-Jade Palace Gateway, Courtyard Arena, day of the Dragon Warrior competition, Smolder-
There were more clothes and bipedal talking animals than in that last world. The tournament was getting closer to the end and it was Pom’s turn to go up. Tigress, Crane and Viper were awesome!
“Why am I doing this again?!” Pom was freaking out as she stood in one corner of the arena with three other combatants known as Master Antelope, Master Frog and the rather intimidating brick wall that was Master Thundering Rhino.
“Shanty begged you for hours to get in on this tournament, even pointed out that she wanted to see her teacher in action and not cowering like you currently are.” This is the kind of like what my teachers back at friendship school said happened to Rainbow Dash during the ‘best young flyers competition’. I was going to be as supportive as possible, but it certainly looks like Pom was going to die out there. “Look, do you really want to look like a coward for the rest of your life Pom?”
“If I say yes, can I leave the arena?” Pom stated with a pleasant tone as she perked up while looking at us with hope.
“No, I be really wanting to see this!” Shanty said while hopping exuberantly in place.
Pom really was a shivering ball of nerves, especially with how she curled up and was almost crying on the arena floor.
“I don’t know how to feel about this Smolder, on the one hoof I’m feeling quite sorry for Pom and don’t want to watch what’s about to happen to her.” Ocellus was actually worried about Pom, I’m actually astounded. “On the other hoof a small part of me really wants to see Pom get creamed out there, just not by that rhino guy though. Am I a horrible person for feeling this way?”
“Maybe.” I answered. Never mind, Ocellus is clearly not there yet, but at least she didn’t want to see Pom harmed horribly.
“Don’t be underestimating Pom!” Shanty took a moment to look around and tilted her head curiously. “Where is Po, he be missing all the excitement.”
“I think the big guy slept in, and to think he was so excited about today too.” I shook my head and wondered how much business Mr. Ping was getting when most of the people were here watching the show.
-Oogway-
“Should we really let her compete?” Shifu was looking at the cowering Pom.
“I’m sure she wouldn’t be in the arena if she could not hold her own.” I looked at Pom’s friends, the goat was still showing support for Pom, even as Pom cowered and the other two worried. That was adorable and upbeat compared to the many relationships I’ve watched fall apart over these last hundred years. “She likely won’t fight, but I truly doubt she will lose.”
“Master Oogway, if she doesn’t fight, then how do you expect her to actually win?” Shifu was going to have a lot of trouble with Po, this thought just made me smile. “I personally believe Thundering Rhino will be the one to win.”
“Size, strength and skill are not always indications of victory.” I said calmly. “It certainly helps though.”
Pom was quite correct, I was crazy… and so was she.
Crazy like foxes!
-Pom versus Masters Antelope, Thundering Rhino and Frog-
“Start!” Shifu yelled as he swung his hand down.
Pom’s eyes darted to the others in the arena as she stood there quivering and both Master Antelope and Thundering Rhino sized up their opponents as well. Master Frog was scrutinizing Pom personally.
“Sorry, but you don’t seem like you want to be here, so let me take you out as peacefully as I can!” Master Frog leapt for Pom with amazing speed and led with his right webbed foot.
When the fast flying frog barely came within a foot of hitting Pom, she squeaked loudly and blurred out of existence.
Master Frog landed and almost fell out of the arena in confusion, he looked around as did the other masters until they eventually spotted Pom.
Pom cowering behind Master Antelope, Antelope narrowed her eyes at Pom and tightened her grip on the bo-staff she held. Antelope swung it around and swiftly lost her balance when she hit nothing but air.
Pom didn’t even bother to try and block the attack or go for a counter, she just ran.
The masters were stunned, as Pom was insanely fast.
Aside from Master Mantis, they had never seen this kind of speed before.
Pom was now crouching behind Thundering Rhino and breathing rapidly.
“Why did I think this was the safest place to go-ho-ho?!” Pom cried loudly while dragging her hooves down her face in obvious distress, this unfortunately attracted Thundering Rhino’s attention to the lambkin behind him.
The rhino swung his massive block shaped hammer around and down towards Pom, at the last moment she covered her head by crossing both her legs above herself.
Outside the arena Shifu was just staring at the coward wide eyed as the hammer went down and created a massive dust cloud.
The three masters blinked and backed away, when the dust settled they saw Pom shivering in place looking no worse for wear. The floor beneath Pom looked immaculate and untouched as well.
Master Rhino knew he clearly hadn’t missed, so what just happened and why wasn’t the little whimpering one out of the competition?
“Her cowardice is a false front, she has got to be deceiving us!” Master Thundering Rhino declared.
“No, I actually am this afraid!” Pom stated with clear shock. While shivering and trotting in place, her eyes darting about fearfully.
None of the three masters seemed to have bought her entirely truthful statement, mostly because she just survived a direct hammer strike from Thundering Rhino.
They all narrowed their eyes on Pom.
“Oh no…” Pom’s wide eyes darted between them as she quickly backed away from Thundering Rhino.
Master Frog narrowed his eyes and leapt for Pom from the left with a flying kick and Master Thundering Rhino came in swinging for her from the right, with Master Antelope standing at the ready directly in front of her.
All three of them had apparently made a silent unanimous decision to target Pom together.
Pom darted forward towards Master Antelope, making Frog collide with Thundering Rhino’s hammer. They surprisingly only knocked each other back slightly, instead of Frog being sent flying out of the arena what was a clear defiance of physics.
Pom leapt up and Master Antelope swung her staff forward and high to meet her, only to miss as Pom suddenly swung her front hooves downward to change her momentum.
Due to her actions Pom went diving under the bo-staff, turning into a rolling ball of white wool that went between Antelope’s legs.
This forced Antelope to try and swing her bo-staff around to hit the lambkin. Antelope narrowly missed grazing Pom’s tail as the lambkin was already up and running to the middle of the arena where she stopped to turn around.
Pom turned around shivering, she watched as they spread out and approached her warily while carefully keeping their eyes on her.
Antelope surged forward to thrust her bo-staff at Pom. In response Pom bounced slightly to the left and stood up on her hind legs propping her right hind leg against her left.
Pom’s front legs were spread out, she started to lean left and right as if she was carrying heavy dishes full of food while trying to balance on her one hoof. She took a glanced to Shanty, but then focused back on the situation in front of her.
“Please… work…” Pom muttered as Antelope swung the bo-staff around, she ducked under it while stumbling forward as if she were carrying a heavy burden.
Antelope brought the bo-staff around in a series of swings that went high, middle, low, high, low, middle. All the while Pom stepped sideways or backwards out of Antelope's range while seemingly stumbling from her imaginary load.
Pom was slowly drawing Antelope towards the side of the arena.
Leaning back out of the way of a spinning kick launched by Frog while constantly shifting her fore legs up and down looking to be having problems balancing on her hind legs, Pom ducked under Thundering Rhino swinging his hammer horizontally at her.
Pom was nearly knocked down by the blast of air that followed the hammer swing and hopped backwards right to the edge of the arena.
The three warriors stared Pom down as they approached her. Antelope in front of Pom, behind Antelope and slightly to the right was Thundering Rhino and Frog was off to the left of her.
Pom spun her body around and brought her front legs inwards to position them to look like she was preparing an attack, making them back off except for Master Antelope who was preparing to block. She was staring them down with a clear and noticeable fright in her eyes while looking to be doing the dishes.
Antelope shot forward and thrusts her bo-staff for Pom’s midsection.
Pom twirled up next to and around Antelope while crouching down under the attack.
Instead of an attacking like Antelope was expecting, as she started a motion to block an attack that was never coming, Pom instead went upside down her front hooves.
With an incredible heave, Pom pushed her lightweight body high into the air to avoid Antelope’s spin into a low swing with her bo-staff.
Pom’s entire body went into a cartwheel that rolled gracefully through the air and right by a quickly approaching Thundering Rhino’s surprised head as he started a swing for where she was.
Rhino’s head slowly followed after a spinning Pom’s backside as she passed by him.
Frog took this opportunity to launch a flying kick right for Pom as she was passing by a surprised looking Thundering Rhino's head.
Pom snapped her hind legs together to speed up her rotation and twisted her body around and out of the way of Frog’s flying kick.
Frog took his eyes off of where he was going to stare after Pom as she landed on her four hooves and quickly made her getaway to the center of the arena.
Frog left webbed foot hit Thundering Rhino in the right eye, entirely throwing off his hammer swing and made him give out an angry roar of pain.
The end of Rhino’s hammer bit into Antelope’s right ankle, taking her right leg out from under her.
Antelope, having a leg knocked out from under her, fell spinning to the right and her bo-staff swung outwards and high.
The bo-staff broke in a shower of splinters from slamming against the right side of Thundering’s Rhino’s face and chin with incredible force, knocking him even further off balance.
Antelope fell from the hammer blow and Thundering Rhino fell from his own momentum, both went out of the arena at the same time.
As for Frog, he had gotten caught on Rhino’s horn after kicking off his face. He soon found himself summarily smashed under it when the large Thundering Rhino hit the ground with a namesake shaking force.
“Winner by triple ring out, the mystifying guard of the mythical and mystical Huoshan, Pom!” Shifu announced with clear surprise on his face and in his voice. “Next round will be the final fight with our guest Pom. First a few exhibitions by the Furious Five, with Tigress, Snake, Mantis, Crane and Monkey!”
Oogway had an amused smile on his face as the crowd cheered for Pom.
-Pom-
“What was that last move? I be seeing carrying dishes and the washing them feint.” Shanty asked as I walked over to sit at the edge of the ring where my friends were.
“That was a Fleet Cunning Doe move called Wild Windmill. It is a leaping full body spin that is supposed to lead into a variety of hind or fore leg attacks, but it works pretty well for evasion too.” I then flopped onto my back and whined with my hooves on my face. “How did that even work?!”
-A few minutes later-
“Believe me citizens, you have not seen anything yet!” Shifu was pretty good at presentation. “Master Tigress will face Iron Ox and his blades of death!”
I was sitting off to the side watching the show, I thought I heard something and looked towards the entrance to the courtyard and saw something black and white flailing through the air out sight before I could see what it exactly was. The voice I heard sounded quite familiar though.
Was that Po just now, did he get locked out? Poor guy, he actually wanted to be here for this and here I am trying to thinking of ways to get out of the final match, especially with professionals that I might not be capable of outmaneuvering.
I turned back in time to see Tigress finishing off Iron Ox with one last attack, I gulped loudly.
I saw Oogway lift a hand and while grinning slightly, he likely just saw Po doing whatever it was to get in. He seemed to be timing this moment for something in particular.
He had his eyes closed and waited until he had the entire crowd’s attention.
“I sense that the Dragon Warrior is among us.” Really Oogway, because I was quite sure that you just saw Po from your position where you had a clear view above the gate where Po was trying to get in.
I even bet that Oogway was just timing this to Po somehow getting inside, he really was a crazy old coot!
“Citizens of ‘The Valley of Peace’, Master Oogway will now choose, the Dragon Warrior!” Shifu announced as the Furious Five gathered in the middle of the arena, the other masters stood off to the side of the arena waiting for the verdict I knew to be coming.
Instead of looking to the five in the arena, I had my eyes on the direction of the gate. Judging by what Oogway said a while back, he would be coming in on a fireball.
Po didn’t strike me as powerful or capable of… fireworks!
It has to be those time delayed, overpowered and highly defective fireworks. The very same ones that were left outside the gate this morning. I had seen Oogway and Shifu talking with the delivery people about it earlier when I was dragged up here by Shanty.
This was all planned from the start wasn’t it? Oogway might be a friendly old guy, but he really knows how to set things up.
Wait… does this mean I don’t have to fight again? Oh thank goodness!
I sighed audibly with relief, I wouldn’t have to face those five after seeing all the crazy stuff they were capable of. I really didn’t want to get on the bad side of Tigress after she broke Iron Ox with her bare paws in several precise strikes.
“Why do you be looking that way Pom?” Shanty asked with a tilted head as I stared in the direction of the gate.
“You’re about to see why Shanty. Ocellus, Smolder, the real show stopper is coming in from the direction of the closed gate.” I received curious looks from my companions, but soon we were all looking in that direction. “Thankfully I won’t have to do any more… well could we really call what I just did fighting?”
We all heard screaming and saw Po rocketing into the air on a chair with several fireworks strapped to it.
Oogway had to have known he would do this and was already approaching the arena. The chair angled downwards towards the center of the arena and my eyes widened as the fireball came dropping down towards the five standing there in confusion.
I leapt into the arena while everyone was too busy looking towards the disturbance, I heaved myself at a distracted Tigress. Tackling her, I used Tigress’s size to push all five of them out of the way of the incoming fireball.
The problem with this was that Po was now coming down right on top of me, screaming all the way.
I quickly curled up and pulled on my fluffmancer talent as hard as I possibly could before impact and tightened my entire body as much as I could for impact.
-Smolder-
“Pom!” I cried out alongside Shanty and Ocellus as we got up onto the stage and approached the circle of ash from the resulting explosion.
The dust cleared up and that Oogway guy was pointing into the cloud, the Furious Five got up and moved forward to look at who Oogway was pointing at.
-Pom-
“Ow…. Ow-ow-ow… is… is everyone… okay?” I croaked out through something currently crushing my lungs into a fine paste.
I may have blacked out there for a second, I can hear a groaning noise above me and couldn’t feel most of my body at the moment.
I probably had a rather large panda on my back given the massive painful weight crushing me. So did I just seriously take the brunt of all that for Po’s sake? What is wrong with me?! He would have been perfectly fine and I should have moved out of the way instead taking it!
“Whoa… ah… lblblb… what are you pointing…” Po started coming to and he slowly picked himself up, he noticed Oogway pointing straight at his face. “Oh, okay… sorry… I just wanted to see who the Dragon Warrior was.”
Once his weight was off me, I slowly rolled off to the side and out from under him while taking a few deep life giving breathes of fresh, clean and nicely flavorful air. I didn’t actually know air could taste this good until I had the entire weight of Po’s entire body on top of me.
“How interesting.” Oogway stated while still pointing at Po.
I was quickly surrounded by a worried Smolder, Shanty and even Ocellus was showing concern for me.
“Master are you pointing at me.” Tigress asked putting her left paw on her chest.
“Him.” Oogway intoned still pointing a claw specifically at Po, Po shifted about and I gave him a flat look from the ground as he tried to move out of the path of Oogway’s pointing claw. “You.”
“Me? What about Pom, she’s seems pretty good at this kung fu stuff even if she isn’t a master…” Po tried to stammer as he pointed at me.
I changed my look from flat to harshly glaring up at him from where I was still laying.
Do not try to get out of this Po; this was your dream and destiny calling you, not mine!
“The universe has brought us the Dragon Warrior!” As he said this, Oogway lifted Po’s left paw up with his staff.
“Huh, that’s nice for you Po, I think you’ll do a good job of it and this is coming from a dragon that you know of personally!” Smolder stated while waving her right claw in my face as I laid there, her wings spread out and flicking with clear worry. “Now if you’ll excuse us… Pom, are you alright, How many claws am I holding up!?”
“Technically… one… I think my life flashed before my eyes… for a second time in this last hour or so.” The first was nearly getting smashed by Thundering Rhino.
I had reason to believe that I was done training one ability that my minimal fluffmancer talents allowed, now that I knew how to actively activate that one skill in particular on command now. Specifically, I think I had a good hoof on the ‘armored fluff’ skill that Paprika taught me.
I flexed my fluff and smiled weakly, Paprika and Tianhuo would be proud of me as I did it several times in a row without messing it up. Even my reindeer friend Velvet might be proud to hear that I successfully performed a Wild Windmill.
Thundering Rhino was reflex, what Po just hit me with was a conscious effort on my part to not die… and possibly give Po a softer landing.
I’m just happy to still be breathing.
“Wait, I’m the Dragon Warrior?!” Po suddenly exclaimed after everyone took their attention off of us. “What?!”
“What?!” The Furious Five followed.
“What?!” Shifu also intoned blankly.
“What?!” Mr. Ping sounded quite upset.
Hearing a gong sound, cheerful music soon started being played.
I was feeling pretty dizzy.
“Master Oogway, wait, there must be some kind of mistake, you were going to point at Tigress when that flabby panda fell in front of her!” Shifu was trying to declare someone else the Dragon Warrior, after Oogway went through all the… all the… my head was getting really fuzzy. “He can’t possibly be the answer to our problem! That was just an accident!”
“There are no accidents.” The grinning Oogway stated calmly, of course he would say that and mean it literally!
I think I blacked out for a second… when I came to I saw Po looking confused as he was being stuffed into a Palanquin too small for his hefty girth.
“Uh, could we get someone to help Pom here? She did just prevent your five warriors from being injured and stopped the Dragon Warrior from getting hurt by the fall!” Ocellus screamed attracting everyone’s attention to us. “A modicum of help for our friend here would be quite nice of you, or has the traditions of good hospitality left all of your minds!”
“Whoa…” Smolder stated while looking to…
I blinked and felt myself being carried.
Did I… did I just black out again?
“Don’t worry Pom, we’ll get you help up at the Jade Palace.” Po said as he pulled me up into the palanquin he could barely fit inside of personally, he rested me on top of his belly. “I mean, being the Dragon Warrior has to have its perks right? Also thank you for making my landing softer… I’m really sorry that it was at your expense Pom.”
I heard a snap as the palanquin broke under our weight. Which seemed kind of funny, so I giggled dizzily at Po.
“Yeah, she’s out of it.” Ocellus said flatly and I smiled cheerfully in her direction until...
-Shanty-
I be hoping Pom is going to be alright, I noticed Shifu gesturing at Pom and Po’s situation and several attendants went to help carry them up the stairs from the gateway.
“Forgive us master.” Turning to see Tigress talking, I be lifting an ear to what they were going to say. “We have failed you.”
“No, if the panda has not quit by morning, then I will have failed you.” If the rodent announcer she-poo or whatever his girly name be, he was obviously not going to be nice to Po.
Pom would be willing to help Po and she be training me well enough to learn things my own way! I really be wanting to start practicing that Wild Windmill thing personally, but helping Po be far more important.
Po is being like me, except he is having a home and a good person to watch out for him. Like Pom wants to look out for me and… I was the reason she was there to get injured.
I wilted and glared at the those six jerks. Sure they be having fancy moves and were strong, but they were not nice and were just like those pirates that said that I’d never amount to anything.
I be proving them all wrong and that Po is going to be being the best Dragon Warrior ever! Pom is also being just as great, even if she not be fighting like how anyone expected her to!
Now to be quickly chasing after my friends to tell them what I heard.