Disclaimer: For the record, I definitely don't own Kung Fu Panda. I'm just playing around with the characters a little.
A/N: I wrote this (and many other) KFP fics/oneshots several months ago. This particular story is a little over six months old. I really hadn't planned on posting any of them, but with the third movie coming out soon I figured that if I was ever going to post them I should do it now. The story is complete, so I'll try to update quickly. Hope you enjoy!
Po's arms and legs felt like heavy boulders as he trudged out of the training hall. 'Shifu really pushed us today,' he thought to himself as he tried to lift one foot and then the other. At least it was a shorter session than most, which meant he could find a nice comfortable spot to pass out in.
As he descended the steps he smiled lightly upon seeing the white billowy clouds overhead. It really was a beautiful day. When his eyes traveled back downwards he spotted the gate that Viper, Crane, Mantis, and Monkey were making their way towards. As the door was opened he briefly caught sight of the world outside the training hall and palace.
It suddenly reminded him of his dad. His dad who, now that he thought about it, he hadn't seen in a few days. Shifu had kept them too busy with training to leave him any real time to visit the village. And knowing Shifu, tomorrow would be just as busy, leaving him little time to visit his dad tomorrow either.
He stopped in the middle of the courtyard just as Tigress finally stepped out of the training hall behind him. "I think I'll go down and see my dad," he said, knowing she'd hear him. Shifu, though he was still in the training hall, probably even heard him too.
"Meditation at the usual time?" the tiger asked as she walked past him.
Po grinned as he started following after her. "Oh yeah! I'll be there."
They had fallen into a habit of meditating together on days when training ended early enough to give them the chance. It had been an accident the first time when he had, literally, stumbled upon her meditating at the Peach Tree and she had invited him to join her. After that they somehow wound up meeting again without meaning to and at some point it simply became a part of their routine. Sometimes they would meditate at the Peach Tree, sometimes in the courtyard of the training hall, and occasionally she would drag him up to the roof of the palace.
Whenever the chance arose he would grab it, even if it meant climbing up onto the roof. It meant he could have one-on-one time with Tigress who was, without a doubt, the most totally awesome person he had ever met. Even if Tigress wasn't in a talkative mood, which admittedly was most of the time, Po enjoyed just being around her. He found it easier to talk to her about personal things than he did most of the others. There was just something calming and comforting about being around her. But he supposed that was just part of her being his best friend. They were bound to be comfortable around one another by this point.
Once Tigress reached the gate she stopped briefly and looked back at him, gracing him with one of her subtle smiles that, at least to him, made her whole face light up and her eyes glow brighter than the stars themselves. She then inclined her head in acknowledgement of his answer before stepping through the gate without another world.
Not a single word, not even a Kung Fu move, and she still managed to be totally awesome. He wasn't sure how she did it.
With another grin and a slightly more energetic bounce in his step Po passed through the gate as well and made his way to the Thousand Steps. He was so caught up in thoughts of what his dad was cooking and where he and Tigress would meditate later, that he barely noticed when he made it half-way down the steps.
It wasn't until a green blur slithered past him down the steps that he was snapped out of his thoughts. He stopped abruptly and stared after the person who he quickly realized was Viper as she moved swiftly down the steps. Before he could question it an orange and white blur shot past him and his eyes widened as he watched Tigress leap from step to step. "Huh?" he uttered as he watched them go.
Mantis suddenly jumped onto his shoulder briefly, but then kept going as well. Monkey followed, going so fast and so close to him, that he was nearly caught off balance. "Guys?" The next thing he knew a pair of talons grabbed his shoulders and lifted him up.
"Bandits, Po," Crane explained as he flew them both down the steps. "Just outside of the village."
Crane suddenly dropped him and, while they hadn't been flying that far off the ground, Po lost his footing just enough to tumble and bounce down the rest of the remaining steps. He jumped to his feet just before reaching the bottom though and was glad to see he was caught up with the others. He started running after them with a determined smile spreading over his face.
"Woo! Yeah!" he exclaimed, his earlier exhaustion forgotten. "Let's do this!"
It hadn't taken long for them to find the bandits. And it took even less time for the fight to begin. Unlike some bandits they'd found since Po had become Dragon Warrior, these guys were not backing down. They were pretty tough too. Fortunately there were only a dozen or so of them, though most of them were wolves.
Po smiled excitedly as he punched a wolf in the face and watched him stumble backwards from the blow. At the same time Tigress leapt onto his back and then quickly pushed off as she launched herself towards an owl that was being a nuisance to Crane.
He looked around to find another opponent, but it seemed what was left of the bandits were being dealt with by the others. He turned around in a circle, looking for anywhere he could help, but then felt something hit him in the back of the head. It hadn't been hard, but he spun back around all the same to search for the source. As soon as he did, something hit him right between the eyes.
Shaking his head he looked down and realized it had been two little rocks. Pebbles really. Someone was throwing pebbles at him? He looked up just in time to receive another pebble between the eyes.
Then another, larger one, grazed his ear.
This was getting annoying.
A chuckle brought his attention to a monkey who was hanging from a tree by his tail. He paws were wrapped in dark brown material, but in one paw Po could clearly see a handful of small rocks. "Hey," Po yelled, rubbing the slightly sore spot between his eyes. "What're you..."
The monkey grinned what could only be described as an evil grin before dropping from the tree and landing on his feet. Without warning he quickly began throwing the rocks again, this time much faster. Po blocked them easily for the most part, but took a step back to steady himself as the pebbles started coming at him faster and faster.
A rock, this time larger than the others, got past him and hit him on the nose. "Okay, seriously," he began while rubbing his nose. This was more than a little annoying now. He wasn't even sure what the point of it was. "What are you..."
The monkey still looked mostly amused in a dark sense of humor kind of way. He pulled back his arm, a rock almost the size of his paw in his grasp, and took aim. Po nearly rolled his eyes. He'd caught balls of fiery metal not too long ago. Compared to that, this would be like catching a dumpling.
The monkey threw the rock at an impressively fast speed, but as expected Po caught it easily just before it could smack him in the face. He gave his opponent an unimpressed look, to which the monkey simply smirked in return. Before he could do anything more, however, Po suddenly felt his paw begin to burn as if it were on fire.
He reflexively dropped the stone and began shaking his paw to get the burning to stop. It did after a few seconds and he looked down curiously at the circular rock now laying at his feet. It was rather flat and oddly smooth with what looked like a thin ring of gold coloring around the edge. In the center were wisps of silver swirling around the gray, giving it an almost marbled look. Glancing up he realized the monkey was now gone.
With a confused frown Po clenched his paw open and closed before looking at it more closely. To his surprise there was a blackened mark there, resembling a brand, in the exact spot where he'd caught the stone. It looked like nothing more than a circle with little wispy lines coming out of it. It could almost be a sun, except for the line stretching diagonally through the circle.
He closed and opened his paw again before looking back down at the rock. He'd never seen a rock quite like it and he had no idea how it'd gotten hot enough to burn his paw. Carefully, not wanting to burn his paw again, he bent down and poked it before quickly drawing back.
Nothing happened.
He cautiously picked it up and turned the rock over in his paw to study it while in the meantime the few remaining bandits ran off.
"What's that?" Crane asked as he landed next to the panda and peered at the rock.
Po shrugged as he studied it. "I don't know. Some weird monkey threw it at me. I was going to take it back to Master Shifu."
"The bandits are gone," Tigress stated as she joined them. "We should return to the Palace." With that she lifted one of the stolen crates and started making her way back towards the village where they could leave the items to be returned to their rightful owners.
There were relatively few crates of goods, Po absentmindedly noticed while he put the rock on top of a crate and then picked it up. Only four in fact, he realized as Crane and Mantis each picked up one to carry as well. They must not have been very ambitious bandits. Either that or maybe what was inside the crates was just worth a lot, so they didn't need many of them.
He shrugged it off either way and followed after the others, already launching into a discussion with Monkey about what to have for dinner later. When his paw began to itch he rubbed it against the crate and paid it little attention.
