//------------------------------// // 31. A Lung Pom-versation. // Story: Baa-Ram-Ewe! // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -A day later, Walu’s Dim Sum, Pom- I wasn’t worried about Smolder, someone took a sword to her full swing and the sword was the thing that cracked. Aside from maybe a really small bruise, she walked away from that night uninjured. I was moderately worried for Ocellus as she was obviously comparable to me in not liking violence or the situation they got into the other night. Her fuzzy carapace was scratched in several places, the damage was fairly minimal. Speaking of damage, most of the kung fu warriors were still cleaning things up after the mess that was made. Shen had hundreds of mercenaries, Po and his friends thankfully chewed through most of them so that my three troopers didn’t have to. I was glad that Ocellus, Smolder and Shanty didn’t do deal with too much trauma, physically at least. Shanty still took a nasty cut to the chest that might have lightly nicked an artery. That was a far sight better than losing her head at the very least and Mantis was there in an instant. I was very worried about Shanty when I woke up after passing out, I started hugging her and telling her to be more careful. That’s about all I could do really, I couldn’t bring myself to be angry with her for putting herself in danger and I was just happy that she survived. Looked at the nearby garden at the entrance to Walu’s Dim Sum, I considered this out of the way meeting spot that none of the girls were going to be working at today. They were all still taking it easy today, but I had other things to attend to. I sighed, steeled my nerves and walked inside. The pika known as Mr. Walu wasn’t particularly busy today, but he still apparently had a few customers celebrating the defeat of Shen and the return of Thundering Rhino. Shen’s regime had been oppressive, he had let his mercenaries run wild over the citizenry, stole from the city and wanted to be a conquering warlord. I kind of felt sorry for the guy, his paranoia was on par with a lambkin and at least it was quick and painless. From the way Po tells it, Shen accepted what was going to befall him in his last moments when his cannon collapsed on him. Thundering Rhino was still recovering and now Mantis and doctors were setting up to see to his health, he could still administrate the city quite well even if he couldn’t currently fight for it. “Hello Mr. Walu… which table are they waiting for me at.” Getting jobs in Gongmen City was a bit difficult with the mercenaries running rampant, but thanks to his kindness we weren’t going to go hungry. “The usual for staff table in the back Pom, I figured you would want privacy for your meeting.” Nodding to Walu in acknowledgment, I started walking towards the back. “I’ll be bringing tea and snacks to your table soon, also thank you for lending aid to the people of Gongmen City.” “I didn’t really do anything too important.” I stated as I glanced back at him and went to move forward. “You saved Thundering Rhino’s life and brought him back to decent health, that’s something.” Walu stated. “You did just as much as your charges, apparently they’re being called the mystical three by the locals.” I froze, lowered my head and just continued on to the booth in the back without a comment. Taking a seat at the table, I closed my eyes and got my nerves in order again. “Okay… what do you want Tai Lung?” I then opened my eyes to stare straight into Tai Lung’s, I wanted so badly to flinch at sitting across from someone so dangerous. My tone was utterly flat, but not devoid of worry. “A conversation.” Tai Lung stated lazily. I stayed quiet and waited, Tai Lung raised left his brow at me and then he decided to get on with it. “You are a rather distinct individual, even among your odd little group. There’s also the fighting styles you used that I want to inquire about, among a few other topics I want to go over with you.” Tai Lung tapped the claws of his right paw in sequence on the table while staring at me with more curiosity than anger or a need for revenge. “Let’s get started then. While I’m not gifted in using chi, what I do have is the ability to see the flow of energy through my knowledge of pressure point techniques. I can get a good read of someone that way and my read of you was interesting to say the least with the way you changed throughout the fight we had.” “How so?” Some might think I was curious to know where he was going with this, I was just hoping this doesn’t end with him hurting the three I take care of. He can harm me as much as he wants to. I could clearly see that he recovered better than I did and I expended all my strength on him. He deserves the reputation as one of the best warriors from The Valley of Peace, even if he’s dark hearted. “Well for starters, each fighting style you used had a different form overlapping yours and I want to go over with what I saw with you to make some things clear. Since something disturbed me about what I saw.” Tai Lung had me mildly curious. “After you launched me across Jade district, the form I saw overlapping you was a cow. I surmise it was someone who was tough and could deal out devastating counters.” “Mostly right, her style is particularly aggressive and far faster than what I was limited to at the time.” Despite my misgivings about Arizona teaching me how to fight, I did learn quite a bit from her. I learned plenty from watching her picks fight with Velvet and it was rare when those two weren’t getting on each other’s nerves. “The second style you switched to was the antelope like being, focuses on evasion and rapid attacks while keeping your distance.” Where was Tai Lung going with this? “You seem to know the style quite well and it suits you.” “Yes, but there’s a bit more to it than that and it focuses on leaping attacks.” This made me just wonder what he was trying to figure out. “A friend taught me that style personally. They even have the ability to jump in the air multiple times without touching a surface between jumps, the insistence on it not being the same as flying comes up constantly when mentioned.” “If it’s sustainable and you can go in a direction while staying in the air, it’s flying. Anyway, the third style was unique, bursts of raw power and speed with odd breathing techniques. I think there was something lacking about your use of it.” Tai Lung only received a nod from me. “I take it someone close to you taught you how to use it? I believe what I saw was a longma with a fiercer disposition than even you can pull off, it was like they were funneling their strength through you. They matched your movements perfectly and while you are good in the style, I think your better at the antelope one and it is more fitting. You had expended almost all of your strength with it.” Tianhuo… I’m a little surprised Tai Lung actually knows what a longma is and saw her overlapping me. “Can confirm, what you likely saw was the champion of Huoshan. I’m honestly the weakest of the Huoshan Guard.” Mostly because I wasn’t one to jump into combat personally unless I had to, I miss my overprotective beasties and the puppies. “I learned Huoshan’s common fighting style, yet it’s supplemented by some things I can’t actually do naturally.” I lacked the ability to fly and the inner flame of a longma. Though doing a Fiery Flurry and actually creating multiple friction blasts was amazing for me, I thought that was only something that Arizona could do with her ‘Mach’ attacks and breaking physics. “Weakest?” Tai Lung scoffed audibly and began to chuckles with a few snorts thrown in. “Whoever told you that you were the weakest obviously doesn’t know you very well at all. You may be frail looking, scrawny and gangly even, but you knocked me across the entirety of Jade District with one solid blow at a speed that no one could possibly follow. Even if it was a onetime thing and under duress, my jaw is still sensitive even now. What I want to know the most about, is that fourth and last fighting style you used against me. It was concerning.” “What last style?” This had me wondering what he was talking about. “I only used three as far as I know.” “At the end of our fight you had a pack of prowling wolves surrounding your flow of energy. It wasn’t anything like the cow, the antelope one or even the mystical longma that was obviously closely connected to you. It wasn’t like anything I’ve ever seen before.” Tai Lung seemed to be gazing into my eyes now with relatively restrained curiosity. “The only thing I could read from you is that you were willing to die fighting me to your last breath. Aside from that, your bite mark still hasn’t healed and your movements were functionally unreadable.” Tai Lung pause the rub the mentioned mark where I bit him, his shoulder notably hasn’t healed as well as the rest of him has. “In the pack of energy wolves flowing around, you were encased by the largest. It was if you were the acting alpha of the pack.” Tai Lung leaned back and seemed interest in hearing what I had to say. “Have you ever been taught a style involving fighting like an entire pack of wolves? I would say it’s impossible had I not seen it.” “No… I don’t actually know what you’re talking about.” I had a fighting style with the energy of an entire pack of wolves? I’ve never heard of a fighting style that… oh please don’t let that be a black sheep thing! “I don’t think what you saw was a combat style, because everything else before that was what I actively trained in. Like my bark blast for instance, that’s actually my only personally created technique...” Tai Lung didn’t seem to acknowledge my fluffmancer abilities existed, I wouldn’t have been capable of taking as many hits from him otherwise. “So it was something more instinctual and rooted deeply within you… it could have very well led to your death and yet you didn’t back down for even a second.” He leaned forward while narrowing his eyes at me, I bravely kept my eyes on his. After a moment he seemed satisfied with something. “You actually impressed me, somewhat. The only thing I saw with Po’s energy is a goony dragon with a cheeky grin. I could follow the movements, but the energy was somehow not moving as Po was with the way it danced chaotically. The difference between you two is that I couldn’t read your energy when you were waning except for that one clear message, while reading Po is an effort in futility given how erratically his energy moves.” “So… are you going to be friendlier to us now?” My interest in hearing Po had a goofy dancing dragon as a fighting style didn’t surprise me as much as I thought it would, it certainly suited his skills in kung fu by following the beat of his own drum. “I’ve decided to slightly change my ways, Po is an idiot savant in kung fu and I want to fight him at his greatest. He only needs to see a technique once to do it and you have a dangerous hidden fighting style that not even you know about that looks like it can only be earned.” Tai Lung probably wouldn’t like to hear that I really didn’t want to fight him again. I could feasibly do much better when not under the effects of Shock-ram, but I’d rather not be mauled by Tai Lung again. “There’s almost none like the either of you and the both of you put up more of a fight than anyone I fought since I broke free of my prison. It’s why I’m willing to wait for a rematch, I would keep my skills honed for such a legendary battle.” Walu finally dropped some Dim Sum buns at the table along with a serving of tea, I quickly got some tea for myself and took a sip. “You might want to focus more on Po, I’m not very competitive. Come to think of it, I have met two others aside from Po that are pretty good at learning new techniques just by seeing them once.” Wait, I was actually adding something to this conversation and not just letting it be one sided? Fighting wasn’t in my blood, but it certainly was reluctantly a part of my life. “One was a Skunk that could learn a technique on a given day by seeing it once, then eventually master said technique in hours and then eventually improves upon it in unique ways.” “A skunk? If I am ever to meet this skunk you speak of, then I may deign to actually teach them something to see it for myself.” Tai Lung was actually coming off as less scary by the second, but I was still feeling a bit tense that he wants a rematch with me. “Who’s the other?” “It’s a good friend of mine, she’s my… special techniques teacher. It’s how I managed to not go down on the first few blows you got on me. She’s known as ‘The Demon’ and you wouldn’t think she was one until after spending an hour in presence.” I wasn’t the only one that thought Paprika was terrifying, many people still label her ‘The Demon’ and you only needed to know her for an hour to see why. “I’ve heard she mimicked some special techniques from the cow and reindeer, what you were calling an antelope, perfectly and without practicing them. She’s hard to hurt and her fighting style is hugs, kisses and affection… I’m being quite literal when I say that alpaca makes her fighting style an art form all its own.” “Hugs, kisses and affection, how dangerous can this demon be if that’s all she does?” Tai Lung asked while waving his right paw at me dismissively. -A few months back, Huoshan- The entire top portion of a nearby mountain exploded, I whimpered and thought a volcano was erupting and that we were all doomed. The noise was loud enough to bring the entire city to an alert status. It was only a minute later that Paprika came running up to the gates of Huoshan while I was temporarily standing in for a another guard. She was covered in rubble and bits of snow slowly sliding out of her thick fluffy mass, notably she had come from the direction of the broken mountain range that was now two thirds its normal size. I could even see the dust cloud leading from said mountain to right where Paprika was currently crouching down for a... -The present- “She’s terrifying on multiple levels.” I said with my eyes wide open, possibly with a haunted look on my face. I thought I had wiped that moment from my memory completely. How does someone like Paprika almost hug a mountain entirely in half just because she was just feeling a little bit lonely on the way to visiting me and Tianhuo?! “Far more so than you are.” Tai Lung sat up straight and scrutinized me for a bit. “I think I would like to meet this demon alpaca.” Tai Lung suddenly. “She can’t be that intimidating.” “Trust me on this, fighting Paprika will not end well for you.” Having said that, I just watched as he crossed his arms while huffing and didn’t comment on my shivering. I took up a dumpling and would pop it into my mouth in a second, but first. “Anything else you would like to discuss Lung?” “Yes, I know asking you to meet with me alone has you on edge, but I would like your opinion on something.” Given that you were the reason I was here Tai Lung, you might as well. He ate a dumpling and took a sip of tea, his table manners were quite good… then again this was a highly disciplined dark hearted kung fu master. “I have never given it much thought about what I would be doing aside from being the Dragon Warrior, not until actually meeting Po anyway. Now… I find myself curious, do you think I would be a good teacher? I ask because Shifu is going to let Po to lead a training session.” I winced and Tai Lung gave me a flat stare for it. “Honestly? You know a lot, but teaching requires patience and I’m not sure if you would be good at it at first. I doubt Po would be any better.” There was something else I could say. “Do you expect Po to cause a disaster?” “Only because you are absolutely certain that’s what will happen.” Tai Lung commented dryly and I winced even harder. “I’m going to be there to see it happen with a smile on my face.” “I think you would be good as an exercise coach at least.” Only a few more days and I’d be back in decent enough condition to put up a mild struggle against him. He was kind of massive compared to me and I still don’t believe that I managed to hold ‘that’ off. “I mean more of a small stuff thing like pushups, sit-ups, running and other simple stuff. Maybe some light sparring too. You really shouldn’t jump in the deep end, Shifu had a lot of a problems with teaching Po how to fight doing that. Po didn’t know the first thing about how to throw an attack and that was days before we fought.” “Po shows incredible talent and potential, I’ll give him that much. Would you believe I find you to be far wiser than Shifu from just that advice alone? You’re just proving me right on something at the very least.” Was that a complement, from Tai Lung? It almost sounded back-pawed, but I was willing to take it and maybe… if you squint hard enough. Is it even feasible we could become friends? “I’ve taken up enough of your time, now take up some of mine.” “You mean ask you questions?” I received a scathing glance and Tai Lung just took up a dumpling and chewed on it while waiting on me. “Okay… so Tigress is your little sister, she’s strong, skilled and driven like you are. She wanted to be the ‘Dragon Warrior’ too and got disappointed by Po dropping right on into it, thoughts on how you feel about her?” “The old fool adopted her and she did get a few good hits in on me.” He muttered before seeming to have figured something out. “I’m willing to say that we’re related.” “As much ‘good’ as anyone can get from you I assume.” Was I actually beginning to relax around him, what is wrong with me?! “Have you ever considered having a hobby outside of kung fu? It seems like it absolutely consumed your life, the lack of friends didn’t help you either.” “I will not speak ill of the dead… or the ascended from what I’ve heard. You aren’t wrong in saying that I let my ambitions ultimately consume me. After hearing about what happened to Shen… Po could have rightly done that to me and nobody would have cared that I had perished by the ‘Dragon Warriors’ paws.” Tai Lung looked away and was showing a small sign of guilt? I blinked at him and was probably imagining that, aside from a twitch of his whiskers. “I’m sure your old fool would have cared, maybe Tigress would too if she knew her big brother better.” I was going to try to be a little less fearful of him and try to be his friend, since he didn’t have any. After focusing so long on one goal, he doesn’t exactly have a life or know people beyond how strong or weak they are. “He’s made a lot of mistakes… even heard he had a terrible girlfriend that’s a foxy lady.” “Mei Ling is a rogue kung fu master and a known thief, but she actually does care about fa- the old fool.” Here Tai Lung repositioned himself to lie down a bit while lazily popping another dumpling into his mouth. “Those two were practically made for each other, but they have different views on how things work.” “Mei Ling… sounds like a nice name.” I liked the name at least, but I wanted to know how Tai Lung knows her. “She can’t be nearly as bad as the thief I know of.” “Why, what’s the thief you know like?” Asked the muscular leopard that nearly killed me. The same one that I’m trying to be congenial with and it was going surprisingly well. “She’s the most annoying being in existence that can get away with doing a lot of really weird stuff, something inevitably happens whenever she’s around and it’s impossible to catch her once she starts running.” There was a bit of aggravation in my voice. “She has a habit of toying with guards like me no matter where she goes… and she’s begrudgingly my friend, because she’s a friend of my friends.” “Sounds like Mei Ling, now there’s a fox who always has an angle and uses her fighting talents to steal.” Tai Lung seemed somewhat fond of the crook that was apparently Shifu’s ex-girlfriend. “I can respect her as a fighter and she’s lightning fast.” “Wait… isn’t Mei Ling the name of a cat that Crane knows?” I knew that name sounded familiar, because Crane mentioned it in a story of how he got into kung fu. “I would think that would be a different Mei Ling, it’s a relatively popular name… given that I’ve heard of a popular leopard harpist by that name as well.” Well that was a rather curious for Tai Lung to know, but I think we should wrap this up as we were almost out of tea and snacks. “Quick question, why did you come to Gongmen City originally? I… didn’t get out of the valley very much.” “Well, the girls and I came here looking for the ‘Yen of Yunshu’. It didn’t even take long for Shen to show up and lay siege to the city. Anyway the ‘Yen of Yunshu’ is an unusual one use magical artifact that can transport us all back to where we came from.” We needed it like yesterday, because I wanted to avoid Tai Lung challenging me. “It only works once, because the yen transports itself to some random location in Gongmen City every single time it’s ever been used.” “Need some help with finding it?” Asked Tai Lung bluntly. “Also I would like to talk more about your goat and that technique… that ‘bark blast’ you called it?” "Sure, maybe we'll even become friends eventually." The glare I received with a slight growl caused me to freeze up a bit. "Don't push it 'Pom of the Huoshan Guard' or just might change my mind about helping you." Didn't exactly need your help Tai Lung, but you more than likely needed some yourself. I wouldn't press the issue, Tai Lung seemed a bit more amiable as our discussion continued forward for a few more minutes.