Chapter 5: The capture
(With John)
John was currently sprinting through the dense forest as he tried to flee from the guards of the village who were still trying to traverse down the jagged cliff side, or who were trying to take him down with their arrows which were landing all around him like rain. Ducking behind a tree, he peered around the edge of the tree to see half of the guards were about a third of the way down, while the others were reloading their bows.
'You gotta be kidding, they're sending all these troops, just for one guy!?' he thought before jumping out from behind the tree to continue sprinting into the dense forest.
Weaving in and out of the trees and thick brush John continued to sprint as fast as he could, even though his leg felt like it was burning from it being injured. Continuing to throw branches out of the way as he fled further and further away, with the voices of the guards became more and more distant as he went on.
About five minutes later John could no longer hear the guards, and decided to slow his pace slightly, as he took deep breaths and slowed his heart rate and felt his leg like it was on fire. But not wanting to stop he continued onward, until his leg flared up again forcing him to fall against a tree.
"Ah!" he groaned as he clutched his leg to see the wound had opened slightly and was now bleeding again heavily as the blood began to stain his hands once again.
But realizing he didn't have the time to treat it he pulled himself off of the tree to continue back towards his ship.
(With the Furious Five and Po)
Moving at lightning speed Tigress and the others ran towards the musician village along the path but stopped when they heard yelling coming off of the path.
"That way!" Tigress commanded as she and the other changed course and began sprinting into the forest.
Their pace slowed down though as they reached the thicker brush, and had to begin pushing the branches out of the way to continue.
"Crane." She then said as she gained his attention. "Fly ahead and find out where it is and where it's going." She then ordered.
"On it." He replied as he immediately went from a horizontal flight path to a vertical path to get above the trees, before disappearing from sight.
"So, what do we do when we find it?" asked Viper as she jumped over a log as they continued to push through the brush.
"Ya, do we try talking to it or what?" questioned Monkey.
"I don't think this thing is going to listen by just talking to it?" responded Mantis who was currently on Monkey's shoulder.
"AH come on guys who cares let's just kick its butt!" spoke Po from behind as he ran slightly behind the others.
"Master Shifu said to bring it back for questioning, I don't think it will be to cooperate if we 'kick its butt' Po." Replied Viper with a shack of her head as she wasn't one for needless violence.
Tigress wasn't listening though as she was thinking of how they were going to take this thing down. After reading about this 'human' in that ancient scroll she was not going to take any chances with it, and was going to beat it to a pulp for escaping and embarrassing them once before.
They soon came to a sudden stop when they reached the edge of the cliff where they could see some of the guards to their right and a few more down below on the ground.
"It went that way!" one of the guards to their right stated as he pointed to the thick brush below in front of them.
Before they could jump though they saw Crane coming towards them, before gently landing on the ledge.
"It's going West." He stated, to which everyone else nodded before jump off of the ledge to the ground below.
Not wasting any time, they moved quickly to gain ground on this 'human' before it could get away.
(With John)
Finally moving at a walking pace, John continued to head towards the ship, but still kept his senses sharp just in case. A few minutes went by and nothing changed, and he thought he was in the clear. His hopes were soon dashed though when he could hear the brush behind him rustle and his complexion paled when he saw the animals from before, just a short distance behind them. Looking forward he saw a small clearing, and immediately began to sprint towards it. If he needed to draw his rifle he was going to need a clear view of them to do so.
Entering the clearing he turned around and pulled his rifle out and pointed at the brush where moments later the tiger, panda, monkey, snake, and bird came into the clearing taking their own stances as he changed his aim from one to the next.
"It's over!" stated the tiger as she shifted her stance slightly "You don't have a chance against us so come quietly." She then ordered, which made John to frown as he tightened his grip on his rifle as he focused on the tiger a little more.
'Not even in hell… It would go against the code, never surrender.' John thought as remained silent and motionless.
Seconds ticked by and nothing seemed to change, as he studied them, with them doing the same with him. All the while not a word was uttered, and the only sound was the wind from the light breeze.
"Well at least it's doing the quiet part." Stated the bird getting a roll of the eyes from the tiger.
John shifted his stance slightly which proved to be a mistake as he winced ever so slightly, catching the tiger's attention revealing his injured leg, which was still bleeding and soaking his pant leg.
"You can't put up a fight with that leg." Stated the tiger with a smug tone, which really got under Mark's skin making him frown.
'Maybe… but you can't fight with a bullet hole in your head either.' He thought with his own smugness which managed to form a quick smirk for a second before disappearing.
Tigress frowned when she saw the human smirk ever so slightly, as she didn't have a clue as to why it would be smirking.
'It must be hiding something… but what?' she pondered, as she studied what it was holding. 'Perhaps something to do with whatever that thing is?' She then thought but was brought out of her thoughts when she and the others saw Mantis reaching its shoulder where Mantis was ready to strike.
Seeing now was the time to strike she turned to the others and nodded, with them signaling back with a nod as well showing they were ready.
John was confused when she nodded and the others who followed.
'They're planning something, but what?' he wondered, but he did have to wait long too find out.
"Now Mantis!" yelled the tiger and before he knew it, he felt something strike his neck hard, causing him to stumble slightly.
John slapped where his neck was hit, and he felt something remove itself from his shoulder, and was shocked when he turned to see the other animals charging him. Running on instinct he raised his weapon, but due to him stumbling the bullet flew at random.
When Mantis had struck the human Tigress and the others charged forward as they used the opportunity to attack the surprised human. Their attack immediately stopped though the human swung the odd-looking object at them, and what happened next shocked Tigress. She suddenly felt something grazed a few hairs on her cheek, and then was hit with a sound she could only describe as thunder. She looked over towards the others and saw they had stopped as the ground in front of them had suddenly kicked up in front of them, but couldn't identify what caused it.
The human then recovered and seemed to redirect the weapon at Po which caused him to freeze in his tracks, while the human showed a face full of anger.
"Po!" yelled Viper, as the human did something to the object.
Only this time instead of a loud bang, all that happened was clicking sound which seemed to shock the human.
'Its not working!' realized Tigress as she wasted no time in attacking the human, who quickly turned to put its attention on her.
"HHHEEAA!" she roared as she tried to land a powerful punch to the human in the face, but the human barely avoided the punch. She tried again but her punch was blocked by the strange weapon. It protected the human but it was strong enough to knock it out of its grasp, knocking it a few feet away from crane, who kicked it away.
She then swung her claws wide in an attempt to slash him, and this time landed with her claws in bedding in the human's arm who brought it up to protect its face.
John gritted his teeth as the tiger sank her claws in his arm and forced himself to push her back with that arm, resulting in the blood beginning to pour out of his arm. Giving one final shove, he forced the tiger to take a step back while his other hand had floated to his combat knife. Giving his own war cry John stabbed forward as he aimed at the tiger's stomach, but was stopped when the snake whipped its tail knocking the blade from his hand. He was only able to glance at the blade for a moment though as he was then punched in the face by the monkey, which caused him to stagger back before being hit in the gut by the snake with its tail.
'How in the hell?' he wondered as he was wearing armor yet the hit was enough for him to actually feel the blow through it. 'What the hell have these things been eating?' he then wondered but was brought out of his thoughts when the bird made a gust of wind with its wings, which sent John flying into a tree.
Groaning John pushed himself off of the ground while holding his side as he clearly felt a rib break upon impact. Trying to take a step John stumbled on his bad leg as he felt another wave of pain shot through it.
'Alright focus! Study their patterns and move sets! Then take them out one by one!' he thought as he got into a defensive stance as he readied himself for another round. He knew he could use his sidearm, but decided to save his ace until he had no choice.
The panda was the first to make a move this time as John watched it jump in the air, and try to land a spinning back kick which John sidestepped. John then tried to land a punch to the panda's gut, but it proved to be a mistake as the panda used the energy from the punch to deliver an even more powerful punch to John which sent him back a few feet.
'Ouch. Okay… the panda uses the energy of the opponent to its advantage.' John realized as he then saw something small and green come at him in a blur.
John instinctually brought his hands up to block the attack and saw for a brief moment some kind of bug on his arm before it disappeared in an equally quick blur.
'Is that what got me before?' he questioned as he lost sight of it.
John then saw the snake lung forward, and before he could even react it had wrapped itself around his neck. He then felt his breath begin to leave his lungs as the snake began to constrict itself around his next.
'Can't breathe!' he thought as he desperately brought a hand up and to try to pull the snake off of his throat.
The snake then wrapped itself around his arm as well as it continued to constrict, causing John to begin spinning wildly in an attempt to get free. However, on one of his wild turns he turned directly into the monkey's fist, which sent his staggering back.
Needing to get free John reached around till he felt the snake's head and began to squeeze down on it. As a response, the snake seemed to squeeze even harder, resulting in John almost blacking out as he continued to squeeze and pull on the snake's head. He then saw the monkey coming in for another strike, so he turned, making the punch hit the snake in the head. Working the snake suddenly released its grip on him causing him to gasp as air filled his lungs one more. He then turned to see the snake was out cold, much to his relief.
"Viper!" he heard the bird say as it flew in towards John. Getting an idea, he looked down to see a branch and reached down to grab it before swinging it like a baseball bat. Hitting his mark, he closed lined the bird, which tumbled end over end before rolling to a stop. Taking a second to glance at the bird John saw it was now out cold as well. He'll check for a pulse later.
Taking a deep breath, he turned towards the remaining animals and saw a couple of them tense after seeing their comrades get beaten by him.
'Two down, only four to go.' He thought as he prepared for the next one to attack.
The bug was the next one to make a move as it launched itself straight at him, but John didn't know how to hit something so small. So, throwing caution to the wind he swatted his hand at it like he would a fly. Unfortunately, he missed and the bug landed a surprisingly hard blow to his chest forcing him to take a step backwards. But the bug didn't let up though as the moment it landed it launched itself at him over and over, causing John to stagger due to the blows.
'Fuck! I gotta get out of this!' Thought John as the bug delivered a blow to his head causing him some serious pain.
No longer worrying about his form he started swatting it and after a few failed attempts, saw it coming straight for his neck again. Not wanting any more hits to the neck John swatted as hard as he could and felt his hand hit something but after that couldn't see where it went.
He wasn't able to search for it though as the monkey and panda then charged him, which caught him off guard and forced him to his knees to avoid the punches aimed at his head. The panda reacted to this as he spun around and landed a kick to John's face resulting in him falling onto his back.
Groaning in pain John rolled onto his side, before spitting a bit of blood that pooled in his mouth before pushing himself back to his feet.
Tigress was shocked when the human got back on its feet, though it did with great difficulty.
Po had landed a kick that would knock most bandits out and meanwhile the human was getting up from the blow. Once on its feet it wiped the remaining blood from its mouth with its hand before getting back into a fighting stance.
She then watched as Monkey and Po tried once again, but this time their attack ended in disaster. The human dodged Monkey's strike only to grab his tail. She was shocked when he then swung him around before having him hit Po in the face which knocked him off his feet and onto his back.
The human then turned his attention to monkey and grabbed him by the neck before raising his fist back and stuck Monkey in the face hard enough to knock him out. With Monkey incapacitated the human let go of it's grip around his neck, and Monkey fell like a sack of bricks to the ground.
The human then took a few deep breaths before turning to focus on her now that everyone else was out, and she tensed as she felt something she didn't feel often.
Fear.
The human then tried to get into its fighting stance, but failed and dropped to one knee as its leg buckled. Seeing her chance, she charged forward and raised her paw as she readied to swipe at him.
As she lunged forward at him she saw his hand float to his hip and before she knew it he had pulled something out and had begun to point it in her direction. Seeing it was similar to the object he used before, she redirected her swipe to it and pushed it out of her way.
It didn't help however as the sound it released was too much for her sensitive ears, forcing her to cover them. The human took advantage of her being distracted and landed a series of punches, before using the object to smack her in the head sending her to the ground. Landing on her back Tigress groaned before trying to sit up, but soon felt something force her back down by her throat.
She brought her hands to the object on her throat and when she opened her eyes she saw the human had planted his foot on her throat and had a dark look on its face. He then took the weapon in his hand and used his other to move the top of the object back before pointing it to her face.
She knew she needed to get free, but when she tried to push herself up, the human brought his foot down harder, forcing her against the ground once again. Looking back up she saw the human point the object at her and all she could do was watch as he pointed it right at the center of her head.
Time seemed to freeze for her as the human's frown grew and its finger closed around a specific part of the object.
'This can't be it' she thought as she growled slightly at the human, with it not even reacting. She then saw out of the corner of her eye a branch come flying over which hit the human outside the head, resulting in the weapon going off just to the side of her.
The human then fell to the side where she could see it was completely out cold, and its hands empty as the weapon sat a foot away from it. Sitting up she turned to see it was Viper who had thrown the branch and was now slithering up to help her.
"You okay?" she asked as Tigress grasped her throat before pushing herself off of the ground.
"I'm fine, Viper." She replied as she turned to see the others were getting back up as well.
"Ah my head…" groaned Mantis as he rubbed it before getting off of the ground. "Did we win?" he then asked as he and the others turned to see the human out cold.
"I guess we did." Responded Crane who walked up to an unconscious human, as the other walked up as well.
"Is it dead?" asked Monkey as he couldn't tell if the human was alive or not, as it didn't look like it was breathing.
Mantis walked up to it before jumping on the human's shoulder to shake it slightly, resulting in the human letting out a light moan.
"Nope." He said as he turned around and jumped off of the human.
"So, what now?" asked Crane, as everyone looked to one another, until Tigress walked forward up to the human.
"We finish this." She stated as she unsheathed her claws and raised her paw out as she readied to slash the humans neck.
'So long… human.' She thought as she then started to bring her arm down, but just as she got within inches of killing the human she was stopped. She turned to see Viper with her tail around her wrist, before slowly releasing her grip when Tigress turned to her.
"Viper?" she questioned as she couldn't understand why she would stop her.
"Tigress, we were supposed to capture it and bring it to Shifu, not kill it." Responded Viper.
Tigress was about to protest when they heard the guards finally catch up to them. Once they entered the clearing Tigress and the other stepped back so the guards could deal with the human.
"Get something to hold it." Ordered the captain, as two of the guards grabbed either side of the human and began dragging him, as everyone started to make their way back towards the village.
Soon they made it back to the musician's village and when the villagers saw what was being called the 'pale demon' in chains, they immediately began cheering. Once in the middle of the village the guards released their hold of the unconscious human, which landed with a thud as the captain turned to the six heroes.
"Well put it in one of the holding cells for tonight and then take it to Char Gom Prison in the morning." He told the six kung fu masters.
Tigress was about to reply when she was cut off from Viper who slithered forward.
"Actually… Master Shifu has requested that it be brought to him for questioning." She explained, as she noticed the minor glare sent to her by Tigress, as it was clear she was still very much against it.
"Of course, masters." He replied before making a quick gesture with his hand, and the two guards picked the prisoner off of the ground before leaving towards the holding cell.
Much to the villager's relief as the 'pale demon' was starting to scare them, with many of them shooing the children away as the guards passed.
"We will be back tomorrow to take it back to the Jade palace ourselves." Viper explained with the guard nodding before leaving, to ensure that the creature was in its cell.
Viper and the others then took their leave as the villagers thanked them until they were out of sight.
"So, what do we do with these?" asked Monkey as he fumbled with the odd-looking objects.
"Monkey be careful… we don't even know what those things are!" scolded Viper as she sent him a look of disapproval.
"WOAH!" Said Po as he grabbed the smaller one from Monkey and began examining it. "THESE ARE AWESOME! Taking About Bringing The THUNDER" he then stated as he admired the weapon until it was ripped from his grasp by Tigress.
"Po! This is a weapon and we don't even know how it works!" she yelled as she knew Po was the most likely to activate the mysterious weapon by accident. "And that 'thing' nearly killed us with it, so don't touch it!" she then ordered as she handed Monkey back the odd weapon.
Things quieted down after Tigress's harsh words besides some small muttering between one another, and after about an hour of walking they reached the jade palace.
When everyone entered the courtyard, they saw Shifu standing at the steps, facing them as he waited.
He looked slightly concerned as he took in the condition of his student, as he wondered what had happened to result in them returning in this condition.
He could have sworn they looked similar to when they returned from fighting Ti Lung.
But his concerns lowered slightly when he saw Monkey holding something that most likely belonged to the 'human', but didn't see it among them.
"Where is the human, and what happened?" he asked as his students stopped in front of him.
"We stopped the human Master… it's currently being held in a holding cell, where we will get it in the morning." Replied Viper as she slithered forward slightly.
Monkey then walked forward as well and presented the weapons to Shifu who began to examine the odd objects. Everything on the object looked to be made in a way that was too precious for any craftsman in China, and he didn't know of any in Europe that would be able to as well. The lines on it were clean and perfectly straight, and the holes lining a section of it looked to be the exact same.
The skill that must have been used to forge such an odd weapon, must be unimaginable. He then turned to look at the much smaller one and was just as impressed with what skill must have been used to forge the weapon. He then turned it over and saw what appeared to be some sort of lever on the side, and with curiosity getting the better of him flicked it.
He was slightly startled when a part of the weapon fell from the grip of the weapon and onto the floor, before reaching down to pick it up. He could see smaller cylinder like objects inside and very carefully pried one free to examine it. While he was looking at it everyone else was doing the same, with Mantis studying it very carefully before appearing to realize something.
"Hold on one sec." he then said before disappearing in a blur, with everyone turning to where the blur went.
A few seconds later Mantis returned with him holding something and turned to Shifu.
"Master, can I see that?" he asked and Shifu obliged and handed it to him.
Mantis then took the smaller object that had hit the guard and soon found it to be similar to the tip of the cylinder.
"So that is what was used against us and the guards." Said Viper in realization as everyone else caught on to what Mantis had discovered.
"But how did it separate from the rest of it?" questioned Monkey as he scratched his head slightly.
Shifu turned his attention back towards the weapon in his hand as he saw another larger lever where another metal piece covered it.
Seeing as that they had removed the odd threatening part of the weapon he decided to test it and activated it. The weapon practically flew from his hand as it went off, with the piece of wood for some of the training equipment exploded into a thousand pieces almost instantly.
Shock was plain on his face as he turned to see the mess the weapon had created. He then turned to look at the where the weapon now laid and picked it up off of the ground.
Looking at the weapon for a moment he then frowned before turning and gestured for Monkey to give him the other one, which was soon dropped in his arms.
"Until the human is interrogated and we learn more about these things, no one is to touch them." He then stated with him particularly staring at Po for a moment before turning to begin walking towards the hall of warriors.
Tigress watched as their master disappeared into the hall, before turning to look at the broken wood. The human had pointed that exact weapon at her and she was sure that if Viper hadn't intervened when she did, that she would be in the same condition.
She just hoped that leaving it with the guards for the night wasn't a mistake.