Raging Panda
One of Chokhan Fifteenth Son Shatters the River's bodyguards. A burly, glowering monkey wearing the robes of an Immaculate Initiate, and wielding an orihalcum tetsubo.
Raging Panda is believed to be a practitioner of Immaculate Earth Dragon Martial Arts.
Raging Panda is junior in rank to Leaf-Catcher.
Stubborn Monkey Hesitation
"I am Nameless Ravine. I am here to see my father."
The monkey guarding the door sniffed derisively and scratched his nose.
"I said, I am named for the Nameless Ravine. I am here to see the honored Chokhan Fifteenth Son Shatters the River."
The monkey scratched his nose and leaned on his gleaming tetsubo.
"Do you hear me, monkey? I am not some lowly petitioner, begging for a sip of The Kussir's finest tea, I am a Chosen of the Sun, a Warrior of the Dawn, and I am summoned by the Disciplined Brush, the Monkey-Friend, the Cultivator of a New Era, the First Martyr for the New Solar Deliberative. You shall let me pass!"
The monkey yawned and made a rude gesture with his tail. And then he was in the air, bringing his tetsubo arcing down like a boulder dislodged by lightning. There was no transition between calm and storm. Nameless Ravine intercepted the blow with his plain wooden staff; the ideogram Ten flaring in golden essence around the meeting of wood and orihalcum. "By the Sun," he thought, "this monkey is even faster than my sworn brother Leaf Shakes the Wind!" Nameless Ravines's caste mark flared upon his brow as he raised his staff to strike...
... and the monkey hopped back, grinned, and clapped his paws together. It scampered over to the door, and excitedly pulled it open and ran through. Nameless Ravine dropped his stance and followed. Beyond the door stood another room, just like the first; a bare waiting room with tatami floors and wood-and-rice-paper walls. The monkey stood before a door on the far side, absent-mindedly playing with his toes.
As Nameless Ravine approached, the monkey did not react. "Is this some test? Or merely one of your monkey-games? I am not accustomed to proving my worth to a mere simian functionary." The monkey ignored him.
And then the monkey flew straight towards him, a raging, chittering ball of fur and fist, propelled as if out of a catapult. Again, there was no launch, no preparation; the attack simply was. Again, its efforts bounced harmlessly off of Nameless Ravine's Heavenly Guardian Defense. Again, the monkey immediately grinned and clapped and opened the door. Again, the room beyond was an unadorned waiting room.
Again, the monkey took up a position in front of the door on the far side, and proceeded to look very bored.
By the eighteenth door, Nameless Ravine stopped using the Heavenly Guardian Defense, as his wells of essence ran thin.
By the twenty-second door, Nameless Ravine decided to strike fist. And yet somehow, the monkey was always faster on the draw.
By the thirty-ninth door, Nameless Ravine could shift his posture from neutral to attack faster than he had ever dreamed possible. And still, the monkey was faster.
By the seventieth door, Nameless Ravine's attack came the barest fraction of a beat slower than the monkey's.
By the ninety-eighth door, their strikes arrived perfectly simultaneously.
At the ninety-ninth door, the monkey did not move a muscle. Neither did Nameless Ravine. They both knew what the outcome would be. The monkey bowed deeply to the Solar Exalt, and opened the final door to his father's Sanctum.
Some time later, Grey Horizon arrived, and wagged a disapproving finger at the monkey. "Somehow, I do not think this is what our master had in mind when he instructed you to ask his son to wait while he returned from his errand.."
Raging Panda sniffed derisively and scratched his nose.
