Cloudless Authors

Chapter 十

The night was warm and inviting and Po had no problem with accepting the invitation. Of course, he already had plans on being out here anyway, but why not work in a bit of action time with his action figures. It had been months since Tai Lung was defeated again. No one had found out about his return, so Po, Tigress, and Shifu had all agreed to pretend that nothing had happened. When the masters had woken up the following morning and had seen the training hall in disarray, it was merely said that Tigress had gotten up in the middle of the night to train. Everyone had accepted the idea without even the slightest urge to ask anymore questions.. But of course, that was all in the past.

Po was presently outside with two different boxes. The smaller he kept hidden from view in his back pocket. The bigger box had its lid removed so that he could play with the action figures inside. The Dragon Warrior lined all the action figures in a semi-circle and then staged an army of stick warlords with leaf shields.

"Prepare, Mighty Dragon Warrior and Fearesomely awesome Furious Five!" he exclaimed, moving the stick leader to the front of the army. "For your defeat at the hands of the Li-Zhou War State!"

"Taste defeat?!' the Po action figure interjected. "I'll only taste your table of bitterness if you can survive the delicious taste of JUSTICE by yours truly!"

"You tell 'em, babe!" the Tigress action figure encouraged.

"I say there's been enough talk," cried the Mantis figure.

"Agreed," action figure Po replied. "My fellow comrades...ATTACK!!!"

The action figure army then proceeded to charge at the Li-Zhou warlord sticks who brandished surprise spears and cannons.

"Incoming!" cried the Monkey figurine.

The sticks and the action figures began to battle out, launching an army of impressive moves at one another. Po blocked a mini spear while Tigress leaped high into the air and then took out a good part of the army in the rear. Crane worked together with Viper to do an aerial maneuver and Mantis used his strength to manipulate the soldiers into all the traps Monkey had set up. The master laughed heartily at his masterpiece before avoiding a brutal blow from more warlord weapons. Things were going well and even turning in the masters' favor, but just as they started to push back the army, Mantis suffered a horrible injury and was left exposed in the battlefield. Viper let out cries of horror as she made her war over to him. The masters kept the warlords at bay and tried to dishearten them into giving up, leaving the two to have a moment alone.

"Are you okay?!" Viper cried. "Let me see!"

"Don't worry about me," Mantis whispered hoarsely. "You should be more worried about...the Liz-Zhou. They can't get to the valley."

"I'm not going back without you!" Viper insisted. "At least let me look at your injury."

Mantis obliged her and Viper took great care in seeing what the damage was. Mantis, thankfully, was not lethally injured, but he would definitely require a lot of bed rest and medical attention before he would be back to his old self.

"I need to get you somewhere safe," Viper told him, starting to move him.

"Just move me over to that little hill. It's not too far."

"But it's still close to the battlefield."

"I'll be alright."

Viper did as instructed and got him comfortably settled on the little mound. She then looked back at her friends to see how they were holding up. Everyone seemed pretty okay, but one knew that battles could turn at any given moment.