Without a moment's hesitation, Crane grabbed Po's shoulders and heaved him up towards one of the retreating ladders on the blimp before it went to high. Tigress immediately climbed up the walls of the kitchen and jumped as high as she could to reach Crane and Po. Crane dipped down just a little bit to grab her and then quickly flew back after the retreating blimp and threw her onto the deck. He then flew back down to the ground so Viper and Mantis could climb on his back and be carried to the blimp directly. The bandits in the blimp in the meantime had already stashed Monkey away somewhere on the giant flying ship and quickly had some of the lower lackeys pre-engaged in fighting the two warriors who had quickly crash-landed on the blimp. Po had taken a second to climb up the rope later since the wind resistance made it difficult to hold on and move around. However, Tigress' arrival on the blimp with quick and scary kung fu moves had distracted any of the bandits from even attempting to fight the Dragon Warrior. (Plus the second in command didn't think there was need to bother with him since he was having so much trouble with the ladder and would probably fall off anyway). Po soon managed to get up and over the edge of the blimp and managed to knock a few bandits before they attacked Tigress from her blind side with brutal-looking weapons.

"Thanks, Po," Tigress said, picking one up. "This'll work." And she quickly used a sturdy spear with heavy spiked metal balls on the end to trip some of the bandits in front of her and then kick them to the other end of the blimp.

Crane finally arrived with Mantis and Viper and the five warriors immediately began to make their way through the hoards of bandits coming at them in order to find their missing comrade. The blimp that had attacked the kitchen and brought the thieving bandits was absolutely gigantic: there were at least two or three levels, possibly more if there were any on the underbelly, two decks, with the one they were on being the giant lower level, several large poles stretching high underneath the balloon which carried the blimp back and holding several Crow's Nests and net ladders, and two small standing rooms which led somewhere within the ship. Considering that Monkey was no where to be found on the very large deck, it was clear to the masters he had already been dragged inside of the blimp.

"Uh, Tigress?" Po asked, looking at all of the approaching baddies coming for round 2. "Plan?"

Tigress held her new weapon tightly and quickly glanced around the blimp. She could see some movement above and considering the movements of the bandits within the past several minutes, it was clear they were smart, they were dangerous, and most likely also very adaptable. Monkey could have been anywhere, so they needed to be cautious.

"Crane, we need exterior surveillance," she noted.

"On it!" Crane said, quickly flying away from the blimp just as the bandits started attacking the masters. He flew to the underbelly of the blimp, though he had some difficulty catching up since the entire ship was moving at an unusually fast speed.

"Viper, Mantis, we have one mission right now and it requires stealth."

"Way ahead of you," Mantis told her as he and Viper quickly headed inside of the blimp through one of the doors. The bandits tried to follow them, but Tigress blocked them and kicked them back across the deck.

"Po, we'll be doing ground control. Nobody goes after them and if something goes wrong, we go in as back up."

"Sounds good!"

The two masters quickly began to put the plan into motion, watching the bandits closely and running after them to keep them from following after Mantis and Viper. Several agonizing minutes passed by after which Crane quickly landed on the deck next to Po and Tigress and told them that he couldn't keep doing surveillance or else he'd lose them. The blimp ran on some kind of extreme mechanized power which kept it flying faster than Crane could manage. Tigress told him that it was fine and to handle the upper deck while they handled the bottom. Crane complied, though he looked a bit nervous about going alone, so Po told Tigress to go with him while he handled the lower deck.

The bandits were delighted to have Po seemingly at their mercy, but Po wasn't the Dragon Warrior just from falling from the sky in a chair burnt to char, and the master proved just as much by taking out multiple bandits with a single kick and even managing to tie a few of them to the masts that towered over the deck he was on. He could hear Tigress and Crane taking out several bandits from above and hoped that Mantis and Viper found Monkey soon so they could get off the blimp. Unless of course Tigress planned to follow it. They had no idea where the bandits came from, why they wanted one of their teammates, or even where they had gotten the machinery needed to make an overpowered blimp. Po got briefly knocked back against the rim of the deck, but he was able to push back and keep himself from going over the edge. He tried to keep himself in the middle since the air resistance was pretty bad so high up in the air and he didn't want to risk being blown off and sent sailing to the ground below. That could compromise the mission. 

As Po went to attack more bandits, a very loud alarm suddenly rang out around both the lower and upper deck and a flood of bandits came out armed with what looked like miniature cannons, metal staffs with black spikes decorating both ends, and crossbows which had five bows stacked on top of each other and were all connected together with multiple pulleys, cogs, and levers which were attacked to the bandits arms. 

"Okay, seriously?!" Po cried irritably. "Who are you people?!" 

"The future!" one of the bandits cried, and he ignited the miniature cannon he carried which immediately shot a net in Po's direction. The Dragon Warrior just barely managed to duck out of the way and roll over to the other side of the deck, though he was quick to run away from the horde of bandits who were now outnumbering him more than he liked. He could hear even more spilling out on the deck above him, an intrusion that was accompanied by the sounds of Crane yelling in terror and the sound of violent slamming into the masts. He really hoped it was Tigress attacking the bandits and not the other way around. He looked around the deck for something he could use or maybe even climb on, but there wasn't anything around, so he went for the second best option: blocking some attacks and belly-bumping a few bandits into the crowd to limit the amount of attackers. With the addition of metal and nets and arrows being shot at him faster than he could blink, Po had a lot of difficulty with trying to evade and block everyone on deck and wound up just using the bandits themselves as temporary shields. (They had thick armor on which made Po irritated since he didn't even have weapons and he considered it to be an unfair advantage). 

A cry of alarm from Crane startled Po and as he glanced up to check on his friend, he suddenly found himself being tackled from behind. His cry of alarm startled Tigress who, in the meantime, had been trying to free Crane from the net trap he had gotten stuck in. Seeing her distracted for a brief moment, one of the bandits shot a few crossbows at her, though she was quick to duck out of the way and serpentine around the deck to avoid enemy fire. As she made her way around, the sound of Po screaming got her attention, and she glanced down towards the lower deck to see the Dragon Warrior just barely manage to roll out of the way of several loud blasts of metal, only for a few of the bandits to whack him with a spiked metal rod and knock him off the deck. 

"PO!!" Tigress screamed, though her cry was cut short when a loud !BANG! rang out behind her and a sharp jolt of pain ripped through her shoulders, forcing her to double over on the deck's railing. Before she could even recover, a bandit approached her from the right and knocked her off the deck with great force, sending her tumbling after Po. 

"NO!!" Crane screamed from high up on the deck, his voice getting fainter and fainter the farther Tigress fell. 

The initial panic that Tigress had felt washed away when she saw Po clinging to the side of the blimp on the bottom rung of the dangling rope ladders. Upon seeing her falling, the Dragon Warrior quickly swung the rope in her direction and caught her, leaving them hanging on for dear life against the violently whipping wind. 

"Are you okay?!" Po cried in alarm at seeing Tigress' shoulder injury. 

"It's nothing I can't handle," Tigress promised, gritting her teeth against the pain. 

Po tried to move to get Tigress onto the rung of the ladder, but they were interrupted when one of the bandits reached over the edge of the deck with a long ebony sword and, with a mighty swung, cut off one of the ropes attached to the blimp. Tigress gasped in terror as Po immediately freaked out and yelled at the bandit to stop. 

"I get that maybe being an ultra powerful baddie is appealing, but is making us fall to our deaths worth it?!" he cried. 

"The Great Marionettist only requires one for the Future," the bandit replied with a wide creepy grin. "We have no need of anyone else's breath." 

And with a maniacal laugh, he cut the other side of the rope and sent Tigress and Po plummeting to the ground below. 

The masters' first reactions were naturally to scream in terror as they went hurtled hundreds of meters to the ground below with no way to slow themselves down and no hope of rescue considering the predicament Crane was in. Their first thought was that they were going to die. But after a minute or so of panic, Tigress managed to calm down enough to look around her at the environment and eventually settled her eyes on some of the trees off in the distance. They were high enough up to manipulate their fall location if they could focus enough. She was quick to nudge Po and tell him this, then smack him when he admitted to being too freaked out and missed what she had said. 

"Focus!" she yelled. "A few seconds makes a big difference! I said angle your body towards the trees. If we can grab them, we can slow our fall down a bit!" 

"Oww! Yeah. Yeah, okay, got it." 

Po and Tigress began to immediately angle themselves in the direction of the tall mountain trees, though since they were doing this against the force of the wind, it was initially a bit difficult to do. However, they did eventually start falling closer and closer to their designated target. Tigress also told Po to stretch his arms and legs out as another way to slow down the fall. However, this did not slow them down by much since when they did manage to get close enough to grab the trees, they were going too fast to grab on and wound up smashing themselves violently through the treetops and sailing far over the forest. There thankfully were plenty of treetops so eventually the two did start slowing down: if you call smashing off the tops of trees, crashing through branches, and eventually falling to the ground and violently rolling down the hill because you're still going too fast as being slower. At some point, both Tigress and Po eventually stopped rolling, though this was because they had reached the edge of the mountain and had started falling off of it towards a violent series of rapids down below. By this point though, they had slowed down enough for Tigress to be able to grab firm hold of a ledge on the side of the cliff and then grab hold of Po. She let out a cry of pain since her shoulder was still injured, but she gritted her teeth and held off as tight as she could. 

"Are...you okay?" she asked weakly. 

"I think I have a dislocated shoulder," Po admitted. "But at least we're not dead. I'll take that. Good plan!" 

"Well, I've certainly had better landings, but yes. I'll take being alive." The master attempted to pull herself up on the thin ledge she had grabbed, but her left arm was now sore and injured from smashing through all the treetops and thus she was quick to find out she had no more strength to pull herself up. 

Seeing that she was in pain, Po suggested they work together to climb the cliff so they didn't fall into the rapids looming below them. "I'll push against the cliff and you use me as a springboard to climb up a bit," he suggested. 

Tigress winced. "I can try," she said. 

Po winced as he leaned over and grabbed another part of the cliff. He slipped a little since it wasn't very sturdy, but soon he had found a good spot. 

"Okay, I'm stable down here," he told Tigress. "Is there another sturdy rock higher up?"

Tigress looked about, pressing her food against Po's bad shoulder by accident as she tried to find something higher to grab onto. She quickly found a little crack in the cliff and let go of Po for a brief moment, waited for him to get firm hold on the little ledge he was holding onto, and then put all her weight on the little ledge to pull herself up. As she did so, the bit of rock crumbled and sent the startled master falling to the rapids below with a terrified gasp. 

Tigress!" Po screamed. He reached out to grab her, but the sudden jolt of extra weight caused him to slip and the two fell straight down into the angry rapids beneath them.