Part 6: A Dangerous Gamble

I looked at Yu in my arms, now completely shaking with hopelessness overtaking me. My vision clouded as something was slowly surging forth from my eye. It was a salty and watery substance that I had not dealt with in a long time.

"Yu," I cried, pulling him in close to my face, his muzzle up under mine as I cradled him gently. "My son. We're going to get you the help that you need."

"Daddy…," The little pup weakly said. "Don't cry."

There came a light touch on my shoulder, and I looked up to meet Mafa's eyes. He pulled me in for a hug, comforting me. It was weird. This was the first time he had ever seen me so vulnerable, so helpless, and he was showing both of us such compassion. I stood there, eyes closed, still holding my son in my embrace.

"It hurts dad..." Yu whimpered in pain.

"Don- Don't worry son. Everything is gonna be alright," I reassured him. "And see. Tigress is here."

Pulling out of our group hug, I turned Yu back over to Tigress and let her hold him. The three of us sat down at the top of the steps, right at the entrance of the temple. I buried my head into my lap with my arms around my pathetic face. Mafa remained quiet.

"What are we going to do?" Tigress was the first to ask. Mafa and I looked over back at her without a response.

"Well perhaps you could start by explaining what it is you are doing up at this hour and why you are with these two outlaws." Another voice came from inside the temple. All of the fur on the back of Tigress's neck stood. She hissed a little and her ears flipped back as she jumped up to her feet and turned to face whoever it was that had caught us.

"Shit," I mumbled under my breath while standing up.

"Master Shifu," Mafa said.

"That's my name, and just who might you be?" the old Kung Fu master questioned him.

"My name is Mafa sir. I am an old friend of Tigress's," he answered, getting on both knees to show respect.

His face glowed and I felt the heat coming from him. It was fair to say he recognized me, but of course everyone around here who was a major martial artist knew who I was. I used to be the right hand man to the deceased crime lord Shen.

"You have one minute to begin explaining why you're here before I call everyone else here on you and I alert the whole village to your presence Wolf Boss," he demanded, slamming the edge of his staff on the floor.

"Master Shifu-" Tigress attempted to intervene.

"Quiet Tigress! I'll get to you in a second," Shifu cut her off.

"Master Shifu," Mafa attempted to help.

"Quiet Mafa!" Shifu cut him off, his voice raised a bit more in intensity. "Now explain now."

Yielding to him, I lowered myself onto my knees and set my hammer and other weapons in front of me showing that my intentions were peaceful.

"I'm trying to save my son. He's been poisoned by a band of tigers and they said that the antidote was stored here with the Scroll of the Dragon Warrior," I said.

Shifu looked back to the pool of water that sat below the scroll and then to me.

"Do you really expect me to believe that you, one of China's most wanted criminals has turned over a new leaf in the past two years just out of nowhere and now needs the help Dragon Scroll in order to save some kid, who is most likely just putting on this elaborate hoax to-," he stopped in the middle of his monologue upon reaching Yu, seeing him pant in his unconscious state and his muscles twitching non-stop. "Oh my, he really is sick. There's no telling how long he has until whatever it is that has poisoned him finally kills him."

That was all the convincing that he needed.

"Tigress, retrieve the scroll," Shifu ordered, "I'll go wake the others to be on standby just in case those bandits attempt to pay us a visit."

"Master wait!" she attempted to call out to the old panda, but he was already gone.

"Don't worry about him," Mafa stopped her. "We need to figure out where that scroll is."

I stood up once again, with Mafa and me standing in front of Tigress.

"I'll stay here with Yu and keep an eye on things around here while you all go search for the scroll," I said, pulling out my hammer and shuffling my son gently into my right arm.

Mafa and Tigress both nodded. They split up with the him making a sweep of the courtyard and her searching other parts of the inside of the temple. I was left alone with my own thoughts while watching over my boy.

Yu stirred slightly in my arm and he opened his eyes, looking up at me.

"It still...hurts," he whimpered. The pain was immense. That much was easy easy to figure out going by what Mafa told me about the poison.

"Just hang in there son. I know that's asking too much of you right now, but you need to be strong. We will make it through this," I reassured him.

"And so we find the hounds in the same situation ," a gruff voice said, coming from behind me.

Turning around, I saw who it was that had spoken to me. The person was all too familiar to me.

"Pung!" I growled at him, barring my teeth and readying my hammer in my other hand while tightening my grip around Yu.

"You have a lot of balls to show yourself here, what with the entire Furious Five, Master Shifu, and the Dragon Warrior being on call at a moments notice."

The tiger laughed a bit before giving me a very confident and unsettling smirk.

"I could say the same to you. It's not like you're a regular hero around these parts," he taunted toward me.

As much as I hated to say that this asshole was right, he had been this entire time.

"It's been a rather interesting set of circumstances that I have had to deal lately, but why do even care? Why are you so hellbent on torturing Yu? What problem could even have with me?" I demanded. Enemies were not an uncommon thing for me to have, but I had not had many run ins with big cats except for Tigress back when I served Lord Shen.

Pung smirked a bit and he then pointed his claw at me. His eyes narrowed into a glare and he began to snarl a little bit at me. I raised my hammer in front of me to let him know that I would not allow him anywhere near my son.

"That damned wolf pack of yours! They struck down my wife while she protected our cubs!" he cussed at me. "It was because of you! An entire village not even involved with the affairs of Chinese government or issues. They were all slaughtered! And for what reason!?" he stopped, panting under his breath from his loud rant, rage and absolute hatred filled his eyes. He continued on, "I searched for an answer after finding the charred corpses of my oldest son, daughter, and wife with only my youngest surviving. It was then, while holding my little Leo in my arms that I realized it was because of your kind. All of your kind. All they do is steal, pillage, and kill."

I was at a loss of words. Guilt streaked through me as the flashbacks of my own history came surging up through to the surface. Remembering everything, I dropped to my knees, feeling the tears falling down my eyes.

"Hu Village," I said.

He growled, "You know the one. You know all too well what you did. And now… you shall feel the same pain that I once felt. The agony that is losing your own children, or in your case, your only son." At this point, Pung stood nearly two feet in front of me.

Looking to my son, I saw him struggling with the pain of the poisons. For the umpteenth time, the hopelessness of this situation punched me straight in the face, but it was in all that a few new feelings started to emerge. My blood started to pump as my breath to pick up. Renewed determination coursed through my veins with a simultaneous strongly burning rage being ignited inside. It was not too late to save my son.

"Gah!"

Pung recoiled back as he was not prepared for the surprise slamming of my blunt hammer across his face. He was sent flying a good four to five feet with another foot across the ground. I rushed him. Taking the small window of time I had until Pung recovered from the hit, I gently set Yu on the ground.

"Tell me!" I screamed, rushing to him and grabbing him by the scruff of his neck. "Tell me where the antidote is!"

The tiger opened his eyes seeing my fist reared back.

"Aha- Ahahaha," he laughed a bit under his breath. Did he enjoy the situation he was in? It was hard to tell, but something had to be up.

"Stop laughing!" I yelled, punching him hard in the nose, knocking him back, causing him to knock his head on the ground hard on the jade floor. The tiger stopped moving and I panted heavily. The physical exertion from just now on top of the past two days of hardly any sleep bagn to show a little bit, but I still had plenty of fight left in me.

"Let my father go you son of a bitch!" I heard from on an unknown younger voice, coming from behind.

Turning back around, I was shocked to see another tiger standing in the doorway behind me with a round silhouette of a body on the ground behind him. The kid couldn't have been around sixteen years of age at the most. For a moment I stared, not even putting two and two together to realize who this kid was.

"You're… Pung's oldest son." I said, still curious as to who the person was laying behind him.

"And you're the piece of shit that killed my baby brother, baby sister, and mother," he snarled back at me.

I stepped back at bit from Pung, easing up a bit to make sure this kid didn't do anything rash. He was standing inches away from Yu.

"Now you better let him go and get on out of here, or more than just your son will die tonight by our hands."

"What do you mean by that?" I asked.

It then made sense. The pudgy round person I could barely make the details of behind the kid.

"Don't tell me that's-"

"The Dragon Warrior," the kid interrupted me, finishing my sentence for me, "his goose of a father, and an entire village filled with citizens who's lives I'd rather not see the villagers die in a fire tragic that was started by a 'lightning strike'.

"How could you even think about doing such a-" I stopped myself mid-sentence. Of course I couldn't say anything. This was the same question that would have been thrown at me had I been handed similar circumstances.

"What do you want?" I asked him.

"For you to hand over my dad before I take out my knife and kill your son right here and now," he threatened me, pulling out his knife and standing right over Yu. This put me in an even bigger bind than before.

"Zhong!" Mafa's voice was loud as he entered the scene, seeing everything that had happened.

We both saw him, the entire Furious Five, and Shifu standing together in the hallway entrance. Mantis, Viper, Monkey, and Crane were unaware of the context of what lead to this, but were still shocked.

"Really now, are you willing to try to risk the life of your own father," I said back to him, grabbing the unconscious tiger and putting him into a hold, ready to suffocate him to death.

"You wouldn't dare." He stopped what he was doing.

"Yes I would!" I screamed back. "If my son dies, so does Pung. He is the family member you have left living in this world isn't it? If you want to see your father live, then tell me where the antidote to the poison is, release the Dragon Warrior, release his father, and call off your men."

A quick glance at the expression on the others' face confirmed what I assumed they were thinking. They were horrified by the actions I was willing to take.

"So you tell me, is the life of your dad worth that of exacting revenge?"

He showed conflicting emotions in his eyes. His emotions were that easy to read like a book. Part of him wanted sincerely wanted to see the man who his loved ones away from him suffer, but would he resort to sacrifice his father's life for that desire? It was impossible for me to tell.

"I..." he stammered.

"Zhong! You stop this right now. We can work this out peacefully," Mafa tried to convince me.

"There are more diplomatic ways of approaching this," Crane added.

"Shutup!" I snarled back at both of them. "I know what I am doing,"

The child paid no attention to them and fixated only on Pung. He knew that he was incapable of killing a little kid. As much as his father had done, the kid knew better than him.

"Alright..." he said. Tears were streaming down his eyes as dropped the knife and reached into his vest and pulled out a small vial that was strung about a necklace around his neck. Unplugging it, he poured the liquid into Yu's mouth and raised his neck to make sure he downed it. I held my grasp on Pung, waiting to see if that had done the trick.

"Please don't be too late… I'd never able to live with myself if he died." My mind echoed that thought several times over the course of the next ten minutes as we waited.

"Is he alive?" Mafa asked, impatiently watching.

"Check and see if he's alive… and then I'll bring your father over to you.

The tiger begrudgingly obliged and knelt down next to my son, putting his ear to his chest to listen for a heartbeat. Every single muscle in my body tensed up and I felt my arms starting to spasm a bit.

"Please be okay," I muttered to myself under my breath. Everyone else was on edge. We could all feel the anxious vibe in the atmosphere.

"He's breathing just fine," he said, "Now hold up your end of the bargain or else I'll be forced to set the entire village on fire and unleash the poison upon the Dragon Warrior and Mr. Ping. It would be unfortunate if they ended having to be brought into this."

Monkey, Crane, Viper, and Tigress all attempted to rush down the child without a word, but they were stopped as an entire band of about fifteen other tigers dressed in black outfits jumped down out of the shadows and blocked, preventing the six from proceeding forward albeit for a few seconds.

"Stop if you know what's good for you, or else Feng won't hesitate to plunge that knife straight into Po's heart," one of the tigers warned us. I looked at Feng to see if he was serious about this. He took a step back, pulled a knife out of a sheath on his vest. It dripped with green liquid that I could I only guess to be the same poison his father had used on Yu. Standing over the panda, he made his intentions clear that he was not bluffing. While the teenager may not have been able to bring himself to pull through with senselessly taking the life of my son, he had upheld his end of the bargain and would kill as an example if it meant protecting his father's life.

I approached him slowly. Setting the unconscious tiger down next to Feng, I looked to him and he motioned toward Yu.

Kneeling down, I picked him up in my arms and I pulled him close, with him no longer flinching or crying in pain at the slightest touch.

"Daddy?" Yu said, starting to come to.

"How are you feeling?" I asked.

The child squirmed a little bit. I let him out of the embrace and saw that he was alive and well.

"I feel better. What happened?" he asked me back.

"I got you the antidote, and you're going to be just fine," was all I could say before pulling him into another hug. This time he embraced me, we kept hugging for I don't know how long. All I know is that my son was going to be alright, however, something else was off. The pain had come very delayed, as it didn't feel it until after seeing the blood.

"Dad!" I heard the screaming and frantic cries of you coming.

Looking down, I saw the edge of the knife that Feng had been holding, sticking out of the right side of my chest. "No..." I barely managed to make the words out before everything went hazy. Collapsing to the ground on my side with a loud thud, I felt the pain of the impact plus that of the blade. It was very intense, more so than what I have ever expected from being stabbed with a weapon.

"Daddy!" the cries of Yu echoed in my ears as I saw the shape of a small wolf laying on the ground right next me, seeing the weapon slightly sticking out of my chest.

"Y...Yu." my voice came very weakly, before I blacked out.