Disclaimer: Kung-Fu Panda is owned by DreamWorks Animation LLC. I am not affiliated with DreamWorks in any way. This fictional work falls under the fair use clause of copyright law, and will not be used for financial gain.

A/N: This is just a short drabble, inspired by the best villain of the Kung Fu Panda series, though not told from his POV.

I've always enjoyed fights between villains, and Kung Fu Panda 3 gave a perfect opportunity for this. Excluding the omake at the end, I've attempted to make this entirely possible according to canon.

Hope you enjoy :)

The Spirit Realm.

The first time I learned about it, I'd been studying with Oogway in a long-forgotten temple. I was a mere pupil of Kung Fu at the time, not the master I'd always been destined to become, and I had barely been a calf when I encountered that scroll. It described a vivid, colorful world, held together by pure energy and entirely free of the many laws that govern the mortal realm. It was said to be yin to the material yang; a place of peace and harmony; bound only by the mystical laws of willpower and emotion; entirely unfettered by physical concerns.

Let me tell you what the Spirit Realm really is.

This place is a prison. An unchanging, disorganized, albeit colorful wasteland, only populated by the occasional master to reach ascension, or enlightenment, or whatever they're calling it this era. I stopped keeping track long ago, after the first ten synonyms. That was also the same time I stopped listening. The 'wise words' of those pathetic fools have been falling on deaf ears for the last few centuries now. It's a shame the 'masters' had nothing but 'bright wisdom' to share. I might have listened if I'd encountered some wisdom of the darker sort – the kind only known by the old and brutally honest, who could share dreadful tales of deadly mistakes, hard-fought battles, and decisions they would never stop regretting, the kind that would haunt them for the rest of their days. If only those people were capable of coming to this place without the Wuxi Finger Hold to send them here.

As far as I know, I'm the only one to suffer that fate, and thus the only one in this realm with a sensible head. Or perhaps I should say, with a sensible 'aura'. No other sources of chi in the Spirit Realm still have their heads, after all. At least, none did until about a month ago.

The chi of the first arrival was unmistakable. The moment it arrived, I knew my slow-to-age friend had finally left the mortal realm. My former brother, my comrade-in-arms, my ultimate nemesis.

Oogway had finally arrived.

I left my meditation the moment I felt his presence. The key to my invisible shackles, the warden who sent me in the first place, had finally decided to pay me a visit. If only he could see the irony of it all – of the captor switching places with his captive. Perhaps he will see it.

Or would have seen it, if I hadn't been sidetracked.

While it's true that my greatest desire for the past five hundred years has been to escape this prison, I would not betray the vow I had made upon my arrival: "I will defeat every master in this realm. Only then will I defeat Oogway."

I am not my former friend. I will not break my vows.

And perhaps I'll even enjoy this diversion, now that I've resisted the final temptation against keeping my word. This second source of chi… not to mention the effect it's had on this part of the Spirit Realm… perhaps I can allow my curiosity to run away with me, just this once.

Most of the Spirit Realm could be considered as "harmonic" as the scroll described. It is filled with bright yellow/blue/silver 'skies', endless rainbows, countless yin-yang symbols (so many that I once formed the habit of destroying them on sight, just to see what would happen. The result: even more would take their place), and an ever-present, golden light in what felt like the realm's center – the Center of the Universe. That is the place where Oogway's chi had bloomed to life, and remains.

This part of the Spirit Realm is nothing like that, or anywhere else. It almost reminded me of my place of residence, as the sheer contrast it provides to the realm around it resembles a dark stain on a landscape painting. But that is where the similarities begin and end.

My home is lit by a resplendent green, the incandescence unhindered by any floating structures, save for the single shrine that I'd claimed as my own, the shrine at its very center. I cleared everything else as I trained, building the skills and strength that would allow me to conquer all worlds: mortal, spirit, and any that might lay beyond. My drive, my goals, my passions, and all my actions became more focused, more precise, more guided with each session. With each punch and kick, and eventually with each slash of my jade swords, my vision became clearer, my swords sharper, my strength stronger, and my body bigger. My home came to mirror the developments of my spirit. It too became more focused and precise, leading me to the logical conclusion that the Spirit Realm provides a visual manifestation of the spirits living within. This conclusion has not been disproven after many encounters with Kung Fu masters.

Keeping all that at the forefront of my mind as I leapt from island to island... if this place is meant to reflect the Spirit Realm's newest resident... well, as I said, perhaps this won't be such a dull digression, after all.

A deep, furious red light has cast the entire sky in a blood-crimson hue. The physical structures – and there were many – rarely reflected the scarlet source of luminescence. More often than not were obscured by black clouds of smoke and shadow. These clouds drifted low and high, barely allowing enough visibility to navigate the lair.

I passed many structures, using my chained swords to occasionally clear the smoke. What I saw in their wake was… intriguing.

In the Spirit Realm, the only solid objects to be found are made of metal, wood, or stone (including gemstone). Only the masters with the most powerful chi could manifest more than a few small shrines, or perhaps a single temple. And yet, here I found several, temple-sized locations, all carved in vivid detail and currently abandoned.

There was an endless staircase, filled with the promise of grandeur but leading nowhere. There was a deep, stone pit – a prison from the looks of it – littered with broken chains, giant crossbows and arrows, and shattered terra-cotta rhinos; it was a deeper, blacker crimson than the rest of the lair. There was a canyon, with ropes and planks dangling from either side like broken ladders, the wood no longer bridging the wide gap. Finally there was a temple, surrounded by more clouds than the rest of the lair put together.

To its side, a training hall could be seen without a single puff of smoke about it. Like the pit, it had a more pronounced hue. Unlike the pit, the glow around the training hall left no shadows, nor did it leave a single plank un-lit. As with the shrine of my own home, this training hall seemed to be the source of light and chi for the entire lair.

A commotion coming from within the hall informed me that I had finally found the source of this curious chi after weeks of travel.

Guttural growls, rage-filled roars, and shattering shouts filled the air, marking a particularly vigorous fight. But that was impossible. The fact that I could only hear one voice, and feel one source of chi, forced me to conclude that this was but a training session, not the vicious bloodbath it could have been, had there been an enemy for the chi to fight.

The unmistakable acceleration of my heart and breath, fueled by anticipation and excitement for the battle to come, did nothing to change my usual approach.

The atmosphere alone had already done that.

Rather than attack the unsuspecting chi, using the element of surprise to my advantage (which I haven't had to do in centuries, though continued to do out of habit), I decided that the setting warranted a more… enlightened strategy. Conversational, even.

Perhaps another bit of dark wisdom has finally found its way into the Spirit Realm.

I knocked on the large doors to the hall thrice, bringing an abrupt end to the session and leaving the hall in silence. Not two second later, a hoarse, rasping voice came from within.

"Enter."

I grinned, tapped one of the green figurines attached to my waist for a quick burst of strength, and kicked the doors in, sending them flying in what I'd estimated to be the location of the voice inside. Perhaps it is impossible to break my surprise-attack habit. Ah well.

One of the doors flew wide, but the other appeared to meet its mark head-on. I was only slightly surprised when the wood shattered into a million pieces, leaving a powerful frame obscured by the dust of the explosion. The frame shimmered once, clearing the cloud violently.

In its wake stood a snow leopard who was as far from amused as one could be.

From the lack of a shirt, I guessed it was a male. His fur was gray, spotted, and untrimmed. It looked like it may have been maintained, once, but the overgrown and uneven patches made it clear that the owner no cared for grooming. He wore only a set of worn, purple pants, so shredded they may as well have been a loin cloth. His claws were extended and viciously jagged, and his face was twisted into a snarl, revealing a set of equally unkempt teeth. His eyes glowed like two forest fires, determined to consume everything in their path.

"Who are you?" he asked, voice still hoarse. He seemed ready to attack at the slightest provocation, like a threatened cobra.

Again I felt my pulse quicken, entirely from the thrill of anticipation. "I am Kai," I thundered. "The Jade Slayer, the Conqueror of the Spirit Realm, and the Ultimate Collector of Chi." Those are the titles I've earned since my banishment. "When I was mortal, I was known as General, Supreme Warlord, Master of Pain, Beast of Vengeance, and Maker of Widows. Perhaps you've heard of me?"

"Yes," the leopard responded, making my pulse quicken yet again. "I read about you. Long ago."

"I suppose that would be the only way for a mortal to learn about me."

The leopard's eyes went only slightly distant in memory. "I thought the pursuit of knowledge would be essential to become the dragon warrior." He spat those final words, voice vehemently venomous. "How naïve I'd been."

"Hmm," I pondered, unfamiliar with the title but curious nonetheless. "I assume the Kung Fu 'masters'-" (I stroked my fingers over the jade figurines at my side) "-put a greater value on wisdom than knowledge?"

The leopard growled angrily, though not aggressively. I took that as a sign of agreement. "I see you hold these masters in the same regard as I."

"More than you know."

He turned his gaze to one of the still-standing training dummies. "It's thanks to their infinite wisdom that I had to rot in jail for twenty years." The wooden soldier shattered under the force of a single strike.

He then turned his gaze on a massive support beam. "Now, I get to rot here for an ETERNITY!"

The stone pillar crumbled to rubble.

The leopard was breathing heavily, his entire body rising and falling with each heave – an effect of his emotional state, not his physical one. Physical exhaustion is not possible in this place.

"Twenty years?" I yawned, drawing a low growl and narrowed eyes from my fellow inmate. "Try five hundred."

The deep-red eyes widened again. "Ah yes, I'd almost forgotten. Oogway invented the Wuxi Finger Hold… in his final battle with you."

"It seems you know your history," I remarked, impressed by his attention to detail.

"Even more so, now that I've become nothing more than a stain on it," he hissed, anger tempting to boil over into rage. "Tell me. Why have you come here?"

"For many reasons," I shrugged casually, slowly leaning into a battle stance. "A vow that goes back centuries, an equally old quest for power… but ever since I felt your chi, I was drawn by simple curiosity." I pointed the tip of my right sword at the leopard. "Why are you here, in the Spirit Realm?"

He eased into an aggressive stance of his own. "I was sent here against my will. Like you."

And again I felt myself grinning. "It seems I've found a kindred spirit. If only you could have arrived before Oogway finally met 'enlightenment'."

"Oogway is here?" the leopard asked, coming to that conclusion much quicker than I thought he would.

"Indeed." I nodded. "I was on my way to engage him until you arrived." I shifted my stance ever so slightly, ready for a fight so fierce, its effects would reach the mortal realm. "Before we begin, I would know the name of my opponent."

"Tai Lung," he growled.

Thus began the greatest fight of my afterlife.

There will be two chapters total, with an omake at the end of the second. The next will be released next Thursday, Friday, or Saturday (hopefully around the same time as today, if work doesn't get in the way).

Final Note: A writer by the name of IronicSnap made a story very similar to this one well over a year ago, with the exact same cover art. I did not know this until after I'd made and prepared mine, art included. I only found it a few hours before posting this, when I put the character "Kai" in the filters to see if anyone else thought to write something like this. I'd recommend checking his out; it's named "Sorry Not Sorry". The name and opening made me smile, and so did the ending.