Well, here you. Forgive me for the stupendous lateness. Review, please! Those make the world go around!

Chapter Two: Tai-Lung Hates Bad Ideas

"Beautiful day, isn't it, Master?" Shifu asked crisply. He flicked his ears down at at the spread out arena, still in the midst of preparation. Children danced around the giant space, waving action figures and crowing about the possibility of them become the Dragon Warrior. Decorations were being scattered into their correct positions, and the sky was brightening into midday.

Oogway nodded in absent agreement. "Are your students ready?" He twisted his neck to the side to look at the red panda Master, blinking slowly.

"Yes, Master." Affirmed Shifu, his robes swishing around his feet from the sharp burst of wind sweeping down from the higher mountains; pink blossoms were picked up along the way, swirling throughout the stadium. Seeing the petals, Shifu seemed to pale wanly for an unknown reason, before he regained composure and rewrote his face into one of complete seriousness.

Oogway smiled kindly. He reached out to place his long, heavy black claws on his friend's shoulder for reassurance. "Take in mind, Shifu," He nodded slowly, "that whoever I chose tonight will not only bring peace to China…but peace to you as well." He tapped one finger on the younger Master's chest and plodded off to leave Shifu with wide-eyed wordlessness.

It was his fingers that made it first. They scraped against the well-paved top of the stairs. His paw followed slowly, like a monster struggling for breath. Then his left arm, the fur slicked back with sweat. Finally, Tai heaved himself up, his knees refusing to work, and flopped over onto his back.

"Yeah!" He cheered exultantly. "Wooh! Ohhh…" The last part was mainly of speculative pain; speculative because he wasn't very sure if what exactly hurt was listed down in anatomy books.

Something was creaking, and he was pretty sure it wasn't his bones. Tai-Lung turned his head to one side curiously. Then his dark eyebrows nearly jumped off his forehead in shock. The doors to the Jade Palace Arena was closing!

"No! Nonononodon'tyoudare!" Suddenly sucker-punched with energy, the feline scrambled up to two legs and bolted towards the doors. For a moment, he actually thought he was going to make it.

Then the door decided to say hello.

"No-Oawwwch….Ugh…" He shook his head in frustration to clear away the dizziness, then frantically pounded his fists against the thick red door. "Lemme in!" He yelled at it. His knocking rhymed with the introductory drumming of the ceremony.

"C'mon!" Tai-Lung demanded.

Doors don't like pushy people, apparently.

A gong rang, and the noise of the crowd was subdued.

Tai-Lung took a few steps back to look for any way to get in. His desperation momentarily faded when he spotted, higher up on the smooth stone walls of rock, a round hole, the cover held up by a a stick.

"Peeky-hole!" He rejoiced, hefting himself up by the circle-shaped window's carved ledge so he could look in. He gasped at the crowds, at the amazing awesomeness of the ancient buildings and the even more awesomely ancient Masters, Oogway and Shifu, standing firm and proud up on a more elevated platform.

Shifu's dramatic, authoritative voice, which seemed to oversized for his stature, boomed across the excited crowd. "Citizens of the Valley of Peace! Welcome to the Dragon Warrior Tournament…And for the contestants, I give you; Masters Mantis, Viper, Crane, Monkey, and Panda…the Furious Five!"

"Ahaha-hawsome!" Tai-Lung laughed ecstatically. He dug his hands into the concrete to try and pull himself up farther.

The air above them turned into colorful blurs, first a small green speck, then a tan-brown whirl, another flash of green and black, a glimpse black-and-white, and an arrow of blue feathers that quickly turned into the aforementioned Masters. Master Panda flipped down onto the ground, rolling up into a stance, while Viper whipped into a 'C' shape, Mantis darted up to the front, Monkey twirled his staff behind his back and Crane flapped behind them like a crown.

The avian, in fact, flapped so hard that a gust of white-tipped wind rushed over, knocking the stick holding the window's wood covering away, in turn slamming it shut and knocking Tai-Lung off. He groaned.

"Let the ceremony begin!"

Tai-Lung, as he sat dejected on the stairs, wondered where'd he'd gone wrong.

Backing up to see Crane's aerial display (the 'Thousand Tongues of Flame') had ended up with him clumsily backing up a bit to far into the stairs.

Then the 'Look-I'm-So-Macho-I-Can-Punch-A-Door-Oh-Ow-I-Think-That-Was-My-Pinkie."

After that, the two vegetation-related episodes. Smacking into a wall while trying to flip over it with a bamboo stick, as well as bending a tree over to use as an intendedly docile springboard which had Frankensteined into a whip hadn't gone to well.

The snow leopard ran his paw along his forehead and tried to think reasonably. He really had made a fool of himself, in his hyperventilated attempts. Maybe if he actually thought it through….

"And now, Master Panda!"

Tai-Lung sat ram-rod straight, swallowing a gasp. This was the last performance, and if there was one thing Tai-Lung loathed, it was trying to achieve something that was rightly deserved and just because of some stupid little objective, he'd miss it.

"Believe me, you have not seen anything yet!"

I know. Tai-Lung muttered to himself.

But no. Not this time.

He halted himself before he could try to light fireworks to a chair or something equally stupid, and a lightbulb went off in his head.

As a giant metal-and-wood ox clambered around on wheels toward a narrowed-eyed panda, Master Oogway raised one scaly hand, and the mass of denizens was silenced.

"I sense the Dragon Warrior is among us," His voice rasped strongly.

Master Panda raised an eyebrow in a silent question. Shifu nodded, and the Furious Five gathered in a straight line in front of the Master.

The drums began their beating again as the sage reptile slowly glided down the stairs, his staff waving lazily.

His decision about to alter the balance of the Universe.

Tai-Lung walked over to the door, stared it down, and pulled it open with one mighty swing.

"Woah!"

A swing so mighty and victorious, that it sent him stumbling from the unexpected momentum and pushed him headlong into the transfixed crowd on one foot, dumbly fumbling over the edge of the balcony, slipping over the rail and dropping like a stone in front of a mechanical, axe-wielding ox.

His skull rang with the shocked gasps of the crowd, and a strangled exclamation from someone who sounded like his dad. Then black swallowed his eyesight.

"His tail got in the way…"

"Did you see…Like a blur of silver…Dropped out from the sky…"

"He just opened the door like some kind of idiot. I mean, couldn't of he knocked?"

"Or used a bamboo stick to jump over the wall?"

"Oh, my son! Is he okay?"

"Whhaa…oww…" Tai-Lung moaned, his blurred vision slowly clearing, until he saw a large, needle-like claw pointing at his snout.

"Ugh…what? Hey, woah." The feline was saying anything to fill the silence, backing up on his knees to a crouching position. Around him, the shocked (excluding the mainly suspicious glare of the green-eyed panda at his right) faces of the Five regarded him. Up higher, he saw the serene face of Grandmaster Oogway.

"Oh, hi. I mean, sorry! I'm so sorry! I didn't mean…I just…Just came here to see the Dragon Warrior. And I tripped. That's all."

"How interesting…" Oogway murmured pensively, regarding him with some weird kind of awe.

"Master…are you pointing..at me?" Panda asked hesitantly, his voice gruff and low. He put a large, battle-scarred paw on his chest. Tai-Lung looked between the two Masters and nodded excitedly, eager to get the heck out of here.

"Him," Oogway shook his head, then merely made it even more puzzling by adding, "And you."

Tai-Lung, on both feet now, swayed to the right, stepped to the left, trying to get rid of the ever-pointing finger. The claw followed him wherever he went.

"What? Me? No, I…"

"Master, forgive me, but…"

The tortoise Grandmaster was now pointing at both of the mammals, both the bear and big cat, his two hands outstretched. He lifted first one of Tai's, then one of Panda's hands up to the sky with his staff, and announced;

"The Universe has chosen the prophesied Warriors!"

The crowd, after a small fraction of processing silence, broke into wild cheers and applause.

Then, in consecutive order, Tai-Lung went, "What?"

Shifu went "WHAT?"

Then the rest of the Five went, "What?"

Mr. Ping shrieked, "What?"

And the gong rang to certify the decision.

Shifu quickly snatched away the drumstick from the pig who'd rung the gong, his ears flat on the back of his head as he scolded him severely. A group of pigs managed to dump Tai-Lung onto a litter, while Panda refused to budge.

"Master, what are you thinking?" Shifu asked, his respect about to be shredded by his anger. "That scrawny cat can't be the Dragon Warrior! How is he…going to help us with our problem?" The red panda was gesturing madly once again. "All he did was trip! It was an accident!"

"There are no accidents," was Oogway's response.

Then the carriage broke (Tai-Lung had decided to check out what held it together and accidentally ripped a hole out of the bottom).

"It was an old litter, anyway," Oogway amended, smiling.

Shifu didn't find the reptile's gentle mirth amusing; in fact, he found it nearly offensive. Again, the pigs and a couple of ducks helped Tai-Lung settle into a different carriage and began heaving him up the stairs once again.

As Grandmaster Oogway walked off, Shifu was left with a tic in his eye, an outstretched finger, and a mouth wide with disbelief. Quickly, he shut his mouth and turned it into a sour grimace to stare back at his students.

He flashed a quick look at Master Panda, his star pupil, who really did deserve the title, and noticed the distraught glimmer in his green eyes.

"Master," he began uncertainly, "My apologies for being curious, but wasn't this ceremony supposed to be for the Dragon Warrior? Why did Master Oogway say we were the prophesied warriors instead?"

The bear noticed the narrowed, thoughtful glare Shifu was giving him and misinterpreted it as anger. "Forgive me, Master, I..meant no disrespect."

The smaller Master stopped him from bowing by holding up one finger. He was curious himself, seeing as how he hadn't really noticed the part about Oogway announcing the leopard and Panda to be the prophesied warriors, not the Dragon Warriors.

"No," Shifu grumbled, "You have not brought any dishonor on yourself. Go on and join that cat at the Jade Palace, Panda."

Then he turned to face all of his students, his stare icier than ever. "But I promise you; if that scrawny kitten isn't gone by tomorrow, then it is I, who will have dishonored, and failed, you."

So there you have it. Sorry for not making Tai-Lung become Dragon Warrior in a 'ball of fire', but seriously. He's a Kung Fu prodigy in the real version, so he had to be naturally smart, or at least have some kind of common sense. And besides, I've always wondered why Po didn't just pull open the door. Ah, well, there you go...make sure to tell me what you think!