When Po and Li reached the village, Master Shifu and the Furious Five were on the rooftops, already locked in battle. Their opponents were green and glowing. They didn’t know it yet, but they were facing Kai’s jade creatures, the kung fu masters now under the evil yak’s control.
Po leaped through the air.
“Enemies of justice! Prepare for—” Po began, but the sight of the glowing Jade Zombies broke his focus. He botched his landing and fell hard onto the rooftop. “What’s the deal with the green guys?” he asked, shaking off the fall.
Tigress punched one of the warriors and grimaced. It was like hitting solid rock.
“Argh!” she cried. “Some kind of Jade Zombies.”
Monkey landed near Po.
“Jade Zombies?” Po repeated.
Then he and Monkey had the same thought at the same time.
“Jombies!” they yelled together. “Jinx!”
Li rushed up, panting, and called up to the rooftop.
“Lotus! Be careful!”
“It’s okay, Dad! I do this every—”
A green warrior lunged at him, and Po fended off the blow with a swift movement of his hands. A second warrior, identical to the first, attacked him on his other side.
“Whoa. I recognize these guys!” Po cried. “The Master Badger Twins! With their Crushing Double Gong Technique!”
The two jombie badgers crashed into him from either side, hitting him square in the head.
“Yeah, that’s the one!” Po yelled, pushing them both away. Then he noticed something else strange. “That guy is . . . Noooo! Master Porcupine!”
The spiky jombie launched one of his sharp darts at Po, and Monkey f lew in to def lect it.
“I thought he died a hundred years ago,” Monkey said. He threw the dart back at the porcupine, and it smashed into bits on contact.
“These guys are legend!” Po said excitedly.
He reached down from the roof and plucked the village sketch artist from the crowd.
“Get a quick sketch of us!” he said, as he hurled himself back into the battle.
The little pig quickly sketched Po, who smiled and posed between delivering punches.
“Did you get it? Did you get it?” Po asked. He rushed over to the pig and looked at the sketch. “Aw, I blinked! Can we get another one?”
Whoosh! Master Porcupine hurled himself at Po, and they both tumbled over the roof. They crashed through the ceiling of the back room of the noodle shop, Po’s old bedroom. The jombie wrapped his hands around Po’s neck as they fell.
“I’m being choked by Master Porcupine! This is so cool!” Po said. He grabbed his Master Porcupine action figure off his shelf. “Look! It’s you!”
Master Shifu jumped into the room and knocked Master Porcupine off Po.
“Po, focus!” he warned.
Po went f lying backward and crashed through the f loor and down into Mr. Ping’s kitchen.
“Sorry, Dad! I’ll clean it up later!” Po said, scrambling to his feet as two jombie warriors appeared and attacked him. He grabbed the nearest weapon he could find—a frying pan.
“Whoa, whoa, not my good pan!” cried Mr. Ping. “Take this one!”
He took the pan from Po’s hand and replaced it with a soup ladle. Po used it to fight off the warriors as best as he could.
Li ran into the kitchen.
“Watch out!” he yelled, and just in time. One of the jombies was about to deliver a crushing blow to Po’s head, and Po ducked it.
Then he got a gleam in his eye.
“Check out my Dumplings of Doom!” he cried, and Viper and Tigress appeared to help.
Po snatched some bowls, soared through the air, and smashed down on a table full of dumplings. As the dumplings shot into the air, Po caught them into the bowls and then poured them into his mouth.
Viper wrapped around Po’s belly, and Tigress yanked on Viper, sending the dumplings blasting out of Po’s mouth at rocket speed.
Bam! Bam! Bam! The dumplings knocked down the warriors each time they made contact.
Mantis, Crane, and Monkey showed up, and together with Po, the Furious Five pinned the jombies to the f loor.
“Gotcha!” Po said.
Suddenly, all of the jade creatures began to speak at once. Kai was speaking through them. He could speak through their mouths and see the battle through their eyes. And what he saw was that Po’s green chi glowed brighter and stronger than everyone else’s.
“I see you,” the jombies said in a spooky voice. “Your chi will soon be mine.”
“Is he talking to me?” Po asked.
“Which one?” asked Tigress. “They’re all talking.”
“Wow, you’re right,” said Po. “That’s so scary! We should try that too . . . maybe it’d be scary back at them.”
“Okay,” Mantis agreed. “But we gotta plan what we’re gonna say first or else it won’t be scary, it’ll just be stupid.”
“It’s not them talking, you idiots!” yelled the jombies. “It’s me talking through them. Kai!”
“Who?” asked Po and the Furious Five in unison.
Kai frowned. “Okay, okay, enough,” he said through the jombies.
Suddenly, the jombies vaporized into green streaks and f lew away, up and over the rooftops.
“Whoa! What just happened?” asked Monkey.
“Did you see that?” Po asked. “They just . . . the green smoke just poof . . . and they poof—Shifu, what was that?”
Master Shifu looked thoughtful. “Kai . . . Kai . . . Nope, never heard of him.”