AN: This chapter's dedicated to RenkonNairu, who's reviewed every single chapter so far and has been asking for more Tai Lung. It's also the longest one yet, so make of that what you will. XD

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Chapter Twelve: What Lies Within

"You need to let it go."

"Easy for you to say," the leopard grumbled in return.

"Yes, it is. Watch now, I'll say it again. You need to let it go," Oogway repeated, refusing to be intimidated by someone who couldn't even touch him while he had been alive. "Let your anger go, and the answers will come to you."

"YOU are not my master, old man!" Tai Lung roared, stopping his intense pacing of the foggy landscape. "You do not direct me! This is all your fault, anyway.." he grumbled under his breath.

Oogway's soft laugh informed the other that he'd heard anyway. "I put you here then, did I? No, Tai Lung. You did that. I thought we'd already been through this..?" he trailed off introspectively, a look of curiousity on his face. "Well it doesn't matter. Here is where you are, and you cannot know where you are until you stop not thinking about it."

"Do you even listen to yourself, you senile old coot?" the leopard cried, "I don't have any idea what you're talking about, and I've been hearing you talk about it for what seems like forever!"

"Aha! And there is your first clue!" Oogway whispered, his wizened face shining with delight. "Where do you think you are, Tai Lung?"

The leopard growled, resuming his path of stalking up and down the featureless pale landscape of swirling clouds. "I don't know! I've already told you that! If I'm not dead, but you are, and I'm where you are.." He paused to swipe his claws at a fluffy mound of cumulous. "I just don't know!"

Oogway's cheerful face fell. "Well then, it seems we are at an impasse." He straightened his ghostly clothing, and gestured to the filmy, translucent world around them.

"You've been here before, you know. We all come here when we dream. And if your soul is truly at peace, you may discover yourself here when you finally pass on. You, my angry young one, have discovered what happens when someone uses the Wuxi finger hold on you. Your bodies' energies have been inverted, and you've been blown clear into the Astral Plane."

The ancient one hmmmmed thoughtfully to himself. "And with your level of energy, I imagine the implosion was most impressive. Yes, it may have even caused a good reversal! Tsk... that move can be so messy if it's done right.. Or if it's done wrong, for that matter! But you're here, and you're not dead, so it must have been done right."

Tai Lung's grey face paled. "You're joking... You've got to be joking! If that's true, then I'm already as good as dead! If I'm here, in my body.." he grabbed at his arm and patted himself down to make certain of this fact, "Then how do I go back? There's.. there's no place for me to return to!"

"Where would you return, if you could?"

"I.." The snow leopard's posture slackened, and he sat down heavily on the inconsistant-feeling ground. "I don't know. What is there for me, anymore? I'm not the Dragon Warrior, I'm not anything."

"You are Tai Lung. Is that not enough?"

Tai Lung's face burned with annoyance and shame. "It means nothing if I can't fulfil my destiny."

"It was never your destiny to begin with."

"Why didn't you stop him?" the cat had curled in on himself, wrapping his arms around his head and his tail around his legs. "Why didn't you stop him from giving me that damned name? Things could have been different then!"

Oogway closed his eyes, recalling a young pupil rushing up to him with a tiny bundle. "No.. it wouldn't have been. You would still have desired the title of Dragon Warrior, even had your name been a more humble one. You must learn, Tai Lung, that what you need to conquer is not a denied notion of destiny. What you need to conquer is yourself."

"How... how do I conquer myself?" the ball of grey fur curled up on the ground below sprouted an anxious-looking face again.

"First of all, you must want to."

"Why do I have to conquer myself?" the big cat had uncurled now, and crouched in an almost-combative stance beneath the peacefully-floating tortoise. "Will that get me back? I cannot stay here!"

Master Oogway hummed softly, closing his eyes in preparation for meditation. "You must conquer yourself because that is the only way to discover who you truly are, Tai Lung. There is another you, buried deep in your heart. He has always been there, but he became afraid and fled."

"I fear NOTHING!"

"That is the lie you tell yourself so that you don't tremble in the darkness." One of Oogway's eyes lazily slid back open, and he regarded his new pupil with a sharp, evaluating eye. "The darkness within and the darkness without, they are both the same."

The snow leopard recoiled from the statement, backing away from the apparition of the ghostly kung fu grandmaster. "What does all this mean?"

"Are you afraid?"

The question sent a flurry of emotions rushing over the leopard's face. Anger, indignation, confusion, worry, and resolve, finally settling into a hyperactive anxiety that widened his eyes from the superior slits that they had settled into sometime during his adolesence. "I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be afraid of."

The tortoise chuckled, returning to his meditative stance. "Of yourself, of course. We are all our own worst enemies. But only if we acknowledge ourselves can we overcome ourselves."

There was a long, contemplative silence. So long that Oogway nearly fell into a doze. The Astral Plane was so comfortably warm here, exactly the temperature that let him truly let go of earthly bonds in life. He wondered idly if souls slept. He hadn't in the time he'd been here so far, but then again..

His thoughts were interrupted once more as Tai Lung spoke up again. "Will I be able to go back? If I defeat myself, or whatever it is you mean for me to do?"

"Oh... now it's my desire that you do something, hmmm? My direction that you would follow?" He sensed his audience's annoyance and chuckled. "I don't intend to have you do anything, I have simply been pointing out that you should. But you should because you want to, not because of me. Without personal intent, any quest is meaningless."

He stretched his ghostly limbs and floated back down in front of the muscular cat. "I truly do not know if achieving your sense of self will do anything about getting you back to the mortal plane. But I do know that it will bring you inner peace to finally know yourself. I cannot guide you on this journey, no one can. This is a journey you must make alone."

The ancient tortoise pointed into the distance with a clawlike finger. "This place is vast, and varied. There are dark places here, even as there are in the soul. You could start there, or you could start here, where it's brighter. Or..." He turned and pointed back behind the leopard now, smiling blissfully at the confusion in his companion's face. "You could start back that way, where you're closer to home. It doesn't matter, really. Regardless of how many steps you take, you are only really moving in your mind."

He reached out, and held a hand in front of Tai Lung, as if he would have touched the big cat's arm if he could. "Good luck, young one. You may go home, you may not. You may find yourself, you may become lost in the darkness. But remember, it is only yourself that you fight. Be honest to that." He began to fade away, still with that look of calm compassion on his face.

"W-WAIT!" Tai Lung cried, grabbing at the spirit of Oogway as it disappeared. "Master! Come back! Don't leave me... alone..."

The leopard shrank in on himself, isolated even more than he'd ever been in Chorh-Gom. A sound like soft, distant thunder rippled through the indistinct landscape, and suddenly, irrationally, he felt the urge to run. He fought at first, but a glance back toward the hazy, dark region that Oogway had indicated revealed that the angry clouds were beginning to twist and roll in his direction. Tai Lung wavered for a moment, then began to run.

"I'm not afraid of you!" he roared, extending his claws as he charged towards the looming darkness. "I'm not AFRAID!"

The darkness roiled and surged in response.

--

Thankfully, the damage had not been quite as severe as the Furious Five had dreaded. The site of the final confrontation between Po and Tai Lung had been in a residential area, and many homes were damaged, some quite badly.

A few were totally demolished. But the business district had fortunately taken very light damage, and many shopkeepers - Po's father among them- had already begun taking in family friends and neighbors, without having to be asked. It was a promising end to nearly five hours of evaluations.

Mr. Ping waved to the group of warriors as they carefully made their way down the damaged street, calling out to his son until he was certain that he'd gained the panda's attention. A few small children peeked from behind the goose in awe as the heroes of the Valley of Peace approached the humble noodle shop. "You must tell us what has happened, Po!" Mr. Ping cried, shooing the children back indoors.

"All of the excitement that Morimotsuhitsu's return had come, and none of us have seen him! I hear that his children had come home, but Mrs. Lim says they have now gone!" A few murmurs of agreement came from the crowd that had gathered around them, and Po scratched the back of his neck nervously. Public speaking was not one of the talents he was awesome at.

Tigress, ever the leader, came to his rescue by speaking up before he could even figure out what he should say. "Apparently, Lord Morimotsuhitsu has passed on during the years of his self-imposed exile. His remains were brought back to the Jade Palace yesterday."

Gasps of shock greeted this news, and to Tigress's mild surprise, a few even openly wept at the declaration. Her brilliant eyes caught an older rabbit muttering a quick prayer for the old warlord's soul, and she crossed her arms.

Mr. Ping noticed the expression on her face. "You must realise, Tigress, he was not just a warlord. He was the Emperor's greatest general, one of his most trusted military leaders. He did not take the Valley of Peace by force, though he certainly could have in those days. My father told me of how Master Oogway himself went to meet him, back when the Valley had a great stone bridge that connected it to the outside world."

The entire village had gathered around them now, a few old-timers nodding in agreement with the tale being spun. Tigress looked skeptical. "According to what Master Shifu read before us, Master Oogway surrendered to only one invader. How is it possible that he was defeated?" The feline's tail gave a few agitated lashes, betraying how deeply this whole thing troubled her.

A particularly ancient rabbit chuckled. "My dear Master Tigress, Oogway was not defeated, he simply chose not to fight. The Emperor himself presented Lord Morimotsuhitsu with a large amount of land. Larger even than he entrusted any of his other generals with. And not to defend or maintain the empire with, it was so that his favorite warlord could retire!"

The children, who'd returned to cluster around Mr. Ping, chattered excitedly at that. They'd never heard of this before.

The goose nodded briskly, taking up the story once more. "Master Oogway, it is said, was friends with Lord Morimotsuhitsu at the moment that they met. He was impressed that the general was making the rounds of his new holdings himself, foregoing a procession or a caravan in order to get the feel of the lands on his own."

An aging, half-blind pig spoke up. "He probably found it similar to how he himself had found the Valley of Peace. And together, they completed the Jade Palace, fortified the valley, and here we all are today because of it!"

"Now hold on," Mantis interrupted, hopping up onto the pile of stones that stood next to the noodle shop entrance. "I thought the village built the Jade Palace for Master Oogway? Like... 900 years ago or something!"

The elders froze, glancing at each other. Finally the pig started laughing. And that started the cascade of laughter that washed over the younger citizens and kung fu masters like a tidal wave.

"Youngster, take a look up that mountain," a grandmotherly rabbit giggled "the artistry involved is far beyond anything else in this valley. There was a structure there, but it was nothing compared to THAT. Five-clawed dragons climb those Hua Biao pillars. There was Imperial money that turned that simple monastary into a palace!" She smiled serenely. "I should know, my grandfather helped plan the original building."

Po snorted and scratched his head in confusion. "And what, next you'll tell us Master Oogway wasn't really 900 years old?"

"Master Oogway was never one to let the truth get in the way of a good story, especially one that amused him."

The Furious Five shot to attention as Master Shifu spoke up. None of them had seen him arrive, and from the annoyed look on his face, he was going to make them work doubly hard at their next training session to sharpen their perception.

The citizenry, however, were not as cowed by Shifu's finely-honed glare.

"Master Shifu! What's happened?"

"We've been told that Lord Mori-"

"Is it true? He is dead?"

"What's going to happen?"

"What do we do now?"

The babble rose into a frenzy until finally the diminuitive red panda held up with hands in a plea for silence. The voices dropped off, one by one, until he had their full attention.

"It is true, Lord Morimotsuhitsu is gone." He briskly waved his hand again, cutting off the fresh terror that was attempting to erupt at the news. "And his estate has been divided in accordance to his wishes. You will all be gratified to know that we have been entrusted to the youngest of Morimotsuhitsu's children, the Lady Tao-hua, arguably, the least offensive of them. We remain, more or less, as we are." The six warriors he had trained all exchanged glances at the implied "I hope" that obviously finished their masters' thought.

"Tell us, Master Shifu," a random voice cried from the back of the crowd, "The Jade Palace, how well has it survived?"

Shifu allowed himself a satified smile. He knew how important the structure overlooking the valley was to the people. It was a bright, shining beacon that promised hope, peace, and well-being to all. "The Jade Palace has but a few scratches," he replied with a gracious nod. "Lady Tao-hua is so underwhelmed with it's damage that she insists that all reconstruction focus entirely on the city, and your homes, first and foremost."

Shifu was startled by the exclamations of approval that greeted his words. It seemed that he and Lady Tao were both right about what the village needed and what it wanted. He nodded dismissingly to the villagers, who returned to their work excitedly chattering about the news.

Crane approached him, bowing respectfully. "Master Shifu, we've determined that everyone has a place to stay, and the shopkeepers and restaurants are taking on everyone's needs as far as food, bedding and goods are concerned."

Shifu nodded in satisfaction and turned back to face the Jade Palace, which gleamed in the late evening sunshine so that it belied any evidence of damage. "Good. I knew that the villagers were more than capable of seeing to themselves. We are all not as helpless as Tao seems to want to believe." He chuckled to himself, a sound which died in his throat when a short figure in a familiar dusty cloak pushed her way through the crowd to face him.

"Lady Tao-hua," he hissed anxiously, "what are you doing here?"

Tao pushed back her hood and favored both he and his students with an evaluating glance. "Shopping," she finally replied. "I've been thinking all morning that the Dragon Warrior needs a good tailor, and once I found one I thought that you might do with a little cleaning up yourself, Shifu."

Shifu recoiled as she paced around him, shaking her head in disapproval at his treadbare beige training uniform. "What? Why are you..? When did you..? Whatever happened to seeing to the people before engaging in frivolities?" he growled.

The raccoon dog grinned. "I am seeing to their needs, Shifu. You and Master Panda are in dire need of more befitting clothing, and poor Miss Bik and her assistant are without anything to do to help anyone else out at the moment." The tanuki winked suddenly, pulling out an embroidered wallet. "Besides, I'm helping the economy!"

Shifu steamed silently, attemping to glare Tao-hua to death with his bright blue eyes. Lady Tao remained unimpressed.

"Come along you two, we can't keep Miss Bik waiting. I think you'd look quite striking in black, Shifu..."

The red panda crossed his arms and glowered. "I have an entirely adequate wardrobe Lady Tao-hua. I simply choose not to waste it on activities where it will be unneccessarily damaged." He shot a look at Po, who grinned nervously. "The panda however, fine. Should it suit you to do so, he definitely needs at least a pair of pants that fit." He attempted to side-step out of the procession, only to discover that Tao had looped her arm around his and was now half-dragging him along with her.

"Humor me, Shifu."

"I've humored you every moment that I've known you."

Po stifled a snicker as he followed them, glancing back and forth between the two combatants.

"Humor me some more, then."

"Release me and I'll think about it."

"Why do you have to be so difficult?

"Why do YOU?"

"Shifu, you haven't changed."

"And you, Lady Tao-hua, haven't improved."

Po bit his lip at the comeback, then shot a new look at Tao to see what she'd say. Tao-hua stopped in the street, glaring at the red panda. "Is this what you teach your students? Snappy comebacks and put-downs? Honestly Shifu, you think you're a real wit, but you're only HALF right." The tanuki stalked into the tailor's shop in silence, followed by the mystified Po. Shifu stood victoriously out in the street for a solid minute before his smirk faded into a glower.

"HALF-WIT, am I?" he roared, shoving his way into the shop to continue the argument.