Chapter 1
Tai Lung.
That name was mine now. It echoed through my memory, resonating with the vibrations of someone else's recollections — recollections I slowly, painfully digested in the darkness of this cursed prison.
The greatest student of the renowned Master Shifu. His heir.
Many years ago, Shifu had found him when he was very small. The infant discovered by the master at the temple gates was too frail to be sent to an orphanage, so the young master decided to keep him at the Jade Palace for a while, tending to the child, nourishing his body with Chi.
Shifu had intended to give him up once the boy grew stronger — but over time, he came to love the snow leopard's spirit and chose to raise him as his own son.
The years passed. At the age of three, the boy Shifu named Tai Lung — meaning Great Dragon — took his first interest in kung fu, and in that very first training session, showed breathtaking potential.
In China, names carry enormous power. Watching his child advance through training at a staggering pace, Shifu came to believe that the name given to the little snow leopard was prophetic. He intensified the training, fully convinced that Tai Lung was destined to become the Dragon Warrior.
Tai Lung did not disappoint his father. He progressed rapidly. By sixteen, he had achieved a high level of mastery over Chi, and became the first practitioner in history to work through all one thousand kung fu scrolls — and master every single technique within them.
There was no equal to this warrior anywhere in China. At twenty, he demanded what was rightfully his: the title of Dragon Warrior.
Tai Lung genuinely believed it was his destiny. That only he was worthy of the title. That the title had essentially been created for him alone.
Oogway refused.
On that day, Shifu had invited the Grand Master, and Tai Lung put every skill he possessed on display.
He had spent nearly two decades grinding through techniques, reaching heights no one before him had reached. But when his father proudly showed what his student had achieved, the tortoise did not look impressed. His expression held something else entirely.
Disappointment.
Tai Lung was refused. Furious, he decided to take the scroll by force.
He shoved Shifu aside when the master dared to block his path, dismissed the old tortoise as ancient and useless, and lunged for the scroll — but Oogway appeared at his side in an instant, pressing two precise points with a surge of Chi, and paralyzed Tai Lung before he ever saw it coming.
After that, the mightiest warrior of the Jade Palace was locked away in the most secure prison in all of China — Chorh-Gom.
The prison had been built for a single prisoner. For a living blizzard in the shape of a man.
Chorh-Gom was a grim fortress carved into the belly of a mountain, where thousands of spears and chains held just one captive. It became Tai Lung's cell for twenty long years.
Rhinos — powerful warriors by nature — served as jailers for the disgraced master, and their commander tortured him every day as payment for the destruction Tai Lung had caused, the lives he had taken across the valley.
***
All of this was my memory now. I sat in the dark, bound and still, feeling the weight of this foreign but vivid biography pressing down on my very ordinary human mind.
Of all the worlds to end up in, of all the bodies to land in…
Honestly, I had always assumed there was nothing after death. Something like sleep — eternal, with no way back. Yet here I was, in this cold pit that reeked of old blood.
I had no idea what had happened in my previous life, and I seriously doubted I'd wound up in the body of a cartoon character for no reason — but I wasn't going to figure it out now. Better not to dwell on it. I had enough problems as it was, starting with my furry neighbor, the one called Tai Lung.
So. What could I say about this world, and about my new place in it?
I should start with the fact that this entire world closely resembled the cartoon I'd loved as a child — with one key difference. The population wasn't talking animals. They were humanoid beings with certain animal features.
In my case, the animal elements were limited to a tail, ears, eyes, and claws. Otherwise, I looked like an ordinary person — which wasn't unusual at all. Everyone here was like that. It was important to understand that mixing people with different traits didn't produce some grotesque hybrid. A child inherited the father's features: if a rabbit-girl had a child with a dog-man, the child would be a dog. Bloodlines ran clean. In smaller villages, the divisions were fairly strict — people tended to live in communities made up almost entirely of those sharing the same animal traits. In larger cities, nobody paid it any mind at all.
A crazy world. And I was now part of it.
Then there were the martial arts, which had emerged here only a couple thousand years ago.
Tai Lung hadn't had much knowledge of the wider world map. He knew China — the nation where all the events of the films had taken place — and a handful of small states to the north and south.
Over those millennia in China, a martial art had developed called Kung Fu, which translated, roughly, to "High Mastery."
Kung Fu on its own could make a person strong enough to comfortably cut through an armed squad of soldiers. But this world also held something far rarer: the energy called Chi.
Chi permeated everything. It was present in abundance in every living thing — from a blade of grass to a human being.
The more Chi something contained, the stronger it was. Though in extreme concentrations, Chi could also kill. There was even a particular shrub so saturated with it that an ordinary person could die from the lightest scratch of its thorns.
Wielding Chi was extraordinarily difficult. Even Shifu had never managed it. Beyond raw talent and stubborn dedication, it required inner peace — and a clear understanding of one's own purpose.
For Tai Lung, that purpose had been to become the greatest kung fu master in existence, and to claim the title of Dragon Warrior. Once he accepted those desires as his own, the snow leopard had unlocked Chi without difficulty.
I suspected Shifu had other problems — problems beyond me — that had kept him from ever crossing that threshold.
*Problems…* Right. Twenty years raising a son. Pouring everything into him, making him your life's work — and then letting some ancient tortoise destroy that life with a single word. That wasn't a problem.
That was betrayal.
…Ah. I didn't think those were entirely my thoughts.
Well then. Now, about me — about us.
Tai Lung: a grandmaster locked in a so-called perfect prison. Escape without outside help was impossible. And as it turned out, he had survived here solely through Chi, because they gave him neither food nor water. And then there were the torture sessions. It made me sick to think about them. Every evening. Like clockwork.
The situation was, to put it plainly, completely hopeless. I had no idea how to get out of this damned place. I could feel the cold stone beneath me, the constant dull ache in my muscles, and that monstrous shell on my back — the thing that didn't just restrain me but seemed to… drain me. It was probably just my mind playing tricks. Surely the Wise and Benevolent Tortoise — "WaBeTo" for short — wouldn't put something genuinely malicious on a defeated enemy. Surely.
In the film, Tai Lung had escaped only through skill and luck. But I was not Tai Lung. I didn't have his skills.
Yes, the snow leopard's reflexes and muscle memory were technically mine — but knowing something and using it were two entirely different things. Remembering a thousand techniques was not the same as forcing this exhausted, shackled body to execute any of them.
No, I had no intention of tolerating daily torture in this wretched dungeon — but a blind, desperate breakout wasn't going to work either. I needed a plan. And I needed to pray that instinct and reflex would pick up whatever I couldn't consciously provide.
In the couple of days I'd spent here in this nightmare, I had managed to skim through Tai Lung's memories and even come to feel something for him, living through certain moments in his life and understanding exactly what he had felt during each one. I felt his pride. His desperate hunger for recognition. His… love and respect for Shifu. And the sharper for all of that — the betrayal.
I had also begun to understand, roughly, how Chi actually worked. I had even learned a few tricks with it.
For example: I discovered that the reason I could barely feel my own body was intentional. Tai Lung had deliberately suppressed his physical sensations so that the daily torture wouldn't drive him to madness. He'd also been circulating Chi through his body continuously to prevent total physical deterioration.
Genuinely brilliant, honestly.
Even those two days had been more than enough to make me hate everyone around me — Shifu, who had let this happen. Oogway, whose refusal had pushed Tai Lung over the edge. The rhino bastard who tried to break me every single evening.
My peaceable human temperament had collided with the brutality of this real world and retreated in disgrace, leaving me alone in a landscape of pain. This hatred wasn't just a thought. It was physical. It boiled in my chest. It itched in my fingertips. It demanded release, demanded I tear every single enemy to pieces.
I'm still working on the dramatic speeches, but I'll get there. What fight worth having doesn't have one?
I twitched the ears on top of my head. My hearing was extraordinary — I could catch every rustle, every drop of water falling from stalactites somewhere deep in the dark. And right now I caught something that didn't belong to the usual sounds. The bastard torturer hadn't come down yet today, but this was early even for him…
A grinding sound. The heavy, rusted groan of metal.
"There he is… Tai Lung," came the already-unbearable voice of the head warden, once the exit gate had lowered.
"I… I'll wait up here," replied an unfamiliar, anxious male voice. Thin. Trembling.
I opened my eyes and peered into the dark. My vision was as inhuman as my hearing. I immediately made out the massive shape of the rhino — and beside him, a man barely a meter and a half tall, with wings folded behind his back. A goose, by the look of it. He was shaking so badly it seemed like he might accidentally take flight.
Strange. I'd never had visitors before. What had changed?
My heart — our heart — missed a beat.
"Ha! Nothing to worry about!" the rhino assured the goose. "Completely safe in here!" Then he gave the winged man a shove, sending him stumbling two meters forward with a yelp. "Crossbows, ready!"
An instant later I heard the mechanical grind of enormous crossbows rotating toward me, followed by the screech of the cables — the cables that served as bowstrings — being drawn taut. Machines built to kill, all aimed at me alone.
"Hey there, tough guy," the visitors had moved closer now, almost directly in front of me. I let my eyes slide shut. I had no desire to look at this filth. His stench hit me — sweat, metal, and something sour. "Oogway's finally going to present the Dragon Scroll to someone. Someone, but not you!" The rhino circled me slowly, savoring my helplessness, drunk on his own authority.
"What are you doing? Don't provoke him!" the messenger cried in protest.
So. The panda had been chosen as the new Dragon Warrior. Which meant that I had to escape today. The thought wasn't a calculated plan — it was an instant, blazing certainty. A flash behind my eyes.
I wasn't going to tell myself I wasn't ready. I was not going to rot in here any longer just to spend more time adjusting to this new body. If anyone out there was willing to endure daily torture for a slightly better chance of reclaiming their skills — they were welcome to take my place. I was done.
"What's he going to do?" the rhino said with a sneer, while the winged man trembled visibly. "He's completely immobilized."
At that moment I winced, because the bastard had just stepped on my tail.
The pain was sharp — but worse than the pain was the humiliation. He had done it deliberately. This filth had dared to treat me like some mangy alley cat.
Rage flooded through me, pure and incinerating — and then immediately cleared. I couldn't do anything right now. But very soon…
*Soon.*
"Oh!" The messenger recoiled at the sight of the rhino's foot on my tail.
"Aha-ha-ha!" The torturer laughed. "Oh, did I step on the little kitty's tail? Awww…" He lingered over every word, savoring my helplessness.
Just wait, you bastard. When I get out — you're going to suffer. I'm going to remember this.
"I-I've seen enough," the messenger cut in, trying to end the spectacle. "That's sufficient. I'll tell Shifu there's nothing to worry about."
"Exactly," the rhino said, turning away from me without another glance and heading for the exit.
"Right, yes, that's what I'll say…" The goose exhaled with relief, clearly overjoyed to be leaving my presence.
And in that moment I felt a surge of electricity, because right in front of me, drifting toward the ground — was a feather. A small, gray, unremarkable feather from the goose's wing. It turned slowly in a faint draft while my entire world narrowed down to that single object.
This wasn't an opportunity.
This was fate.
Thank every god that exists — I'm getting out of here.
It had to be now. I would either escape this dungeon or die trying. There was no third option.
I laid my tail over the feather, concealing it, then drew my tail back behind me. The movement was smooth, practiced — as if I'd had a tail my entire life.
On my back, all this time, had been the shell — a mechanism created by Oogway specifically to suppress my Chi and lock my body down. Dozens of jade needles driven into precise pressure points, completely blocking certain muscle groups. I'd felt them every single day, like a dull, unceasing itch beneath my skin.
Because of them I couldn't breathe properly. Couldn't move.
Two chains attached to multi-ton stone boulders hanging over a chasm added to the arrangement.
Without Chi, I would have died long ago. If an ordinary person had been put in my place, their arms would simply have been torn from their sockets.
Not the most pleasant way to go.
I flicked the feather up. My tail acted like a third hand, guiding it precisely into the mechanism built into the shell. I held perfectly still. I strained my hearing, catching every tiny click. With my tail, I made the first movement — left and down.
*Click.* There. A click answered back. Now back up and to the right.
*Click.* Another answer. Now down as far as it would go, and left.
*CLICK.*
For the first time in twenty long years, the jade needles moved. The mechanism engaged, drawing them upward, releasing me.
The pain retreated — replaced by nothing. And then, gradually, by sensation. I felt my shoulders. My back.
I took a breath. A full, deep breath.
Air. Stale, dusty air. The air of freedom. It burned my lungs like fire.
Yes. Freedom was close.
I tensed my body and pushed a burst of Chi outward. The needles exploded in every direction with tremendous force. With full mobility finally restored, I threw my weight against the shell on my back and felt it shatter into fragments.
Now the shackles.
I got to my feet. The body felt foreign — weak, somehow — but it obeyed. I hauled the boulders upward, reaching for the chain on one wrist, trying to work the restraints loose.
Damn. No. I was too weakened after twenty years. I couldn't lift the boulders on my own. I needed another way.
Meanwhile, the guards had already raised the alarm. Surprised shouts echoed from my tormentors across the prison floor, followed by the commanding bark of the warden.
"Crossbow volley!"
There it was. My human side screamed: *we're finished.* But Tai Lung knew — this was the chance.
My mobility was enough to dodge a few shots. And if luck cooperated even slightly…
*CRACK.*
An enormous bolt drove into the stone a centimeter from my body, burying itself several inches deep.
If I hadn't dodged on pure instinct, it would have been over. Thank god the body moved on its own.
I sensed the second shot coming, couldn't get the chain in position in time, so I simply dodged. The third bolt followed in the same instant — easy enough to avoid. And then, at last, a well-positioned crossbow sent a bolt directly at me, and —
I snapped my left arm's chain taut, angling it into the bolt's path.
*CLANG.*
The shackle on my right wrist shattered as the bolt struck it, and for the first time in twenty years, one hand was free.
I nearly fell — the boulder on the left dragged hard, threatening to wrench my shoulder from its socket. But my Chi-charged claws tore through the steel of the left shackle like paper, and I snarled with something close to euphoria as the reality hit me.
This hell was over.
All that remained was escaping from an impenetrable prison.
Easy.
"Tai Lung is free!" I caught the goose's voice among the chaos of noise. "I'll fly to Shifu!"
Ha. Shifu. Maybe I should thank him for sending this feathered little errand boy to check on me. Without him, I wouldn't have gotten out.
"You'll stay here, and so will he!" The rhino seized the goose by the throat. "Bring it up!" he commanded his subordinates, who immediately began raising the lift.
"Let me go!" the goose struggled. Unsuccessfully.
So how was I supposed to get up? These idiots had just left their own man behind — and without the lift…
*PFWT!*
Another bolt from a crossbow came at me, but I wasn't in chains anymore, and killing me wouldn't be quite so simple.
I slapped it back with an open palm. The shot was clean. The crack of splintering wood and a chorus of shouts followed.
Hm. That bolt punched through solid stone.
There was my plan.
I kicked the bolts that had embedded themselves in the ground around me up into the air, then struck them hard, sending them flying toward the nearest wall. They bit into the stone in a rough, improvised staircase.
Here we go.
I leaped, pushing off the last bolt remaining on my platform — driven in at just the right angle — and launched upward, feeling terror and exhilaration in equal measure as I shot several dozen meters into the air, landing on one of the bolts now lodged in the wall.
Kicked off from it, noted that the lift had already climbed quite far, then leaped to the next bolt, bounced from it, slid along the wall to the last one, caught it with one hand, and pulled myself up.
Remarkable strength — and not just from the Chi. Something about this world let anyone push beyond ordinary human limits. I didn't know the reason, but I knew this: I liked being strong.
"He's coming this way!" The goose's panicked shriek snapped me back to the moment.
I'll admit I was nervous as I faced the last gap — jumping to the lift, with death waiting below if I missed, and no guarantee they wouldn't simply cut the chains.
If they did that, there was no way out.
"He won't make it!" The rhino tightened his grip on the goose's throat. "Archers!"
Well, if you're leaving me no choice…
Under the snap of bowstrings, I spun on one of the bolts and hurled myself at the rising lift, catching the underside and barely — barely — threading through a rain of arrows. Without pausing for a single breath, I vaulted up onto the platform itself and started climbing the chain.
Two meters from the top — and I began to fall.
Damn. They cut the chain after all.
I shifted my weight, pulled the drifting lift toward me with a burst of Chi — an instinctive, desperate move — and shoved off from it the instant it was close enough, launching myself upward.
The laughing rhinos got hit in the teeth and went flying as I landed square in the middle of them.
Now, how to get higher?
The way to the next level was already above — no way to climb from below. So then…
I grabbed the chain that had begun to wind around the lift's winch mechanism and plunged downward, letting the spin throw me upward.
Still a few meters short.
I charged my claws and one hand with Chi and drove it into the stone. Not the safest technique, but there were no other options. The granite crumbled, my hand screamed with pain, but I held.
I pushed off from the rock and cleared the edge, pulling myself onto the upper level.
Only the exit above.
Here, though, dozens of armed guards were waiting for me.
That was fine. Hurting them would just be a bonus.
And the part of me that was Tai Lung agreed with that completely.