FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Endgame: Chapter 15

Kublai Khan walked over to Wang Dun's room stridently. He had already told Tigress, Monkey, and Po to go to the garden and wait there for him and Wang Dun to arrive in the bushes. The emperor knew that the time to act was then, and he knew he only had that night to figure out what Wang Dun/Tan Tao was up to.

As such, he stood in front of the door, his knuckles rapping on the door silently. The bovine looked on the door, feeling Wan Dun approach the door. The door opened very slowly, then, Wang Dun's yellow eyes peering out first as he looked to see what had knocked at the door. Upon seeing the emperor standing there, the tiger opened the door just enough to allow his body to get out, and then he promptly closed it as soon as he was out of the room.

"You want me, milord?" asked the advisor.

"Yes, Wang Dun," replied the ruler. "I wanted to talk with you alone."

"Alone, sir?" he asked. "I do not think now would be a good time, milord."

"Now," stated Kublai Khan. "This is very urgent, and I am afraid it cannot wait for the morning."

Here, the tiger paused, seeming to choose his word choice carefully.

"Milord, if it is truly urgent, then what might the problem be?" he asked.

"I shall tell you more in a short while," he said. "For now, I want you to come with me."

"But milord, there--"

"And that is an order," added Kublai Khan sternly.

The tiger was effectivey silenced by this sentence. Kublai Khan noticed the slight gulp that Kublai Khan made when this mandate was issued, but ignored it as he knew it would give away that he knew, and he wanted to wait until he was in the royal garden to tell that.

"All right," replied Wang Dun with a tone that signified relenting. "I will go with you, milord."

The emperor nodded, and then he began walking away in silence. The tiger followed, his eyes following the bull with a great deal of paranoia.

---

"Tai Lung is my brother?"

Tigress was utterly shocked when Tai Xue finished telling her story to the leader of the Furious Five. Her mouth wide open, she glanced at where Tai Lung was hiding at the other side of the garden before looking back down at the elderly snow leopard again. Po simply shrugged from where he stood next to Tai Lung, his own eyes wide open at this revelation.

"Yeah, I was a little wierded out when I heard too," replied Mantis atop her head. "Wild coincidence, yes?"

Tigress shifted her feet uneasily, almost causing Monkey to shift to the side with the motion. "Then... then would I have gone down the same path too?" she asked. "If Shifu didn't train me to not get my hopes up, at least?"

"I doubt it," replied Mei Ling from where she stood by Tai Xue and Crane. "Tai Lung has a capacity to do good, as you've seen lately."

"Well, not exactly," said Miles from across the pathway. "I... I told you guys how I saw Oogway in my dreams, right?"

Tigress nodded, remembering when Miles had gone on to describe Oogway in detail when he told them why he came back for Tai Lung. "Yes, you did," she said. "What about that?"

"He said something about being his father's son, both adoptive and biological," continued the kitsune. "So maybe you might have."

"Except Shifu taught you to suppress the darkness in your heart," pointed out Tai Lung suddenly. "He taught me no such thing. So no, you wouldn't have."

The tigress nodded at this, realizing that Tai Lung was right. Shrugging, she looked to where the pathway stood. "It doesn't make me feel that much better, though..." she said. "Knowing you wanted to raise me but couldn't..."

"Life is difficult, Tigress," replied Tai Xue. "But it's how we deal with it that defines us. Think about it later; right now, we have more important things to worry about."

"Like kicking Tan Tao's ass?" asked Mantis playfully.

The whore chuckled at this. "Yes, like that," she said.

"We should probably shut up now," said Tai Lung as softly as he could and yet in a volume that could just be heard by the people on the other side of the path. "I can hear people coming towards us."

And at this, everybody fell silent. Po gestured to the pathway, and then the group stepped further into the cherry trees, such that the rock garden looked completely alone.

It was thus that Kublai Khan entered, the moonlight illuminating the scene ethereally as Wang Dun came in with a slighlty perturbed look on his face. The emperor stopped by the rock garden, the advisor standing timidly behind him.

"Wang Dun, tell me something," he said. "When you fell out of your bed last night, what did you hear?"

"I did not hear much, milord," replied the ambassador, his voice seemingly about to lose its nonchalant quality. "I fell very early in the morning, practically close to sunset."

Kublai Khan raised an eyebrow. "Then why did the fall affect only your eye?" he asked.

"Milord, I think you are looking too far into this," replied Wang Dun. "I hit my eye against something that was on the floor."

Kublai Khan nodded, deciding not to dwell on this case. "Are you sure nothing woke you up?"

"Yes, milord," replied Wang Dun. "Why?"

The emperor's crimson eyes looked to Wang Dun with an expression of disbelief on them. "Someone attempted to end my life last night," he said. "It caused enough ruckus to get every last guard to my aid. The assassin would have succeeded, too, if not for the fact that Tai Lung had broken out at that moment and seen what was happening."

At this, Wang Dun's ears flattened against his head. "Milord, surely you're not suggesting I am responsible for whatever happened that night?" he asked.

"I am," replied Kublai Khan dangerously.

Looking at the ambassador, the emperor reared his head and gave him a look that sent chills down Wang Dun's spine. Without breaking eye contact, the emperor began pacing around the rock garden.

"Tell me, Wang Dun," he said. "You said that Tan Tao had fallen overboard and drowned."

"Yes," he said. "Where are you going with this, milord?"

"Let me finish," said Kublai Khan cooly. "You said that Tan Tao was dead. And yet, the man who tried to take my life last night was either Tan Tao or a very exact look-alike of him. He had the same voice and everything. And he had scratch marks almost exactly like the ones you have on your cheeks right now. It turned out that Tan Tao is a chi mage with a criminal empire, as he demonstrated by throwing rocks at me. Tai Lung thankfully kicked them out of the way, and for that I am eternally grateful to him. But the fact is that Tan Tao is still alive, contrary to what you say. Furthermore, that set of scratches I saw on your faces leads me to believe that something else is happening right now..."

Wang Dun fidgeted nervously, as if thinking of exiting, but the stare of Kublai Khan kept him seated in petrified terror.

"Tell me, Wang Dun," he said. "Which was the brother that truly died on the route back to China?"

At this, Wang Dun lost his composure that he had already been fighting to keep. He opened his mouth, all of his words coming out in a garbled mess as he tried to collect his thoughts. When he finally did, he took a step back as Kublai Khan approached him.

"M-milord, I think you've gone insane!" he exclaimed.

"I command you to answer the question!" insisted the bull emphatically. "Too many coincidences have been occurring for this to be a mere simpleton's assassination plot."

"What do you mean?" asked Wang Dun wildly. "The scratches is only one thing!"

"Then explain your scout coming back with the news that Tai Lung had escaped," he said. "You sent a scout there to check on him, he escapes, and he is able to relay that message with a calm face! If what Po told me about the first time he escaped is true, the messenger that reported the case back then was frightened beyond belief! Besides, how could he have escaped without killing a single guard if he was weak?"

Wang Dun was silent at this, looking at the emperor with shock ridden in his face. "B-but... Milord..."

"It would also explain the hole in your story concerning all of your 'appointments' that you make, yes?" asked Kublai Khan. "I talked to the messengers you said you had talked to over the last week, and you want to know what they said? Half of them said they had never even gone over to converse with you. Therefore, the appointments must have been non-existant, and you must have been trying to run something behind my back."

"Milord, this is insane!" replied the predatory cat passionately. "You cannot accuse me of such things! Maybe their memories are short! Maybe they forgot they had talked with me!"

"That seems highly unlikely with the way our system works," pointed out the bovine, tail flickering behind him.

"But this is not right!" replied Wang Dun, gesturing in an impassioned manner. "You cannot accuse me of such wild charges! This is insanity! This is madness! You need some help, milord! You need help!"

"Then explain why your fur has changed color and you're suddenly just the slightest bit taller than you wore before," said the emperor.

Wang Dun looked down on his arms, and realized too late that the emperor was right. His fur was no longer orange; the white now shone in the moonlight as he realized the ground was just a few extra inches below him. He looked around him, but found that his sight could not be broken from the coy smile that the emperor gave him.

Wang Dun was no more. The facade had fallen, leaving Tan Tao standing in his full glory. The emperor had found him out. And he had revealed it in a way that rubbed the realization in his face so hard he swore he felt the blisters forming.

"So your true form was Tan Tao, then," continued Kublai Khan as an enraged frown formed on Tan Tao's face. "And Wang Dun is the brother that died. Or would it be more appropriate to say 'the brother that you murdered'?"

Tan Tao's nostrils flared, and before anybody knew what had happened the ambassador held his hand out in front of the emperor. The emperor's neck suddenly seemed to constrict, and Kublai Khan was brought to his knees, looking up at Tan Tao.

"He found out," replied the tiger. "I never told you the real reason the ruler of that land rejected me. He said that he would not work with a criminal lord. How he knew that is anybody's guess, but he replied that he knew everything as he created most of it. I would have liked to bash that head of his in; it was very strange, anyways. I'd still like to kill that thing once I become emperor."

The tiger continued, glaring at the bull in front of him. "Wang Dun found out. He said he would find my empire. He did make a fatal mistake, however; he did foget that our guards were not with us. So I slit his throat and dumped him in a pool of lava close to where I was. While I was at it, I stole some bear bitch from her home and added her to my criminal empire. That was when my double life as Wang Dun began."

"You... you heartless monster..." said the emperor.

"It's why I was after your throne," continued the crime lord venomously. "With you out of the way, I could keep my empire safe. I could prosper. Which is why I sent that scout to free Tai Lung. He should've caused anarchy, but I guess that little kitsune bitch got him to not do that."

Tan Tao looked down on Kublai Khan with contempt strewn over his eyes as he tightened his chi hold on the emperor's neck. "It's a shame nothing went according to plan," he said, calculatedly. "I would have liked to be a white horse to the people of China, if only because it would get my policies across much, much faster and without so much hassle. But that is life for you."

"It's a bigger shame too that it's still not going according to plan!"

With this, Tai Lung burst out of the bushes, Tan Tao whirling around and promptly being kicked in the face by the snow leopard. This caused the tiger to release his choke hold on Kublai Khan, and then he was laying on his side. Before he could get up, though, he felt something step on his tail, and then Tan Tao yelped in pain as he tried to move but found he could not.

"My suggestion, my dear?" asked Tai Xue, coming out of the bushes as she looked to where Po stood with his foot on the tiger's tail. "Do not walk into a garden alone when you suspect a trap."

Tai Lung simply glared at Tai Xue angrily. Without warning, his hand came out, and then Tai Xue found herself choking. She clawed at the air desperately, struggling to breathe.

Tigress, seeing this, was quick to kick Tan Tao in the face. This released the crime lord's hold on the elder whore, and before much else could be done Tigress and Tai Lung were both holding Tan Tao's hands down.

"You bitch!" cried Tan Tao. "You traitorous bitch!"

"You betrayed my trust before I ever did!" retorted Tai Xue loudly. "Do you truly think I supported your harem all the way through its existence? Do you truly think so, Tan Tao? I never liked it! You wronged so many women it was a wrong to me!"

Tan Tao growled, and suddenly his hand shot out from where Tigress had been holding it down. Before he could choke Tai Xue again, however, Viper came in and hit the crime lord in the wrist. This made the crime lord yelp in pain, but before he could act Mantis had grabbed his paw and thrown him over. Tai Lung then jumped back, jumping onto Tan Tao's neck.

"And you really think she's going to forgive you after she bore you two children?" asked Tai Lung angrily.

Tan Tao was shocked by this revelation. Tai Lung was not stepping on the crime lord's neck with enough force to choke him to death, but he still looked to Tai Xue with bitter hatred burning in his eyes.

"You bore me... two children... and you never told me?" he nearly roared.

"You would have killed them!" replied Tai Xue. "And by now, they are all grown up and can defend themselves!"

"You... You bitch!"

Tai Lung pressed down harder on Tan Tao's neck, the malice in the snow leopard's eyes quite discomforting. "You really think I'm going to let you get away with calling my mother that?" he asked.

This shocked Tan Tao so much the tiger could barely even speak. Sensing this, Tai Lung took his foot of of Tan Tao's neck. The crime lord would have sent something flying, but by this time Mantis had grabbed a hold of the paw again, and then Tan Tao was sent flying high into the air.

As he was flying, however, the chi mage suddenly thrust his hand down when he was facing the earth. This caused a blast of air to hit the ground, the blast radiating out. Tai Xue nearly flew into the trees thanks to this, but Tigress had come running in time to catch the old predatory cat. Tan Tao landed on his feet soon afterwards, glaring at everybody with an intense hatred.

Before he could do much, however, Tai Lung had jumped at the chi mage. The man held his hand out, and the snow leopard was then sent flying into a tree. The plant shook with the impact, the crime lord then blocking a palm strike from Monkey before kicking him away.

Tan Tao then felt something punch him in the back of his head. Turning to recover, he saw that the fat panda had punched him away with a well-timed back-hand. Recovering from this, he brought out his leg just in time to kick Tigress in the face. He sent the feline flying further with a wave of his hand.

However, Tan Tao had not seen Crane until he felt the foot kick into his back. This strartled the tiger greatly, but he still landed on all fours. He used the momentum to rush at the bird.

Before he could, however, he felt something get slapped onto his person. The crime lord then felt himself get kicked away by a mountain lion, where he then hit a tree. When he sent his hand forward, however, he did not seem to do anything. Blinking and bringing his hand forward again, the tiger found himself unable to use his chi magic.

The Furious Five were quick to act. Tigress had tackled Tan Tao to the ground, and then the two of them grappled for a short period where Tigress sustained a punch to the face. This would have freed him, but the kung fu master was not to be daunted. She fought back with a well-timed head blow, dazing Tan Tao for a few seconds. This was all the distraction they needed before the rest of the kung fu group pounced onto Tan Tao, the five of them overpowering the former ambassador as he struggled in vain. Tai Lung then grabbed a length of rope that Mei Ling was holding on to, and right when the Five had his wrists bound behind the chi master, the leopard went in and very quickly tied the villain's hands together.

After this, the group brought Tan Tao to a standing position, the tiger glaring at everybody. Kublai Khan simply looked on, shaking his head. He looked to the mountain lion then, noticing the herbs crushed in her hand. Cursing under his breath, Tan Tao defiantly met the emperor's gaze.

"I am very disappointed in you, Tan Tao," said the emperor. "I thought you knew better than to turn to this life. I truly did."

The captured crime lord simply spat at him, glaring at Tai Xue. "Damn you all!" he said. "I was trying to avoid my own doom! That fortune teller I met told me all about it when I began my empire! She said I would fall because of my children and my brother! I was only keeping my empire safe! That was all I was doing!"

"You should not even have formed such an empire, anyway," pointed out Tigress. "You honestly believe you were doing right?"

"It funded thousands of donations to China's treasury!" retorted Tan Tao. "How do you think we got so much money? Because people paid to have sex with women and to buy drugs! That's where the money in the treasury came from! It was only a fundraising tactic!"

At this, Kublai Khan blinked. "You said it was only a fundraising tactic," he said. "You raised the funds of our nations with blood and tears of hundreds of unwilling women and girls! Do you call yourself virtuous, you blind coward?"

"Moreso than some pansy who sits on a big chair all day!" cried Tan Tao. "None of this should have happened! I should have become emperor! I should never have been defeated! I should have risen over what people saw as my destiny!"

Tai Lung shook his head at this as Po grabbed the tiger by the arm. "Master Oogway once said 'one often meets their destiny taking the path to avoid it'," recited the snow leopard. "Perhaps you should have thought of that before you did any of this?"

Tan Tao simply growled at his son. Shaking his head, he felt the Five begin to take him away.

"I shall have you executed tomorrow for grand treason," said Kublai Khan. "Have you any final questions you want to impart on me?"

"How..." he said dangerously. "How did any of you know about my double life?"

"Ah, see, that's where your miscalculations came in."

And here was where Miles and Cream came out, the rabbit standing behind the kitsune nervously as he held the camcorder in his hands.

"You expected Tai Lung to be alone, with a complete wreck of a person as his only companion," began the fox. "Your first error came here, for I pulled through for Tai Lung where everybody else would have abandoned him."

"And that's where the error comes in," continued Crane, crossing his wings in front of him. "Because Mantis and I both knew that Tai Lung was free, and we were actually trying to help him save Miles' friend."

Cream shook her head at this. "Thanks for nearly ruining my life, by the way," she added bitterly.

"So when you came in as Wang Dun with the scratch marks, we went straight to him," said Crane. "And from there, we figured out that you were living a double life."

Tai Lung glanced at him. "It seems you only failed to keep yourself afloat in the end," he said.

Everybody else nodded at this as Tan Tao simply growled angrily. "Take him to the dungeons," commanded Kublai Khan.

With this, Tigress took a hold of Tan Tao, glaring at him as she led him away. Mei Ling was a little fast to act, rubbing some more of the herbs that she had crushed earlier on Tan Tao's face as she, Tigress, and the Furious Five all walked out of the garden. Tai Xue followed at length, glare set as the group left Po, Tai Lung, Miles, Cream, and Kublai Khan standing in the garden.

Once they were alone, Tai Lung nodded to the Dragon Warrior, a smile on his face as he and Po looked at each other as something other than enemies. Tai Lung nodded, extending his hand to the panda. Po looked down at this, and a smile tugged at the end of the panda's lips before a black paw enclosed around the snow leopard's own and the two shook hands.

"Thank you for giving me a chance," said Tai Lung with a smile.

"Hey, nothing to it," Po replied. "I think you've showed us all that no one is... well, what Oogway said."

The snow leopard chuckled good-naturedly as the emperor of China stood by Po. Miles and Cream stood by Tai Lung's side as the two broke the handshake.

"So, what now?" asked Cream as she looked to the emperor. "Shifu's dead... and Tai Lung isn't exactly a criminal anymore..."

The ruler of China nodded thoughtfully. "Perhaps Tai Lung can return to the Jade Pallace?" he suggested.

The Dragon Warrior shrugged, the nodding in agreement. "Yeah, that sounds good," said Po. "What do you say to that?"

Tai Lung's eyes lit up, but he took a second glance at Miles and Cream. Cream looked rather happy to have the kitsune back by her side, but the former criminal could tell that the fox was faking the smile that greeted the other occupants of the room. Seeing this, Tai Lung looked back at Po.

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to decline that. I don't think the people of the Valley of Peace would ever forgive me for what I did all those years ago," he said. He surprised everyone when he patted the kitsune's head. "Plus, I have a friend who needs me; I'm not going to abandon him if it means I'd become the Dragon Warrior."

At this, Miles' eyes took on a surprised glimmer as he looked up at Tai Lung, smiling. "Tai Lung...?" he asked.

"Yeah," he replied, kneeling down to the kitsune's level. "My home is with you now."

"Oh, Tai Lung!" Before anybody could object, the overjoyed fox had tackled the snow leopard to the ground, hugging him with all his might as the leopard shifted underneath him. Cream was also quite shocked to hear this, but she simply smiled at this new development. When Tai Lung looked up at Po and the emperor, he found them looking on in approval.

"So be it, then," said the emperor. "I do hope you have a way to return to the outside world after all you have been through."

Miles shrugged at this, chuckling softly. "I'm sure we can. But the question is, do we go by sea, or by land?"

"In the end, it matters not," said the emperor. "Tai Lung; whether or not you leave China, know that you are always welcome here amongst us as a hero."

"And you can also come back to the Jade Palace when you feel like it," added Po with a friendly smile.

Tai Lung stood up as Miles finally relented on the death hold he had kept on the predatory cat. The cat seemed overjoyed by this, so much so that he felt tears beginning to gather in his eyes.

"Thank you," he said. "I'm glad I managed to do something right for once."

"So, is a piece of your land beyond the great sea?" asked Kublai Khan to Cream.

"Well, I had to take a ferry ride a year ago and I haven't seen any sea since, so I think so..." she replied.

"Then we will have a grand boat carry you two back to your home along with Tai Lung," replied the emperor. "As well, we might add a grand crew to suit your needs..."

"That won't be necessary, thanks," countered Tai Lung. "The ship doesn't have to be so large, you know. I appreciate your offer, but I believe we should work with simpler means."

The bull flickered his nose before continuing. "All right then," he said. "I shall work something out with the fishermen at Hong Kong's docks. It will be a fairly long journey there..."

Po nodded, pointing to the imperial palace. "But it's still gonna be awesome!" he exclaimed.

Everybody nodded to this. "It will," said Miles. "Let's get back to the palace!"

The kitsune's newfound energy seemed to convince everyone to leave, and then everybody filed out of the garden slowly all laughing merrily. However, as he was leaving he felt a lingering glance burning into his skin. Stopping just as he and Tai Lung were about to pass through the cherry trees that bordered the garden, he found that there was a pleasant surprise to why this was when he looked to the side. Tai Lung noticed too, and he held the kitsune's hand in assurance.

Off to the side stood three spirits, all of them surrounded by the bright pink petals of a peach tree that were being manipulated by a strange kind of ethereal wind. The first was of old Master Oogway, looking on the two of them with the gentle eyes that were so vivid in Miles' dream quite a few days prior. The second was Sonic, grinning widely as he winked at his younger brother and gave a thumbs up sign. The third was Shifu, perched on Sonic's head and with a peaceful smile on his face. His eyes seemed to twinkle in approval as he looked at Tai Lung.

Both the kitsune and the snow leopard nodded, their eyes bright with nostalgia as they looked upon their fallen loved ones.

"Thank you..." muttered Miles under his breath.

And so as not to worry anybody else, Miles and Tai Lung filed out of the garden quickly, both of them catching a last glance at the spirits before leaving the place in a comfortable silence. Soon after, the spirits vanished, the rose-colored petals beginning a journey bound for heaven.