-Huoshan, Fighting Arena (rebuilt for the nth time), Tianhuo-
“Fiery Flurry.” My hooves strike out and blasts of fire burst forth in a wave of solid air searing heat, each strike getting faster and faster until I have almost formed a pure beam of raw fire from how fast I was attacking.
Once I’m done, because I could no longer keep up my breathing to continue the all out attack, my flaming hooves stop and I waited. I eventually extinguished my hooves, not out of thought of victory, but out of shock and due to a loss of breath.
“Ow.” After hitting Arizona more than a thousand times, it was a disconcerting that was all she said in response to being pummeled. My friend is truly impossible, especially given the fact that I hit her with heats that should have incapacitated her or at the very least would have her asking for water. The flames themselves should have scorched her more than they did. “Don’t know how Fœnum Tian’s doing, but I think you’ve got a leg up on her and then some with attacks like that.”
“How goes the carpentry business?” Do not think about wool, do not think about all the canines depending on me at home and do not worry about my beloved having problems returning. She is alive and that’s what matters, she has already once tried to return and she only needs to succeed once while keeping those in her care alive.
This is supposed to be a relaxing day… I’m still quite distressed and I am not the only one.
“It’s going pretty well, but I think you really just need someone to distract you from thinking too hard about ‘her’ huh?” Arizona looked me in the eyes and I did not flinch, but I did blink. “Goodness knows how I’d be feeling if it were Paprika, Velvet or even the both of them.”
“Can we get back to fighting… please?” One can only be stoic for so long and I had not bothered to notice how much Pom had integrated into Huoshan’s society, at least until now. The Huoshan guard is missing her as much as I am and even the imperial family from the palace noted the gentle lambkin’s absence as a massive gulf that cannot be filled in by anyone else.
Even Ember, our current benevolent Dragon Lord, is concerned about her safety on top of that of her young dragon friend Smolder.
“Right, you need to hit something…” Tilting her head to create sharp crack and shaking her slightly burnt body out with a few stretches, Arizona started scraping her hoof against the ground ready to continue. She snorted loudly and grinned at me. “And I’m a sucker for pain!”
I smiled, it is good to have friends that can understand you during times of duress. This, however, would not stop me from worrying about my better half. I am partially glad that I wouldn’t, even if I know she will come back. It was only a matter of when.
-Another day, Gongmen City Streets, Pom-
“So… let me get this straight… we have the coin that can transport anyone to anywhere they would ever want or need to go exactly once, and it can even do whole groups like ours.” I pointed at the ‘Yen of Yunshu’ in my left hoof, the coin was unique in the fact that it was solid electrum and had a boat, a bird and a cart etched into it on both sides. Anyone who knows even a little about magic will tell you that electrum is quite a unique, this coin was made of it and swamped with enough magic as to be entirely indestructible. ‘Beyond land, sea and air, this coin can get you there’, was etched around the edges of the large coin in the local written language. “We just can’t use it. We go to all the trouble of finding this thing and we can’t use it!”
Of course I was going raise my voice about this, our way home had a problem. We had no idea how to activate it. Also the one that activated it was the one that controlled the destination of where everyone involved in the effect that the coin could supposedly produce would end up.
“It definitely has a powerful magic in it.” At least Ocellus was treating me as an acquaintance now, no ugly looks or distaste. I’ll call it a win that she’ll interact with me normally now. “I just don’t know how to activate it and I’m right there with you in feeling frustrated Pom.”
“Is anyone else worried that Tai Lung actually helped us with this?” Smolder stated lazily as she performed an intricate ribbon dance in a freshly restored robe. While she didn’t like being called adorable, she certainly did do a lot of adorable thing. “Also, do you seriously trust him Pom?”
“I not be trusting him.” That was a completely understandable sentiment Shanty and that you said that immediately made me choose my words carefully.
“Look… it’s a bit… complicated. Tai Lung is a little… rough…” The looks I received from Smolder, Shanty and Ocellus made me flinch. “Okay he’s extremely rough and is as prickly as a porcupine while being twice as mean about sticking quills in you, but I don’t think he’s out and out one hundred percent pure grade evil. To trust him blindly would be bad, but to have no trust whatsoever would be just as bad and would close him off to trying something new.”
“Well he, Shifu, the Furious Five and Po are all almost ready to head back to The Valley of Peace.” Smolder tilted her head while thinking about our predicament. “Should we stay here and take Thundering Rhino’s offer or should we head back with them?”
“Good question, I don’t think Gongmen has any more information aside from the history of what the coin does. We might be able to find more at the Jade Palace, they have a lot of interesting magical artifacts at the very least and plenty of scrolls on the subject surrounding them.” Ocellus sighed and her face went flat. “Now if only those scrolls were all well labeled and the information was not spread out through at least seven different scrolls. Ugh, it is so disorganized and I’m sure Twilight would have a field day trying to fix it all! The history of the coin was somewhat interesting if a bit dry. Just to summarize what I’ve read, the coin is very ancient and the knowledge of the creator or creators of it have long since been lost to time. Oogway might have known something from his thousand years of life, but…”
“We not exactly being able to meet with him anymore.” Shanty stated while wilting.
A silence passed amongst all of us, I inhaled slightly and decided for the group.
“We’ll head back to The Valley of Peace. While Thundering Rhino’s offer that there will always be a place here for us if we need it, I need to get back in shape now that I’ve mostly recovered and the Jade Palace has good training implements. That and I like the mountain air, it reminds me of Huoshan except cooler.” Reaching out with my right hoof I ruffled Shanty’s hair, she smiled up at me with a toothy grin. “That said, Shanty here could do some training there too while we’re at it. Shifu is open to lending us the facilities until we can figure this out. Until then we just need to hold on to the coin and hope we can find something out about how to wield it.”
“We can also be getting noodles at Mr. Ping’s!” Shanty really liked his noodle soup and her next meal was always on her mind, comes with the territory of having been homeless. She wouldn’t be homeless any longer if I had anything to say about it. “I will be missing this city though, it be very nice without all the mercenaries being a problem.”
“We can always trust Shanty to have her mind on what’s important.” Smolder mumbled as she stretched her arms out. “Let’s go tell Po we’ll be joining him and everyone else on the way back to the Jade Palace then.”
-Spirit Realm, Oogway-
I turned from watching Po trying to talk to Tai Lung in friendly manner with a smile on my face.
Tai Lung’s heart may be still somewhat dark, but it was far lighter than before.
My smile soon fell as I felt something was off.
Reaching out with my senses beyond the field of spiritual cabbage carts of infinite cabbages, I felt out what the problem was.
This is a bit bothersome, someone is draining all the chi from those who have passed on.
This problem cannot go unanswered, I must focus upon this immediately!
-A few hours’ later, boat, Pom-
“So long Gongmen, hopefully you’ll get your coin back soon after we figure out how to use it.” I muttered as I waved goodbye to the city and to Walu who decided to see us off along with a few citizens and Thundering Rhino.
Croc and Storming Ox were nice, but they could have tried a little bit harder to get out of their funk without needing Tai Lung to insult them into action and for Shifu to spur their fighting spirits on further. It’s kind of funny that the both of them had worked together, considering Tai Lung still has a lot of resentment for Shifu.
Tai Lung in turn was much friendlier towards Po and me, but he was still guarded and brooded a lot. I noticed him possibly thinking about making an approach to Tigress to talk about something and I hoped he tried to open up without needing a push like I tended to.
“Hey Pom, can I talk to you about something?” Hearing Po, I turned my gaze away from the port to Po who looked a bit exhausted.
“Sure Po, what do you need?” I could tell that he seemed nervous about something, he always tapped his digits together in an adorable manner when he wanted to talk with me about a touchy subject that his father Ping would likely dither around on.
One of those subjects was about his crush on Tigress, you’d think that meeting one of his heroes would put him off of having a crush. Apparently he looked up to Tigress and his friendship with her was a confusing knot of emotions, with the problems of what is expected of a Dragon Warrior getting in the way.
“Do you think I could have saved Shen?” Po asked as he sat down next to me.
“With the way things were going… well you can’t save everyone Po and not everyone wants to be saved. You should at least make an attempt to try and save those you think haven’t crossed a line of no return. Tai Lung would have crossed his with killing Shifu and I managed to stop him.” Thinking on it a bit, I thought back to one of the scariest beings I knew about. “There was this person… well I don’t think he was so much a person as a well of infinite darkness, but his name was apparently Hollow Heart. He was trying to swamp the world with shadow monsters that would have devoured the entire world. There was no saving him, he was quite set in his course.”
“What happened to him?” Po asked with a sign of worry.
“He was strong enough to take on my five good friends and me as we fought to save the world, he was eventually taken out by my friend Paprika who punted him through a portal into the very realm of darkness that the Shadow Monsters were pouring out of and was sealed in there with them.” I shivered at the thought, but I put it out there anyway. “I don’t think he perished or was devoured by the hungering shadows, I think he might have become one of them. That’s my thoughts on what happened to him anyway, someone that relentless wouldn’t simply be stopped until he ultimately achieved his goals.”
“Yikes, make me wonder if I can fall that far and it seems to be a common thing among kung fu warriors.” Po seemed a bit upset as he slumped putting his chin in his paws. “I heard how several warriors went down, apparently Shifu has had several friends who all went off the deep end like Tai Lung did and I’m worried that it might happen to me.”
“Is this about being the Dragon Warrior Po?” The nod I received was him sulking a bit, I reached up with my left hoof and put it over where his heart was, I pointed at where I was putting my hoof. “This, this right here, this is what keeps you from letting the power go to your head. Your heart is the very reason why Oogway chose you, your ability to love and your ability to stay positive in almost any situation. The reason why those other warriors fell is because the power over others goes to their head and they didn’t have activities to keep themselves grounded, but you will always have friends to knock you down a peg if you get too big for your britches and you’re already big enough as it is. You have your father Ping and the noodle shop, the memories of good times with friends and plenty of other reasons that will never let you forget that you have a good heart Po.”
Po snorted and suddenly smiled brightly at me, he even chuckled a little.
“Thanks Pom.” He said after a moment and cheered up a bit. “I know you talked about your friends before, but you tend to get a bit nervous around the one you call Ollie.”
“Oleander is a friend that… okay, I don’t talk about Ollie much because she is a user of dark magic and people immediately go to thinking she’s evil when it comes to stuff like that.” I sighed at Po’s surprised expression. “It doesn’t help that her best friend and eternal companion is a demon of knowledge known as Fred.”
“Fred? That doesn’t sound like a name a demon would have.” Po looked a little concerned.
“Trust me, Fred is a true demon and really quite scary, but all things considered I think he is a very nice demon considering his personality has been tempered by Ollie’s as much as hers has been by his.” If I hadn’t been convinced by Ollie to leave my hermitage, then the friends I made might not have survived the shadow monster swarm without me. “They have a good balance between them and a bond so strong that I think that Ollie and Fred are close enough that they would marry one another. It’s a bit awkward because Ollie is heroic and Fred doesn’t mind reveling in carnage. She at least proves that dark does not always equal evil, though everyone’s opinion is that Fred certainly is despite him helping us save the world.”
“Huh… so even demons can be nice.” Po muttered lightly.
“Depends on knowing the demon and whether or not they have that kind of congenial personality that Fred does at times.” I don’t talk about Ollie and Fred much, but they are still good friends of mine. At least Ollie is, Fred has stated he wanted to eat me on more than one occasion for being so delectably sweet. Thankfully Ollie always gets angry with him for it while stating that you shouldn’t consume the souls of your friends, that’s only for your enemies. Oleander scared me on a number of levels more so than Fred does. “It’s probably for the best to not make deals with them or even talk to them unless you really have to, Fred is kind of an outlier among his kind.”
“We wouldn’t be friends if our lives weren’t a little strange, being weird or unusual is not a problem I should be worried about then.” Po grumbled, he was probably talking about the fact that he was raised by a goose instead of being immediately put in an orphanage after eating said goose’s radish shipment as a baby. “During this whole Shen thing, I remembered some things about my mother and why the Shen's Army symbol was giving nightmares. She was probably killed in Shen’s purge, I still don’t know about my father and all the other pandas that escaped or what even happened to them.”
“Do you need a moment… or a hug?” I found myself swept up into a crushing grip, somehow it didn’t even rate a three out of ten compared to one of Paprika’s mountain breaking hugs of pure friendly affection. I’d hate to be Velvet or Arizona who always get the romantic version.
I wrapped my hooves around him and tried to pat his back.
“I don’t even know if I have any family out there.” Po stated solemnly as he squeeze me tightly. “What if they come looking for me one day?”
“Instead of worrying about the family you might have, be thankful for the one that you currently do and take things as they come.” I said lightly. “I lost my parents when I was young, my family was my brother and grandpa for the longest time. Then it increased in size by friends and my beloved in Huoshan. It’s the family that I built that I’m trying to return to with the help of the ‘Yen of Yunshu’. As you very well know, things haven’t panned out so well with returning to the mystical city of Huoshan.”
“Where there’s a will, there’s a way.” Stated Po in a sagely tone with a smile as he held me up in front of him. “We’ll figure something out Pom.”
“Funny you came to me for comfort and now you’re comforting me.” My tail wagged a bit and I smiled at him.
“Heh, yeah, this has gotten a bit silly.” Po said while setting me down and going to rub at the back of his head. “When you do eventually figure out that coin… you and the other girls won’t be around anymore.”
“Oh Po… you’ll always have the memories of us and the good times we had together, so long as you don’t ever let go of them we’ll always be in your heart no matter how far apart.” There was something I hadn’t brought up before, because not everyone would be so kind about it. I think Po could handle it the truth. “Po, the person I’m married to, have I ever given you a description of them?”
“No, but they must be pretty lucky guy to have someone like you.” Aside from Po making me blush, I decided to correct him on something.
“You know what I told you about the captain of Huoshan, the champion even. Do you remember what I also told you of Tianhuo?” I think I might have confused him somewhat, but Po nodded and seemed to wonder what the champion of Huoshan has to do with Tianhuo. “I’m married to her."
“Oh… huh… I can see why you wouldn’t bring it up so much. Some people might not be open to the idea of that kind of relationship huh.” Po looked a bit sheepish and he blushed. “So Tianhuo’s the champion of Huoshan? Well it explains why you’re eyes light up whenever you talked about her, since you don’t actually see her as just a friend.”
“Also the reason why I even have some talent in fighting, it’s rather odd that she is the shy one in our relationship given how supportive she is.” I looked over the edge of the boat at the water. “She was quite lonely before we met. She didn’t exactly have many friends before she awakened her fire and afterwards only those in the guard, but she at least had the respect of all the other longma.”
“I’m sure you’ll get back to her eventually.” Po gently rubbed my back.
“And I’m on a boat, let’s all stay afloat and once I get my own on it I will dote~!” Shanty sang out as she ran along pasted us, I smiled warmly after her.
“She seems excited.” Po stated simply. “Then again she’s always like that, even when she was pretty badly injured.”
“Shanty has her dreams and she’s trying to keep a positive outlook on things despite being a homeless orphan that I’m now taking care of, I don’t think I’ll ever want to deter her. She wants to sail the sea or the skies, she’ll probably want to do the latter on a magical flying boat.” The technological level around here would probably jump if I said the word ‘airship’, so I would rather imply that flying boats existed as ‘air’ was the bigger hint. “She just doesn’t see it yet.”
“See what?” Asked Po.
“She’s already living her dream of adventure.” I watched as Shanty climbed the mast to stare out at the sea. “I sorely want to adopt her, but I don’t want to keep her from her dreams and she’s almost old enough to start making them a reality. She just needs a little help, I’m already doing that by making sure she can defend herself.”
“She’s like the little sister I’ve never had.” At Po’s statement, I sighed loudly and he gave me a curious look.
“She’s not actually young, she’s that small because she’s malnourished and it’s why she eats so much.” I should probably explain malnourishment. “A child needs food to grow, they become malnourished when they don’t get as much to eat and given that Shanty was homeless and an orphan before we met...”
“At least she’ll always look cute right?” Tried Po who was looking for a bright side.
“One can only I hope.” I snorted and giggled. “Ocellus has a pretty large family and Smolder doesn’t acknowledge the fact that she has ever had parents. Ocellus’s came from a society that’s big on community and Smolder comes from a society that’s more about individual prowess.”
“Yet they are really good friends… unless… they are like you and Tianhuo aren’t they?” Po picked up on that pretty fast.
“It’s not like they are really truly hiding it, now getting them to admit to it…” I rolled onto my back and stared at the cloudy sky. “That’s the challenge. Ocellus needs to consume love and Smolder always willingly feeds her a metric ton of it of her own volition, it’s just that Ocellus is too polite to take any more than she needs for any given day.”
“This has been a pretty good talk, so what’s the first thing you are going to do when we get to The Valley of Peace? I know I’m going to talk with my father about my adventures in Gongmen City.” Good question Po. What would be the first thing I would do once we get back to where we showed up in this world?
“I think I would want to go for a frolic through the fields, maybe prepare a picnic and take Shanty with me to enjoy a day of not focusing on anything in particular.” If there was one thing that relaxes a lambkin like nothing else, it was a good frolic through a calm field with no danger or paranoia triggering things in sight.
I missed Meadow Hills sometimes, but I missed Huoshan even more. The farm lands away from the volcano were always just as nice.
-Huoshan Farmlands, Velvet-
"Everyone be thankful that the only thing I'm fussy about is my floof!" I think Tianhuo needed this, Pom was said to do this when she was highly stressed out.