Po made his way into the village. The big panda had just finished his daily Kung Fu training and was ready for a quick 'snack' before dinner – noodles from his dad's restaurant. Po was quite famous in the village as he was one of the Kung Fu Masters who resided at the local palace, Jade Palace, where he trained in order to defend the Valley of Peace from attackers from the outside.
Po chuckled a little when some children enthusiastically greeted him. He used to be very unpopular for his laziness and poor shape, but it was all bound to change when he turned out to be the legendary Dragon Warrior. At first he had thought it was a mistake (Who wouldn't have?), but eventually everyone had come to accept it when he defeated Tai Lung – a rogue student of Po's Master, Master Shifu. Since then, Po and the Furious Five, the other Kung Fu Master of Jade Palace, had been through a lot together. They had saved countless lives, braved great dangers, come across great obstacles that you could only dream of and faced enemies that could easily have spawned from nightmares.
When he finally got to his dad's restaurant, Po saw that it was almost empty, safe for a few elderly customers. Perfect – now Po could help his dad get the day's leftovers out of the way. A few of the customers did greet him as he had helped them out before and it was with a smile that he greeted them as well.
"Po my boy, welcome!" Po's dad, Mr. Ping happily greeted his son. Now, there are a couple of things that need to be explained. First off, Mr. Ping is a goose. He stands almost about half as tall as Po and is covered in gray feathers all over. His robes are brownish and match his place in the social middleclass. Mr. Ping had found Po as a baby in between some supplies he had received once, many years ago. Mr. Ping had taken him in and raised him as his own son; eventually leading up to the day Po became the Dragon Warrior. Of course Mr. Ping was proud of his son (Who wouldn't be?) but as his father, he was constantly worried about Po getting injured or killed on his many adventures.
"Hi dad, how's it going?" Po asked his father with a smile. Po was well aware that he might have another family somewhere else, but he loved Mr. Ping nonetheless – without him as his father, Po wouldn't have been the man he was today.
"Oh Po, nothing couldn't be better," the old goose said joyfully. "As far as customers go, this might be best year the restaurant's had!"
"Dad, you say that every year," Po reminded his father with a smile. Before any of them could speak any further, they were interrupted by the sound of Po's stomach growling.
Mr. Ping chuckled at his son's usual tendencies. "Don't worry my boy, I'll fix that."
Po smiled at his father and sat down by one of the available tables in the restaurant and took a look around. Everything was like it always had been; same tables, same chairs, same red lanterns and same regulars, well almost. The lanterns had been lit up due to the approaching darkness and the Chinese symbol for 'Light', which was painted in black, had a dark and sinister glow to it, while the shining red background added a great bit of contrast. It was just like Po had always remembered the pleasant summer afternoons when he was still very young.
Suddenly Po heard something – it sounded like a rampage was going on! the big panda quickly got to his feet and ran off to check it out… of course he remembered to tell his father to keep the soup hot for when he came back.
Po hurried into the village and suddenly he noticed a smell in the air – evil! Or maybe it was just smoke, those are really similar smelling. Eventually Po finally made it to the marketplace of the village. He could tell that some of the stands actually had caught on fire, but that was not what surprised Po the most. What surprised him the most was to see, that there was someone rampaging the marketplace, just like he had suspected.
One of them suddenly threw a stand with food at the stand that was already on fire. He was a reptile of some sort, and if it wasn't because he was so short, Po would have thought that it was one of Fung's henchmen. And who was that crow who was just sitting there, watching?
"Okay, time to deliver the awesomeness," Po muttered to himself in an excited tone of voice and walked towards the scene.
As he got closer, a furry, little creature suddenly appeared. She stood just about as tall as the reptile and when she saw Po, she said: "Ye, that's enough! He's here."
Ye the lizard stopped and turned to face Po. Who were those two and what were they doing? Had they done all of this to get his attention? If so, then why? Suddenly Po heard the sound of running footsteps behind him and just barely managed to jump aside as two spheres of… something shot past him at high speed. When the two spheres landed on the ground, they unfolded and revealed two creatures covered in spiky armor.
The four strangers took on their own individual battle stance and suddenly a fifth member of their little group entered the scene and walked up in front of the bunch. He was a mouse, not even standing half as tall as Po – this guy was barely bigger than his foot! He wore some black robes with golden trims and his fur was brown, even though they almost seemed dark gray due to the lack of sunlight.
"Who are you guys?" Po asked and took on his own battle stance, just in case they'd try something. "And why are you here?"
"I… am here for you, Dragon Warrior," the mouse said and drew a sword from a sheath on his back and pointed it at Po. If it wasn't because it was barely half as long, as a standard chopstick, Po would have been a little scared by this answer. "Your death will be my ultimate art piece."
Wait, what? Why would he want to kill Po? From what Po recalled, he had never met this guy before, so what was he doing just now? Why would you possibly want to kill someone you didn't even know?
Suddenly Po heard a weird noise. It sounded like a weird humming, except it was much faster… and it seemed to be something that moved towards him! Po just barely managed to turn his head and see a dark crimson object fly towards him at high speed. As a reflex, he quickly brought a hand up to cover his face from the attacker, but it wasn't necessary.
Like a green lightning from the sky, Mantis hit the attacking beetle with a powerful kick, sending him towards the other intruders. Po sighed with relief and was just thankful that he had such powerful friends as Mantis.
"Po!" Soon the rest of Po's team entered the scene – Tigress, Monkey, Crane and Viper. They joined Po and Mantis and the six lined up across from the mysterious pack before them.
"Who are you guys?" Po asked again, expecting a proper answer this time.
"The name is Jie," the mouse introduced himself with a sneaky smile. There was something about his personality that radiated intelligence, but also coldness. "And this is the Jien Fong… Onibuto, Meili, Ye, Tingguang, Tingfeng and Qing, all at my full service."
Did he really gather a whole team to get here and kill Po? It sounded very unlikely… but if he really had why bother? As he said, he wanted to kill Po, but where was the logic? Since when had it been seen as art to kill someone? Maybe this Jie needed a reality-check or something, Po thought.
"I don't know what you're really after, unless what you said is true," Po started and took a step forwards. "But if you want to settle things with a little fight…"
"Po, a Master always saves a battle for the absolutely last option," Tigress pointed out, but Po ignored her and soon the Jien Fong charged him and the Furious Five.
Mantis was a mantis, obviously, and was covered in green outer skeleton. His only attire was some robes he had tied around his ankles and he was barely as big as the beetle he had just saved Po from. A Master of the Mantis Kung Fu Style, it was only logical that he had been able to – very few styles focus as much on speed as the Mantis Style.
Fighting up against Onibuto was quite a challenge though. Even when attacking the rhinoceros beetle with powerful kicks, he was still able to block with his strong hands. Where Mantis had speed on his side, Onibuto had strength, so they were equally matched.
"Not so tough, are we Kamakiri-Kun?" Onibuto asked Mantis in a tone of victory, even though the battle had just started.
"I don't know what that means, but don't get cocky!" Mantis told Onibuto and jumped towards him with another well-placed kick.
Viper was a Master of the Viper Style, the fast and accurate Style, which was very hard to counter. Viper had a long and sleek body and was covered in yellow scales all over, though she had black ones on her back of which some looked like Chinese characters. Viper had always been a warm, loving and caring type, but in a fight, like the one she was in against Ye, she kept her cool and performed her techniques with a great display of speed and accuracy, hitting all of Ye's weak points.
The only disadvantage she had over him was the fact that he had arms and that he was far stronger than she was. But fortunately strength wasn't everything that mattered in a fight.
Viper dodged another powerful punch from Ye and jumped into the air. When she came back down, she wrapped herself around Ye's right arm, upper torso and left shoulder to keep him paralyzed. "Why do you want to hurt Po? We've never even met you!"
"Doesn't matter," Ye replied as he tried to break free of Viper's strong grip, which he ultimately failed to do. "If Jie says so, I'm willing to kill anyone who stands in our way."
The agile Master Crane was up against Qing the crow. Being much smaller, Qing had an easy time confusing Crane, with lots of sharp maneuvers, and Crane's long legs and big wings also hindered his movements and slowed him a little down. Qing wasn't much of a fighter, but he still caused Crane quite a bit of trouble.
Qing soared high into the sky and, just as expected, Crane followed him. When he reached the perfect height, Qing folded his wings in and let himself drop towards Crane, with his beak pointed towards him, forming a living projectile of feathers.
Crane just barely managed to avoid getting impaled by the sharp crow-beak and managed to hit Qing with a kick in the process. Crane quickly turned himself midair and kicked Qing in the face as the crow came in for another attack.
"Not bad," Qing complimented Crane in a tone, which signaled that he actually meant it somewhat. But before Crane could make a reply, Qing flapped with his wings a few times, making several feathers fall off. It actually looked like he had just shed all of his feathers, but somehow he didn't seem to lose any. And when the feathers started descending, Qing was out of sight. "But not nearly good enough!"
Suddenly Crane felt a pair of powerful talons hit his back with high speed, sending him towards the ground below them.
Monkey jumped aside as an armored sphere dashed towards him with incredibly high speed. As he did so, he could feel how the other pangolin twin just barely failed to hit him from behind as he felt a gust of wind on his tail. These new foes were fast – almost too fast.
As one of them (To Monkey it was impossible to tell a difference) shot towards him again, Monkey saw that the other one did as well. When the first one was about to hit him in the stomach, he brought down his arms and in one fast motion, he flipped the pangolin around and shot him right at his twin brother.
"Hey, that's no fun," one of them growled at Monkey.
"That depends on perspective," Monkey replied in a teasing tone of voice. When the two twins attacked him again, he grabbed a big piece of wood from one of the destroyed stands and used it as a staff weapon. Monkey used it to block the incoming attackers and when the twins landed again, they went to actually fight him instead of striking him.
Monkey blocked a few punches and kicks from both of them with his staff, then pushed them backwards and delivered a double-kick to them – hitting them both with one foot to each.
One of the twins dashed towards him and tried to punch him, but Monkey blocked it with the staff. But unfortunately he hadn't seen that the other twin had sneaked over behind him and before he knew it, he was hit in the back.
Meili swung her Fire Wheels towards Tigress, who dodged by jumping backwards, then leaped forwards and hit Meili in the stomach with a kick. Meili stumbled backwards a little, then noticed that there was a big barrel filled with oil behind Tigress.
She charged Tigress once again, attacking her with her Flame Wheels a few times, which the feline blocked. Then the Marten jumped over Tigress and landed behind her. Meili then charged towards the barrel, dipped her Fire Wheels in them and charged one of the burning stands.
The oil coiling the Flame Wheels incinerated, making the already dangerous weapons more dangerous. The temperature rose highly around the two women and Meili charged Tigress once again, swinging the burning weapons towards her.
Tigress kept her cool and dodged every attack, since she could not block the weapons; no matter how hardcore she was, as Po would put it, the weapons were still dangerous, even when not on fire. The fiery blades nearly struck Tigress with every slash, but Meili simply wasn't accurate enough because of the flames on the weapons.
Finally Tigress got to hit Meili in the stomach with a solid punch after dodging another slash. Tigress then managed to knock the Flame Wheels out of Meili's hands and they landed on the ground a few meters away, finally making the flames die down. Once Meili was disarmed, Tigress went all out – countless, fast and powerful kicks and punches flew at Meili and the Beech Marten was unable to block the majority of it. Once Meili was finally knocked out, Tigress turned to her friends, but unfortunately they all seemed to have a hard time fighting of the Jien Fong. But when she looked over at Po, she found herself astonished at what she saw.