The fighting gate opened and the first contestant crept out.
It was a big red dragon with wings and hazel eyes—twice as big as the Dragon Warrior. It was a male, and he inched forward slowly and carefully towards the Dragon Warrior, stopping in the center of the ring a few feet away.
The dragon had been in the fighting ring before; Tigress could tell just by former scars that it had achieved through fights that it had won over the years, and how it had no cuff around its neck—it was an older dragon, possibly older than Po. There were not as many lines that littered its body like Chao or the gray reptile who had tried to stop them from escaping, which could only mean one thing...
It was quite an experienced dragon that knew how to hold its own against other, far more vicious beasts that it was forced to fight.
The dragon snorted and growled, pawing at the ground just as Chao had done before Longwei found them, but Tigress knew that it wasn't for the same reasons.
He wanted to fight. He wanted to kill, and he was waiting for a command to do so.
The crowd quieted as the two dragons faced each other from a few feet away in the dirt-covered arena. Besides the seats for the dogs, there was metal that protected the stands all the way around in a circle that Tigress could only guess was for when the dragons accidentally shot a blast of fire into the audience.
"I can't watch," Crane whined to himself, covering his face with a wing.
"It's not him," Tigress tried to reassure the nervous avian. She was just as nervous as Crane, but she was managing to keep herself together. Po had called upon his dragon spirit—his true Dragon Warrior spirit that was a real dragon like the others, and it would know what to do; the 'real' dragons would have no idea what hit them if Po's pure dragon half was anything like it had been when attacking her and Master Oogway.
"I still can't watch," Crane mumbled from behind his wing. A white and black spotted dog sitting next to him forcefully grabbed his arm and he yelped quietly, turning his attention instantly back to the arena; it was obvious that they all had to watch...or else.
Another dog down in the arena handed Longwei a sword that glowed orange in the strongly heated temperature. His master entered the ring with an edge, lifting the sword high in the air. He was standing right in between the two large dragons with an overload of confidence that Tigress could feel all the way from her place in the stands, and for a second she almost admired Longwei's bravery. Shaking herself out of it seconds later, she knew that it wasn't bravery coming from the Dragon Slayer; it was an ego that was just as big as the two dragons he was about to command to fight, and an ego that she was vastly surprised hadn't gotten him killed yet in his venture to 'train' dragons.
There was no time to waste. The dogs in the stands were getting far too impatient by barely keeping their excitement contained, so Longwei didn't even bother with an introduction on what each dragon was named; everyone who had made a bet already knew. Tigress was only focused on Po, sending a silent prayer to Oogway that he was going to make it out alive and well.
Longwei raised the sword high in the air. The red dragon tensed up so hard that Tigress could practically see its muscles straining. The Dragon Slayer dropped his paw down that contained the orange glowing sword, pointing it in the Dragon Warrior's direction.
"Fight!" he shouted at the top of his lungs, bending down to race out of the arena on all fours so as not to get crushed by the oncoming dragons.
But nothing happened—not even as the crowd roared their approval that the show was finally starting.
It never started.
The red dragon wanted to fight, but something was stopping it. The beast remained in place, continuing to paw at the ground. It snorted and whined, hesitant to charge forward.
The Dragon Warrior rumbled and it was then that the crowd noticed something amiss. They growled, watching in confusion at the odd spectacle that was unfolding before them. It was a sight that Tigress recognized from how her son had behaved with the gray reptile.
The two dragons were conversing.
"What's going on?" Viper questioned from her place next to Tigress.
"It's not going to fight," Tigress answered in a whisper, smiling from ear to ear. "It's not meant to fight."
Po's Dragon Warrior spirit—the dragon that emerged once every thousand years as a warning that the end was going to start—had never been an evil entity. The only reason it had ever attacked her and Master Oogway was because it had been ripped away from the mortal realm during a time of need—the end of the world. She and the Five had assumed that it caused the river in the village to rise and nearly drown them, but the river had climbed to unnatural heights because of the End, and the dragon had saved them.
"Fight," Longwei hissed. He'd never left the arena, standing boldly besides the two giants.
The red dragon didn't listen. He kept his attention on Po, never breaking eye contact with the Dragon Warrior. The two continued making garbled speech, communicating in a language that Tigress could only hope to understand; the only thing she knew was that Po's dragon side was winning the fight already in a way that Longwei had never expected him to, and the Dragon Slayer was enraged.
"Kill," Longwei practically shouted, raising his voice higher and banging his sword against the wall of the stands.
The red dragon hardly flinched at his master's actions. To Longwei's outrage, he lowered his head—bending his body downwards in a bow.
Those in the stands howled in anger, just as confused as their Dragon Slayer. The red dragon wasn't supposed to bow; it was supposed to fight, and a fight wasn't what they were getting. Their betting money was being wasted!
"Stop," Longwei ordered. How was it even possible? The so-called Dragon Warrior had to be cheating! "Go back," he told the red dragon.
It lifted itself from the bow, turned, and sauntered back into the shadows of its cage.
"Bring out the next dragon."
The cage creaked open again and a second dragon came out that Tigress had almost come to know personally—the dragon who had taken Chao in its own claws and who had flown away to this very volcano where her son had been for six years, and the dragon who had come within inches of killing Po. In the back of her mind, she wanted to run down into the arena and make another attempt to bring justice to both Chao and Po, but she stopped herself in a reminder that the gray and winged dragon was not what it seemed—especially thanks to the scene that was playing out before her and hundreds of dogs that were becoming impatient.
The Dragon Warrior let out a soft snort, hardly affected by the newcomer who wasn't really a newcomer at all; like Tigress, he knew the dragon. It had just made an attempt to kill him the previous day, something that wasn't so easy to forget. He simply continued to converse and the gray dragon followed suit, nervous but cooperating.
Nervous but listening.
Her smile never faltering, Tigress realized that by allowing his dragon side to completely take over, Po had become a real dragon—and the dragons were listening to their Dragon Warrior. The gray dragon's shy nature when it had first confronted its golden 'enemy' faded.
Another wave of realization swept over Tigress and she had to grip the stand for support as quick flashes of memories and feelings flickered through her mind. It regretted taking her son. It had never wanted to take Chao in the first place; the only reason it had was all on the Dragon Slayer and how he had threatened punishment if it did not comply. Horrible punishments like the cuff...
Tigress still wasn't sure if she ever could, but the Dragon Warrior wanted to forgive him, just like he had wanted to try and forgive Shen before the peacock had all but attacked the panda who had just destroyed every last one of his ships and cannons.
Longwei's expression was almost comical, his red-brown fur turning as red as the magma beneath them when the gray dragon mimicked the red's final action and bowed in respect before turning around on its own terms without the help of his master.
The Dragon Slayer knew that the other dogs were growing more impatient by the minute. Nothing exciting or entertaining was happening, and some were even starting to leave.
"Fine," Longwei whispered in a growl as he signaled to the guards to release the third and final contestant. "Let's see how well you do against this dragon."
For the third time, the cage was opened.
Po could feel himself awakening in his own mind, his dragon half willingly returning to its slumber on its own accord. He could see the arena again—the dogs were shouting complaints and there wasn't a dragon in sight, but he knew that the Dragon Warrior spirit had done its job.
It was a sharp jerk back to reality when there was suddenly an enormous BANG and the inside of the volcano shook.
It was even more of a shock when the broken image of his son came into view.
Chao was even more bruised and battered than he had been before with fresh, new lines that covered his black and white scales. The cuff was still wrapped tightly around his neck from the time that Longwei's second dragon had forced it on, and his yellow eyes had lost what little light they had gained during the short time he'd had with his parents.
It didn't even seem like he was thinking clearly with his eyes unfocused. He reared up, pawing at the air before landing hard on his feet. He shook his head, snorting in a panic.
Chao was panicking and Po finally—for sure—understood why, the bang still echoing in his ears.
Tigress, we have to get out, he said, sending a telepathic link to his wife. He kept his gaze locked on hers in the dispersing crowd, and he could see from her expression that she also knew that the bang wasn't supposed to have happened.
The mountain trembled and the crowd was beginning to notice that something wasn't right. Chao was stuck in a panic, his breathing fast and labored.
Po's mind nearly went blank from the realization that struck him like a pile of bricks as the puzzle pieced itself together why exactly Chao was in such a panic.
The dirt-covered ground in the future that made it seem like the Jade Palace had never even existed...
The smog in the sky that could have only been caused by a major eruption...
Eruption...his vision of the booming and screaming...
It wasn't anyone who had tried attacking the Valley that had been the cause of its ultimate destruction in the future, though that must have been part of the reason it became the Forbidden Zone.
It was a thing, and even though that thing was miles away, it could still reach the Valley where Chao had escaped to the first time; he had been running from something, and it was right under their noses.
The past was happening all over again.
He pulled his mental link with Tigress forward with a strong tug, his heart pounding so hard he could barely think straight.
The volcano is going to destroy the Valley of Peace!