Lord Shen Returns

Chapter 1: Back From the Dead

The atmosphere was so peaceful and quiet, almost lonely.
Lord Shen was standing on an old and cracked building that was floating in the air, above him was a bright golden sky that stretched all the way through out the spirit realm. He looked out into the distance, it looked so infinite, sometimes he wondered how far he could travel that distance without growing tired.
So much time had flown by since Shen had come into the spirit realm, he didn't know how long it had been since... his defeat.
He shuddered at the thought of defeat, he still remembered his own creation falling on him. He still felt that sense of acceptance that he had been defeated when the cannon fell, in that moment he didn't move he just stood there waiting for the end. His death.
Why didn't he move out of the way? He could have moved as soon as he saw the cannon falling but he didn't choose to do anything else he just let his own death happen with no second thoughts.
Shen felt his head; it ached slightly as he thought about everything that happened in the past.
Suddenly his mind flashed right back to when he closed his eyes and spread his wings out to let the cannon fall on him. As he embraced his death everything went black. Or so he thought.

When Shen opened his eyes again at first all he could see was a bright light in his face that was almost blinding him. When his vision became a lot clearer at first he thought he was in heaven. But that couldn't be, it just didn't seem right.
Then he thought he was about to enter 'hell' about to await his eternal punishment in fiery flames that would forever burn his flesh.
But as he looked around him this was not at all what he was expecting everything was levitating. This definitely didn't look like hell or how he expected the afterlife to look like. He looked around expecting to see other people but he found that he was alone it was just him. Then he thought to himself where was he actually? Were there other people here but much more further in  this realm? Were his parents here? Were they waiting for him? To tell him that they were sorry? Or to further express their hate for him.
But that wasn't the case, as he stood in the same position for who knew how long nothing happened, during that time he wasn't starving nor was he thirsty.
Was this his eternal punishment? To spend eternity alone? To think about his actions? To repent?
He had so many questions. But what was the point? There was no one here to answer the burning questions in his head. Not where he was anyway.

Shen brought his mind back to the present.
For years in this realm he had been thinking about his whole life and reflecting what could have been and what had happened. But most of all he tried to find some form of peace; he tried meditating, pacing, taking deep breaths, sometimes even letting out his rage by screaming into the unknown. Trying to find peace was difficult and frustrating. When he tried to meditate for the first time he yelled out in anger because all he could think about was how he had failed to achieve his goal, his dream, to conquer China. When he tried pacing or levitating through the spirit realm he remembered the prophecy of him being defeated by a warrior of black and white it repeated inside his head over and over it made him sick.
Other days he cursed himself, he was filled with so much rage. He yelled out at how much he hated his parents who wronged him; who hated him.
He cursed the panda, the warrior of black and white who defeated him; the panda who survived the massacre he had done to prove that he could change his fate.
It seemed that to find peace after his death was still harder to find than it seemed. So eventually Shen decided to stop trying to find inner peace because he thought it was pointless since he couldn't master it.

Shen looked ahead in the distance, his wings were folded inside his robe and his facial expression seemed bored and lonely.
Today he felt calm, calmer than usual. He jumped off the building and spread his peacock fan and glided to the nearest rock. He landed gracefully as he dug his feet into the rock to hold him steady then he put his wings into a fighting position and began practicing a few of his martial arts moves, he had no weapons to practice with so he couldn't hit anything. So instead Shen moved his legs apart and leaned forward as his peacock fan spread behind him. Then he jumped forward as he pretended to fight an invisible enemy, he kicked and spun over the so called 'enemy' who was pinned down with his feet.
Shen relaxed his body for a moment, he hadn't practiced any of his martial arts at all since he entered the spirit realm but it felt in a way good to be able to practice it again.

Suddenly a bright golden glowing portal and formed into front of him. Shen covered his eyes with his wing. Was there someone new entering the spirit realm?
But no one entered instead Shen felt himself being pulled through the portal, he struggled to stay firmly on the rock. But the portal kept pulling Shen through, before Shen knew it he was  standing on a marble stone floor and standing before him was a Chameleon along with a lot of Chameleon guards.
Shen looked around him and stared firmly at this Chameleon.
"Who are you?" Shen asked. "And why am I here?"
The Chameleon grinned.
"Oh you're here for a very special reason. You're here because I need you for something just a small ask if you will" The Chameleon said as she looked at the staff of wisdom in her hands.
Shen scoffed. "Why do you need me?"
"I need you because your Kung Fu will be extremely useful to me when I use it myself" said the Chameleon as she stepped more forward towards Shen.
Shen chuckled slightly. "Kung Fu? You're mistaken. I don't do Kung Fu. I have another way of fighting." Shen said.
"Well in that case I'll use that instead" said The Chameleon as her expression darkened.
"I won't teach you my skills if that is what you are implying" Shen scowled.
The Chameleon smiled devilishly and laughed.
Shen narrowed his eyes and stood in a fighting position preparing for her to attack him.
The Chameleon sighed. "Fine if that's how you want to do this."
She stuck her long tongue out towards Shen but Shen ducked and rolled over away from The Chameleon. The Chameleon's guards circled Shen with their weapons pointing at him.
Shen spread his peacock fan and leaped onto one of the guards and kicked a guard beside him, then he swung his peacock fan underneath a few guards who tripped over.
Then a guard stabbed the tip of his weapon into Shen shoulder. Shen winced in pain. He grabbed his shoulder with his wing as blood started to stain his wing. The Chameleon's guards backed away from Shen, as Shen looked behind him  it wasn't the Chameleon but a different creature it was a snow leopard. Shen widened his eyes.
The snow leopard jumped forward but as Shen tried to jump out of the way it grabbed his neck and punched his stomach and he fell on the floor.
As Shen looked back at the snow leopard it started to transform into The Chameleon again.
"You didn't see that coming did you?" She said.
Shen tried to stand but that punch pained his whole body that it was no use.
The Chameleon stuck out her long tongue at Shen which hit his right eye. Suddenly Shen felt a certain part of him was being sucked out of him.
He felt so weak and worn out. He breathed heavily. Suddenly her long tongue wrapped around his body and flung him into an iron cage.
Shen felt so beaten that his body wouldn't move, his eyes became heavy as they closed leaving Shen to pass out.

That's the end of chapter 1 I hope you liked it. I hope this was a good start if you think I need to improve my writing in any way please let me know. I haven't been writing for a few years now so it may not be that good. Thank you for reading!