Chapter Thirty-One: The Black Lotus of Hēishén

Yuelen sharpened her blades continually as she hovered over the solitary campfire of the Mongolian camp.

The rising sun's glint reflected off of her shortblades and blinded her temporarily. She looked away in annoyance; just as she had done so, a masked sergeant of the tiger guards approached her, wordlessly extending his arm bearing a message scroll from the Khan's army.

"Gan." she deferred.

The older leopard paced over and received the message in her stead. Unraveling the scroll, the veteran warrior inspected the missive carefully before summarizing for the princess.

"Zhèngzhōu and Xuchang have fallen to our forces, and the horde has pushed on and besieged Xiangyang. The Chinese have amassed a relief force, and an impasse has developed between the armies. There have been significant casualties on both sides."

"Hmph."

The leopardess just kept sharpening her blades.

"We ought to get moving again soon," Gan stated with impatience as he tossed the scroll back to the sergeant, "or else they are going to put too many miles between us."

Yuelen held up one of the blades again, inspecting it and seeming satisfied with her work; she then held it over the fire to remove the last of the dirt and grime which had polluted the metal.

"You are worrying far too much. They grow slower and slower every day - that panda is lagging behind." she declared confidently. "I would have cut him myself only yesterday, had that bird not intervened."

"You think we'll be upon them soon enough, then?" Gan asked as several of the tigers around them were already beginning to demolish the temporary camp.

"I know we will be."

The princess stood at last. The advance party of the Mongols had chased the four masters deep into the mountainous valleys of Shanxi Province, and the particular overlook they found themselves upon now was at the edge of an especially deep gorge. The entire place was thickly shrouded in mist most of the time, and this had made their pursuit even more difficult than it had been before.

Taking in the unsurpassed beauty of the view that extended out before her, Yuelen breathed in deeply. After months of their fruitless hunt for those who had denied them the Dagger of Deng-Wa, the princess was the sole member of their retinue that seemed to have never lost even the slightest bit of self-assuredness; she felt as though she was made to do just this - a born predator. As such, she also had a natural instinct for when her prey was nearing the end of their strength.

"Come now, Gan - we will have my father's prize before this day is out." Yue said, gesturing for the others to follow her down a narrow path along the ravine. "You have my word."

He had lost the resolve to say anything unnecessarily many weeks ago, so Ganbataar just followed after her obediently along with the others. The tigers themselves, the most revered amongst the Kheshig, had certainly upheld their fearsome reputation thus far. They seemed to be diurnal in constitution, ever-resolute despite the changing terrain and conditions - and they hardly ever said anything at all. Even Gan himself was offset by how they seemed perpetually withdrawn behind the onyx darkness of their warmasks.

The Mongols delved deeper into the valley, passing under the mists and making visible the river that weaved to and fro far below them. It was not long before Yuelen appeared to have caught the scent of the Chinese fugitives, as Gan could always discern this by witnessing a noticeable increase in her pace. He started to believe she was telling the truth, that it would not be long now.

The leopard commander hated the thought of this ordeal, the inevitable clash with his own daughter. No good was to come of it. He had been so sure of himself when Mei Ling had first arrived in Khanbaliq. There was a time when Gan believed they truly shared the same understanding of what loyalty truly meant - but to his great humiliation - he had been proven wrong. Now, in order to win back the trust of his oldest friend the Khan, he would have to face down his own progeny. It was sickening to him that deep down, Gan knew that this dark irony was the primary motivation for Khasar sending him on this mission in lieu of someone younger and more fleet of foot.

Shaking off these tortuous thoughts, the old leopard pressed on and did his best to catch up to the breakneck pace of the princess.


The uproar of battle was impossible to ignore for miles around. The resounding hum of destruction was an affront to the unparalleled natural beauty of the lands surrounding the city of Xiangyang. The ambition of the Khan of Mongolia had manifested itself as a terrifying force - one which had ravaged a great swath of annihilative slaughter into the very heart of the remaining strongholds of the Song Dynasty. Now upon the very walls of this most critical bulwark of Chinese resistance, the steppe horde seemed even more determined to see their opponents reduced to nothingness.

The rolling hills south of the Han River provided quite the vista of the carnage - a complete panorama of the two largest armies in all of Asia facing each other down. On one side were the collective defenders of the Middle Kingdom - a healthy mix of grizzled imperial soldiers and recent conscripts - along with mercenaries hailing from numerous corners of the world. On the other was the greatest assemblage of warbands that had ever been set forth upon the south from the Land of the Eternal Blue Sky.

The exchange of siege projectiles and arrows looked like a hazy cloud of sorts from afar, and the sheer number of lives being expended at any given moment was too many for any single mind to comprehend. Wildfire marred the land and turned it black, the soil itself became infertile due to the saturation of blood. The walls of the city remained intact, but numerous weaknesses had long since developed from innumerable hits from the constant rain of ordinance. Each and every day, the forces would collide against one another in the fields before the embattled settlement with furious abandon, only to return to their respective sides of the Han as nightfall drew in.

Night itself was hardly a respite, however. The darkness only made it harder for one to avoid the endless tide of falling arrows and the nefarious plethora of flaming weaponry that fell from the heavens without end. Many soldiers from both sides had preferred a watery grave by drowning themselves in the river instead of burning to death; it was a slight mercy, but an appealing one, nonetheless. Upon the river itself, the opposing navies would contend with one another in wave after wave of boarding attacks that together formed massive floating battle platforms. Dawn was perhaps the most violent time of day, as the resuming of the previous melee from before was always accompanied by phalanx charges from both sides. The chances of survival in such an engagement was slim at best.

It was just such a sight that greeted the remaining Jade Palace masters as they came upon the final stretch towards the southern marches of Xiangyang. Looking down upon the apocalyptic scene was undeniably disheartening.

"We're here." Monkey announced to the others, his tone just as hollow as the expression that was now on his face.

"Woah." added the insect that sat perched upon the simian's shoulder. "Uh, yeah - you win that bet, buddy."

"What bet?" Monkey asked, still struggling to believe his eyes.

"This shit here - this is way, way worse than Weeping River." Mantis clarified. "Thirty wén, wasn't it?"

"Mantis!" Viper scolded, slithering up beside the other two masters. "This is not the time for that."

A crash in the far distance announced the complete collapse of a Mongolian siege tower, the mobile fortification erupting into a column of flame and ejecting numerous corpses high into the air and in all directions.

"Okay, okay - you're right, Vi." the bug admitted. "But just how are we supposed to find Master Shifu in all this mess?!"

"I suppose we start by searching the imperial camp." Monkey suggested, pointing to the improvised fortifications upon the river's southern bank.

Viper nodded as she moved slightly ahead of the other two, "That's the best we can do for now. Let's just try to stay together, alright?"

The snake's upbeat confidence was inspiring, and the other two nodded. The path down the hill and into the Chinese encampments was strewn with carts and wagons full of wounded and dead soldiers, as well as forgotten or discarded war supplies. As they finally came upon level ground, the three masters quickly got lost in the thick crowds of soldiers moving about in all directions. Many of them were drenched in blood and dirt, looking exhausted.

"It seems like we're late to the party…" Mantis commented offhandedly, still in awe of the forbidden spectacle of it all.

Eventually, after much painstaking wandering, a nearby captain recognized Viper as a noble by the tattooed markings upon her back, and approached the masters deferentially.

"Might I be of assistance, my lady?" the disheveled young soldier, a porcupine, offered.

"Yes, thank you." Viper said at once. "We are trying to find someone."

The porcupine tilted his head slightly, "Oh? And who might that be?"

"Our teacher, a kung fu master - the one known as Shifu." she stated with directness.

When the porcupine did not say anything immediately, Mantis hopped down from his friend's shoulder to be in front of the young captain.

"He's short - about your height. Old. Carries a walking staff…. Very ornery. You can't miss the guy."

The porcupine seemed to hesitate for a moment in thought, but then nodded, "Oh yes… I should have known! Follow me."

The masters glanced at one another with encouragement, and quickly set off after the captain - who was doing his best to push his way past much larger oxen and rhinoceroses. Coming to a head towards the center of the great camp, the small group reached a temporary structure that was a slight cut above the rest in quality - clearly the headquarters of the Chinese forces. The porcupine captain parted the folds of cloth that hung over the entrance, allowing the masters to enter, but remained outside himself.

The inside of the place was significantly darker, but the dampened sounds of the battle outside was a welcome relief to the masters who had been altogether smothered by the deafening thunder of the fighting thus far. Now the only thing they could hear was the sounds of an entirely different breed of conflict - a heated argument.

"You should not have led the assault in the first place! You are too valuable to lose!" came the booming deep voice of a richly-armored Chinese tiger.

"It was the only way to prevent further casualties!" was the reply of the all-too familiar raised voice of the grandmaster of the Jade Palace. "We nearly drove them back entirely!"

The two individuals having the argument were separated by naught but a wooden map table that detailed the various positions of the opposing armies along the river. Simultaneously taking notice of the arrival of the three newcomers in the room, both of the arguing commanders turned towards the entrance. There was a moment of awkward silence, the tiger clearly having no clue why a snake, a bug, and a simian were now standing before him.

"Ah, you've arrived." Shifu said uncomfortably.

The three all gave a bowing salute to their teacher of many years.

"Master." they acknowledged in tandem.

The other commander collected himself somewhat before speaking.

"I see." the large tiger said in monotone. "These must be the students you've spoken so highly of."

"Indeed." Shifu confirmed, eyeing three-fifths of the Furious Five with supreme pride. "Masters Monkey, Viper, and Mantis - meet General Li Tingzhi."

The three masters bowed once more, and the esteemed tiger general folded his arms behind him as Shifu paced over to stand between him and the students.

"They are just what we need to turn the tide of this stalemate in our favor." the red panda asserted.


Tigress was tired. She always hated admitting any weakness, especially one so basal and common as exhaustion. How she felt about this did not change the fact that the tiger master and her companions had spent the better part of the last months sprinting back and forth over the vastest expanses of northern China in utter and complete desperation. The ground beneath her paws had become an old but increasingly bitter and unkind friend.

While she had done her best to provide some amount of leadership to the others, Tigress knew that they could see she was fading just the same as herself. Po in particular had gradually become a diminished shadow of himself with each passing day. Something dwelled within the panda that she dared not question - she had not the energy, nor the will any longer to stomach what possibly could be overtaking her friend.

She had been lost in thought for some time as the four were sprinting along the river bed of a narrow gorge for many miles. Suddenly, the tiger master noticed that Po was slowing down once again, and she was forced to lighten her pace to see what was wrong. Also taking notice, Mei Ling skidded to a halt and Crane banked his angle of flight to come around and land.

"Are you alright? We have to keep going!" Tigress urged as the Dragon Warrior remained hunched over and seemingly unable to catch his breath.

"Can't… Can't go on much further." he managed to get out between pained breaths. "I'm sorry… don't know… what's wrong."

The situation seemed to be only growing worse as the panda slumped further downwards, on his knees with a paw in the dirt below. Tigress could already hear their pursuers approaching in the far distance through the impenetrable shroud of opaque mist that covered the valley floor.

This isn't good.

She glanced down the road they had been running along, looking for any kind of helpful demarcation. Fortunately, there seemed to be an aged guidestone near the closest embankment, and the tiger moved over to it in two swift strides. The calligraphic symbols of the stone were hopelessly obscured by moss overgrowth, so Tigress used her open palm to remove it with urgency.

The Black Lotus of Hēishén.

"What is it? Is there shelter up ahead?" Crane asked in a hurried tone.

Tigress nodded back, "I think so, it sounds like a monastery or the like. Whatever it is, we need to try and make it there quickly."

"You can sense it too?" Mei Ling questioned, doing her best to support Po as he still knelt to the ground.

"Yes - they're close." came the tiger master's response. "We don't have much time."

Tigress came over to help the golden cat lift the struggling panda up, and they once again started moving down the road as fast as they could manage. The next few minutes constituted a gradual upsurge of adrenaline, as no matter how much they seemed to exert themselves, the four masters could hear the insidious rumble of the approaching Mongolians growing ever louder.

As things seemed to be coming to a fever pitch, Crane shouted from up ahead, "I think I see it - we're almost there!"

There in the distance, at the top of a slight rise in the shadowed valley's ancient roadway, the mist parted and revealed a lonely tower constructed of tan ceramic tile and redwood; there was no doubt that it was the very place Tigress had mentioned earlier. It appeared to have once been a monastery of some kind and presumably dedicated to the black dragon deity, Hēishén. The presence of two darkened stone dragon sculptures perched along both sides of the lonely roadway like haunting sentinels only confirmed this suspicion. The place had clearly been abandoned for many ages, lost to time itself and forgotten from all memory.

They were nearly there, and Tigress was already trying to scheme up a new plan; the shelter would certainly allow them a much better chance to fight off their determined pursuers.

We're going to make it…

But her thoughts had been premature. Looking back over her shoulder revealed that they were now out of time. Coming up the hill out of the clouds of mist were the first several Mongolian elites. Crane was forced to turn around mid-flight once again, coming to the ground and sweeping them back with a great surge of air; it gave the others a brief moment to stand together against the attackers. Po seemed barely able to hold his arms up in front of him in a defensive posture.

"Here they come!" Tigress yelled, readying herself.

More and more of the tigers in night-black armor were now visible sprinting right for them. It immediately became clear that the masters stood little chance against the Mongols in their current state, and the Dragon Warrior turned to Tigress with desperation all over his face.

"Ti - hand it to me!" he demanded, reaching out his open paw.

Tigress maintained her form but turned her head to him with eyes widened, knowing exactly what Po had meant.

"You can't be serious!" Crane exclaimed, also knowing what was at stake.

Tigress reached for the Dagger of Deng-Wa for a split second, but then decided against it.

"No - I made you a promise!" she denied. "I won't let you hurt yourself!"

In another second the masters were engaged with the enemy who had chased them mercilessly for countless days, and the pent-up fury on both sides was unleashed. Crane and Tigress both shot forward to protect the incapacitated panda master, bracing their limbs against the slashing and thrusting weapons of the first tiger elites to arrive.

Tigress immediately rose into a side-kick that sent her opponent flying off the roadside and into the unseen depths of the gorge; Crane deflected away a saber attack just as Mei Ling leapt overhead and delivered a mortal downward strike with her guandao. She translated the attack cleanly into a thrust that killed the next oncoming Kheshig warrior with the force of their own overzealous sprinting strides.

With another boost from Crane, Tigress was launched forward into three more of the enemy, closing them up with uncomfortable proximity and using their own weapons against one another in brutally efficient movements. She stepped out from amongst them and all three fell dead to the ground - impaled upon each other's sabers.

More of them came, and in steadily greater numbers. Tigress unsheathed her claws with a steady growl, a vocalization that her fellow tigers immediately recognized as a grim and foreboding warning of her lethal intentions. It went unheeded, and her growls became a loud roar.

Now supported by Po, Mei Ling and Tigress lunged forth again - cutting down all in their path as they allowed the downward slope of the road to feed their momentum. While the masters had all been taught to avoid lethal strikes - as their monastic code had always viewed it as dishonorable - now was a time only for survival, and honor was not being considered in the slightest. The razor-sharp claws of the tiger master rent asunder the expensive armor of the Kheshig as if it wasn't even there, and Mei Ling was effortlessly delivering killing strokes as Crane deflected the spears and projectiles the elite fighters levied against them.

The panda master offered assistance where he could, but every few moments, he was unable to stop a red haze from overtaking his vision; the effect was accompanied by a dull headache that had been attacking him for weeks. Without the contributing efforts of the Dragon Warrior, Tigress knew it was only a matter of time before they would be overwhelmed. Their initial momentum advantage was quickly disappearing, and the tiger master looked past the enemies in front of her on the narrow path to discover what she had been dreading all along.

Deep purple eyes glowing in the mist.

It was at this moment that Tigress felt a new wave of rage wash over herself, eager to fight the princess. Mei Ling and Crane could see it, and defiantly fought back the tigers to her left and right - the duel with Yuelen would be hers alone, despite nearly all of them having their own reasons for desiring it.

As the leopardess emerged from the haze further, she slowly drew her matched blades in a manner that practically taunted the tiger master forward. Just as she lifted her arms to strike, however, Tigress felt a sudden pressure against her lower abdomen that she could not quite explain; she realized too late what it was. The Dagger of Deng-Wa had seemingly reanimated once more, and had slid from the folds of her tunic - and before she knew it - the infernal thing had left her possession entirely.

Crane, Mei Ling, and Tigress alike all followed the path of the levitating relic as it shot backwards - and directly into the grasp of Po. Before he had even touched it, the panda's eyes had again turned to a deep red coloration. They all immediately knew that this was a very, very bad sign.

"Down!" Tigress ordered the others, the three of them hitting the dirt as fast as they possibly could.

Not a fraction of a second later, a wide horizontal band of crimson energy sliced the air directly above them. The Mongolian princess also dropped to the ground with agility, but many of the other enemies before the Dragon Warrior were not nearly as quick, being sliced to pieces by the fast-moving slash of pure light that echoed against the walls of the gorge. Some distance back in the Mongol column, where Ganbataar had taken up the rearguard, the leopard commander saw the flash coming and ordered his men down at once. He was at a total loss for how this deadly supernatural attack was levied against them, but there was hardly a doubt in his mind what the source of it had been.

Looking back as soon as they rose, the masters saw that Po had once again been overtaken by the sheer energy of the red chi attack - while he remained conscious and standing, the color of his eyes had not changed.

"Fall back to the monastery!" Tigress said, not hesitating. "Grab him and let's go!"

Taking advantage of the momentary chaos provided by what had just occurred, the others grabbed Po by his arms and escorted him quickly up the hill once again towards the abandoned structure. Crane did his best to buy them even more time with another push of air that stirred the mist in all directions. Yuelen now rose also, inspecting the surrounding casualties of the sudden and unnatural energetic surge. She saw the masters fleeing into the tower upon the distant hill just as Gan came running up to join her with the reserves of the advance party.

"That was what I think it was, right?" the elder leopard questioned rhetorically.

Yue walked to the side of the ravine to see the guidestone that Tigress had cleared off only minutes before. She took note of the title and found it to be an altogether fitting place for her enemies to make their final stand. She turned back to her father's trusted veteran commander with a venomous resolve.

"We're going to burn it to the ground."

Gan looked up to the tower for a moment, knowing what the princess was asking him to do, but badly desiring to refuse her. Yuelen seemed to read him perfectly, ascertaining his hesitance.

"Asking you to give the order is merely a formality. I care not if that traitor daughter of yours is inside as well - we are taking what we came here for."

The Mongol tigers all around started to light fires in preparation for the burning of the place, a simple but inarguably effective strategy for flushing the masters out.

Back up the hill, Mei Ling and Tigress had just succeeded in dragging the unresponsive Po through the threshold of the decrepit monastery tower, and set him upon the wooden floor as Crane did his best to barricade the door behind them. The quiet inside the aged structure was the only true reprieve they'd had since the fighting began.

"Gods… what is it doing to him?!" Mei asked, terrified by the emotionless expression on the panda master's face - she couldn't handle looking into his eyes any longer.

"I don't-" Tigress started, struggling with all her might to try and free the weapon from Po's grasp, "I don't know, but the thing won't move!"

Crane came over now to join the other two standing over the Dragon Warrior, leaning down to inspect the lightly glowing relic for himself as Tigress continued to pull at it hopelessly.

"It seems to have… fused with Po somehow." the bird observed with horrified shock. "Mei - do you have any idea what's happening?"

"Not even a little. This is beyond my understanding of chi or mythic relics." the golden cat admitted in a defeated inflection. "Whatever is happening, it seems like we can no longer stop it!"

Tigress now abandoned the futile efforts, standing to try and figure out their best plan for surviving the current attack. It wasn't long until they began hearing the weighted thunks of flaming arrows hitting the great wooden tower. The situation had just become even more complicated.

Perfect…

"Whatever happens, we need to keep them away from Po!" the tiger commanded with as much resolute confidence as she could muster.

The others thought they might have heard a brief tinge of fear in her tone, nonetheless. Suddenly, they heard a familiar voice call out to them from somewhere outside the improvised fortification that was now set alight.

"Chinese scum! Surrender the weapon and the panda at once!" Yuelen demanded. "I shall spare your lives in return - you have my word."

"Fat chance of that." Crane muttered under his breath.

They all knew what the princess' word was worth. The taunting - almost joking - tone in which she had addressed the masters only reinforced their skepticism. Regardless, none of the masters were willing to give in so easily as that, a burning building around them be damned.

"If you want them so badly," Tigress yelled back at last, "come and take them yourself, coward!"

There was a pause, and the three upright masters watched every possible entrance to the tower vigilantly. The fire continued to spread.

"Ask and you shall receive!" Yue returned. "I will take your lives myself!"

Loud cracking of wood was heard all around as the Mongols were now apparently breaking through the ground floor of the tower with spears and axes. The beam holding back the main threshold gate was sliced in two as the princess herself kicked open the doors with her most trusted warriors. With valiant war cries, Mei Ling and Crane jumped at them - but were almost immediately being driven back by the flood of attackers entering the room.

Yue lifted one of her blades, pointing it directly at Tigress, "This has been a long time coming, you striped bitch! I'm going to enjoy this!"

Seeing her unarmed, the leopardess tossed the other of her paired weapons across the floor at the tiger master.

"Go on - pick it up."

Tigress kicked it aside and stepped forward; she raised her arm and gestured for the princess to come at her with the digits of her paw. Angered by this disrespect, Yue hissed as the other fighters continued to battle desperately all around the burning room. In response, Tigress bared her teeth and let out an unmitigated roar as she attacked with unnatural speed.

Yue was surprised by the fury of the attack and jumped out of the way, preferring her sergeants to receive her opponent's initial wrath. Tigress stepped into their coordinated strikes with fluidity as she first kicked at the knee and then punched the neck of one tiger guard, and swept her other arm across to slash the throat of the other - claws extended. Both were dead before hitting the floor. Now completely terrified, Yue pushed more underlings at the tiger master, but it was of little use as she was killing all of them almost immediately; Tigress had not broken eye contact with the princess the whole time.

Ganbataar now entered the burning building as the engagement was clearly taking much longer than had been expected. The sight he found within was unlike anything he had ever seen in all his years of warfare. Burning support beams came falling from the rafters around the three fighting kung fu warriors who were tearing apart the Khan's very finest soldiers in a bloodlusted frenzy of violence.

"Gan - get over here and help!" Yue screamed, clearly fearing for her life.

The bird master had just disarmed one of his best sergeants and was now standing on one leg and holding a serrated saber in the other; he rose with a spinning flourish using his wings and dropped several elite fighters to the ground before hurling the weapon right at the leopard commander.

"Argh!" Gan exclaimed, lunging to the side.

He watched as the blade was driven an entire foot deep into the woodwork where his head had just been a moment before. Drawing his own shortblades with an air of reluctance, the leopard heeded the princess' orders and began to move at Crane. He took several swipes at the bird, but the avian master was moving out of his reach every time without even trying. Gan looked aside and saw Yue and Mei Ling now dueling as Tigress was still brutally littering the wood below with her fellow striped felines.

The tiger master was by now long lost in a psyche-destroying fury, and had not accomplished her lethal tally without receiving a fair amount of wounds herself; she was bleeding now from many places, but still kept fighting on as if she had yet to be touched.

Trying to refocus on the bird master before him, Gan realized he had momentarily lost his opponent - only to look up at the last second as Crane dropped from the rafters to grab the leopard by the shoulders and sling the old warrior about savagely. Gan's blades were thrown to some unseen corner of the room, and Crane finished by launching his enemy through the burning wall entirely. The leopard flew clear out of the building and down the hill a fair distance, landing unconscious as bits of his armor were shattered to pieces.

Even without one of their leaders, the superior numbers of Mongols were still giving the attackers a massive advantage, and Yuelen began to reassert herself. Slicing up at Mei Ling, the princess split the spear shaft of the golden cat in two, disarming her. While she still lacked her other blade, the leopardess fiendishly loosed a concealed throwing dagger that struck Mei in the side. The golden cat recoiled in pain, staggering backwards as Yue moved forward for the killing stroke.

"Mei! No!" Crane yelled furiously, coming to his companion's rescue by swatting the princess back with his wing.

The avian master stood between the badly wounded Mei Ling and Po who had still remained motionless on the ground this entire time, his glaring red eyes fixated hopelessly at the now-inflamed ceiling. Crane didn't even know what to think anymore. It seemed as if all of life itself was unraveling. The princess was recovering from the daze from his hit, and he looked over to Tigress to reveal a truly disheartening sight.

The tiger master had blood flowing out her mouth steadily, staining the white fur of her throat; she had just secured the head of one of the Kheshig under her arm before recoiling over herself completely and slamming down upon the floor - audibly snapping her opponent's neck. As she was the sole one to rise from the ground, it was revealed that she had a spearhead lodged in her gut; Crane knew it was telling that she had not even bothered to pull it out.

Just when things seemed as if they could not get any worse, Yuelen halted her stride when coming at the bird, clearly amazed by something happening behind him.

"Crane!" Mei choked out feebly, confirming that he had to turn about to see what it was for himself.

Po was standing once again, albeit hunched over and jerking about erratically - as if something else entirely was now driving his limbs. And just as soon as this had started, it stopped. The panda's face raised upwards so that it could be seen by his fellow masters once again - but it was not the same. A twin pair of thick black horns now crowned the bear's head, and his maw was full of large protruding fangs; his rounded small claws were now gone, replaced by sharp razors.

His crimson eyes looked about the burning room for a moment, and the Dagger of Deng-Wa at last fell from his grasp with a loud thud.

"Oh fuck!" Crane exclaimed in understandable shock.

His friend was no longer recognizable, and let out a loud vocalization towards the collapsing ceiling as the beast that was Po fell back to the floor. The development had scared back the Mongol fighters to the other side of the chamber, and Tigress looked to Crane as she struggled with her serious wounds. She could tell this was now beyond a lost cause.

"Crane - take Mei and get the hell out of here!" she yelled, her voice made hoarse from the blood in her mouth.

"But what about you, what about-" the bird tried to plead.

Tigress grabbed the first Kheshig to reach her and threw him vigorously against a column, breaking his spine.

"I said go!"

"I will not leave you to die!"

She jumped over to Crane now, and shoved him towards the hole in the wall that he had previously sent Gan through.

"Find Shifu, and protect our family - what's left of it!" she ordered, looking him in the eyes as she continued to bleed out all the while.

Crane now had tears in his eyes, but he turned away and grabbed Mei Ling before pushing past the Mongols in his way and bursting out from the doomed burning tower. He beat his wings with every ounce of strength he had remaining to get clear of their flaming arrows and vanish into the mist.

Back in the chamber, Tigress was barely able to stand as she turned around. She was unable to do anything as she watched several Kheshig dragging Po's supernaturally-altered unconscious form out and away from the encroaching flames. More burning beams fell to the ground and covered the numerous dead bodies. Refocusing on the foreground of her vision, Tigress saw Yuelen reach down and secure the Dagger of Deng-Wa from the ashen floor.

"At last…" she said, in awe of the archaic relic, "My father shall have the weapon - and the conduit it has chosen!"

Tigress could do nothing but grunt in pain, slipping in her own pooled blood somewhat as she lowered to one knee. But even now, she maintained that same look in her eyes, a true warrior to the very end. She had always known this day might come, and had been ready long ago.

Yuelen flipped the dagger about in her paw as she stepped closer, "Truly, I cannot thank you enough!"

Tigress leaned over more, heaving as she spoke, "He… will not… care."

Yue halted mid-step, raising a brow and leaning down to be on the same level as the wounded tiger, "What was that you said?"

"Your father. He will not care."

"What do you mean?! I have won him his prize - have I not?!"

"This will change nothing… you'll see. It will never be enough. You will never be made Khan."

Yue's face contorted in disgust, horribly wounded in an entirely different manner than Tigress was.

"How dare you! You don't know shit!" she screamed wildly, kicking the tiger onto her back and raising the weapon to strike. "You don't know who I am!"

Tigress just laid there, shaking her head and grinning at the princess with bloodied teeth.

"Auh, but I do. I already know you better than you will ever know yourself."

Her face now mere inches away from Tigress', the princess screamed with uncontrollable rage as she drove the Dagger of Deng-Wa into the chest of the striped feline repeatedly - again, and again, and again. She would have done so without end, had two of her guards not come up from behind and yanked her away with the artifact in hand, exiting from the rapidly-failing structure. The leopardess was still completely manic, chest heaving as she looked about in all directions, eyes wide as if possessed by a world-devouring demon from the before-times.

She watched as the crackling flames of the great conflagration before her gave way to a total collapse of the tower, imploding from within upon itself as the fires consumed it - once and for all.

It was over. Finished.

Yuelen looked down to the weapon still in her grasp, and wrapped her paw around it even tighter. Ganbataar approached, limping up past the obsidian stone dragons that now protected naught but a smoldering ruin. Several of the soldiers held down the bestial remnant of the panda, who was still completely dazed from his apparent transformation caused by the dagger.

"Well?" Gan asked, demanding an explanation for the absolute chaos that he was now looking at. "What the hell happened here?"

"The bird and the traitor escaped. But," she flipped him the dagger, "we have what we came for."

Gan held up the source of all their strife to examine it closely for the first time. It was honestly less impressive than he had imagined.

So much suffering and death… just for this.

He looked away, tossing it back to her in disgust.

"It's time to go; the other fugitives are of little use to us." he said, walking over to the beast and looking deep into its red eyes. "We'll be bringing this thing along as well, it seems."

"It's not like anyone else can use the damn thing… we don't have much of a choice."

The select few survivors of the once-numerous Mongol retinue, all of them covered thickly in blood and ash, slowly began their journey towards the embattled city of Xiangyang. A short time later, they were gone entirely and a stiff wind returned the mists that shrouded the valley.

The Black Lotus of Hēishén was forgotten once more.


Author's Notes:

- Okay... so ehem... that happened

- I'm not going to say too much about this one - only that if this upsets you or the like, I might remind you that this is NOT THE END of the story

- Probably caught you by surprise with this one though... my bad

- Shoutouts are in order for The Great Ying and ShootBANGdang for helping name the tower (which is on the cover art btw); Ying also did some beta reading at like 4am to get this out as quickly as possible so that was awesome

- Thanks for reading, until next time...