Chapter 15
The first thing I did after Shifu dismissed us was go to my room to drop off the things I had brought from home, then head to the waterfall to wash up.
I was mildly surprised to find a small repair project underway in the barracks: goose servants were hauling thick, sturdy planks to replace whatever had been passing for floorboards in the corridor — the ones that hadn't survived contact with my body.
After sorting out my things, I went to the waterfall. I undressed quickly and stepped under the freezing cascade. The cold water scalded my skin, instantly washing away the dried, sticky juice and the grime of the day.
I lathered my fur until it squeaked, rinsing again and again under the icy streams until my skin ached from the cold and my body was seized by that familiar, welcome shuddering. With each drop of water that carried away the exhaustion and filth, my head grew clearer. The cleanliness of the body brought a cleanliness of thought.
I climbed out, toweled off thoroughly, savoring the feel of blood rushing back to my skin. Put on clean clothes — and only then, properly presentable, began the laundry.
Crouching by the water, I scrubbed away at the stained garments. Mechanically working out dried patches, I turned the situation over in my mind. My thoughts, clearer now and measured, kept returning to the same thing — my future here, in the Jade Palace.
Things were gradually warming between me and the Five, and that was a good sign. With some of them there was already something that felt like a connection, fragile as it was. But Tigress — she still looked at me as though I were a personal insult that had taken the form of a black and white animal.
Something needed to be done about that. But what? How to approach her without her thinking I was making a move on her, or worse, challenging her to some kind of competition? I could hardly walk up and say: *Hey Tigress, how long did you manage on Shifu's nipple-training program? I lasted half an hour!*
The idiotic thought slipped in on its own and I snorted. *No. That approach ends in broken ribs, guaranteed.*
Sometimes a single look from her was enough to make everything inside me clench, and leave me wanting either to hide or to snap back.
But never mind Tigress — that was a question of personal comfort. Kung fu training was a question of survival. I had never seen much point in it before, assuming my physical strength would be adequate for any situation. But after that sparring session where they threw me around like a sack of sawdust, and after the encounter with the bandits — it was becoming clear that physical strength and durability alone were not enough. That lead croc and that blade of his, cutting through wood like it was soft butter. What if I had faced him in a straight fight? Even a glancing strike from a blade like that could carve through my flesh to the bone.
And the latest news wasn't reassuring on any front. With no guards in the Valley, the kung fu masters were going to be doing the work of twice as many.
The Valley of Peace was enormous. In childhood, when Father used to drag me through all its corners in search of the ideal radish, I was always struck by how much of it there was. Forest, mountains, dozens of villages and small towns. A genuinely beautiful region — a crossroads of trade routes and a place of remarkable calm. Father always said there was nowhere better — peaceful, and the taxes were barely worth mentioning.
All of that because the Valley was under the jurisdiction of the Jade Palace. No local warlords, just Oogway and his students. The taxes went to the Palace's upkeep, and any excess went straight to the Emperor, who in his generosity sent guards to help maintain order. As long as that system worked, everything stayed quiet.
But now — with the guards gone — every gang that had been lurking at the margins would smell weakness. And it wasn't just looting anymore. They were kidnapping children. That wasn't ordinary crime. That was a declaration.
Perhaps the Palace could have handled all the threats at once in earlier times, but not now. The short time I had spent here was already enough to notice that not everything at the Jade Palace was as pristine as it appeared from outside.
Everything pointed to there having been far more students here once — many times more, possibly dozens of times more. Even without straying from the main paths, I had noticed overgrown tracks branching off in every direction. They led toward foundations hidden in the undergrowth — what had probably been barracks, where entire generations of students had lived.
*I'll need to learn more about this place,* I thought, since it had become my home for the foreseeable future.
With that firm if not entirely clear-headed decision, I made my way back to the barracks. There were a couple of hours before Shifu's training session, and I decided to make the most of them. Specifically, by sleeping. I had been awake the entire previous night, and sleep was essential for a growing organism. Reaching my room, I climbed in through the window without ceremony — why walk around and disrupt the repair work? — and dropped onto the bed, sinking into sleep almost before I had finished falling.
***
*The following passage is the product of the author's unrestrained imagination and excessive familiarity with Warhammer 40,000 memes. It contains scenes not intended for the sensitive. If you are not prepared for apocalyptic nightmare content, you may skip ahead to the marker "END OF DREAM."*
*P.S. Yes, I know this breaks sharply from the rest of the story.*
Consciousness returned slowly and painfully. I didn't know where I was. My head was heavy, as though filled with lead, and my thoughts kept tearing apart before I could hold them. What had I been doing? I tried to gather myself, but the attempt was cut off by deafening explosions somewhere close. Instinct pulled me upright, and only then did I open my eyes and look around in stunned disbelief.
What met me defied rational description. I was lying on cracked asphalt, and above it rose a city that looked as though a lunatic had designed it. Every building was painted in screaming colors: pink walls alongside acid green, blue against neon yellow, a riot that gouged at the eyes.
Everywhere — on twisted balconies, on half-collapsed walls — hung posters. On them, smiling creatures that were neither human nor animal were frozen in unnaturally playful and brazenly obscene poses. Some had cat ears poking through disheveled hair, others wore fluffy tails, and some had bestial muzzles on humanoid bodies. Advertising billboards — shredded by shrapnel, still blinking neon — promised *Eternal Fun at Smiley's Den* or *Tailed Paradise.*
Feeling myself over, I discovered I was wearing a heavy exoskeleton hung with grenades. On the shoulder was a chevice bearing the image of — a dumbbell. The exoskeleton was the complete antithesis of this world of degenerate aesthetics. It was a foreign element here. As was I.
And then from around the corner of a collapsed building came a figure. Its silhouette was unnaturally fluid and flexible, streamlined like a predator.
Its body was almost human — smooth skin, features that were regular, almost doll-like. High cheekbones, a straight nose, and full lips stretched into a frozen, painfully wide smile. Its form was emphatically curvaceous — a narrow waist and unnaturally heavy, generous proportions, provocatively prominent against the slender frame. Large, almond-shaped green eyes with vertical pupils watched me with cold, appraising hunger.
But from the raven-dark hair above its temples rose two pointed fox ears that twitched nervously, catching every sound. And behind it, defying human anatomy, curved a voluminous fiery tail — unnaturally large and perfectly groomed — swaying slowly from side to side as though performing a hypnotic ritual.
"Hello there, soldier!" came its voice, melodious and cloyingly sweet to the point of nausea.
"Would you like to… have some fun?" Its gaze moved across my exoskeleton with the air of an expert appraising goods. "And then you and I can… discuss some anime."
It licked its lips with deliberate languor, and in its deranged eyes a flame of obsession ignited. "I happen to have some… original artwork. Very, *very* rare."
My gaze, sliding downward along its figure, encountered an anatomical detail that was anything but concealed. A grotesquely proportioned object thrust unmistakably from the form-fitting suit. It was not accidental, not a suggestion. It was an aggressive provocation — a grostesque emblem of everything this world considered "joy" and "fun." In the wide, unhinged gaze was not simply a hunger for violence, but something more defiling, more animal, more shameful.
My brain, refusing to process what it was seeing, produced the single most complete and comprehensive thought available to it, crystallized from some primal layer of terror that predated rational thought entirely:
*Oh what the—*
Some ancient, primal instinct far older than the steel of the exoskeleton seized my throat — and certain other parts of my anatomy — in an ice-cold grip. This was not merely a threat of death. It was a threat of total defilement.
I couldn't stand. The power frame hissed, showing signs of life, but my legs refused to respond. I had no weapon — only bare hands encased in steel.
Then my gaze fell to my belt. To the tactical rig, where three oval, ribbed objects hung in a row — fragmentation grenades. A soldier's last argument. The last bastion between me and desecration.
The motion was drilled to reflex. My hand moved on its own, tore the cluster free. A finger found the safety ring. Metal scraped against metal.
"Come here then," I hissed, and my voice, distorted through the built-in vocoder, sounded like the dying wheeze of a diesel engine. "Try to collect your prize."
The creature released a triumphant shriek and lunged at me in a final leap, its clawed limbs aimed at a specific part of my body, anticipation of violation dancing in its eyes.
The leap never completed.
Its head ceased to exist, transformed in an instant into a red mist of flesh, bone, and fur. The crack of the shot that followed the sight was quiet, dry, and precise. And through it, barely audible, a distorted voice:
*"Take that, you saccharine abomination."*
The headless body, carried forward by momentum, flew another meter and landed with a wet thud on the bloodstained asphalt a couple of steps away, twitching feebly.
From around the corner, from beneath an archway of pink and green slabs, he emerged. A soldier. Armored in the same utilitarian, battle-scarred exoskeleton as mine. The smoke drifting from the muzzle brake of the long sniper rifle in his hands dissolved into the smoke of burning buildings. He took several heavy, deliberate steps, his armored boots crunching through shards of rainbow-colored plastic. He stopped over the creature's body, spared it a single indifferent glance — the kind you give a crushed insect — and then his eyes found me.
He crouched, and through the visor I could see a hard, scar-lined face and cold, evaluating eyes. Without unnecessary words, he extended his hand — the gauntlet of his exoskeleton.
"No dying today, brother," said his voice, distorted through the vocoder to a metallic rasp. There was not a drop of sentimentality in it. Only iron will and the protocol of combat brotherhood. "Get up. There are more of them."
The armored gauntlet closed around my hand with the force of a hydraulic press. Without apparent effort, he hauled me to my feet. The servos of my suit howled but held. I felt a familiar toxic surge of combat stimulants run down my spine, clearing my head.
He jerked his chin toward the heap of pink rubble from which the creature had just emerged.
"Ten kilometers from here — their nest. Crawling with those… things." His voice carried cold, absolute contempt. "Heretics who became so consumed by their filthy furry anime that they decided to remake the universe in their degenerate image. The Brotherhood will not approve if we leave this corruption unburned."
He pulled a magazine from his belt, pressed it into my hand, then pointed to a weapon lying near the wall.
"You're up to speed. Gear up. We cleanse this world."
There was no invitation in his words. Only an order. And for the first time since waking in this particular hell, I had a clear and simple goal. Not merely to survive. To fight.
*END OF DREAM*
***
I hit the floor with a crash. Consciousness came back sharp and clear: it was a dream. Only a dream.
*Right, something needs to be done about these nightmares,* my mind was drumming in a rapid, panicked rhythm. *Are there even psychologists in this world?*
I sat up, cradling my head in both paws, and tried to collect myself. *At least I was on the right side.*
That thought helped marginally, but then, relentlessly, the memory of the creature's particular anatomical feature surfaced — that monstrous, revolting… enormously proportioned… and those cloying, simpering words. A shudder ran through me.
To drive away the images, I went outside, doing my best to shake off the remnants of the nightmare. At the entrance I found Mantis sitting unhurriedly on a stone, looking mildly bored.
After exchanging a few unremarkable words with him, I learned I had woken up at the right moment — the others would be gathering shortly, and Shifu would be coming to collect us. With a bit of time remaining, I decided to do something useful with my brain and ask the question that had been sitting in my head since the very first training session.
"I genuinely don't understand," I said, rubbing a paw across my face in frustration. "How do you do it? What's the secret?"
"What exactly are you asking about, brother?" he said pleasantly.
That address stopped me. *Brother?* Was that sincere, or was he having a laugh at my expense?
"Well, here's the thing—" I pointed at his chitinous limbs. "Look at you. Tiny muscles, but strength to spare. How does that work?"
Mantis answered with a roguish grin:
"Ah — the size-to-strength discrepancy? Let me explain. There are two secrets. The first is foundational. Kung fu doesn't teach you to accumulate force — it teaches you to use what already exists. That force is everywhere. Even in a leaf falling from a tree. Your strength is your mass, your weight, your momentum. I simply receive the incoming impulse, add a direction, and… return it."
"Fine, that's more or less clear. But the second secret? That alone doesn't explain how you handle stationary heavy objects," I said.
Though honestly, nothing was clear. I simply couldn't bring myself to believe the whole secret lay in these mysterious "impulses of movement" he talked about so easily.
Mantis's expression became more serious.
"The second secret — without it, the first doesn't always work. Kung fu causes qi to flow correctly. Shifu has never taught us conscious control — it's too dangerous. But years of training have taught our bodies to channel it without thinking. When the channel is clear and directed properly, qi doesn't simply flow — it fills every muscle, every bone. It doesn't replace strength… it multiplies it."
*Well, who could have guessed,* I thought with irritation. Of course — qi. How had I not worked that out myself? It was obvious some kind of energy was involved. And it explained why inhabitants of this world exceeded what should be physically possible even without years of specific training — the qi was simply there, woven into them.
"Enough theory!" Mantis suddenly came to life. "Let me show you how to use movement instead of muscle."
I was surprised he was offering to teach me anything without needing to be asked. Naturally, I didn't refuse. You don't look a gift horse in the mouth.
What followed could only be described as a comedy. I tried to mirror his fluid movements, but my body refused to function as a single unit. Instead of flowing, I produced sharp jerks. Instead of unified momentum, I produced a series of unrelated limb events.
"Po," Mantis finally said, collapsing onto a stone with genuine exhaustion. "Your limbs don't appear to be on speaking terms with each other. Each one is living its own separate life."
I went still and stared at him. He had said *Po*. For the first time since arriving here, someone had addressed me by name.
"Having trouble, boys?" Viper's voice drifted over, smooth and amused. She had approached without a sound.
"He's trying to assemble the movement piece by piece, like a broken vase," Mantis explained. "He's looking at his limbs instead of feeling his body."
Viper watched my clumsy attempts for several minutes, her attentive eyes tracking every movement. Finally she said:
"Po, you're trying too hard." She shook her head slowly. "Stop fighting your own body. Movement should pour, not break you from the inside."
*Well, what a celebration,* I thought. First Mantis, now Viper. Already not just panda, but Po. I wondered when the others would ever bother learning my name.
The thought gave way to another, more practical one: *Wait. Do they actually have real names?*
*I'll need to ask at a good moment. For now — clear the head and just try to copy what they're showing.*
Viper, meanwhile, bent with elegant precision, and her body traced a perfect, continuous arc through the air — a smooth, flowing line from nose to tail, as though water had suddenly taken on form and grace.
"Feel how one muscle passes the effort to the next. Don't make the movement — let it happen," she said.
*I still don't understand anything. And how exactly am I supposed to reproduce that?* I thought gloomily, watching her move. Mantis was at least distantly humanoid. She was a snake.
I tried to repeat the earlier movements more smoothly, but stumbled — and landed on the ground.
"I… see the problem," Viper said, her frustration showing through. "Your body doesn't want to be a reed. It wants to be a boulder rolling downhill."
*Oh, for— Maybe enough with the poetic imagery?* I thought irritably.
The others had come over by now. Monkey took one look at my spread-eagled form and dissolved into hysterics, rolling and slapping his sides. Crane gave a restrained shake of his head. Tigress stood slightly apart, arms folded, and her skeptical expression said everything without using a single word.
I lay on my back looking at the sky, and then the laughter cut off. A familiar shadow fell over me.
"It appears someone is at war with their own body," said Shifu's ironic voice.
"I'm trying! I'm doing your flowing movements!" I muttered.
"You are not doing them," Shifu said. "You are performing them. You are breaking a single stream into hundreds of disconnected actions. You are fighting your own body, Panda. But kung fu is not always a battle. Release control — and you will find it."
"And how exactly is that done?" I muttered, still not understanding what he meant, and quietly swearing at yet another set of colorful metaphors.
Instead of answering, Shifu turned away and said simply: "All of you. Follow me."
*Please not the torture chamber. Please not the torture chamber,* I prayed silently, trudging at the back of the procession.
He led us through a series of courtyards — unusually quiet, showing signs of long disuse — and brought us to a hidden pond. The water was still and perfectly clear, like polished jade, and on its surface floated strange wooden constructions shaped like lotus blossoms.
There were many of them, and they varied considerably. Some were plate-sized, meant for a single foot. Others were large enough to hold a crowd. Some were barely the size of a coin.
Their colors ranged from almost white, bleached by the sun, to deep near-black.
*Well, at least I don't see any spikes,* I thought with relief. *Though — who knows. There could be a whole thicket of them under the water.*
"The Lotus Pond training apparatus," Shifu announced, and the familiar ominous undertone entered his voice. "Your task is simple to the point of absurdity: remain standing. Water is the embodiment of fluidity. It does not forgive sharpness, hurry, or disconnected effort. It detects your disharmony and punishes you for it immediately."
I snorted, trying to mask the growing uncertainty.
"Step on," Shifu said, pointing to the nearest platform — wide enough for two people to stand comfortably.
I took a tentative step and planted myself on the lotus. The construction immediately came to life, rocking with deceptive smoothness. I waved my arms frantically, like a windmill, but two seconds later toppled into the water with a resounding splash. Restrained laughter rang in my ears.
I climbed out and got back on the platform, now convinced it contained some malicious internal mechanism.
"Stop," said the master's unmoved voice. "Don't fight the rocking. Accept it. Feel the rhythm. Become part of the movement."
I tried to go completely still, and the platform slipped out from under me immediately.
"Again." Shifu said it as a demand.
I hauled myself out, coughing up water, and climbed back onto the wretched lotus. One attempt I tried to sense the microscopic movements of the water through my feet and kept missing the timing. The next I tensed every muscle and tried to force myself into the wood through sheer will, which only made me pitch harder from side to side. Every attempt ended the same way — a tremendous splash and Monkey's rolling laughter echoing across the pond.
After another dunking, I dragged myself to the bank, shivering with cold and fury. Water was working its way into my ears, and a single question hammered repeatedly in my skull: *What am I doing wrong?* Shifu was watching me with an unreadable look.
"Again. Do you know what your mistake is?" he said at last, and his voice was calm. "You hear the words but miss the meaning. You try to subdue the water, when you need to let it carry you. You fight the rocking instead of making it part of yourself."
Pushed past my limit, I shut my eyes and wrung the wet fur on my face. *Fine. I give up. No more fighting. I'll just… stand.*
This time I didn't *climb onto* the platform with the determination to hold my ground. I simply stepped onto it, letting my feet register the beginning of the motion. Instead of rushing to suppress it, I let the wave pass through my entire body — from the soles of my feet to the top of my head. I stopped issuing commands to my body. I gave it one instruction: *don't interfere.*
And then something strange happened. My body — exhausted by my own constant management of it — began adjusting on its own. My knees started to softly flex by themselves, absorbing the sway. My hips shifted a centimeter, redistributing the weight. My ankles made several small, barely perceptible corrections. I did nothing consciously — I simply watched as my own bulk, finally left in peace, remembered that it was part of this world and not an enemy of every wave in it.
And — somehow — it worked. The lotus swayed gently under me, and I was… standing. Not frozen in a strained posture, but simply standing, the way a tree stands in wind — yielding slightly, without breaking. I could feel it. Instead of conflict, a conversation. Instead of resistance, agreement.
"This… this is better…" escaped me, and it wasn't a statement of fact but a startled discovery.
But the thought of success — bright and wanted — pierced the relaxed consciousness. *It worked!* The inner voice shouted. Instantly the tension returned, the connection to the rhythm snapped — and I crashed into the water with a bang.
I surfaced, sputtering, to a fresh explosion of laughter. But this time there was no bitter taste of defeat in my mouth. Shifu stood on the bank with his arms folded, but at the corner of his mouth was the shadow of something that could have been taken for satisfaction.
"Progress," he stated. "For a full three seconds, you stopped being a boulder and became water. Remember that feeling. Water is the most honest teacher there is. Until your body becomes a single unified thing, you will keep swimming. Continue."
With those words he turned and left. And I — wet, no longer angry, motivated to an extreme — looked at the wretched lotus. For the first time all day, I didn't see an enemy in it. I saw a training apparatus. And I was not going to stop until I could stand on it indefinitely.
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