Alright, in the interest of not making you guys wait forever for the finale, I've decided to just focus on finishing this story for now and worry about my other one later. I hope you're okay with that.

In this chapter, Jin makes reference to a particularly badass story from one of the Kung Fu Panda comics. Serious props for anyone who's a big enough KFP geek to recognize it. Speaking of references, the ending also contains several to my previous story Always Together. I've tried to make this story accessible to anyone who hasn't read that, but it was kind of unavoidable in this case.

Chapter 15: Predators

The sounds of battle filled the air in the kung fu academy as Jin the Assassin fired his crossbows.

Master Croc swung his tail around and struck the two bolts out of the air, then used his hide to deflect a third. Jin was not deterred and kept firing at him, too slow to hit him, but too fast for Croc to get close. Knowing that he would wear down eventually, he tried hiding behind a column for cover, and after seeing that he was way too big for that, dove into one of the jail cells instead.

"Smooth move, genius," he muttered, upon seeing that he had just cornered himself. He turned around and faced the door, ready to attack the second he saw the fox enter. He waited for several moments, but nothing happened. The entire building was deathly quiet. Croc approached the doorway and slowly stuck his head out...

...then ducked it back in as a bolt went whizzing past.

"I think ya underestimate my patience," Jin taunted, spinning the crossbow around in his paw. "I'm an assassin, remember? It's literally in my name. Ya think I've never had a job that required sitting around before?" Croc attempted to dash out of the cell after his speech and found out the hard way that he was still paying attention. One bolt flew into the wall past his head, and as he fled back into the cell, he heard another one fired.

This one didn't miss.

Croc gasped in pain as he felt the second bolt pierce the end of his tail. In the safety of the cell, he examined the wound, wincing at the sight of blood oozing out of it. It was by no means fatal, but it still hurt like hell.

It was starting to occur to him that fighting this guy alone might not have been such a good idea. Five minutes in and he was already injured. Oh well, too late for regrets now, and he couldn't say he really had any. Every second he spent keeping Jin occupied was a second he wouldn't be going after Ox.

Croc looked around his cell for anything that could help him while Jin continued to ramble on. "I've heard all about yer exploits, ya know. The 'ghost ships of Chen Wei' for instance. Very impressive. Ya truly are the ultimate ambush predator of the water. But guess what? I'm a predator too, and here on dry land, you are my prey."

He saw Croc leap out of the cell again and fired a pair of bolts in his direction. He noticed too late that he was holding his cell's cot in front of him and the bolts embedded harmlessly into the metal. Croc then threw the cot at him and Jin rolled to the side to dodge it, but this distraction allowed Croc to get close enough to swing his spiked tail right at the fox's jaw.

Jin leaned his head back to avoid it. "Nice try!" Using his crossbows as melee weapons again, Jin swung at his adversary. Croc used his arms and legs to block the swings, which stung a little despite his tough skin. Tilting his head to the side, he clamped his jaws down on one of the crossbows and wrenched it out of the fox's grip. As Jin's eyes widened, he swung his tail into the fox's torso, flinging him into the wall. He ignored the searing pain that left in his tail and quickly jumped up to the upper level of the room.

Jin rubbed his head with his free paw and groaned. "Why ya little-" He stopped as he noticed Croc was no where in sight. He chuckled. "That's cute. Ya really think ya can hide from me?" He of course got no response.

He walked slowly around the room, honing his senses to listen for the reptile. It didn't do him much good. Even out of water, crocodiles were pretty quiet. He continued to listen as he approached his dropped crossbow and kicked it up into his paw, fully expecting an ambush. Still nothing.

He was suddenly startled by a loud clanging noise and pointed his crossbows around frantically. The noise happened again and he now realized it was coming from directly above him. "Yipe!" He jumped away as one of the large cages that hung from the ceiling nearly dropped onto his head. Both of its chains had been cut, probably by one of the training swords that were kept here.

More than a little miffed, Jin just nodded. "Okay, fine. If that's how ya wanna play..." He reached into the bag at his side and loaded both crossbows with his special explosive bolts. "The wonderful thing about explosives...ya don't hafta be that precise." He shot a bolt into a stack of boxes on the upper level and watched them splinter apart from the force of the explosion. But there was no one behind them.

"That's one hiding spot down. How many more do I need to blast to get a result?" He spun one crossbow around and pointed it. "Let's find out."

Croc cringed upon hearing another stack of crates explode. This could definitely be going better. His original plan was to sneak around up here until he found an opening, but that wouldn't work if he was going to just blow up the whole place. And he couldn't just waltz on out either. What to do...

As he heard another explosion, he decided to take a page from Ox's book and just go for the attack. He positioned himself in front of the stack of crates in front of him, took a short breath, and swung his tail to send the entire stack flying to the floor below. He heard a surprised yelp from Jin as the crates fell towards him and saw the panicked look in his eyes.

That look turned into an angry glare and, just before the crates landed on him, he shot a bolt. Even in that brief instant, his aim was perfect and the bolt missed the crates completely to hone in on Croc. He only had enough time to turn his back to it before it struck.

Croc was thrown violently across the ground. His hide may have been impenetrable, but the explosion had burned the rest of his backside as well. Croc knew he couldn't just lie here for long and quickly got back up again. But he wasn't quick enough, as he only just turned around when he felt another bolt enter his ankle.

Croc screamed and was forced down onto one knee from the pain. He saw Jin now standing across from him, heavily bruised, but looking quite pleased with himself. "Let's see ya run and hide now."

He fired another bolt that Croc attempted to dodge, but the pain in his ankle slowed him and he took it in the arm. Not yet satisfied, Jin shot another bolt into him...and another...and another. Either he was out of explosive bolts or he just found the normal ones more fun. Croc, multiple bolts sticking out of his body and struggling just to remain standing, guessed the latter. "Ah ha ha ha ha! Looks like that's it then. How bout' a little show before ya die." Jin spun both crossbows at his sides, tossed one up in the air, caught it, spun it some more, and so on. While this was going on, Croc subtly reached behind his back.

Jin stopped his routine and aimed a crossbow straight at Croc's head. "Alright, it's been fun, but time to end this. Say good night."

"Good night." Croc dropped down to the ground on all-fours and lashed his tail over his head. This would have been a completely harmless maneuver at this range had he not just loosened the spiked ball on his tail. The ball flew off the end and nailed the unprepared Jin in the face. The fox staggered back in a daze, teetering dangerously close to the edge. Pushing all of his pain to the back of his mind, Croc used what strength he had to left to rush forward and tackle him over the edge. With Croc using Jin's body as a cushion, they both slammed into the floor.

There was a loud crash and a cloud of dust filled the room. Croc coughed a few times and looked around. As the dust cleared, he realized that he might have overdone that last attack. The two of them had gone straight through the floor of the academy, leaving a gaping hole to the Undercity below. That was going to take some serious repair work when this mess was all over. He tried to get up, but he had already pushed himself too hard just pulling that off and now could barely move. Jin wasn't faring much better, half-buried in a pile of rubble a few feet away. He could tell just by looking at him that he wasn't going to be getting up again anytime soon. He had won. His body was in complete agony and he looked like a reptilian pincushion, but he had won.

Croc slowly crawled over to where Jin was lying, still on-guard if he tried anything. "Uh...are you okay?"

Jin groaned weakly and coughed a bit, either from dust or his injuries. He looked at Croc like he had just asked the world's dumbest question. "Of course I'm... not bloody okay. Why do ya...care?"

Croc allowed himself to relax, which unfortunately made the pain from his injuries all the more noticeable. He tried to ignore it. "I'm a kung fu master. It's my duty to protect all forms of life, even a bloodthirsty assassin."

He expected more mocking from the prone vulpine, but he instead turned his head away, frowning. There was a few moments of silence before he spoke again. "...I didn't always used to be like this, ya know." His voice carried a surprising sadness. "I mean, I was never really...the paragon of morality, growing up as a thief and all, but I didn't used to...kill. I used to be...repulsed by the very idea."

Croc remained silent. It was clearly straining Jin to tell him all this, both physically and mentally, but he wouldn't be doing it if he felt it wasn't important and so he let him continue. "I...I used to be a part of this group of bounty hunters. It was our job to...capture criminals. Kinda like what you guys do, except...more forceful. But we...we didn't kill our targets. We tried to be...somewhat honorable. Even to our sworn enemies...who are now my only friends. How's that for irony? Ah ha ha..." He broke off into a small coughing fit.

"So what happened to your old friends?" Croc asked.

"They're dead," he answered. "And they'd probably...hate me now anyway. I ended up...going out on my own. But no one...took me seriously by myself. I couldn't get...a single job. Eventually...someone did approach me...but they didn't want a bounty hunter. They wanted...an assassin."

Croc swallowed, having an uncomfortable idea where this was going. "I should've said no...certainly wanted to...but I needed the job. So I took it...and I took a poor sod's life for the first time. It was pretty hard...I felt absolutely sick with myself afterward. And yet...I decided to keep doing it...to try to make that...pain go away, ya know?"

For the first time since he started talking, Jin turned his head back to face Croc. His signature smirk was back, though his eyes and voice no longer matched the expression at all. "Well...it worked. After a while, the pain subsided...and it stopped feeling so bad. Started to feel...pretty fun actually. And now...here I am...Jin the Assassin." He looked straight up and laughed. "Ah ha ha ha...ha ha...ha..." His laugh trailed off and he passed out, still smirking.

As he looked over at the fox pitifully, Croc's own injuries caught up with him and he felt himself begin to pass out as well. He laid down on his back and silently apologized to Ox for not being able to come to his aid before the darkness overtook him.