Tai Lung awoke and found himself enveloped in darkness. Okay, there was s little red light above him, but it hardly lit up any of his surroundings in his position. Despite the darkness, he knew where he was.....

Well, it's nice to be back in a place I absolutely loathe, he thought to himself. He was completely frozen, just as he was the first time, and he could hear guards walking about above him. He wondered if they were left over from the Anvil of Heaven, or if they were an entirely fresh batch of guards. As he sat there pondering this over, he suddenly realized that his left hand was tightly clenched. He couldn't move it open since his entire body was once again paralyzed, but he had an idea to get around that. He quickly moved his tail and swept it up to his closed fist. He wasn't very ticklish, but he did know that the slightest leaf strokes on his paws or back would automatically cause him to flinch and he was relying on that natural impulse now. He had learned many things while in Chorh Gom for 20 years of his life, and one of those lessons was that not everything in his body was frozen. He was still hungry, thirsty, and cold. (Though since that part of the prison was buried deep in the mountain, that wasn't very surprising). He could still cry, (which Vachir had once mocked him for), and for some reason his tail did not freeze along with the rest of his body.Granted, it felt like someone was hanging a 200 ton anchor on it and it exhausted him to move it, but he could still maneuver his tail pretty efficiently. 

Tai Lung gently brushed the tip of his tail over his left hand which flinched just enough to open slightly. He squinted at it to better see what he held and was delighted to spy what looked like a feather. 

Oh good! I did grab it! Thank you, Master Crane!

With his paw partially opened, it didn't take Tai Lung very long to get the feather loose. With his means of escape now free, Tai Lung had zero problem with once again unlocking the tortoise shell on his back and breaking it off to better stretch his muscles out. Upon seeing him free, the new guards flew into a panic and began to prepare counter-measures to lock him back in place. Tai Lung yawned and then chuckled to himself. 

Double the guards must mean double the chaos, he noted, seeing the increased number of bodies fighting over who had the large crossbows. This actually might be easier than the first time I got out. The snow leopard stood at the ready as the crossbow was knocked to and fro, up and down, and wildly around in a zig-zaggy circle. He carefully watched the movements until one of the guards trying to grab for it leaned forward and pressed the lever on accident. The crossbow javelin launched down towards the isolated rock Tai Lung stood on and aimed to sail over his head. Tai Lung shifted one chain, testing the weight of the boulder that held him down, and then yanked his arm up as fast as he could. He could feel his muscles straining and clenching and he worried that he would injure himself or be too weak to pull off such a stunt. Thankfully, he had raised his wrist high enough for the javelin to slice the handcuff clean off. 

Seeing that their prisoner was starting to free himself, the guards on the upper level started to scream and yell non-cohesively up to those above them. Tai Lung couldn't really make out what they were saying. As he relaxed his arm for a second, he could hear, "Bow...dangerous...stupid Xiang!" but there was too much commotion and rapid babbling to understand anything else. Once his arm felt a little better, Tai Lung reached out his foot to firmly step on the chain that bound his other wrist to the second boulder hanging from the platform. 

I still can't believe these things were attached to me for 20 years, he thought to himself as he ripped the other cuff loose and grabbed hold of the chain before it vanished into the chasm below. It's so heavy I'm surprised it didn't yank my arms out of their sockets! 

Eyeing the platforms above, Tai Lung dug his feet into the rock beneath him and started to pull the boulder up. When it was close enough, he tightened his grip on the chain and began to swing the boulder around. At first it just moved around the side of the area Tai Lung was trapped on, but then it began to spin out more and more, faster and faster, until Tai Lung finally launched it into part of the mountain above him. He then walked all the way back to the edge of the precipice before before sprinting forward and launching himself towards the wall. He began to descend towards the bottom and grabbed a hold of the chain, rapidly swinging him up where he let go and sailed towards the upper level. Afterwards, he had a fairly easy time running over-top the mob of heads, climbing up a few elevators, and sneaking up the side of the mountain during the last few hundred feet to finally force his way through the front door. (His first escape had clearly left boulder-sized holes on the side that apparently no one had bothered to fix). Using a few rhino guards as protection for his sore limbs, Tai Lung forced his way past the final line of guards and quickly ran down the thin slope that served as Chorh Gom's only way of entering and exiting the prison. 

There wasn't much snow on the ground at the moment due to it being summer, but there was still enough to make the ground cold and slippery. Ice had always been a love-hate relationship for Tai Lung. He loved ice skating in his younger days, even passing up Master Shifu as he got older, and he enjoyed skidding objects across the ice with the other kids in the valley. However, Tai Lung was also very prone to slipping on the ice. Even when ice skating, he could never stay upright for too long since the ice would always win out. And forget fighting! During the winter, Tai Lung always had to use trees or the physical bodies of his enemies to keep himself off the ground and in battle. Otherwise, he'd be slipping off of rooftops or across the main streets and into a cart. The villagers had considered his fighting style impressive, especially since the ice left Shifu out of commission and Oogway was the only one who could use it to his advantage, but Tai Lung thought his winter fighting style to be rather embarrassing. (Not to mention a huge hassle). 

As he carefully traversed the snowy landscape, he noticed a familiar figure off in the distance. Tai Lung squinted to see past the snow and nearly stopped in his tracks when he noticed who it was. 

No, he wouldn't be here!

Tai Lung walked closer, minding where he was putting his feet. The silhouette soon became more clear and more life-like and made no effort to move forward, though perhaps they had already known that he wasn't going to run. Tai Lung finally reached them and stood straight in front. 

"Hi," he said, not really sure of what else to say in the moment. 

"Hello," Shifu answered. His expression didn't convey any hint of how he was feeling, so the two wound up just standing in the snow for a good few minutes. Tai Lung figured he should say something, but Shifu beat him to that. 

"I had a feeling you were going to get out," the grandmaster admitted. "Once you learn something, it doesn't take you long to master it."

Tai Lung smiled at the compliment but quickly went back to remaining composed. "Thank you," he said. He glanced at their surroundings and added, "I'm shocked you don't have an army at your heels."

"Well don't worry too much about it. I just wanted to talk."

Tai Lung blinked. He was too surprised to do much else for a second. "You? Now?"

"Yes, in a twist of well-needed irony....I overreacted when I saw you, and to Tigress as well. I don't know how you survived nor why you came back, so I shouldn't have jumped to any extremes."     He looked concerned, though he tried to stay collected. "Perhaps we can try this again?" he asked. 

Tai Lung felt a wave of happiness wash over him and he smiled wider than he had in a while. "Sure," he said. "I'd love that." 

THE END

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