And now the aftermath of the horrifying Thor fiasco. Let's see how everyone's handing things after everything that went down at the SkyDome
C/W: Serious injuries
After the tragic and gut-wrenching events that went down at the SkyDome, both Ming and Kris were rushed to the hospital for immediate medical attention. Elsa had driven over to the arena in a hurry after seeing the report of the incident on the news back at home and came just in time to see her son unconscious and unresponsive on the ground. Mei helped her family members poof back into humans, giving them a few quick pointers on how to control their transformations.
Ambulances were called over to the premises and Ming and Kris had been placed on stretchers and escorted away.
Mei chose to ride with Kris and Elsa to the hospital.
Once they arrived, Ming Lee was placed in a hospital bed, given anesthetic and tended to by the nurses and doctors. To say that she was a little beaten up would be a huge understatement.
Her injuries were terrifyingly brutal at best, though it was a miracle she was still kicking after the whole ordeal. Her nose was broken, she had a swollen black eye, along with a couple other purple and pink bruises, she had a fat bottom lip, few of her front teeth had been punched out of her mouth, several tiny cuts were laced around on her skin, her neck had been broken and placed in a cervical collar to help keep it aligned, her broken left arm as put into a cast as well as her broken leg, which was suspended in a cable.
No electrical burns, though. Supposing her thick red panda pelt must've been durable enough to absorb most of the electricity.
Meanwhile, Kris was placed in the ICU and was still out cold showing signs of waking up any time soon. It wasn't cruel to say that Elsa was quite distraught seeing her baby boy like this. Wu and the aunties were faring quite well as far as anyone else was concerned. Thor, thankfully, didn't pummel them as hard as he did Ming. Then again, he was only keeping them out of his way.
Ming awoke from her anesthetic-included rest to see all four aunties sitting in her room with her. Ping was sitting on the right side of the bed, Helen on the left side and Chen and Lily sat in chairs across from them on the other side.
"Hey, girlth." Ming weakly greeted them all, her voice having taken on a lateral lisp due to her missing front teeth.
"Hey, baby sis." Ping greeted with a rather stiff, but comforting glance. "How are you feeling? You okay?"
"Well, conthidering the fact that I wath nearly beaten to death, I think I'm juth fine." Ming remarked, but sighed sadly and grabbed the glass of water on her left with her unbroken arm while Helen helped her with the straw since she couldn't rotate her head.
"Yeah, that was insane." Lily remarked with surprise. "I still can't believe what just happened. Lightning, wind, thunderstorms, right out of nowhere and that large fat guy with a…..flying hammer?! I mean, you're lucky to even still be alive."
"Tho I gueth the ritual failed?" asked Ming, noticing everyone's red hair.
"Yeah, pretty much." Chen sighed.
"Tho what now?" Ming asked.
"We're not so sure yet." explained Ping, shaking her head. "But we'd like to have a word with you about the Bengtsson kid."
"Krith?"
"Yeah." Her older sister nodded with a firm stare and tone, looking her directly in the eye. "Ming, did you abuse that boy?"
"No, of courth not." Ming reached for the glass of water again, but Helen snatched it out of her reach with a slight glare of her own. "Girlth, come on. Did we all mith the part where he juth tried to kill me?!"
"We know. It was scary for all of us." Chen chimed in. "But before that, I seem to recall you screaming into his face, insulting him, calling him rude names, trying to squeeze the life out of him and breaking his guitar into pieces. Did I miss anything there?"
"And worse, you almost got her own daughter killed over some concert she wanted to go to." Lily concluded. "I mean, you could've crushed her in your giant panda paw."
"I….I wathn't thinking, okay?! I had no control of mythelf." Ming tried to reason with them. "But it'th not like I exthpected him to turn into a hammer-thwinging maniac."
"Doesn't matter!" Ping yelled, slamming a hand on the nightstand next to her.
"And not only that," Lily began, crossing her arms. "But we were informed that Kris used to work for you back at the temple, worked his butt off for you and yet, you treated him like shit. Like a slave, more like. Mei told us everything. Including the part where you slapped him in the face and called him a 'retard' before you fired him. What was that all about anyway?"
"I wath…I wath juth trying to keep Mei-Mei thafe." Ming explained, her eyes drooping to show some deep regret in her actions that day. "I know that wath an unfair thing to do. But you guyth know me. I don't have the beth thelf-control out of all of you."
"That's no excuse, Ming." Ping countered strictly, almost making her sister wince. Ping always seemed to be the most reasonable out of the three sisters. "Protecting your daughter does not excuse the hell you've put him through up until this point. Just because you don't like him or trust him, doesn't mean he's in the wrong. And maybe I'm assuming that if it wasn't for all of that, he wouldn't have gone crazy on you."
Ming sighed deeply, knowing her sister had a point and said truthfully, "Okay, yeth. I did, in fact, treat him unfairly thince he thtarted working for me. I nagged him, I berated him, I bothed him around, I called him nameth like 'idiot' or 'thug', thomtimeth he came over with bruitheth and woundth and I barely even cared. And he wath very good at the regithter, but I alwayth paid him very leth."
"Oh, Ming." Helen sighed exasperatedly, rubbing her temples. She and the others were able to make out her words, despite her speech impediment at the moment.
"Honestly, I'm not even a little surprised." Lily shook her head.
"Ith Krith okay, at leatht?" asked Ming, now feeling surprisingly worried for the young boy, despite her poor judgment of him and the events that had transpired.
"He's in a coma." Wu deadpanned as she stepped into the room.
"What?!"
"Doctors have tried all they could." The old woman stated. "But he's not reacting in any way. They're unable to explain what's going on. Now as for our red panda situation…"
"I know, mother." Her injured daughter persuaded. "I thcrewed everything up. But it'th going to be okay."
"Okay?!" scoffed Wu, who pointed at her red hair as panda ears sprouted from it. "Look at this! You call this okay?! That ritual was Mei's only chance of getting rid of her panda and now thanks to you, we all have to deal with this until the next red moon! How are any of us supposed to live like this until then?!"
"Mother, please." Chen argued. "Mei tells us she knows how to handle her panda. Perhaps we could learn a little something from her."
"But even so, no one else will take us seriously out there." Wu sighed, rubbing the stress from her face. "I'm gonna look like a fool back in Florida."
"At least my husband was fine with my panda until it was sealed away." Ping brought up. "He's handled it before, he can do it again."
"Where'th Mei-Mei?" asked Ming.
"She and Jin are in Kris's room on the next floor up." Helen answered, putting the glass back on the nightstand. "She was super distraught about the boy. She practically refused to leave his side."
"It's almost like she has a crush on him." said Lily with a smirk.
"The what? A cruth?" Ming's eyes widened, but didn't argue about it since she knew deep down that Mei had a rather soft spot for the Norwegian boy based on their past interactions. "Oh. I thuppoth that maketh thenth. The and him have gotten along very well. Until I got in the way."
"Let's worry about the positive right now." Chen replied. "All things considered, in spite of the SkyDome incident, which I really can't blame Kris for, I really hope that boy pulls through soon."
"But if he doesn't, it'll be on your head." Wu jabbed a finger at Ming, who only nodded.
Stig sat outside Kris's room with Roar, Rudolf and their girlfriends as they all sat in silence with quiet worry and sadness. Tyler was taken home by his parents. The incident earlier was still fresh on all their minds and it was eating them from the inside. It was a deeply traumatic experience. Getting attacked by Mei's giant red panda mom on a rampage was scary enough, but seeing Kris transform into a psychopathic, murderous god with a powerful hammer and the power of storms at his fingertips trying to kill Ming in a blind rage was something else.
"I knew we shouldn't have taken him to that concert." Stig murmured. "I told you this was a bad idea."
"Don't." Priya told him strongly. "None of us knew this was going to happen."
"But still, I already said this wouldn't be a good start." Roar added in. "We should've gone to eat pizza instead."
"Did-Did we ruin his birthday?" asked Abby sadly and mournfully.
"No. Of course not." counseled Roar. "If anything, if Mrs. Lee hadn't shown up, maybe all of this could've been avoided. But it's worth noting that we were the ones that put Kris in this situation in the first place."
"Roar, please." Miriam piped with begging eyes.
"Who even was that guy?" Rudolf asked, wondering out loud. "Those weird clothes and that sparkling hammer thing? And the storm? Was Kris doing all of that?"
"Kinda seemed that way." Abby murmured.
"So you mean, none of you have known any of this?" asked Priya.
"No. We've never seen him do that before." Stig answered with a shake of his head. "I think he's been keeping to himself about it. But whatever that was, it could be related to the Norse runes he's been writing on his bedroom walls. But I'm only speculating here."
"I just hope Kris will be okay." Abby said, tears leaking from her eyes.
"You and me both." Stig sighed sadly.
"So Kris has electrical powers?" Rudolf asked. "That's kinda neat. Really kinda wish he had told me, though."
"Maybe he just didn't want to scare us." suggested Roar.
"I guess that's…accurate." said Miriam, with a small shrug of her shoulders. "To be honest, we were scared by Mei's red panda when we first saw it."
"Yeah, but Kris just turned into a big, fat dude that flies around with a sparkling hammer and he made a thunderstorm appear out of nowhere. That doesn't just happen." Roar pressed on.
"Neither does turning into a red panda, but that wasn't such a big deal." Miriam stated matter-of-factly.
"Tell that to Mei's mom." grumbled Stig. "We were all there. We saw it."
"Which, by the way, what were you thinking?" Priya turned to her boyfriend with a face that his mother would give him. "You could've gotten yourself seriously hurt."
"When my brother's in danger, him not getting hurt is my only concern." The goth boy said.
"Okay, I'll respect that. But just…don't ever do that again, alright? I can't bear to let anything happen to you."
"I know, cara mia." Stig said and breathed heavily, looking her in the eye. "Sorry I scared you like that."
"All things considered, I just really hope Kris will be okay." Abby said, starting to cry. "I don't think I'll forgive myself if he doesn't make it."
"He has to." Stig reminded her strongly, though he wasn't too positive about it himself. "Kris is a fighter. But those eyes. That look he had in his eyes. I've never, ever seen him so broken since…..well, not since ever."
Rudolf, on the other hand, was deep in some serious detective work.
"Hmm, those medieval clothes looked Viking-like." He thought aloud, rubbing his chin. "A large, sparkling hammer that flies back into his hand, storm powers, super strength, hmm. All this sounds suspiciously similar. Hmm, hmm, hmm….meh, I'm sure it'll come to me later."
"Well, try not to overthink it." Stig reminded him steadfastly. "And don't come to any weird conclusions, either."
Elsa sat by her boy's bed in tears, sobbing over her son's critical condition. Mei sat on the other side of the bed, holding an ice pack to her black eye and looking down at Kris with complete remorse, her guilt over the incident weighing tremendously over her shoulders. If she had just spoken up back at Tyler's party and hadn't let her cowardice get the better of her, maybe Kris would've been spared from the consequences. Jin dejectedly sat next to Mei, holding a hand over her shoulder comfortingly.
Then the broken-hearted mother stood up and stared at Mei and the girl almost jumped when she saw her expression, which was a mixture of depression, anger and confusion. Much scarier than any face her own mother had given her in the past.
"So…" She began with a dangerous tone. "Anyone care to explain to me what exactly happened?"
"Um…" Mei stammered, trying to find the right words and not aggravate her. "Well, you see, my mom…"
"Did her red panda do this to him?" Elsa interrupted firmly.
Mei and Jin's eyes both widened.
"Wait, you knew?" The nerdy girl shouted.
"Your hair is bright red just like hers was long ago." Elsa explained, crossing her arms. "And she showed her red panda to me. Funny thing, I actually thought she was going through a phase at first."
"Ming never mentioned any of that." Jin brought up.
"Do tell." Elsa droned, unsurprised.
"Uh, well, anyway…" Mei continued while growing increasingly comfortable. "Yes, my mother did attack the SkyDome while we were there and there's no easy way to say this, but she was humongous. Bigger than a skyscraper, even. She yelled at Kris, insulted him and almost crushed in with her paw. Then she broke his guitar. On purpose."
"Hmm." murmured Elsa with an unchanged face, now making Mei feel nervous. "So she purposely destroyed the guitar that his father had given him on his 5th birthday?"
"Uh…" Now Mei was at a loss for words. That guitar was a gift from his absent father? Now this would certainly make her mother look like a monster.
Just then the door opened and Wu entered the room, gasping upon seeing Elsa there.
"Elsa Bengtsson." She said with surprise. Now she remembers why that surname sounded so familiar to her.
"Wu." She said back to her stonily.
"So listen…" She was about to explain everything when Jin interjected.
"We already told her."
"Wait, what? So you know about the-"
"Red panda? Yeah." Elsa turned to face the elder woman. "I've always known."
"You-?" Wu's voice froze as did her movement. "So you're Kris's mother?"
"What gave me away?" Elsa replied a bit snarkily. "Other than the fact that I'm standing in this room?"
"Still stubborn and flippant as always." Wu shook her head, already familiar with the woman's attitude. "It's no wonder you and Ming got along back in the day."
"So what else happened? Besides Ming smashing Kris's guitar, mind you."
"Well, how do I put this?" Mei prepared herself to confess the whole Thor situation. "Kris has electric powers."
"...what?" Elsa stiffly said.
"Yeah." Jin joined in. "He zapped Ming in the face with a lightning bolt and then turned into a large, fat guy with tattoos and strange medieval clothes with a large hammer weapon of some kind. Then he beat up Ming, made her shrink and zapped her a bunch of times."
"And I think he was the one causing the storm." Wu finished for them.
Silence.
That's all that followed afterwards.
An eerily still, stone-cold silence fell upon the room as Elsa stared blankly, wordlessly and the three waited patiently with baited breath for her reaction. But Mei's heart told her it probably won't be a good one.
.
.
.
"Get out."
"Elsa."
"No, wait, I'm telling th-"
"I SAID GET THE FUCK OUT!" Elsa screamed loudly at them, making them all jump and fired a finger at the door. The glare in her eyes scared the wits out of all of them. "ALL OF YOU! OUT!"
Not wanting to be told again or to make anything worse than they already are, all three Lees quickly evacuated the room in direct response to Elsa's furious, angered shout. Clearly, she must've figured that they were making a mockery of her tragedy. Once out of the room and closing the door behind them, they all took a moment to collect themselves and process their thoughts. The girls and the boys were all sitting there outside and had turned their attention to them as they came out.
"So how'd it go?" Stig asked.
Mei only gazed back with a frightened and saddened look in her eyes.
"I'm sorry I asked." The boy rolled his eyes, shaking his head.
Then Wu's cellphone rang, which brought an icy chill to her heart, knowing that it wouldn't be good. She slipped away to answer it and tried her best to put on her game face.
"Yes?" She answered, then her stoic and cordial expression dropped. "Xue? Oh, hello, sister….Um, everything's fine. For the most part."
As the conversation went on, Wu's pupil's dilated.
"She's what?! Xue, no! I mean it! Don't you put her on! Don't you put-!"
Too late.
Wu had to force a smile, which she miserably tried to keep from cracking from under pressure.
"Mother! Hello! H-How are you?" She stammered nervously, finally letting her smile fall as she listened intently. Then she began to sweat. "Um, well, about that…ehhhh…"
Then Wu winced the instant her mother's voice on the other end reached a surprisingly high volume, clearly not handling the news very well.
"Mother, we tried our best! Honest! But Mei had refused to cooperate and then there was this boy who-"
Wu was cut off, forced to listen to her mother rant on and on.
"But mother, we will fix this. I promise. We just have to-"
Dial tone.
Her mother had hung up on her.
The old woman let her poor legs give out and she slowly slumped to the ground in sad and utter defeat.
Without exception, things were not looking so bright for both the Lees and the Bengtssons. And there wasn't a shadow of doubt that Elsa won't be forgiving Ming for a long time because of what happened to her son.
And then the media circus rolled in.
Reporters, journalists and announcers in television cited the SkyDome incident as a phenomenal and unparalleled event with everyone baffled at seeing a giant red panda monster attack the 4*Town, but was just as startling was when the mysterious hurricane appeared completely out of nowhere.
Scientists and meteorologists alike were gobsmacked and unable to explain or figure out how such a massive thunderstorm could just show up out of the blue, especially when they didn't predict any storms to occur that afternoon on the weather channel. There have been theories surrounding this unnatural phenomenon, none that are too easy to hear. Many have had names for the incident at the SkyDome, like the "Pandocalypse of 2002", "Attack of the Red Panda", or, in regards to the storm, "Hurricane Blanco". The aftermath of the storm, to the least, was tremendous. No one was hurt or killed, thankfully, but there were massive amounts of damage compared to the SkyDome. Buildings sustained lots of broken windows, smashed walls, trees, cars and so much much had been strewn everywhere all over the place and no doubt was going to take a lot of time and money to fix and clean up.
And as for Ming on the other hand, she was eventually out of the hospital, albeit in her neck, arm and leg casts and with a lone crutch to help her walk. But her troubles were only just beginning. She wasn't arrested, but due to her furious attack at the arena, she had received a court summons and was forced to attend a court hearing the following day to discuss her punishment on the matter, of which she is found guilty of public endangerment, massive collateral damage, along with minor assault on a security guard as well as trespassing on school property.
Now, technically, most of the damage she hadn't done to the arena was the result of Thor's tantrum, coupled with the citywide damage the rest of the city had taken because of the storm, but Ming knew they weren't going to believe that part, but also because she was the one who started the whole mess to begin with, especially when she had provoked Kris into beating the crap out of her, so she wanted to take responsibility for her own actions as a way of owing it to Kris for her actions against him. And with other people she'd wronged such as the school security guard, Devon, Tyler's parents, some of the parents of the children who were at the concert at the time and especially Elsa (who had broken down into tears at the stand) having testified against her, Ming admitted that she was not free of blame, but begged not to be thrown in jail.
The judge felt some sympathy for her and her predicament, but that didn't mean she was going to be let off the hook easily.
So instead she was given an ultimatum: Ming has to pay off a debt of $100,000,000 in order to pay off the damages done to the SkyDome within the next seven months or else she will face criminal charges and be sent to federal prison for 10 life sentences. And until that debt's been paid, she will be placed on house arrest. Not allowed to leave her house for any reason whatsoever. If Ming ever set one foot outside the house, tried anything funny or failed to have her debt paid before the end of the deadline, then the police will be informed to come and arrest her immediately.
Fortunately, Ming will probably not be able to become a red panda while in her crippled state. But unfortunately, the Lee Temple has been their source of income for years, so how was she gonna be able to make $100,000,000 in just seven months if she couldn't leave the house? Mei decided to step up and fill in her mother's shoes by giving out tours at the Lee Temple, which thankfully, still received customers despite Ming's rampage. Jin helped run the register at the gift shop. And despite their anger towards Mei because of what happened to Kris, her friends all came to help them out in making the money they needed to help save her mother from prison.
Abby, of course, volunteered to wear the red panda mascot suit. Tyler even offered a decent couple hundred bucks behind his parents' backs since he felt bad for Mei's situation. However, Elsa, her family, Roar and Rudolf had refused to offer any assistance, but Ming couldn't blame them for all the trouble she's caused. Not to mention that their primary concern was Kris alone.
Wu and the aunties decided to stick around and help out as well to drum up some cash.
Because the plain and simple fact was that because they had failed to complete the ritual in time before the red moon eclipse ended, they were now stuck with their red pandas until the next red moon the following year.
Under Wu's orders, they had to look for some temporary houses to stay at for the time being and had to hire housesitters to look after their residences while they're gone. Ping's husband, Shan, came over to stay with her, unable to take being apart from her for that long. As mentioned before, Shan wasn't bothered by his wife's red panda at all and even loved cuddling up against her soft red fur, which almost made Ping feel bad about sealing her panda away in the first place. Lily's daughter, Vivian, had to be placed in the care of her great-aunt, Xue, in China where they lived while keeping in touch with her mother.
During their short-term stay in Toronto, Adam allowed Helen to stay with him and his daughters at their apartment. After a while, Helen started getting along well with the two girls, even having some occasional girl bonding times, almost taking on a mother role for them. None of them minded her red panda at all. Hell, even Jaz was practically hooked on it, much like Abby and Stacy were and Helen's never felt that much appreciation for her panda in her life. Over time, Helen started to fall in love with Adam, having grown quite an attraction to him, because of his love for his daughters and his muscular physique. Adam even opened up to her about his previous marriage with his ex-wife was a bit demanding, condescending and difficult to please since she came from an upper-class family.
Chen began to take a shine to Charlie, having grown to love his company and offered up a room at his residence. He even insisted on sleeping on the couch while offering his bed for her, but Chen didn't want to impose that way and decided to take the guest bedroom. With enough time spent together, they formed a strong friendship for a time before Charlie began to fancy her in a way as they both shared a love for 70's retro music and singers such as Barry White, Olivia Newton-John, Elton John and David Bowie.
And as for Lily, she started falling in love with Tom, finding his sense of humor charming and entertaining and Tom felt an attraction for her since he found the rotund, yet voluptuous woman quite alluring, since he did have a thing for thick women. Toshio didn't seem to like their relationship, but he decided to give her a chance. As a way to bond with the boy, Lily offered to drive him to school and back and take him out for a swim at the local pool, especially since she loved to swim as much as he did. Lily even wondered if Tom would make a good new father for Vivian and if her daughter and Toshio would get along well as stepsiblings.
Wu had some trouble finding a temporary place to stay, so she decided to stay with Jin and Ming at their home and assist in running the temple with them, as well as some stuff around the house while Ming recovered from her injuries. Unfortunately, since they didn't have a guest bedroom in the house, Wu had to bunk with Mei in her bedroom and sleep in a cot, primarily since she wasn't too keen on using the couch, saying that it wouldn't be okay for her back or her hips. Mei, of course, had a few issues with being roommates with her strict grandmother, but what choice did she have? She nonetheless agreed to it as long as Wu kept out of her personal business and her stuff. And Wu would also have to assist with a few other things like the groceries, preparing dinner and driving Mei to and from school. For her part, Ming was especially uncomfortable with her mother staying with them.
Stig, Roar and Rudolf have been doing hard themselves since the incident that incapacitated their friend and they could only hope and pray a miracle would happen. All the other kids at school heard word of everything and gave all their condolences and their support. Stacy, the goth girl, Tyler and yes, even the Monroes.
Last, but certainly not least, nothing could be said the same for Kris, who was not doing so well himself, however. His family got him out of the hospital and placed him in his bedroom where he had to be hooked up to some machines and they would take care of him until he woke up.
Eventually.
Well, it's official. Everything's not going so well. And it looks like Ming has just swallowed a big reality pill after getting her ass handed to her.
And yes, everyone's missed their shot at completing the ritual in time thanks to Thor's violent tantrum. And now it looks like their stuck this way until the next red moon. Kris and Mei's friends are not handling the situation well themselves, especially since it was the girls' idea to invite Kris to the concert in the first place and now his birthday's been ruined. Elsa is handling it way worse than everyone else and truth be told, she pretty much hates Ming for everything she's done to her son and probably won't be forgiving her any time soon.
I've decided to amp up Ming's punishment in this version since I feel like she got let off the hook in the original movie. After all that trouble she's caused at the SkyDome, all Ming gets to do is try to pay off a debt to help repair the damage? Considering how much damage she's caused to have that much money needed to make to pay for the repairs, I think it should've been taken more seriously than that.
And Kris has still not woken up and probably won't for a long while.
Stay tuned.
Next Chapter: Mei, feeling guilty about the events that transpired leading to Kris's current condition, tries to offer support in any way possible. However, Kris's grandfather seems to know something that none of his family knows.
Next Update: March 17, 2023