testrun_box | IMPERIAL

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IMPERIAL_SAGA

That portal wasn't there a second ago. Neither was what fell out of it in a shower of metal bits and wood shards, hitting the floor with a graceless thud, a lump of white and red feathers and white and grey silk. It stirs and regains its feet, wobbling, and turns out to be nothing more than an anthropomorphic leucistic Indian peacock. "'M I... dead?" the bird mumbles, gazing about, said gaze becoming panicked and then bordering on positively deranged.

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"You there!" A loud, British (Birdish?) voice rings out, stopping you in your tracks. The owner of said voice, described above, stalks forward, his metal-shod feet making quiet scraping and clinking sounds. He stops less than a foot away from you and draws a very shiny, very sharp feather-shaped knife. "Tell me where I am," he continues, his voice now a quiet, dangerous whisper. His eyes are wide and quite unstable....

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Obligatory combat post! Watch out for those knives out of no-where! Clearly, you are between this bird and whatever he wants. DEFEND YOURSELF. Or... run screaming. Or... whatever it is you do.

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Kuja turns and glares at the voice. "It pays to have some manners," He responds coolly as he glances at the knife. "And to know when not to wave your pen knife at others."

Hmm. A cool reaction. Something at least worthy of note. Shen lowers the knife but doesn't put it away quite yet, and puts on his most conciliatory (though some night say condescending) smile. "Of course," he answers silkily, suddenly the picture of gentility. "Tell me where I am... please."

Ooh, ouch. That had to hurt. Enter a concerned, roly-poly black and white ball of a panda, who stands over the lump and prods it with a toe. "Hey buddy? You okay? You kind of...fell. From the sky." Like you do.

Said panda shows no sign of recognition, even when the peacock unfolds himself completely. In fact, he actually looks relieved. "Whoa! You actually had me worried there for a minute. No, no! You can't be dead if you're moving around like that." Beat. "Well. Then again, you could be a ghost. Ooh! Ooh! Or a hopping vampire! Man, wouldn't want to run into one of those guys." He gives a dramatic (kung fu) shudder, then suddenly looks worried.

"Uh...you're...not a hopping vampire, right?"

"No, I'm not a hopping vampi...re..." Shen trails off in his offhand reply to stare.

"YOU AGAIN!" He actually takes a step backward. "HOW LONG MUST YOU PLAGUE MY EXISTENCE, PANDA?!" he finishes in a fittingly birdish shriek.

"Gah!" Okay, not expecting the yelling. Shen is treated to a rapid series of defensive postures before Po recovers his composure. Crane! Turtle! Wu Xia Block! And...huh. The last one is probably just a lot of flailing.

"Me?" He finally says, panting and staring. "Again? I've never seen you before in my life!"

"Don't play dumb, Panda!" Shen hisses. "You killed me? D'you honestly think you could get away with claiming ignorance to something like that?!"

He's going to slowly back away from the crazy bird now. "Dude, seriously. If I killed you, I would have remembered--" Cue sudden look of realization!

"You!" Oh he's all business now. "Then I have plagued you! Plagued you with the stomach flu of justice! You may have been reborn as a bird, but you will taste the bitter medicinal tea of defeat..." His eyes narrow dramatically. "Tai Lung."

At first, Shen is satisfied that this idiot Panda finally remembers, but if the 'reborn as a bird' line throws him, the massively ridiculous case of mistaken identity completely derails his train of thought with a terrific crashing sound. His beak flaps soundlessly and his wings twitch, one primary feather coming up.

"Whj--" he splutters. "Ta-TAI LUNG?!" Literally shaking with rage, he draws his polearm. "ENOUGH OF THIS FOOLISHNESS! You will die, Panda, and you will remember that it is Shen who killed you! LORD SHEN!" Wide swing. "OF GONGMEN!" Backhand swing. "CITY!" Overhead swing.

"WHOA!" He manages, just, to duck the wide swing out of nowhere, though it clips the fur atop his ears. "Okay!" Block. "Okay!" Deflect! "You're not--" Duck! "Tai Lung!" Dive roll! "I get it!" He grabs a nearby wok to help deflect the blows. Somehow, he always manages to find one of those, no matter where he is.

It's good for him that he managed to do that, because the wildly swinging advance is suddenly replaced by a flurry of throwing knives. "Yet you still don't know--" Another swing of the polearm and he seems to vanish behind a giant fan of red and white. "Who I am!" he finishes, now on Po's other side and aiming a kick at the Panda's head.

"I've never even been to Gongmen Cit--Yipe!" Po dives behind cover to avoid the knives, which neatly embed themselves in the wall. "--City!" he finishes. The polearm glances off the wok and sends it flying, with Po diving in the opposite direction. "Whoa! Crane Kick!" He steps aside and reaches for the rapidly approaching leg, hoping to use its momentum to throw Shen to the ground.

It's a bird leg, so it's pretty skinny, but it's grabbed anyway. Shen is thrown and hits the ground, rolls, and snaps back to his feet, metal talons making tiny sparks.

"Never been?! You tore half the city apart!" This from the bird who wrecked his own palace. He sends another wingful of throwing knives Po's way and then leaps, wings and tail spread, talons striking for his opponent's head.

A panda really, really shouldn't be that agile, but there he goes. Mind you, someone of his...physique...probably has an advantage when it comes to rolling out of the way. And roll he does, safely out of reach of the nasty pointy things, albeit just barely.

"You have got to have the wrong panda!" he insists, panting. "Gongmen City is where the Masters Council is! I couldn't destroy something that...that..." There are no words. "It's like the capital of Kung Fu!" Is that the clarion call of the fanboy in his voice? Yes, yes it is.

This throws Shen for a serious loop. It was beginning to sound less like a case of the Panda playing stupid and more like a case of genuine amnesia. Or maybe just genuine stupidity, but Shen had a hard time believing even this fool could be that mentally deficient. He pauses, weapon still at the ready, and narrows one eye at the other.

"Do you seriously expect me to believe you don't remember the last fortnight?"

At least the bird is finally not trying to kill him anymore. There's a long pause as he makes sure Shen has gotten all the violence out of his system before he slowly lowers his guard. But he's got his eye on you, peacock. Oh yes.

"Are you kidding?" he says, the excitement creeping into his voice even more. "How can I forget!" Up go the kung fu stances again! But these are less defensive and more...more...show off-y. "Oh man! You should have seen it! Tai Lung, evil kung fu master returning to the Jade palace for revenge!" He assumes a tiger posture, scowling furiously.

"Even the Furious Five are no match for him! He paralyzes them with his nerve attack!" Jab! Jab! Jab! Man, the air near him is totally paralyzed. "And then! He bursts into the palace!" Dramatic kick! "Demanding the Dragon Scroll from his foster father and former master!" Grr face!

"But little does he know..." He draws himself up proudly. "The Dragon Warrior has already discovered the secret of the scroll!" You just know there's dramatic theme music playing in his head now. He lowers his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Just so you know? That's me." Sage nod.

Back to the action. "They fight! An epic battle rages all over the valley!" Kick! Spin! Air punch! "Hyah! Yah! WooooooAAAAAAAoooo... But little does the evil Tai Lung know that the Dragon Warrior (that's me!) has mastered the deadly..." Dramatic pause! "Wuxi Finger Hold!" He pretends to grasp someone's outstretched paw, pinky finger up in the air.

He flexes! "SKADOOSH! The evil Tai Lung is defeated once and for all! The Valley of Peace is saved!" He raises both fists triumphantly, running in circles and making crowd noises with his mouth. "Master Po! Master Po! Master Po!" Apparently the pretend crowd is chanting. This...could go on for some time if he's not stopped.

Things tend to come to a screeching halt when Po starts talking and Shen's thought processes are no different. He stares, beak hanging open slightly. He raises a primary feather and takes a breath to speak at the statement of Po being the Dragon Warrior, but the Panda just plows right on with his narrative, which becomes so wildly demonstrative that he has to duck a spin-kick and dodge a punch as the Panda flails his way through his account.

By the time Po is re-enacting the cheering crowd, Shen has completely lowered his weapon, its blade resting on the ground, and is utterly aghast. Please stand by, shen.os is reconfiguring. Eventually he finds his voice (which is right where he last put it) and splutters, which is literally the only way to react to Po's ebullient descriptions. That or repeating oneself, which Shen is just far too Birdish to do.

"Bh--whj--The Battle at the Valley of Peace was two years ago!"

"Master Po! Master Po! Mas--Huh?" Po stares at Shen as if he's suddenly grown a second head. "Um. Noooooo," he says, slowly and patiently, as if explaining to a small child. "That was last week. And uh..." he gives him a very smug grin. "...I think I would know. Being, y'know. The Dragon Warrior and all?"

Shen facepalms--er, -wings.

"Then you're clearly an amnesiac--" here he only just manages to force the words out of his beak, "--Dragon Warrior, because everyone knows the Battle at the Valley of Peace took place in the spring of the Snake and it is now halfway through the year of the Goat!"

"Dude. It's spring of the Snake right no--wait, hang on." A look of dawning realization comes to him. "So...are you saying what I think you're saying?" His eyes get very, very wide, and a delighted smile comes to his face. "Are you saying you're from THE FUTURE!" Has Shen ever seen a panda squee? If not, he has now. "THAT. IS. SO. COOL!"

"..."

"A-eh..." Shen riposts.

"Th..." he elabourates.

"Mngh-th-wh..." he sums up.

"The future...?" he finally says faintly. Blinkblink. Ahah. I can work with this. "Yeeeeessss," he continues silkily. "Yes, I'm from the future."

"That. Is so. Cool." He's bouncing excitedly now. Bouncing. "Okayokay. Do they have flying rickshaws? I've always wanted one of those."

"Oh, yes," the Peacock replies grandly. Inwardly, however, his plotting engine is running a mile a minute. "Everyone flies, now." Then his expression takes on a look of infinite regret of the kind usually reserved for very bad stage actors. "That is, save for the Pandas...." He manages to make his voice choke with what sounded like sadness on the last word in his attempt to hold back laughter.

"Really? Ohhohohoh wow that is so amazing!" The next bit stops him short though. "Huh? Why not?" Excluding pandas from the awesome? That's just wrong.

Shen takes a deep breath and sighs. "I'm... afraid that...." Oh, this is too good. "The pandas were exterminated. You see... the people of Gongmen City did not take kindly to seeing half the town destroyed in such a way. The devastation was... incalculable." Stay level... you can do it.... His voice shook convincingly. "They went mad, you see. They wanted to hunt you down and they killed every Panda they saw."

"Wh-what?" All excitement is forgotten now with this bit of news. "Exterminated? N-no that can't be right," he replies faintly, his lower lip trembling. "What kind of evil sicko would do something like that?"

Sniffle.

Oh great, Shen. You've just made a panda cry. I hope you're proud of yourself.

Shen is always proud of himself. He is, after all, a Peacock. He leans in close, his gaze wide but steady.

"Perhaps that is a question you should ask yourself," he whispers.

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IMPERIAL_SAGA

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