Sooo, this is as the summary states; a buncha stuff I wrote I need to get rid off. And, oh, look at that, it's Kung Fu Panda! And (mostly) TiPo...yay...

These will only be attended to if a) They are very succesful b) If I'm really bored.

And now that that's out of the way, let us begin! Nope, don't own Kung Fu Panda...yet... :D

Hardcore

It was midday. Lunch was steaming on the table in the palace kitchen, prepared for their five warrior residents. Problem was, only nine were seated, and the one person who was absent was nowhere to be seen.

Though most of the Masters were grateful for a meal and happily stuffing their faces, Tigress was too uneasy to eat. She poked at the tofu in front of her with one chopstick and narrowed her eyes.

"It's so strange eating without Po," Viper observed.

"I know! It's already been, like, five minutes since we've started eating, and he still hasn't shown up," added Monkey.

"More for us." Mantis grinned, serving himself a third bowl of noodles.

The agited look on Tigress's face soured to a dark grimace. "What's taking him so long?"

"Maybe he got held up in town bargaining for good prices?" Crane suggested without any hint of worry. He and Viper and Mantis shrugged and offered other situations that might of happened, but Tigress wasn't listening to them.

Her triangular ears pricked, then swivelled, then flattened. Distant, and almost inaudible, the sound of a pained shout of agony reached her sensitive hearing. The others might of heard it, too, if they hadn't been so busy talking. Tigress pushed herself out of her seat and rushed over to the door, eyes wide.

"What's wrong?" Monkey asked. Tigress hushed him with a sharp hiss and strained to hear better. There it was again; another yell.

Before anyone could stop her, she'd dropped on all fours and sprinted away from the barracks, towards the forest where the sounds were resonating from.

The yelps were faint but they got louder as she covered ground swiftly, paws padding silently on the frosted grass. She raced into the dense army of trees, her peripheral vision blurry but not enough so that she could determine that the massive, red-barked trunks at her side were Ironwoods.

Finally, after skidding to a brutal stop, she stood upright and stared in a mix of shock and horror at the panda in front of her.

Po's fist had collided with the iced-over surface of a tree, blood staining the white-and-brown wood from possibly the other blows he'd tried to deliver. The Ironwood had remained unscathed; the Dragon Warrior had not.

He cringed, exclaiming softly in miserable pain as he drew his clenched paw away, examining his injured knuckles and rubbing the dripping red stuff off with a handful of stinging snow.

"Just what...do you think you're doing?"

Tigress's voice was colder than a blizzard. Po whipped around in surprise, trying to smile sheepishly through his agonized grimace. "Umm...training?" He tried.

Though her expression was stony, the feline's fire-colored eyes were blazing in sudden anger. "Why are you here?"

Po sighed and rubbed his smarting wrists. It felt like his arms had been electrified then turned to lead over and over, and it hurt like crazy. His head still rang and rattled with the sound of the impenetrable trunk meeting the first punch he'd thrown at it. "I dunno," He muttured lamely, frightened to look at the fellow Master in the eyes. "Just wanted to...try and...forget everything, for a moment."

"What happened?" Tigress demanded, both exasperated and furious, "Why would you do this to yourself? Do you have any idea how much this can hurt you?"

"I do now." He ignored her first questions and kept stretching and curling his fingers.

"What were you thinking?" She spat. "Are you insane? Why would you try and hurt yourself like this? What...what WERE you thinking, Po?"

The bear scowled, expression switching to an irate look of mellow fury. "I don't know! I was thinking that maybe...that maybe, if I could prove to myself that I'm a real warrior, not just a stupid fat panda who has a lot of luck, maybe I could persuade everyone else too." He turned around, snow shaking off his slumped shoulders. "Because I can't even convince myself."

Tigress opened her mouth to say something, but he kept talking. "It must be pretty nice not to feel anything, huh? I mean, c'mon! Look at me-I didn't even so much as scratch the surface." He sneered in ridiculing disgust at himself. "I'm a lucky failure."

The feline closed her mouth and growled through gritted teeth, glaring at him for a full minute before marching over and grabbing his paw, gently but firmly. Po bit back a cry of pain as she started dragging him away, through the forest and past the snowy stretch of land, ignoring his protests and stomping over inside the back of the student Barracks and into her room. Po was too busy fighting back the fire-like agony in his hands to be nervous.

It wasn't until he was sitting down on one of the beds with Tigress rubbing healing salve into his wounded palms did he start to take in his surroundings and what was happening.

"Hey, what-?"

"Stay still, panda," she warned, and he flinched at her voice. "Stay still!"

He obeyed, focusing on the rythmatic, soothing pressure of the massage, then trying to ignore that too. "What are you doing?"

"You need to get bandaged up before infection sets in...stop moving already!" She finished one hand and moved on to the next, making sure to spread the substance over the sticky, clotting cuts.

Po winced. "Hey, I can do it myself,"

"No, you can't. You punched the tree with both hands, so you'll end up making an even bigger mess since they're covered in blood and splinters." She informed, a bit softer this time. Reaching out under her bed, she fished out a lightweight box where a roll of bandages was housed, and where she placed the small tub of salve. Po relented when she motioned for him to hold out his paws, though reluctantly.

"Tigress, you don't need to do this. It's my fault."

"It's not!" she snapped, wrapping a bandage a tad too tight. She paused, then looked down at the ground, asking after a moment, "Po, do you really want to not ever feel anything?"

Po hesitated and searched for an appropiate answer. "I want to be someone that I won't hate." he finally said. "Someone I'll respect. A real, awesome warrior! Yes. I don't want to be able to feel how much it hurts to be looked down on, or rejected, or insulted, because I'm different. I need to be...hardcore! Like-"

"Me?" Tigress's tone was barely a whisper, a hurt, betrayed whisper. "Someone who can't ever tell the difference between fear, or kindness, or respect, or hatred. Someone who's hurt and guarded herself beyond recovery to ignore the fact that no one...no one cares for her?"

Po's eyes widened as her blunt words settled in. "No, Ti, I didn't mean that! I'm sorry, it's not that...I mean, I want to be...stronger, not hardcore, not emotionless-not that you are! I mean, you...me...I'm so confused. But I didn't mean that! Oh, gosh, I'm so stupid sometimes..."

The striped she-cat closed her eyes and gave a shaky breath. Po expected her to at least punch him for saying something so harsh, possibly kick him through the wall. "Look, I'm really sor-" He began, but was cut off short when Tigress nearly tackled him with a hug, wrapping her arms around his neck and burying her forehead into his fur.

"I'm so sorry," her words were muffled but quite distinguishable. "I did this to you...I'm sorry...I'm so sorry, Po." She wasn't sobbing, but it seemed like she wanted to. Her eyes were squeezed shut, fingers holding on tight, as if he'd be blown away if she let go. After he stopped being stunned, Po awkwardly pulled her in closer, careful not to loosen the bandages around his paws.

"It's...okay...Tigress." He managed, slightly bewildered. "Not your fault."

"It is," she wavered, "It really is." Slowly, she said in a fiercer tone that tickled the panda's ear, "Po, trust me, you have to feel. You'll regret it for the rest of your life if you train yourself to be hardcore. It hurts more not to feel, not to care, than it does if you do," Her voice was cracking, and she tried to hide herself further in the embrace by disappearing in her friend's protecting arms. Po swallowed hard, nearly panicking at seeing his over-serious friend so upset and distressed. He needed to get her back to normal, reassure her, calm her down.

The panda hesitantly stroked the feline in between her shoulder blades for comfort until she was breathing normally again, her grip weakening. "I'm sorry," she muttured again, "I'm...so...sorry I made you think that way." After a few more moments, she tried to regain her composure and self-consciously smoothed her fur down, looking at the floor in embarrassment once she'd torn away.

"Tigress," The black-and-white bear started again, but she quieted him again, this time by grabbing his paws in hers and staring at him square in the eyes, the misery showing there that wasn't present on the rest of her steely expression.

"Promise me, Po," she said in a quiet, authorative tone that watered down to a soft plead. "Please, promise me you won't ever touch an Ironwood again."

"But-"

"Look, you have no idea how many people respect and look up to you," She growled. "How many people would hate it if you could never feel. How many people care. So just, please...promise me."

Po shrugged, unbelieving. "Maybe once I see the people respecting me, not hating me for my stroke of favor, sure."

Tigress wanted to slap him, but instead she rolled her eyes and tried to keep her fur from bristling in irritation. "Right now, you're looking at someone who respects and looks up to you, okay? So there's one person." Po's green eyes grew a lighter shade in surprise. "And besides, don't forget your fan club...your dad...all the people in Gongmen you saved from Lord Shen, all the people you've ever helped in any way...I think that should be enough to satisfy you for now."

"Whoa, backpedal! You said that you-"

"You won't hear it again," she grumbled, a shadow of a smile on her face that disappeared and was replaced with a hurt frown and clouded eyes. "But can I trust that you won't ever try and be a hardcore warrior you aren't supposed to be?"

"That means...no Ironwoods?"

She growled almost angrily. "Never again."

After a moment of heavy silence, the Dragon Warrior stopped studying the floorboards and exhaled, "All right, promise."

Tigress blinked, finally able to breathe again. "Thank you," She offered him a small, half-smile which he returned before she suddenly let go of his paw and coughed, face burning red, though it was impossible to tell because of her fur color.

"I...I bet lunch is almost all gone," she forced herself not to mumble dismissively. "Did you get the supplies?"

Po stopped himself from bolting over to the kitchen long enough to answer, "Yeah, I left them down at the palace." Then he halted a second time and said in a gentler voice, "And Tigress...you said you can't feel anything, but I took it the wrong way, and I'm sorry. Because...now, I really don't think that's true."

Then he trundled carefully down the hall, leaving a certain feline to try and fight the delighted grin creeping up her snout.

Remember to review! ;)

*Edit: 10-18-2014; I suppose I might hand out a fair warning. To those who absolutely despise everything and anything but TiPo, or cannot stand this certain feline and bear being the undeniably amazing best friends they are, or carrying out a brother/sister relationship, then the exit is that-away. Because I am not devoted entirely to this relationship standing only as a couple, and nothing less or more. I will reach out into the universe and mix it up more than a smoothy-kebabble, or whatever that platypus thing is about. This is about Kung Fu Panda and everyone in it's dimension, and all the possibilities they can reach, not just Tigress and Po riding off into the sunset happily ever after, 'kay? Good. Carry on or carry out. You have been warned. Now it's your choice.

Sincerely, DOTS.