And the aftermath stands firm in two lines; Blaze and Max's friendship growing strong and in the midst of it...Tigress gets herself in trouble for her actions. But was there a motive?

Chapter 21: Friendship Still Stands

A couple of minutes later, Max was laying down on a hospital bed with Blaze standing beside him with worry and concern in his face and as he was laying there almost lifelessly, Blaze lowered his ears down a little bit and said, "Max...if I had known you'd taken a beating to defend me...I wished I would've done something."

Max grunted softly as he slowly opened his eyes and found himself in a room and lets out a few slow breaths and he turned around to see Blaze right beside him and said, "Hey, B."

Blaze perked his ears and turned around to see Max awake and he could not be more joyful to see him okay and he said, "Max! You're all right!"

The first thing he did is hug him tightly and Max grunts in pain and said, "Blaze...injury here."

The dragon released him and placed him back in bed and he said, "Sorry. It's just...I'm so happy to see you're still alive."

"Of course I'm still alive. But...how did I get here?" asked Max.

"Some snake took you over to this place and wrapped you in some sort of paper all over your body. I thought for sure they tortured you, but...I noticed the same wraps you placed on my foot earlier...so I wasn't that fired up." Blaze replied.

Max chuckled softly as he sat up, despite groaning a little bit and he said, "Where's everyone else?"

Suddenly, Max and Blaze heard some shouting and arguing coming from the hallway and Blaze replied, "Guess that answers that question."

In the hallway...

"Have you lost your mind already?! What the hell were you thinking, Tigress?!" Shifu shouted.

"I don't know what I was thinking, Shifu! I've never been stood up like the way Max stood up to me, especially in front of Mantis, Monkey and Po. It's just embarrassing to have him strip everything about me down and the fact that he'd go this further to defend that dragon friend of his...I wanted to do what was right for the Valley!" Tigress exclaimed.

"By merely murdering our brother?!" Logan spat out.

"Logan!" Mako exclaimed, in a hushed tone.

Once the word 'murder' spat out of Logan's mouth, it just affected her hard and regarding the situation that just happened, she just felt a huge amount of remorse and guilt for all of this and Musaki walked in front of her...although visibly angry, he asked her in a calm voice, "Why didn't you just stop?"

"How could I? I let my temper get the best of me and I nearly got Max killed." Tigress said.

"But was that the way to solve the problem? Why did you let your jealousy get in front of you when there was nothing to be jealous about in the first place?" asked Musaki.

"I don't know! All I wanted was for Max to feel the same pain I felt when I was picked on at the orphanage when I was young and see how that would affect him the same way it affected me! I'm sick of his positive happiness!" Tigress shouted.

"But that's not the real reason why you did it, isn't it? Maybe the reason why you did is because you think that because of what Max went through when he was younger and that he's come out of it a stronger person and you haven't gotten over your situation that's still eating you alive. And due to his personality, you want to try everything you can to destroy it so he can feel the same way you're feeling." Musaki stated.

Tigress froze for a second after Musaki ended up figuring her out and once he did, she couldn't come with a response to disagree with that because she knew it was true and Po said, "I don't know how I could even respond to that."

"In any event, it should not have happened." Mako stated.

"Why would you hold a bitter grudge against my tiger brother? I thought we'd gotten over that." Arizona said, angrily.

"Because he got all the attention from all of you and I get nothing. I only get attention the only way I knew how; by snapping at everyone. You think I like doing this to everyone? I can't even control my anger nor can I control myself! That's why I push people away...so they wouldn't see me like this! And because that I'm weak!" Tigress shouted.

As everyone stood in silence, Tae Kwan Do was the first one to speak out about this and he said, "You know...our master at our kickboxing class said that sometimes it is important to conceal your feelings in battle, but don't do that in life because you'll push everyone away in a stone wall. Those that stay in that stone wall can't get themselves out...even if someone tries to pull you out. The more suffering you bring to everyone, you'll suffer too and you won't be able to get out of it or overcome it."

"As far as I know, you're not the weakest link here. You just need some help in controlling yourself. You can't let anything about yourself hold you back. If you do that, it'll make it harder on yourself and that you won't be able to live a really good life and you'll miss out on everything...and lose everyone you care about." Musaki stated.

"Just drop every single case of warrior pride you have and let those emotions flow through you naturally and you'll never be weak." Mako stated.

Tigress couldn't believe all those words everyone else said and she turned to them and said, "But what if I still can't control it?"

"You can. The problem isn't what's stopping you or who's stopping you. The problem is you holding yourself back. You don't want to accomplish everything because you're too hard on yourself and you're punishing yourself and setting yourself up for failure because nothing comes easy to you." Musaki stated.

Hearing all those made Shifu think about why Tigress barely succeeded in life and it all reverted back to how it was when she was living with him and how he treated her and that she's this way now and he knew that he had failed his foster daughter hard and he clears his throat and said, "Musaki's right."

Tigress turned to everyone and she said, "I'm really sorry about all this. I didn't mean for it to go that far."

"It's not really us you have to apologize." Arizona added.

Soon, Tigress knew what that meant the minute she looked at the door where Max is and fear completely went in her mind and she said, "After what I did to him? I can't. I...I just...I just can't."

"Why not? Max has forgiven you before." Summer stated.

"But what if he doesn't this time?" asked Tigress.

"He will. He always will." Musaki said.

"Musaki, I don't know if I can even face Max." Tigress retorted.

Musaki looked at Tigress in the eye and said, "Don't hold yourself back. If you let this slip away, it'll be hard for you to let it go."

Will there be a reconciliation? Stay tuned!

Voice of Max: Ben Diskin

Voice of Blaze (also) Ben Diskin

Voice of Shifu: Fred Tatasciore

Voice of Tigress: Kari Wahlgren

Voice of Logan: Mikey Kelley

Voice of Mako: Kyle Hebert

Voice of Musaki: Samuel Vincent

Voice of Po: Mick Wingert

Voice of Arizona: Nicolas Roye

Voice of Tae Kwan Do: (also) Ben Diskin

Voice of Summer: Kellie Martin