The Great Red Panda Rescue is a Turning Red fic by Arrow_of_Ravenclaw
Mei Lee finds herself the target of exotic-animal traffickers. It's up to a group of four townies and a concerned family of red pandas to save their friend before it's too late.
The fic can be found here.
The Great Red Panda Rescue contains examples of:
- Arc Words: "No red panda left behind."
- Auction of Evil: The event Mei is sold during, hosted by exotic animal smugglers who clearly had no issues or regrets about selling a young girl like a piece of meat.
- Batman Grabs a Gun: Even though she was the first woman in her family to break her panda talisman, Ming didn't do so on purpose (the talisman cracked after Meilin shoved her aside). Here, after she finds a dying, branded Mei, she breaks her talisman/tamagochi intentionally.
- Bavarian Fire Drill: Tyler and Priya learn about what happened to Mei by going to the smugglers' hideout and pretending to be two rich kids (not much of a stretch for Tyler) shopping for an exotic pet. The smuggler they talk to completely buys it.
- Berserk Button: A shared one between the Lees and the Townies; threaten or hurt Mei? They're going to make you pay.
- Big Sister Instinct: One of the reasons for Mei's Defiant Captive attitude is because she's well-aware that if her captors get what they want out of her, not only will they go after the members of her family who are old enough to have already had their pandas awaken but her much younger cousins.
- Bittersweet Ending: Mei is rescued, and the scientists are dead, but it's clear Mei has trauma and scars that will never heal. Ming as well, as she had to see her daughter kidnapped and fighting for her life while also coming to terms with murdering dozens of people.
- Blood-Splattered Warrior: Ming after her kaiju panda took revenge on the scientists.
- Both Sides Have a Point: While Ming panda-ing out would ensure a victory, her red panda form is a Kaiju Red Panda. It might make saving Meilin more complicated.
- Break the Cutie: The normally confident and happy Mei is kidnapped, sold to unethical scientists, experimented on, and almost dissected. She's so badly traumatized by the event that she even considers giving up her panda spirit.
- Catapult Nightmare: Mei has these for a long time after she escapes her captors.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: Starts for Mei during the auction, with her being repeatedly shocked before being sold like an object and things quickly escalate once the auction is over and she’s turned over to the scientist who bought her, with him not only branding her but doing so while she’s too paralyzed to even scream or whimper but fully conscious and aware of what’s happening... and that being just the start of her suffering at his hands…
- Creepy Stalker Van: Mei gets followed by (and stuffed into) one of these. Her day goes downhill from there...
- Damsel in Distress: Mei. Despite having a decent showing in the original film as being a decently quick study at how to utilize her panda spirit to her advantage, Mei wound up jumped and quickly restrained, spending the rest of the fic with minimal at best opportunity to defend herself against her captors.
- Dark Fic: The movie is about friendship and accepting yourself. The fic? The cute red panda from the movie is experimented on and tortured.
- Deadpan Snarker: If there’s one thing about Mei the scientists didn’t affect, it’s her tendency to snark at others.
- Defiant Captive: Mei might be kidnapped, tortured, and scared out of her mind, but she's not giving the scientists any useful information. At one point, she bites a guard on the arm after too many dehumanizing comments.
- For Science!: According to the scientists, kidnapping a thirteen-year-old girl, isolating her, branding her, torturing her, stealing her appendix, and trying to dissect her is all justifiable if you do it in the name of scientific discovery.
- Godzilla Threshold: Ming unleashing her panda spirit after seeing just what Mei's captives have put her through serves as this, as it proves key to actually getting Mei out but it's clearly treated as a last resort and no one is happy with it.
- "It" Is Dehumanizing: The smugglers and the scientists all refuse to refer to Mei as a person or even as female, calling her “it”, “beast”, “animal” and “RP1”.
- I Want Them Alive!: For a while, the scientists want to keep Mei alive, as they believe that she is the only shapeshifting human in existence. When she's more-or-less tricked into admitting that other members of her family are capable of transformation (although she doesn't tell him that most of them choose to suppress their pandas in talismans so they can live normal lives), they decide that she's more useful to them dissected.
- Kidnapped for Experimentation: The catalyst for the story is Mei being kidnapped, then sold to an Evilutionary Biologist.
- Mama Bear: Ming Lee was already a protective mother. But if you threaten her daughter's life, she's not afraid to release her kaiju-sized panda and make you pay.
- Mood Whiplash: The fic starts out with the Townies coming up with their next scheme to get concert tickets. The first chapter ends with Mei being kidnapped... and it only gets darker from there.
- Musical World Hypotheses: Mei sings Nobody Like U, which was written by an in-universe band, to comfort herself in the cell.
- Nondescript, Nasty, Nutritious: The scientists feed Mei nothing but a gray-colored gruel.
- Not Me This Time: When Miriam, Priya, Tyler, and Abby are called to the principal's office on the last day of school, the other three turn to Abby and ask her what she did. She swears that she's innocent, and it turns out she's right; the kids have been called to the office because Mei is missing.
- Not So Stoic: While she’s able to keep her cover, when Priya hears the lead smuggler refer to Mei as “it”, she immediately wants to murder him and Tyler is no less furious despite keeping his own cover.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
- All four of Mei's friends are quick to realise something's up when Mei doesn't show up at school or at home.
- In a rare case of an inanimate object (well, technically a spirit inside an inanimate object) doing this, Grandma Wu realises something is up when her talisman starts glowing, something it doesn't usually do.
- Organ Theft: To further their experiments, the scientists steal Mei's appendix.
- Playing with Syringes: Basically what the scientists do to Mei. They perform various tests on her, steal her appendix, and attempted to dissect her just to figure out what makes her tick.
- Precision F-Strike: When the lead scientist asks where in China her family is from, intending to target her cousins and other members of her family who can panda, Mei gives him this.
- Relationship Upgrade: Priya is dating Heather, the girl she danced with at Tyler's birthday party.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: After Ming realizes Mei was branded, Ming goes on this.
- Scars Are Forever: Mei's brand is clearly going to be there for the rest of her life and to make matters worse, it's on her face so she'll see it every time she looks in the mirror.
- Science Is Bad: The scientists are not portrayed in a positive light.
- Strapped to an Operating Table: At least three times (although the first time it was just a gurney).
- Superhuman Trafficking: Mei, as the (now famous) shapeshifting red panda of Toronto, is kidnapped by poachers who want to sell her, and purchased by scientists so they can learn how her powers work.
- Thousand-Yard Stare: Ming when she enters the hospital, covered in blood after her panda killed the scientists.
- Trauma Conga Line: Being kidnapped and sold at an Auction of Evil is the least traumatic thing to happen to Mei in this fic. note
- The Troublemaker: Implied. When the Townies get called to the principal's office, Miriam, Priya, and Tyler instantly ask Abby what she did. When she asks why they're blaming her, they respond, "It's always you." They backtrack when they learn that they were called there because Mei's been kidnapped.
- Villainous Face Hold: Happens to Mei a few times, especially with the lead doctor.
- Villainous Medical Care: After an especially abusive guard beats up Mei for biting him note , the scientists treat her injuries. This is purely in the name of Pragmatic Villainy, as they still need her alive to further their experiments. It's also implied that they gave her the bare minimum of medical care, as they don't give her a cast for her broken arm.
- Would Hurt a Child: Meilin, a 13-year-old girl, is injured several times and almost killed by the scientists.
- You Are Number 6: Mei's captors only refer to her as RP1, refusing to call her by her real name. The fact that she's referred to as "1" is later revealed to be because the scientists want to go after the other members of Mei's family who can transform into red pandas.
