Strength In Unity

Chapter 8: It's too quiet here

It was unpleasant to say the least,

But given their current situation, there was few options in keeping everyone they had come to know safe.

Shifu surveyed his once massive performance arena, an area his students often preformed their talents before a live audience, now covered by a large multilevel tent that spanned from edge to edge. Every resident in the valley had been moved up into the arena with only their most important belongings as to save space for everyone to be at least somewhat comfortable. The grandmaster sighed, happy that he and his students had found a temporary solution to their immediate issue of the village safety, however, this would only last days at the most before too many unhappy residents bumped into one another.

Po and the Furious Five had gone down into the valley to search for clues, stopping by every home and taking a quick look around to be sure they hadn't missed anything.

The would not fail to protect another member of their home.

Mantis rode on Monkey's shoulder as he strode next to Viper and Crane, Po and Tigress walked in front so they could be the first line of defense for whatever they came across. For the most part, the group was holding together fairly well, aside from Mantis's comments on Po blocking his view, in which the panda merely suggested the thought of taking a week off of cooking for them. This resulted in Viper coiling around the insect and squishing his mouth shut, giving the panda a bit of comfort knowing when it came to his culinary skills everyone had his back.

Tigress scanned the areas as they passed by, noticing her fur standing on end at certain points,

it was so...

silent. The place they had all met and come to guard with thriving businesses and friendly neighbors now sat so quiet and still, a piece of hay falling to the ground would have sounded like a crash at this point. The feline knew she disliked this already, her senses trying to pick up on any unfamiliar scents or any visual piece that didn't fit in but so far all the master could find was mere she would never say it out loud amongst those who knew her,

This silence was terrifying for her.

As they came to the edge of the valley, the overhead sign reading a small welcome, creaked and groaned slowly as it moved with the wind.

"Guys, um am I the only one who can't see anything wrong?" the dragon warrior asked, earning a shake of heads from the group,

"Po if what we were looking for was massive, we would've f-" The feline went silent as something caught her eye, stopping the group,

"What is it Tigress?" Crane asked, trying to catch what she was staring at, then he noticed.

one block down, lying next to the corner of a home in the dirt,

a single hoof with white fur sticking out from behind the home.

"GO!" Po ordered, the five racing over to the house, turning the corner but what they had come to find was lass then they had expected.

Considering the limb was unattached to anything. Po covered his mouth and ran to puke as Tigress and Monkey stared at the blood covered hind leg lying in the few bits of grass near the home. The feline master took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, just upon seeing this, her spine stiffened and turned to ice, finding herself then rubbing her shoulders from the mere shock of the amputated body part. It looked as though it had been snapped clean off, the surrounding muscle and fur were shredded, as if torn away during a struggle. The ground around it had been kicked up several different ways, yet no foot prints could be made out amongst the dried blood and grass.