Within her grasp
Chapter 7: Cheaters never prosper
"You what?" Tigress asked, just to be certain that she wasn't going to hospitalize her new Master based on a regrettable lack of communication.
"I want you to hit me in the head," Crane repeated and smiled. When he saw her clenching her fist, the smile widened. "With your foot."
Oh, joy. Because my feet totally aren't still aching from all the idiocy of the last day or anything... "No punches?"
"Just kicks, yes."
I really should have waited until after lunch. Why was I so eager? Did I think that I'd pick up the secret to beating him before dinner? "And let me guess, there's another catch, right? You won't be restricted while you fight back?"
"Intriguing suggestion, but no." He hopped from one foot to the other. "In fact, I won't touch you at all."
"You... won't be fighting back?" Tigress asked slowly, once again trying to make sure that she was understanding him correctly. I should probably get this in writing.
He chuckled, oblivious to the danger he was about to unleash upon himself. "Well, I will move and I will dodge. I will do whatever it takes to prevent you from hitting me except for flying at heights you can't reach. My goal is to make sure you get your feet off the ground. Consider it a first step on your way to mastering aerial combat."
"So this is about my lack of jumping?"
"It's about expanding your horizons," he corrected her patiently. "I want to disrupt your rote training patterns: most of your experience seems to be fighting on smooth ground against an opponent who would have to jump just to get to your eye level. Now, the arena is the entire Jade Palace, and your opponent is roughly the same size as you. Furthermore, the entire nature of the fight will be changed. It should be interesting to see you adapt."
Tigress assumed her base stance. "We'll see about that." She willed her emotions to take a back seat and let her cool, calculating mind take over. Quick, think. This challenge would be trivial if he wasn't allowed to move all over the place. My biggest enemy is his mobility. If he gets to use those wings, I'll be in a lot of trouble. So I just have to end this one quickly. She frowned. Yeah, because that worked so well the last time... Crane gave her a smile, seemingly reading her mind. He has experience with my style. From my current stance, there are only so many different kicks I can pull off to end this within the first three seconds. He's prepared for those. She narrowed her eyes. So I'll have to think a bit further ahead. Still, as long as I don't allow him to make a run for it, this should be doable without exhausting me.
"On the count of three," Crane announced and stretched his wings. "One..."
Tigress exhaled. Her mind went through the possible starting options, finally opting for a rather unconventional (and uncharacteristically flashy) opening with a roundhouse kick, followed by a low leg sweep. Tiger style without using my fists, what a twist.
"Two..." Crane was still smiling.
"Master Shifu!" one of the servant ducks suddenly exclaimed. "You are back earlier than I thought!"
"What?" Tigress whispered and turned around to face the stairs leading to the Valley of Peace. No! He can't be back! Not now! And... he isn't? She stared at the lone duck, who was looking extremely nervous and apologetic at the same time.
"Three!" Crane suddenly snapped, making her blink.
"But... isn't Master Shifu-" Her voice trailed off when she turned back to Crane, who was already several yards away, wings flapping wildly to get off the ground. This... was a ruse. A lie. Master Shifu is nowhere near the Jade Palace. Tigress gritted her teeth and took off with enough energy to leave claw marks in the stone ground. "YOU CHEATER!" she roared, dropping down to all fours to move even faster.
Crane was in the air now, flying just a few feet above the ground to technically stay in range for her kicks. Even in her rage, Tigress couldn't help but appreciate just how much more elegantly he moved now, compared to the awkward and stilted way he moved on the ground. Of course, this was the absolute worst case for this fight: Crane was way out of her range, she hadn't even gotten close to landing a single hit on him yet, and he was now leading her on a wild goose chase. Or a wild crane chase in this case. She rolled her eyes at her own dumb pun.
Her young Master made a nearly impossible turn to the left, tucking in his wings and spinning once around his length to squeeze between two pillars. Then he flew straight through the open doors of a storage building.
Ha, you idiot, Tigress thought and smirked as she sprinted through the doors herself. Her eyes took only a moment to adjust to the relative darkness - fast enough to see Crane comically running on his long, thin legs while still flapping his wings. Just about three more seconds... She was faster on the ground. Two... There was no way a bird could escape her without being able to fly. One...
Without interrupting his movements, Crane suddenly whirled around, grabbing a nearby chair and throwing it into her path.
"Nice try!" Tigress snapped, easily jumping over the chair. "But if yoOOF!" Somehow, Crane had managed to drag a table into her path. Okay, those legs might look like twigs, but they're still strong enough to do that. Noted. She gritted her teeth and resisted the urge to fling the table against the wall. Instead, she hopped onto it and from there resumed her chase, just in time to see Crane jumping out of a window. Of course he'll do whatever it takes to get back out, she thought and hopped through the window herself feet-first, one hand on the windowsill. Makes me wonder why he ever bothered going inside to beg- The hand on the windowsill dug its claws into the wood before Tigress's conscious mind could even interpret the giant NOTHING she was currently flying over. "Damn!" she wheezed when she hit the wall, still dangling from windowsill with one hand. She looked down and gulped. Below her lay the Valley of Peace. Far... far... below her. He made me jump through a window overseeing the cliff side of the Jade Palace! Crane almost made me kill myself!
"Wow," the accused commented, lazily flapping his wings to hover next to her. "Not only did you completely fall for my cheap distraction, but now you literally leaped before you looked!" He put on a mockingly thoughtful face. "Maybe we should call it quits for the day. You are clearly not in any shape to resume this exercise..."
He's right, of course. That distraction shouldn't have worked, and I should've realized where that window leads to. I've lived here long enough to have been in every building and to have looked through every window. Tigress took a deep breath. Of course, I'd rather eat my tail instead of admitting this. She suddenly felt reminded of an old tale her Master once told her. A tale of a bunny and a duck. The bunny always came out on top of things despite rarely deserving it, and the duck was always the sore loser. Feeling a lot like said duck, she also remembered one of his lines from the story: "You're despicable."
"Oh, I know..." Crane laughed softly, obviously pleased with himself. "But look on the bright side - at least you remembered this time that birds fly up while tigers fly down."
"I would have been dead otherwise," Tigress reminded him and gave him a death glare. And it had been a terrifyingly close call, but no need to mention that to your Master, even if it's obvious.
Crane looked down for a long time. "Right now... probably, yeah," he finally admitted. "Oh, and I would've caught you, of course!"
Tigress blinked at the first part. "Only right now? Are you saying that I could survive such a fall later on? Because I'm fairly certain you're wrong there."
Somehow, Crane managed to shrug while flapping his wings. "This is probably the wrong time to discuss this."
"Kinda, yeah," she admitted almost casually. "Maybe we can discuss this further after I kicked your beak off your face?"
He smiled at that. "I somehow figured you'd want to keep going. I'll meet you in the courtyard." And with that, he flapped his wings faster and slowly flew upwards.
"Smug jerk," Tigress hissed and pulled herself upwards and then through the open window. Once safely inside, she massaged the hand that had held her weight during that chat. She didn't need to, of course, but she told herself to do so anyway because it gave her brain a few moments of peace and quiet.
After a minute alone in the storage room, Tigress finally admitted a bitter truth to herself: This isn't going to work. She sighed. This should be easy, but I'm way too focused on quick success right now, and it's blinding me. In hindsight, there are a thousand ways I could have avoided all of this. And yet here we are. Crane was probably waiting for her already, but she didn't move. "What would Master Shifu do?" she suddenly asked herself and blinked at the sound of her own voice. "Or rather, how would he lecture me?" She started pacing and tried to channel her Master's mindset.
"Tigress!" she snapped with her best impression of Master Shifu's gruffy voice. "That was absolutely pathetic! You are distracted!" Well yes, but tell me something I don't know! "This bird has you playing his game, and he is better at it than you are!" Yes, but what can I do about it? "Improve, Tigress! Train! Practice!" She huffed angrily at herself, then smirked and shoved her mental Master Shifu aside. "Or you could be smart and simply stop playing his game..."
"Oh good, you're here," Crane cheered when Tigress finally came out of the building. "I was starting to think that you had either fallen down or gotten lost in there!"
"You wouldn't have had to wonder if you hadn't simply left me hanging, you know?" Tigress pretended to be annoyed, but behind her carefully composed mask, she was calculating possible routes, trying to predict where Crane would lead her next. Unlike last time, her thoughts weren't focused on techniques, openings or fighting stances. Instead, she was trying to mentally map out the buildings nearby, reconstructing them from memories accumulated over the years. Stay calm, accept that there will be a chase, and work from there.
"You're right, I apologize." Crane bowed theatrically. "As your Master, I should help my student as best as I can."
Oh, har-dee-har. Help your student my fuzzy behind. If you think for one moment that I will hold back when I kick your dumb beak in, you are so absolutely- Tigress froze. He's baiting you again! ...why is it working again? She did her best to cover up her realization - her plan was going to work a lot better if Crane assumed that he had the upper hand. Or upper wing, I suppose. "I swear, Crane, I will kick your sorry, feathery butt all the way down the stairs to the Valley of Peace, and I will smile while doing so!" she snapped, hoping that Crane hadn't noticed her moment of hesitation.
"Taking every fifth step?" Crane asked calmly, and the reminder of the end of the last day almost made Tigress scream.
How is he so good at antagonizing me? Did Master Shifu write down tips on one of those scrolls he left? Or is that something they taught him at the Floating Temple? Stupid bird-brain. See if your tactics work on me. Jerk. "Oh, right! I almost forgot about that! You're so going down!"
"Very well, I suppose we might as well get started. And no tricks this time to get a head start - it's probably better to spare you the embarrassment of falling for the same trick twice in a row."
What? Embarrassment? How dare he imply that that trick would've worked again? A small part of her mind tried to remind her yet again not to fall for his antics, but it was brushed aside.
"After all, I should go easy on you. Still no Master title, and you're, what, in your forties already?" He ignored the way her tail twitched. "Tsk, I'm starting to realize why your Master thinks you're a failure."
Tigress's eyes had turned into thin, angry slits. Go easy on me? A failure? IN MY FORTIES? He. Is. DEAD.
"Ah well, I suppose we might as well get this farce over with." Crane lazily waved his right wing while yawning into the left one. "One, two, thr-"
Tigress's roar caught him completely off-guard, and by the time he came down from his adrenaline spike, his instincts had made him jump backwards and assume his Crane style base stance. "Ah, heh, sorry about that." Tigress waved airily, "Got something stuck in my throat there..." She gave him a neutral smile. "Please, carry on." O...kay... lessons learned all around: One, I need to find a less over-the-top way to quickly balance out my emotions. Two, Crane learned not to push me too far with his pre-fight taunts.
Crane coughed quietly and brushed over the outside of each wing, as if too smoothen his feathers. "Should've seen that one coming," he muttered. "Cats are all the same - step on their tails and they make noise."
Wow, I must've rattled him,Tigress thought when she realized that Crane was still caught up in his own world. "You... were counting?" she gently reminded him, but he didn't seem to hear her.
"Same with Master Pahti, right?"
"Crane?"
"I notice a flaw in his execution and point it out, like, once in goodness knows how many years. Just once!"
"...Master Crane?"
"And boom! Guy chews me out. Loudly! In front of everybody!" He glared at her, as if daring her to defend his crazy mentor. "And you know for how many days?"
Okay, just play along, Tigress told herself, trying not to look too freaked out. He'll calm down soon enough, you can give him a hug, tell him that everything will be fine, and then you'll take it easy for the rest of the day. "For how many days, Master Crane?"
Crane gave her a long look. Took a deep breath. Flapped his wings. Tapped his foot. Finally, he answered her: "Three." And with that, he spun on his right foot and started running before using his wings and momentum to take off.
...what? Tigress just blinked at the bird's completely erratic behavior. Did he just lose his mind? Being berated for three days probably is bad, but what's with the sudden rush? Is he maybe mistaking me for his Master in some sort of hallucination? She sighed. Typical. I come up with this great plan, but we end up egging each other on, and now he apparently snapped and is on the run. And I probably can't even put my foot to his crazy head because he couldn't even count to- She froze. "-three?" Her eyes widened. No. NO. He did NOT just do that. Her claws sprung free when she realized that somehow, she had fallen for an elaborate ruse. Again. "CRAAAANE!" she roared, sprinting after him on all fours. Again. "YOU STUPID, CHEATING BIRD!"
His laughter confirmed her worst fears. "You should've seen your face!" he taunted her, even though Tigress was rapidly gaining on him.
"I can see why your Master hired another Master just to smack you down!" she shouted. "Because you're insufferable!"
"I get that a lot," Crane shouted over his shoulder before gracefully rolling into a sharp turn to the right. "I'm beginning to think that my natural charm is a bit of an acquired taste."
Despite everything that had happened, Tigress couldn't help but smile. In his own, stupid way, Crane was a pretty great and funny guy. Is this what it's like to have a fellow student?
Then her smile widened - Crane was flying towards a building again.
Her internal map of the Jade Palace told her that this building had no windows overseeing - probably - several thousand feet of absolutely freaking nothing. Still, she was certain that her young Master would try to trick her again in some other way. But that is okay, she thought. In fact, I'm banking on it.
Tigress tried to steady her breathing. Considering that she was chasing after somebody at full speed, this was easier said than done, but one did not study under one of the greatest Masters in China without picking up a few pointers. She slowed down a little bit, trading in a fraction of her speed for the ability to take longer, slower breaths.
Crane zoomed through the door at reckless speed, Tigress not too far behind him. She wasn't entirely sure what he was up to this time, but she was able to pull the layout of the building from her memory. And that should make all the difference.
When she came in through the entrance, Tigress was just able to catch a last glimpse of Crane's wing before he disappeared into a corridor. The impulse to chase after him was almost overwhelming, but she managed to hold on to her plan.
Silently, she hopped onto a dresser, from there onto a closet, lifted one of the lightweight ceiling boards and finally climbed into the rafters. Within two seconds, Tigress had gone from the entrance to the darkness nine feet above the floor. Ages ago, somewhere between learning how to utilize her feline agility and fully setting off on the path to becoming a Master, spaces like this had been her playground - a hidden world of fun and adventure all for herself. Now, Tigress moved through the rafters without making a sound, slowly working her way towards where Crane had apparently run off to.
It didn't take her long to find her Master, even with the ceiling boards blocking her view. In the otherwise quiet building, the sound of Crane's heavy breathing was easily detectable. In fact, it almost sounds too loud, Tigress noticed and cocked her head. Probably because it is - I guess he is being noisy on purpose to make me come after him. She was almost right on top of the sound now. Okay, if I get this wrong, I'll have to call it quits - this will be impossible to do again without the element of surprise. Straining to hear any change in Crane's behavior, Tigress dropped into a crouch and carefully lifted a ceiling board.
What is he doing? she asked herself after a brief glance down. Crane was there alright, but he was waiting for her in a windowless storage room that was dimly lit by a single lantern. He is trapped, she observed. It was only then that she noticed the thin wire stretched in the doorframe, about a foot from the ground. Oh, you jerk. It didn't take much imagination to figure out where this would have gone: I see him standing there, rush in without looking, stumble, fall, curse a lot... and then he'd either jump over me to lead me to his next trap or just start throwing boxes onto me. But then she smiled - after all, none of that was actually going to happen.
Crane, meanwhile, had stopped his exaggerated panting and was instead cocking his head. "Where is she?" the bird asked no-one in particular. "HA, YOU FINALLY GAVE UP?" he shouted, then immediately listened for footsteps. After a few seconds, he sighed. "Drat, there is no way I lost her this easily. She probably decided that this is a stupid waste of time. Either that, or she got distracted by something shiny. Cats. All the same."
That's it, he's going down, Tigress decided, trying not to snarl. I mean, he was going to go down anyway, but now I'm not even going to be gentle.
"No, it's probably the first one," Crane suddenly decided. "This was stupid. She doesn't have to chase around a dumb bird like me. She's the one who has been training under one if the greatest Masters in China, not me! What was I thinking?"
Okay, did not see this one coming. Tigress raised an eyebrow. The great Master Crane has a bad case of doubt? And this time not because Master Shifu was mean to him?
"This is Mei Ling all over again! When will you learn, Crane? Just because a beautiful girl acts friendly around you doesn't mean she'll ever be in your league. There is confidence, and then there is this! You can barely impress her, and you can't train her any better than a living legend of Kung Fu can!"
Tigress was incredibly confused at this point; all this talk about beautiful girls she didn't know - And did he just indirectly call me beautiful, too? - was way outside her area of expertise. This was something she wasn't familiar with - she had only ever known simple problems with straightforward solutions (mostly involving punching and kicking). This is way too... complicated and wing-wavy for me. Just give me an opening that I can work with!
"I mean," Crane muttered without realizing that he was about to set more than a hundred pounds of bone and muscle into motion, "what did I even manage to teach her so far?"
Tigress knew she was making a mistake even as she was dropping through the hole. "You taught me how to cheat," she whispered, the floorboards creaking a little bit under her weight as she landed.
Everything went quickly from there: Crane instinctively dropped into a crouch even while his head swung around just enough to verify that somebody had sneaked up on him. At the same time, Tigress's foot was well on its way to connect... with the thin air just above his hat. Drat, not even a moment of hesitation! That would've connected perfectly if he hadn't ducked! The urge to follow up that roundhouse kick with a second one was strong, but Tigress reminded herself that Crane's goal was not to fight, but simply to avoid her. He's going to run; he'll be long gone by the time you finish that second kick.
While Tigress had been right about his intentions, it turned out that she had worried too much: Crane turned on one foot and, using his wings for an additional boost, scrambled towards the door... where he promptly forgot about the tripwire he had installed there minutes earlier. Letting out a confused squawk, the bird tripped, stumbled and crashed into the wall opposite the door before hitting the floor with a quiet curse.
Ha, that's what you get for cheating! Tigress grinned victoriously and hopped over the wire, landing neatly next to Crane, who was trying to get back onto his feet. She gently nudged his head with her foot and leaned against the wall, doing her best to look nonchalant without coming across as smug. "Tag, you're it."
Crane huffed and got up. Then he finally took a look at the hole in the ceiling from where she had descended, but Tigress could tell that his mind was elsewhere. "Not quite what I had in mind, but I suppose you did get your feet off the ground and adapted to more flexible fighting conditions. Well done."
"Thank you, Master Crane." Tigress bowed and offered him the traditional salute.
It took Crane long moments to react, but he eventually returned it, allowing Tigress to stand straight again. "So... uhhh... you obviously... overheard me there," he finally began, and even if Tigress hadn't anticipated this, the way Crane was uncomfortably shifting his weight from one foot to another would have clued her in. "What.. I mean... how much did you-"
"I just heard the part about what you had managed to teach me so far," she lied. "I had just arrived and immediately struck." Good. Very good. Lying isn't your strong suit, but that actually sounded plausible.
Crane let out an obvious, relieved sigh, and Tigress noted that she apparently wasn't the only one who had trouble with concealing or distorting the truth. "Great! I mean... that's... good. Good." He adjusted his wings a bit and nodded. "Well then, let's see what... let's see what we'll do next."
He turned around to lead the way, and Tigress dropped her guard, happy that the situation had resolved itself neatly.
It was her second mistake in as many minutes.
"So who's Mei Ling?" she heard herself ask, and the words were out long before her brain could react.
Crane whirled around, and going by his shocked and hurt expression, Tigress knew she had screwed up big time. "How did you-" he started to ask before figuring out the obvious answer. And then he realized what else she must have heard. Flapping his giant wings in agitation and embarrassment, he tried multiple times to formulate a coherent reply; each time he failed, his state seemed to get worse.
Do something! Say something! "Crane, I-"
"No."
Tigress blinked at the wing Crane held up in front of her face. "But-"
"We're done here."
Stupid, Tigress! She knew that deceptively calm tone. Master Shifu had used it very rarely, and only when Tigress had done something very, very bad. "Wait, please let me-" Tigress watched as Crane turned around.
"Idiot!" he hissed, and Tigress wasn't sure if he was talking to her or to himself.
With less than three feet between them, it would have been trivial for her to grab him by his wing, but she strongly suspected that pushing things into physical territory would only make matters even worse. "Crane, wait, I-" She weakly held out a hand, trying to find the magic words that would make him stay, make him listen. Listen to what? You heard something you shouldn't have heard, and then you lied to him about it. He broke into a run that quickly turned into a half-sprint, half-flight. He thinks you're a no-good jerk. Somewhere, she heard furniture being tossed aside as Crane had stopped caring about property damage on his way out. And let's face it - he's right.
"I..." Tigress weakly dropped to her knees, unable and unwilling to process the full impact what had just happened. She had no idea if Crane was just venting or if he was so angry that he was leaving for good. She wasn't even sure which reaction she was hoping for. Latter would be better, her horrible, self-critical inner voice quipped. You can barely stand Master Shifu chewing you out - how could you live with a guy who apparently actually liked you telling you just what a screw-up you are and how you made him look like a fool?
Tigress had no answers, no way of rebutting her inner voice. She merely closed her eyes when she finally found the words that may have saved the day: "I'm sorry."