Chapter 20
*Third person — same place and time.*
Had an unseen observer looked upon the scene of the recent battle, they would have taken in a picture of total devastation. Every living thing on the clearing had been mangled and torn. Heaps of twisted tree trunks and fragments of shattered boulders covered the ground. Haphazard craters had transformed what had once been a peaceful corner of the forest into something resembling the surface of the moon. And at the epicenter of all this chaos, two figures stood motionless.
One of them was a giant panda. His muscles were grotesquely swollen, forming an unnatural, almost surreal definition — so extreme it seemed the product of someone's diseased imagination. His eyes blazed with the crimson fire of primal fury. His body was striped with wounds, and his chest was soaked in a mixture of dried and fresh blood. Embedded deep in the flesh at its center was a three-bladed knuckleduster.
The other was a wolverine, held in the crushing grip of the panda. Whatever menace he had once projected was gone: one arm with dislocated joints hung uselessly, and a red thread trickled from a cut on his thigh — a souvenir from the stone shrapnel launched at him earlier. His consciousness, clouded by terror and pain, was fighting to understand what had gone so catastrophically wrong.
If any outside observer had tried to comment on the Wolverine's principal mistake, lovers of the dramatic would no doubt have observed: *a cornered animal is always dangerous.*
"I'll ask one more time," the panda said, in a tone of murderous seriousness, his demanding gaze fixed on his captive. "Have you ever been on a helicopter?"
"N-no—" escaped the Wolverine with a fresh groan of pain. The monster's paw had tightened around his wrist — the one still futilely trying to free the lodged weapon.
"Well then," came the deep, unhurried, almost lazy response above him. "Now you will, you little rat."
The panda shifted his grip, locking a paw around the opponent's throat, and lifted him into the air without any visible effort. The Wolverine's breathing cut off with a gurgling sound. With his other paw, the panda pulled the embedded weapon from his own chest — along with the arm still clutching its handle. Blood poured from the wound, then, to a remarkable degree, stopped almost immediately, as though the flesh was hurrying to seal itself.
In one sharp motion the panda tore the knuckleduster from the Wolverine's convulsing paw and flung it aside. Unfortunately for the predator, he did so with conspicuous carelessness, accompanied by the characteristic crunch of the bones that had remained intact. The panda didn't appear to notice. He simply tightened his grip on the throat, while the Wolverine, desperately clutching at the panda's arm with his one remaining functional paw, made futile attempts to ease the pressure cutting off his air. His legs beat against the panda's powerful frame in helpless fury — nothing more than involuntary twitching, incapable of causing the slightest harm.
With his free paw the panda picked up a length of bamboo, giving it a brief, evaluating look. At the sight of this crude but ominous instrument, the Wolverine felt an icy chill of absolute, animal terror crawl down his spine. He suddenly understood where this was going — but what awaited him was something more unthinkable and terrible still.
"Ready to fly?" The same calm voice spoke directly into his ear.
"Please — no," the Wolverine rasped, and his voice carried a desperate, entirely genuine plea.
A pause followed. It seemed as though the panda was actually considering the request.
"…Yes. Absolutely yes, you little rat."
"Oh, mama—" the Wolverine moaned, and his voice held nothing but helpless terror.
With a powerful motion, the Panda impaled him on the bamboo staff. No scream followed — only a strangled, crushing groan containing both pain and humiliation. Holding the shaft at its base, the giant spun the Wolverine with force, turning him into something resembling a blurred propeller, and launched him skyward with a powerful kick.
The Panda watched his departing opponent, then tossed the bamboo fragment aside with a look of mild distaste. He drew the back of his paw across his face and observed with a flat, philosophical air, gazing up at the sky:
"He went up high. No rain today."
A minute passed. The projectile launched by the Panda had not yet returned from the sky. But the Panda appeared unconcerned — he stood as a statue, his expression conveying deep thought. A little more time passed, before the "helicopter" finally began its descent back toward earth. It looked certain to meet the ground at high velocity and leave very little behind, but at the last moment a flashing shadow caught it in midair, one second before impact.
***
*Po's perspective.*
After launching my improvised helicopter, the first sober thought finally broke through to consciousness.
*Wait. What in the world did I just do? I should have simply finished him off and been done with it. But honestly — I couldn't have. No. I wouldn't have done it. I'm not a cold-blooded killer. Though, if you think about it, death would have been more merciful. So which of the two of us is the bigger psychopath — him or me?*
In my head, as though in justification, the next absurd scenario surfaced, clothed in the rhythm of a terrible advertisement: *Do you commit evil? Then we're coming to you! Bamboo extraction and aerial experience, all in one package!* Where that idiotic thought came from, I had no idea. Apparently my brain, attempting to process the shock, had begun generating pure nonsense seasoned with sick humor.
Then, out of nowhere, a mental image formed: a typical therapist's office, hung with diplomas and calming landscapes. I sat in an enormous leather chair, and across from me sat myself, in glasses, notepad in hand.
"Well then, my friend, tell me what's troubling you," began therapist-me.
"Well, you see, Doctor—" patient-me began haltingly. "It's been about twenty years since I arrived in this world—"
"Yes, yes, I understand," therapist-me nodded. "That's quite some time, but we still have our whole lives ahead of us."
"The thing is… I've started involuntarily developing concepts for punishing opponents through… er… extreme recreational experiences. First the beating, and then… well, you know."
"My friend, have you considered that this might simply be a local cultural norm?" therapist-me raised a professionally arched eyebrow. "Perhaps here it's entirely standard to discipline enemies with whatever comes to hand?"
"Doctor, there is no such thing in the local culture!" patient-me insisted desperately. "And besides, methods like that are… somewhat unconventional. And I, as you know, have always played strictly for one team! I try to avoid any topics of that nature!"
"Calm down, my friend," therapist-me raised a soothing finger. "Let us work through the manual. This may simply be the sublimation of aggression through metaphorical imagery—"
"The what?" patient-me failed to follow. "Did you even understand what you just said to me?"
Therapist-me smirked and, waving a paw, concluded:
"Well then — we simply wanted very, very thorough revenge. But we definitely need therapy in the future, to prevent such notions of… extreme entertainment from recurring."
With that, the mental image dissolved, and a real thought arrived in its place:
*So. Let's say I wanted revenge. For what? For the injuries? Yes — but not only. For what he said? Not entirely. For what he did? Yes, exactly. He demonstrated with his every action that he was in control. He made me feel helpless. And I… I hate being weak. I hate being helpless.*
With the recognition of that simple truth, images from the previous life that I had tried so hard to forget flashed involuntarily through my mind.
Myself as a child, my body betraying me again and again: the crack of bone from a clumsy movement, the constant pain in tendons and muscles, plaster casts as a second skin. Doctors with their standard smiles, telling me year after year that it would be fine — but fine never came.
The shocking moment of understanding that my illness was a sentence, permanently striking out any chance of a happy and long life. And then adulthood — gray, paved with hated work, because no other kind existed for me.
Work I was forced to endure day after day, because a disability payment wasn't enough to survive on, let alone actually live. And above all, the ice-cold terror of the thought that I would die quietly, alone, needed by no one, leaving nothing behind. Or perhaps the cause of my death would be some stupid, absurd fall.
Something else was still nagging at the edge of my awareness — some shadow I couldn't quite grasp. But I was distracted by movement: the poor soul had never reached the ground, having been caught in midair by a suddenly appearing Shifu.
"I see," Shifu said, his attentive gaze moving over me from head to foot. His expression grew progressively more concerned, until it finally fixed on my eyes. What he saw there clearly did not please him.
"Good of you to arrive in the nick of time, Master Shifu," I said with a snort, doing my best to maintain an aggrieved look. "You saved him from me, rather than me from him."
*Please don't let him have seen how it ended. Please don't let him have seen it,* I was desperately repeating inside, feeling goosebumps rise at the memory of the final act of my "battle."
"He would not have survived the meeting with the ground," Shifu said with a sigh, dropping his burden onto the earth. "And we need him alive."
The Wolverine, whom the master had unceremoniously deposited on the ground, was only producing ragged, broken wheezes, his eyes rolled back, foam at the corners of his mouth.
"You worked him over comprehensively," Shifu observed, his gaze moving across my countless wounds. "You'll tell me everything. Later. For now — calm down and rest. There's not a whole patch of undamaged skin on you."
I knew he was entirely right, but decided to take mild revenge for his late arrival.
"No, Master Shifu—" my words came out with exaggerated gravitas, while I attempted to arrange my bloodied face into the most ominous expression I could muster. "I will not be stopping. This fury has given me strength! I have attained a power undreamed of by either you or my father! Mua-ha-ha-ha!"
I launched into theatrical, hysterical laughter, spreading my arms as though embracing an invisible empire.
"All of China, and then all of the world, will be mine!"
I glanced at Shifu and watched with pleasure as his face cycled from shock into grim resolve, his body tensing for a lightning strike.
*Surely he isn't actually falling for this childish routine?*
"Panda." His voice came out flat and without a single trace of humor. "If that is not a joke, I am prepared to put you down here and now. The dark path is not a game."
My theatrical villain's expression immediately gave way to genuine unease. A chill moved down my spine — I had clearly pushed too far.
"I'm joking, I'm joking!" I waved my paws vigorously, folding over into real, nervous laughter in which relief and the dregs of adrenaline were thoroughly mixed. "Oh, I can't — you should have seen your face!"
As I laughed, my body gradually returned to itself. The swollen muscles slowly deflated, but — to my surprise — this time didn't disappear entirely under the usual layer of fat. The body had noticeably "leaned out," apparently having burned through a significant portion of its reserves during the fight. A light, almost pleasant fatigue spread through the muscles, and every wound on my body was itching furiously — a clear sign that regeneration was underway.
"Panda, that is not a joke to make," Shifu said with irritation, though the tension in his shoulders had finally eased. "I have seen enough dark kung fu masters proclaiming such things. Far too many."
"All right, all right, I'm sorry—" I did my best to project innocence, which was challenging given that I was covered in dried blood and standing in the center of a field of destruction. "How is your friend, by the way? His home was burning quite impressively. Is this individual by any chance connected?" I pointed at the still-unconscious Wolverine.
Shifu gave a brief explanation: the Wolverine was most likely a hired agent or someone's pawn, responsible for the arson and the theft of the schematics. Tao-Tai himself was unharmed and would be arriving shortly.
*Wonderful. Another problem for what is already an extremely eventful life. Ordinary bandits and general chaos weren't enough — now apparently someone wants to add the inventions of a genius to the mix.*
Meanwhile Shifu had noticed the Wolverine's weapon lying near me.
"This appears to be the lost legendary Wind Claws of Master Capybara," he said with genuine interest, picking up the knuckleduster and examining it carefully.
After a lengthy inspection, he spoke with reverent satisfaction:
"Excellent. These will take their rightful place in the Jade Palace's arsenal."
"They didn't exactly impress me," I couldn't help but comment skeptically, gesturing at my slowly closing cuts. "Just some scratchers. If he'd had a sword, he probably would have cut me considerably more effectively."
Shifu responded with a meaningful sound. He slipped the knuckleduster onto his paw, and his hand made several smooth, wavelike movements, as though winding invisible energy. The air around the blades shimmered, filling with a low, resonant hum.
"Watch," the master said, and made a devastating swing.
Three compressed blades of pure energy — blazing with brilliant light — broke free from the steel claws and shot forward. They didn't simply cut through the bamboo and trees in their path — they passed through them without encountering the slightest resistance, leaving behind perfectly smooth cuts. After traveling some fifteen meters with a thunderous roar, the blades dissolved into the air, leaving behind a clean-cut swath through the undergrowth and the smell of ozone.
Silence fell, broken only by the rustling of severed tree sections as they dropped to the ground.
My jaw literally fell. My eyes went wide. *This entire time that psychopath was wielding an artifact capable of firing compressed energy projectiles?! And he was using it on me like a cat scratching furniture!*
"Those particular 'scratchers,'" Shifu remarked with satisfaction, watching my stunned face. "The idiot didn't even suspect what kind of power he was holding. Pity there's only one — a full set would be considerably more effective."
While I processed this revelation, Shifu had already knelt beside the Wolverine and set about a professional search. His fingers, seeming to know exactly where to look, quickly found a concealed pocket in the Wolverine's clothing that produced an odd bulge along his back. From it he extracted a thick stack of papers densely covered in formulas and diagrams.
I looked at them, and something genuinely surprised me. It wasn't the endless formulas and mechanism sketches covering the sheets. It was the paper itself.
It was unnaturally thin and dense for this world — identical in quality to high-grade paper from my previous life. It wasn't a separate scroll but a neat stack of sheets in what appeared to be a standard, almost printed, format.
It was at that moment that Tao-Tai and his son emerged into the clearing. The warthog appeared barely to have changed over the years. He stopped cautiously on seeing me, but Shifu gave a brief, reassuring gesture: *He's one of ours.*
Tao-Tai's gaze moved to the unconscious Wolverine's body, and genuine, almost childlike joy spread across his face — entirely at odds with his earlier grim manner.
Drawing closer, Tao-Tai fixed me with a close, examining look — the kind one reserves for a complicated piece of machinery.
"I know you!" he announced, recognition lighting his eyes, mixed with sudden suspicion.
"Yes — we've crossed paths a couple of times," I said with a shrug. "I helped my teacher deliver iron."
"And you—" Tao-Tai made a theatrical pause, his voice dropping to a quiet, devastating register. "—you broke my children."
It took me a second to realize he was not referring to living creatures, but to the training hall's mechanisms.
I froze, feeling a chill move through me under that peculiar gaze. What was there to say? Make excuses? Apologize? Explain that they started it? The last option, despite being true, would have sounded utterly infantile.
*Definitely touched in the head, calling mechanisms his 'children,'* I noted inwardly. Although — unbidden, the memory of Father surfaced, grumbling at his cooking pot in those exact tones, especially when something stuck to the bottom. *"Come on now, my darling, what's wrong with you today? Let's get you cleaned up…"* Well. Apparently all geniuses have their particular fixations. Cooks and mechanics alike. Though the mechanics, judging by events, are considerably more dangerous in their obsession.
Fortunately, Shifu broke the growing awkward silence, extending the stack of schematics to Tao-Tai. "Give him a little grace, old friend," the master said, and for the first time something soft and almost coaxing entered his voice. "It was he who caught your enemy with your own work in hand. And besides—" Shifu allowed a barely perceptible smile — "wasting anger on a fool only costs yourself."
"Hm—" Tao-Tai, the schematics now in his hands, had already turned his attention to them, and as he reviewed the pages his stern expression gradually softened. "All my key designs are here. Reconstructing them from scratch would have required months of painstaking work. But here—" he drew a paw across the diagrams with something close to tenderness — "everything is already worked out to the last bolt."
He paused, looking between me and Shifu, then continued:
"All right, then. I will repair the training hall for you, and I'm even prepared to take on the role of permanent mechanic — but only under one condition." Tao-Tai said it thoughtfully, and added: "That quarters are provided for me and my son on the grounds of the Jade Palace."
The words appeared to genuinely surprise Shifu. They outright shocked the young warthog — Tao-Tai's son — who spoke for the first time since appearing on the clearing.
"Father! But you always said you hated the Jade Palace and everything connected to it!" he said with disbelief, his eyes wide.
"Ahem… times change, son," the warthog cleared his throat, avoiding direct eye contact, though his voice was steady. "We'll be safe there." He jerked his head toward the defeated Wolverine. "The people behind this one won't stop until they get my weapon."
He picked up one of the diagrams. On it was something that caught my attention. At first glance it resembled a mortar — familiar from my previous life. But looking more closely, I noticed a strange mechanism in the design: a complex system of chambers and spiral channels wrapping around the barrel like honeycomb cells. Beside the schematic of the projectiles were sketches of some kind of crystalline powder, annotated with the words *explosive resonance.*
Shifu considered for a moment, then gave a slow nod:
"I will speak with Master Oogway. I believe he will not object."
At the mention of Oogway's name, the warthog's expression turned distinctly sour — but he muttered: "Well then, what are we waiting for? I am already eager to repair my little ones!"
"In that case, we move." Shifu turned to me. "Panda — you carry the prisoner. I hope you left enough consciousness in him that we can get some answers."
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