“You are my enemy dragon warrior,” The large beast of a man practically spat out the words ‘dragon warrior’ as if they were bad food. He was in a traveling cloak with the hood drawn over his head in such a way that you could not get a good look at his features. Po squinted at him in the light of the setting sun. The features were feline as far as he could tell, but the cloak hid his enemy’s body from him. He was unable to tell if he was muscular or just large with fat.
“Show your face,” Po said trying to muster up some courage. “If you are truly my enemy then I would like to know what my enemy looks like.”
The other chuckled softly before speaking again in a voice that dripped with malice, “I will return here in one year to kill you. Take that year to train, because if you do not and I kill you easily then you will have disgraced not only yourself but the name of Kung Fu as well.”
With a rustling of his cloak the man turned his back on Po and began striding away from him towards the mountains.
“Hey! HEY! Come back here! What’s your name?! Who are you?! Why do you hate me?!” Po screamed after him but didn’t take a step forward to follow him. The man turned to face Po again and pulled his hood down so that he was framed by the setting sun in Po’s vision. A monster of a man with a long wild black mane framing his chiseled feline features.
“My name is Haraise Kataki,” The man roared at him. “Remember it well for we are sworn blood enemies.”
“Harass?” Po tried to pronounce the name.
“That,” The maned lion paused and strode a few paces back to Po until they were standing nose to nose. Po could smell the man’s breath hot on his face as he stared up in to the vengeful yellow eyes. “Is my last name. My name is Kataki. Do not forget it.”
Po averted his gaze first looking past the man to the setting sun he was practically trembling because he had never once after defeating Tai Lung been challenged by anyone. Kataki pulled his hood back over his head as he spun on his heel and walked away from Po.
“Remember, Panda,” Kataki called back to him. “Not only is your life on the line here, but also the very spirit and pride of Kung Fu. If you fail you fail not only yourself, your family, and your village. You will shame an entire martial art.”
Po waited until Kataki was gone, and then waited an hour longer to be completely sure before he ran as fast as his squat legs would carry him back to the Jade Palace. Out of breath and ravenously hungry he burst through the gate.
“Help m…” Po started but just as he lifted his paw he fell face first on to the floor.
“Po?!” The furious five exclaimed as they rushed around him.
“Get back. Give him some room!” Master Shifu shouted at them as he pushed by them to stand in front of Po. “PO! What is the meaning of this?! You were missing from practice, and you missed dinner. That is not like you! Explain yourself!”
“Well, you see,” Po stammered as he rolled over and rocked in to a sitting position on the ground in front of his master. “There was this guy who challenged me by the river. He said that he and I were blood enemies. But I don’t know him and he looked spooky! He had a cat’s head, but it had fur all around it like a necklace!”
“What you saw was a lion, Po.” Viper chimed in. “We’ve been seeing a lot more of them coming to our lands from other parts of the world.”
Po nodded dumbly, “But master.”
“There is no excuse, Po.” Master Shifu said. “You should have been here for practice. If you hadn’t have wandered off again you would not have met this man and you wouldn’t be in the state which you are now.”
“Yes, master.” Po said standing up and bowing his head in defeat. “I shouldn’t have left when it was so close to practice time. It won’t happen again.”
Master Shifu’s eyes softened as he looked up at Po again.
“What of this blood enemy?” Master Shifu asked quietly.
“He just said that he will be back in one year and I have to be ready to defeat him. He said that if I lose I will disgrace not just China but anyone who practices Kung Fu,” Po sighed heavily again.
“Well, you have let yourself go, Po,” A soft lilting voice spoke from behind everyone. They all turned to Mei Ling as she approached them.
“But a lion should be no problem for the dragon warrior, right?” Mei Ling winked at Po and Po felt his face getting hot and red under his fur. He was sure that everyone could see him blushing. Po looked down at his feet in embarrassment. He looked back up to see everyone looking around in confusion.
“Where is Tigress?” Mei Ling spoke the question in everyone’s minds.
Tigress raced along the river’s edge her sensitive nose sniffing the air. She was trying to catch the scent of Po and then Po’s enemy. She came to a halt next to a cluster of bamboo that looked like they had been smashed by a boulder. She sniffed and caught Po’s scent. ‘Not smashed,’ she thought to herself. ‘But very eaten.’
She inhaled sharply as she caught the scent of the other. A very male scent that made her fur stand on end and tingle. She shook off the feeling quickly as she raced down the path towards the mountain where Kataki had went. The path went from steep to nearly impossible in a few leaps. Tigress was determined to find this man, and stop this feud before it started. She didn’t realize however that this feud had been started even before Po had been born.
“It’s all my fault,” Po sniffled as he sat in his room. Viper and Crane stood in front of him with Mei Ling standing just a big behind them. If Viper had turned at that moment she would have seen the hate Mei Ling had seething from her eyes as she stared a hole in to the back of Viper’s head.
“It’s not your fault, Po,” Mei Ling said sweetly as she pushed past Viper and Crane to sit next to Po on his Tatami mat. Crane gave her a quizzical look that she ignored as she put her arm around Po’s shoulders as best she could because of his size. Crane gave Po a glare, and Mei Ling felt herself smiling on the inside as she rubbed Po’s back with a paw.
“Yes, it… it… izzzz!” Po let out a wail and turned to bury his head against Mei Ling’s chest. Everyone looked shocked for a moment, but it was Mei Ling who recovered first and stroked the fur between Po’s ears as he clutched her around the waist, hiding his head against her chest.
“No, it’s not. Shhhhh… Shhhhh…” Mei Ling cooed sweetly at him as she continued to stroke his fur. Crane’s eyes were now shooting daggers at Po as he tipped his head forward so that his hat would hide the hate in his eyes. Viper looked up at Crane and caught his dark look for a moment before his hat shifted over his eyes. She looked from Mei Ling to Crane and then turned around and slithered out of the room without another word. Crane sensed her leaving rather than actually seeing it.
“I’m pretty beat myself,” Crane said stretching and yawning loudly. “Master Shifu will probably be able to sort all of this out in the morning. You should get some rest, Po.”
Po sniffed loudly and nodded his head against Mei Ling’s chest unintentionally setting a deep rumbling purr out of her. Mei Ling blushed slightly at the unexpected purr, but Crane was already retreating hastily from the room. His patience had been broken with that last action. He breathed deeply as he walked to his own room trying to quell the urge to burst back in to Po’s room and kill him for touching Mei Ling.
“What are you so angry about?” Viper’s voice called to him from outside Crane’s door.
“I am not angry!” Crane snapped as he slid the door open angrily the rice paper ripped slightly as it grated the frame of the sliding door.
“I would say it looks as if you are,” Viper said as she slithered in to the room shutting the door behind her with a quick flick of her tail. Crane put his hat on a hook on his wall.
“I’m not. It’s just that Po can be so irritating sometimes!” Crane said not looking at Viper as he preened his feathers slowly trying to avoid her eyes.
“What is annoying about someone being afraid of fighting to the death? I would be afraid if someone came to attempt to kill me,” Viper said softly.
“I wouldn’t let that happen,” Crane said venomously. “If some man so much as touched you I would tear him apart!”
Viper smiled as she watched Crane now preening his feathers with such force he was ripping quite a few of them out of his body. Viper slithered towards him and then up his legs and on to his body. She wrapped herself around his neck so that her face was staring at his eyes from the top of his beak.
“Do you love me?” Viper asked lowering her eyelids as she asked him. Crane smiled slightly the smile dancing up his beak and in to his eyes.
“I have loved you since the day I came to the Jade Palace,” Crane sighed still smiling at Viper. “You were the only one who believed in me here. You stood up for me when no one else would.”
“What about Mei Ling?” Viper asked her soft voice cracking slightly as she said Mei Ling’s name.
“She is only my friend.” Crane said closing his eyes so that Viper couldn’t read the falsity of his statement. “Nothing more.”
Silently, Viper nodded as she snaked forward to kiss Crane gently between his eyes. She slithered off of him and left the room without another word. Crane let out a sigh. He hated lying to Viper but if he told her that after all these years he still had strong feelings for Mei Ling she would possibly kill him, or worse kill Mei Ling. She would definitely kill the two of them if she ever heard what had happened between the two of them the day Mei Ling had come to the Jade Palace to complete her training after her master died. Crane felt a stirring and smiled to himself but that warm feeling was quickly replaced with the scene of Po’s head buried against Mei Ling’s breasts while she purred contentedly.
Without another thought Crane hopped up on his windowsill looking back in to his room sadly before soaring up in to the night sky.
Tigress pushed back vines that covered a large opening in the mountain. As soon as the vines were pushed away the scent of the man she had been tracking whooshed out to greet her. She knew at that moment she was in the right place. Cautiously, she entered the cave letting the vines swing back over the entrance behind her. Slowly with one paw against the wall and the other thrust out in front of her she made her way down the passage. Within a few steps what little light had been filtering in from the vine door was gone now making passage completely dark. She perked her ears listening for any sign of the man that had threatened Po’s life. Continuing down the path for what seemed like hours she almost fell on her face as the hallway dumped in to a large pitch black room.
“You really should be more careful,” A husky male voice said as the room was suddenly illuminated by at least one thousand tiny candles. Tigress blinked and was blinded by the suddenness of the light. She was lifted roughly to her feet and pushed up against a cold stone wall.
“I came to speak to you about…” Tigress took a deep breath as her eyes adjusted to the light and she looked up at her assailant. A gasp escaped her throat as she let her eyes feast on his handsome feline features. The lion was completely black except for white that ran from his lower lip, under his chin, down his neck, and disappeared in to his shirt. The lion looked down his muzzle at her and breathed in deeply.
“You want to talk to me about the Dragon Warrior,” He whispered gruffly.
“How di…”
“I can smell him on you,” The lion growled lightly. “You practically reek of him. I could smell you coming the moment you opened my door.”
Tigress blushed. She had been careless. She hadn’t bathed in the stream to wash off all the scents. He could probably even smell the noodles she had for lunch, and the sweat of her training. She blushed deeply and lowered her head closing her eyes.
“But what to do about you,” The lion whispered. “I suppose I’ll have to kill you since you found my home.”
With shock she looked up at him trying to gauge his intentions in his eyes, but there was no emotion in them for her to read.
“You wouldn’t kill a woman, would you?” She gasped.
“Woman? You’re a woman?!” The lion roared in a mocking tone.
“Yes,” Tigress answered sheepishly. “Couldn’t you tell?”
“Oh, yes.” The lion nodded with a small smile on his muzzle. “And honor says we don’t kill the weak, feeble, or innocent. But…” The lion leaned his muzzle in to touch her own. “When you took up the title of warrior you left behind the title woman. You cannot be both. You made your choice.”
“Bu… but… “Tigress stammered in an attempt to think.
“There are no buts,” The lion roared at her. “You either are a woman or you are a warrior you cannot be both. So, which is it?”
“I am a warrior,” Tigress whispered.
“You don’t sound very sure of that,” The lion said, “But where are my manners. It’s only fitting that you should know the name of the man who is about to kill you. My name is Kataki, and I intend to kill the Dragon Warrior and all who stand in my path.”
“My name is Tigress,” Tigress told him softly. “Master Tigress.”
“Master? You are a master?” Kataki laughed lightly and Tigress blushed in anger.
“What is so funny about that?” Tigress demanded.
“The fact that everyone here seems so backwards. You are a master and a big fat panda is a dragon warrior. It seems that mountain living has made everyone dulled by the lack of oxygen.” Kataki chuckled before the sound much like a shotgun echoed off the walls. Tigress stood in front of Kataki her paw still raised after slapping him across his muzzle. Kataki smiled slightly as he licked the blood off his lip.
“I won’t stand for your insolence against our lands and people!” Tigress exclaimed dropping her fists to her sides.
“Good,” Kataki nodded at her with a smile. “You have fight in you. I’m going to enjoy this.” He took up an aggressive stance. “Defend yourself, Master Tigress.”
In one year Kataki will return to battle the Dragon Warrior Po. Can Po stop goofing off long enough to defeat him? Can everyone else get their hormones under control? Or will the honor of Kung Fu die with him? (It's not a Po/Tigress story, or any other pair story. It's a Furious Five and Valley of Peace story. Even I do not know what romances will come about. Updates sporadically.)
