It was a nice statue without a doubt. A lovely memorial that the local stone masons had sculpted and had very recently delivered and placed within the memorial statues that created two long columns before reaching the statue of Oogway which stood proud and tall above all the others.. The craftmanship was nothing short of extraordinary, that much was for certain. The smoothness of the grey body, smiling mouth and hard eyes really made the figure look exactly like who it was meant to represent and honor.
It also felt like it was looking directly at her.
It had been surprising to no one that Viper herself had been the very first to visit the memorial of her love. Time had healed most of the pain but with any such loss it would always remain. In a way she supposed that was a good thing. At least it showed she still cared. The green tree snake inhaled a breath of fresh air as she took the sight of it all in. The statue of Mike sat on a podium and showed the lower half of the kung fu masters body curled up while the top half shot up tall and curved a total of three feet from the statues base, allowing the head to look directly ahead. It was almost life-sized. It made Viper halt for a moment but she pushed the unease aside. She had much to say and not as much time as she would have liked to say it.
"Hello Sweety." She started. Part of her almost expected to hear a 'hello' back, but of course knew better. "We're sorry it took so long for you to receive this memorial but considering the effort put into it I think you would agree it was worth the wait."
Viper chuckled a little knowing how much the opposite of that was true. The python had certainly not been known for his patience and everyone knew it.
"It's hard to believe that three months have come and gone so fast. It only feels like yesterday when we were together last... and other time it feels like longer." An instinctive sniff sounded off from her as she kept her emotions in check. This was starting off a little harder than she expected, but she held strong. This was something she felt she had to do.
"It's been rather quiet here, not as many raiders as there normally are which is always a good sign. Monkey and Mantis are still goofing off as usual. Every once in a while they dedicate one of their silly little pranks in your name, which I suppose is their way of honoring you and keeping everyone in good spirits at the same time which is nice of them... in their own childish way. Crane seemed to be the first to accept what had happened at the mountains so he's doing well enough. He sometimes brings up a few stories on you and your eventful patrols into town which brings a smile to my face. Especially when he tells that one about you mistaking one of the hottest peppers in China for a strawberry. I suppose it explains that one time you came back looking like death itself was after you." Viper laughed thinking back at that particular moment.
"Tigress... well, I suppose other than myself she took your death kind of hard. For a while she almost seemed to go back to her old self Before you or even Po joined our happy little team. Cold, distant and trained almost all of the time. As a matter of fact it was Po himself who managed to eventually get her back to her calmer self. He always seems to know exactly what to do to get any of us happy and laughing, bless him. Oh, and speaking of Po, you'll never guess what just happened yesterday! Our very own dragon warrior has replaced Shifu as our teacher! Not that there's anything wrong with master Shifu of course, but I assume it's just another responsibility of being the most bodacious warrior in all the land, as Po would say himself. His teaching skills are... well, they're a bit rough around the edges. I had to get Mantis to use acupuncture on my body to help free me from that piece of lumber I got stuck around, heh. And I can only imagine what you would have said about it if you had been there too. Most likely have a go at Po before eventually settling down and apologizing for being too harsh. And of course, the others have gone and shared all about his first class to half the village already. Hmpf! As if I'd do such a thing and share that sort of private information around. ... Um, expect to you, right now of course." The snake smiled sheepishly in slight embarrassment. "Po misses you too of course. Like Crane he'll tell us every once in a while plenty about your 'epic' and 'legendary' feats of bravery which is always fun to listen to as well, bless him."
Vipers smile faded a little.
"Yinshen is... I'm not sure to be honest. I suppose Gongmen City is distracting her from thinking too hard about losing her first proper friend since we've yet to hear back from her. Or maybe she's using the city as a distraction. Who knows? That panther was always difficult to figure out. But I know she's been thinking of you just as much as we are here though."
Viper shifted, getting herself comfortable. The stone ground she was curled up on wasn't the smoothest.
"I remember what it was like the first time we thought we had lost someone special to us. You remember the story I told you back when we were in Gongmen city? When we infiltrated Shens factory and tried to blow it up? An idea from yours truly, believe it or not, heh heh. Turned out that Po had already snuck inside and had engaged the warlord. Next thing we knew, our plan fell apart and we were fighting for our lives. Then in the middle of that battle... I just remember a bright flash, Tigress yelling and something smashing out of the building and careening off into the distance. All of us thought the same thing in that moment and we just... lost our fighting spirit. We were completely hopeless. It was a horrible feeling. At least until Po managed to return and save the day as he always does. That was quite the time. Unlike now, where it's staring me right in the face."
She was about to continue until she heard something. A series of constant crashes and bangs sounding off from the hall of heroes. Whatever was happening up there sounded quite serious. She quickly turned back to memorial, affording only a few seconds more.
"Sounds like duty calls. I'll come and visit later in the week when I can. Love you sweetheart, bye!"
She raced off towards the halls fast as her scales would allow. Her calm loving expression turning to her more serious, ready to fight face as she shifted her priorities, racing across the pathway and away from the two columns of memorials. It didn't take long before the other members of the furious five seemed to join alongside her, each from various locations of their own one by one, clearly hearing the same destructive sounds she had other than Po who had yet to join in or be seen.
"I take it you guys hear all that racket too?" Mantis addressed the group.
"You don't think someone's trying to rob the hall of heroes, do you?" The green tree snake asked in concern for the priceless treasures.
"Come on, no-one's dumb enough to steal from Jade palace grounds!" Monkey waved off as Crane eyed him.
"Other than half the criminals that try to rob the Valley of Peace of course."
"It doesn't matter." Tigress cut them all off. "If someone is in there that shouldn't be, we'll deal with them as always."
It took only a minute for them to reach the targeted building. The crashes and sounds were louder and more frequent so whoever was causing the ruckus was clearly still inside. Now it was highly, incredibly unlikely that these possible bandits were smart enough to cover the front doors if they were bothering to make so much noise. But rather than risk it, the five voted to go through the side entrance and catch the intruders off guard! From there they made their way quietly but quickly through the tunnel in question when they soon noticed a single figure right at the end of it. However their small frame, walking stick and big bushy ears told the warriors right away that it was master Shifu who seemed to be just... standing there with his back to them. And once the five had entered the hallway ready for almost anything, they too halted and became just as surprised, as shocked and for some as mad as the red panda himself.
It was Po. He was wearing several different assortments of armor and was just, to what should have been to no-ones surprise... goofing off! Pretty much every single artefact had been used and discarded on the floor, leaving a mess of powerful weapons and tools that once belonged to many great and powerful masters, some from decades or even centuries ago. While the panda had been known to play with and frolic over such ancient kung fu treasures in the past, especially during his first month, it had never been this extreme. Yet that wasn't even that wasn't the worst of it as a second figure, completely covered head to toe in the impenetrable armour of master rhino making every single bit of him unidentifiable, seemed to be in the same mindset as Po as he also looked to be having the time of his life. Not that it would be lasting much longer if the throbbing vein of Shifus forehead had anything to say about it.
Within seconds of what was now a bull fight playing out between the two, Po seemed to turn round enough to catch the sight of all the other masters, staring directly at him from no more than ten feet away. Upon that moment and probably aware of the insane amount of trouble he was about to be in, the panda made sure that every single piece of armor and metal was shoved and brushed off of him as quickly as he could before having the gall to appear innocent. Unfortunately for him his slightly larger friend hadn't seemed to catch on and was now carefully headbutting Po in a playful and careful manner, further baffling everyone and making Po even more nervous. The spectacle of a sight didn't last long before the stranger too, after being hinted very hastily at by the now anxious panda noticed the small audience watching him and got rid of the large metal studded, far from fragile iron ball he happened to be carrying. By throwing it over his shoulder and into the extremely fragile urn of whispering warriors. That was certainly going to need repairs for what had to have been the sixth time now, at the very least.
"Hello." The iron-clad stranger greeted with a polite bow, attempting to break the awkwardness of the situation. Luckily Po was fast enough and tried to clear things up before his kung fu pals kindly 'escorted' his dear old father to Chorgom. They'd probably understand, right? ... Maybe?
"Guys? You're never going to guess who just showed up."
././././././././././././.
They were afraid, all of them. I would be too if I was in their position. No villager could hide their wide eyed stares or half gaped mouths as they looked right at us. I wonder if any of them recognized me at all. I hope not. It's bad enough that a group of violent jaded creatures just showed up in the middle of the village only to notice that one of them was a former protector of it.
It's hard to describe how to feel in a moment like this, being trapped in your own body like a puppet with strings. Unable to move even a single muscle at all. Only my emotions were the only thing I had any control of. But without any way of warning them of what we were about to do, despair and pity is all you can really feel.
"Find Oogways students. And bring them to me."
The words of that yak repeated in my mind. It burst through my skull as loud and as commanding when he spoke them mere hours ago, almost painfully so. It also seemed to act like a trigger as jaded me responded at once.
The savage hiss that burst from my mouth instantly was just as terrifying to me as it was the poor villagers who snapped out of their frightened trances and ran away screaming. It wasn't long after that that we were suddenly smashing in doors and searching for any sign of kung fu masters. It seemed that whatever horrifying curse I was under had only dug its way into my body and not my mind, which was likely the only reason we hadn't gone straight for the jade palace. But that would be our next target once every house was searched and every villager was checked.
Not that we made it far before we heard a new sound. The constant and frantic ringing of a gong. For those who had spent enough time living in this village including myself, we knew that gong only meant one thing. It was an alarm signaling that the valley was under attack. My jaded body paid the sound no mind, maybe not even aware of it as it continued to search. However as I was exiting my latest smashed house it did notice a small group heading this way. As still as my scales were, my mind was panicking hard as the moment I had been afraid of was here.
Sorry guys. No hard feelings.
Another hiss warned the others, noticing this group as a threat before we all grouped up and took a defensive formation. The other side, the whole of the furious five and Shifu were right there just twenty feet away from me and I couldn't so much as say hello!
Shifu demanded our reasoning while the others had all taken their stances, scanning the opposing side. And Viper...
She seemed to notice something was off right away. She looked confused but hadn't worked it out quite just yet. Probably because every single part of me was covered head to tail in shiny Jade, just a hunch. But then it clicked. The surprise and horror was immediate as she stared into the almost lifeless eyes of someone she must have thought was dead.
"Mike...?"
The other warriors paused, save for Shifu and Tigress, and looked right at me before they too clicked.
The jade creatures, including myself charged without hesitation.
God this was going to be one messed up reunion...