helped him up, but he thought he did a pretty good job at correcting himself afterward and making it look like he meant to do that in the first place. "What've we got?"

"Bandits," Viper responded succinctly. "With one of those Shen's fire-breathing, steel-spitting... er, that is to say, they have a Weapon."

"They don't seem to know how to aim it very well, though," Monkey observed.

"Right. Just a Weapon? As in, a single one, instead of a whole bunch like with Shen?"

"Just one," Tigress nodded. "But the bandits themselves appear to number in well over a thousand-"

"Wait, what?", Po interrupted. "How's there that many of them?"

"-And we are not in full strength," she finished before answering his question. "Perhaps that's the reason: they thought that we would be easy picking because we are missing three of our Masters, so they amassed a larger group and attacked with real force."

"Well, then!" He bounced at his place to loosen the muscles and prepare for the upcoming battle. "Better go there and show them how wrong they are in that! Send them home packing, wreck up the weapon, show them they still can't mess up with the Valley of P-" Another thunderous noise from afar prompted him to stop in his tracks. "Whoops, hold that thought, I gotta pick this one..."

Usually bandits are small groups of a single predator species, looking to raid some food, supplies, or other sort of stuff that they are far too lazy or stupid to acuire legitimately, but thought themselves strong enough to take it from the others. This was not one of those groups: this was large, and much more varied. There were boars, bulls, crocodiles, wolves, even some horses, and of course, a single Weapon of the new age. The man in charge, a wolf, claimed being a survivor of the battle of Gongmen City, having salvaged the weapon and come here after hearing of how the Valley of Peace was in less than full strength.

"Master Shifu is gone, as are two of the Furious Five!", he had rallied them with. "Now is our time to strike! Now is our time to claim what is ours by the right of the might! Now they will learn to fear us!" He was a reasonably good speaker, with a rare weapon of great power and value, and as such had acquired himself a command of a small army, which had now followed him here for conquest. They had been promised wealth and comfort that had been denied from them so far, for no legitimate reason whatsoever, out of simple mean-spiritedness of the animals and kung fu masters living here. There could be absolutely no other reason for that. Honest.

Everybody cheered when the Weapon fired for the first time with a deafening roar. The smell of black powder spread to the front, a brief rainbow light was seen, then it was gone. It did not lessen their good moods the slightest that it went wide: they had many more rounds with them, and judging from the size of the explosion, even a single one would be enough to destroy just about anything they would face. The aim was corrected and when the second one was fired, everybody present could see its trajectory being straight towards the Jade Palace, and would surely destroy it entirely and turn it into rubble! Right about... now!

...Now?

Confusion spread among the ranks when there was no blast at all. Had it been a dud? Had it missed the target after all and gone far up to the mountains?

No, there it is! Coming right back and... wait, that's not good.

"Oh, bolloc-" The blast of fire and sparkles struck straight to their boss and tore a large hole among their lines, spreading panic, discord, and fancy fireworks. Nobody had anticipated this: they had not been told the Valley had anything that could top what they had. They heard a scream that was not from one of them, saw the approaching shapes, knew this is where it would go down. It was on.

Their leader was gone, their ranks thinned, but they numbered in over a thousand regardless, and the Weapon was still intact: someone else took charge and another shot was fired straight towards the Dragon Warrior.

Or so it was aimed, anyway. An orange-black blur shot through them before anyone could do anything, and something growled from under the front of the metal thing, kicking upwards. It made a two-thirds spin in the air, pointing straight towards the bandits and giving them a whole half a second to realize what was going on, before it belched again and they knew of nothing except party colours. The weapon itself was kicked back by the recoil, before falling down with a resounding clank - on top of some other highly unfortunate invaders.

A fair bit of them realized that this was starting to suck. What they had hoped to be their greatest asset turned out to be nothing but a hindrance, and the four kung fu fighters remaining to protect the Valley wasted no time in smashing through them, tossing them around, and breaking their defense. But they outnumbered the enemy by almost three hundred to one still, and they knew they could overwhelm them by sheer weight of numbers.

They put up a good fight.

"I told you it was a bad idea to block their escape route."

"Stop talking."

"Here I'm like, Hey Tigress, maybe we should leave them a way out so that they could break and run instead of fighting as a last resort and going all berserk, but you're like We can't do that, otherwise they would come back and..."

"All right, I get it, I messed up," she growled with her worst tone of voice, which shut Po up pretty well. She had been hurt fairly bad in the resulting last stand, and her mood was not improved by the fact that Viper was not as good with acupuncture as Mantis. She was bleeding from several minor cuts, had a broken leg, and there was an arrow lodged between her shoulderblades that nobody could pull out. Once he had initially made sure she was all right - and vice versa, the panda having taken his share of injuries - and after a reasonable amount of silence, he had once again brought up the idea he had thought in the battlefield yet dismissed by Tigress.

He sat next to her and tried his best to not wince when another needle was put into him. "Everybody makes mistakes," he attempted diplomatically.

She took a deep breath. "I know. But if they're wise, only once."

"You're pretty clever." he smiled at her.

"When I was a cub, I once chased a rabbit to a corner. At that age I just wanted someone to play with, and thought them running away from me was the part of the game, so I chased them. And then when I caught one, I thought now we could play, but instead he made a face, charged straight at me, and punched and clawed and bit. I fell down in surprise and pain - it was the first time I remember I actually got hurt of anything - and he took his chance and ran away." She looked away from him, eyes half-closed and much more sad than angry. "I made the same mistake now."

"So? Back then you couldn't have known cute bunnies are deadlier when in corner," the panda reasoned. "So you just learned that what you were doing wasn't really a game, and they were all afraid of you. So, same mistake but different lesson: that doesn't count!"

She looked somewhat doubtful, tensing briefly when a needle was put in her before answering: "It was still a stupid mistake to make. I should have known better."

"Yeah, like I said, mistakes happen. Even if just once."

The next few minutes were spent in silence, letting Viper do her acupuncture thing. She tried to get the arrow out by relaxing the chi around the wound with some more needles, but the only result was that those were stuck in too.

"...You know, you can be pretty wise when you try." Tigress smiled again.

"I should write a book," he suggested jokingly. "About, like, how to fight. Stuff like giving the enemy an escape route so that they become panicked and won't go crazy on you, or the guy that wins every fights is worse than a guy that wins without fighting, or how personal attachments are good because they make for better teamwork."

"I think those are all good ideas."

"Yeah!" He smiled. "Personal attachments make people fight better! I mean, remember how right at the beginning you hated my guts? You wouldn't have pounced at those boars trying to stab me like that, no, you probably would've just let me die - or at least not take so much effort in saving me."

"Don't remind me," she shruddered.

On the bright side, they did get to watch the sunset in the end after all, holding hands. The only things he hadn't foreseen were that Viper was there to fuss over them, and Tigress had an arrow in her back. But the distant horizon looked like it was on fire, and slowly, like that one time a while ago, the rest of the world, along with their physical injuries, just sort of faded away. Viper complained when he put his hand over her shoulders, made some token effort in acupuncture, then just decided to leave and let the two have a bit of peace.

"Were you seriously thinking about writing a book?", Tigress murmured as she curled up against him.

"Meh. No one would read it anyway." She began to purr as he scratched her from behind her ear, and slowly put her head against his big, soft, fuzzy belly.

Thousands of miles north, Master Shifu shuddered heavily.

"Yeah, it's pretty cold here," Crane agreed, ruffling his feathers and watching the stone double-doors in front of them. It seemed to be the source of the cold mist in the cave, so different from the summer warmth (even the relative warmth of the canyons above): the lantern carried by the group avian gave them very little light to see in the dark, and even less warmth to fight the cold. The door was very slightly ajar, and from within, the coldest winter seeped through.

The Dragon Skull Rock (which had actually looked like one, unlike the stain in the map) had been found eventually, after which the correct route was easy enough to notice: itwas a cave instead of canyon, which is why Crane had not seen it first. And although nobody involved was very eager in admitting it, in that it did not really make any sense to anyone there at all, somehow, the entire bit about singing had made the rest of the journey go faster. They were reasonably certain they had been on the road for another couple days, while the song itself was only a few minutes long, yet there were no repeats and they were still here by the time it ended. It was rather as if time had bent to their advantage.

"Hey Crane," Mantis said as he accompanied the red panda to the door, to help him open it for the rest of them to go through (the insect could fit past the crack just fine). "You know all those stories about what lies beneath? The corpse of Zhanglian Khan, stone warriors, and all that?"

"What about them?"

As the door was opened further, enough to allow all three entrance, the cave they were in became even colder, and a strange, faint howling was heard within. Mantis took the lead, being the first to enter the doorway in several decades - or several centuries, if Master Crazy Horse didn't count. "Bet you five gold pieces they're all true."