The noodle shop has always been Po's favorite place to be. His father is there to help him whenever he puts too much salt, and the customers are mostly polite and nice. They frequently tell him what a good boy he is for helping his father work, pinching him on his cheeks and calling him cute.

They found his clumsy quirks funny and even endearing, at first.

And then he saw Master Shifu and Oogway save the town from Tai Lung, and he's been saving every last coin he has to buy posters, merchandise, and everything else. He had no dramatic, life-saving reason for his fascination, he just found them cool—who didn't, really? Masters spend their entire lives dedicated to fighting for the people, and every step they take is greeted by reverence from every corner of China.

Is it so wrong for him to admire them? Apparently, yes. As he grew in height and age, the kind remarks seem to diminish, while the sneering looks and scoffs begin to thrive. He's not a cute little boy any longer, but a grown man who has no friends and spends his time playing with his homemade action figures.

There are times when he wants to change, but the thing is, he doesn't know how to be someone who isn't him.


Po has always enjoyed the feeling of waking up in the morning, when the pleasant fog of sleep swirls lazily in his head as the opens his eyes to the dawn's first rays. His old bed creaks horribly and his blanket is a bit too small for the panda nowadays, but the almost worrying sounds his bed makes when he turns over to a nicer position to sleep in during Sundays will always bring a smile to his face.

The panda nuzzles further into his pillow, hugging it closer to himself. He finds it odd that everything is dark, but he reckons that it must be one of those days when some stray noise wakes him up before the sun is even up. Why is he upright, though? Perhaps he's just feeling disoriented. It's not strange for him to feel groggy after a night of pleasant sleep.

That doesn't explain why he's hugging his body pillow, though. He distinctly remembers not pulling it out of his closet last night, so what the hell is he holding, and why is everything shaking?

His body pillow took four months of saving for him to afford, it's not supposed to be so hard. Or furry.

Wait...

Po's eyes tear open. He's not in his room or even in his house, if the small space is any indication. Viper is staring out of the carriage's window, only her long body allowing her to do that and still remain seated at the same time. Crane is beside her, his hat obscuring his eyes as his head tilts to the side. Mantis is nowhere to be seen, while Monkey is crossing his legs and yawning.

Dare he see what or who he's holding?

Po rubs his face against it. Yes, it's definitely fur and not his body pillow. He may be imagining it but he thinks he just felt it flex uncomfortably for a second.

He dares himself to look.

Orange with streaks of black.

"You are awake." Tigress observes, when the weight on her shoulder is finally lifted.

"Finally." Monkey sleepily stretches. "I thought I would have to save your life. You looked like you were going to drool on poor Tigress."

Po awkwardly laughs. He doesn't need them to know that he does periodically drool in his sleep. "So, where's Mantis?" He asks, scooting away from the tiger and shifting the topic of the conversation.

"It's his turn to stay on watch on top." Viper cocks her head upwards, then to her side. "Crane here just got back. I think he's feeling pretty tired."

Obviously, the avian doesn't answer because he's asleep and snoring lightly.

"Master Shifu must have sent the messenger birds already." Tigress speculates. "When we arrive to the town, we will pay a visit to the guard barracks. They will have finished scouring the town by then, and they will tell us where we need to go."

"That was fast." Po comments.

"Of course. We must acquire the scroll before the Dragon Warrior festival."

Viper nods, the sound of the name immediately bringing tension to her face. "We have to hurry. If we don't bring it back before then, the Grandmasters' Council will be disgraced."

Po doesn't see the point. "What? Why?"

"You know, the usual." Monkey rolls his eyes. "They want to keep everything under wraps. The public doesn't even know the scroll is missing, and that's how they like it."

"It... um, it makes them look bad." Viper says, although her tone suggests that she's downplaying it. "They say that the public needs to believe that we're in control."

"They, you mean." Monkey corrects, making a disgusted noise. "I think it's just stupid to hide stuff like this just because you want to look old and wise. You can just get a really long beard and a stick if you want that."

Tigress can tell Po is itching to say something, and she proves herself right when the panda sits upright and begins to open his mouth. "It's not just that, what if they're in danger and they don't know?"

"Exactly." Monkey grins in relief, glad that someone finally understands.

Tigress sighs, wondering if she'll have to listen to this all the way. "Whatever the Council wants, that's what we'll do."

Viper coughs hesitantly. "I guess they could do things better, but that's how it's always been, right?"

"So..." Po's been wondering about this for a while. "What happens if the Dragon Scroll isn't found before the festival?"

"Then there will be no Dragon Warrior this year, either." Tigress answers. But I won't let that happen.

Monkey holds in the exasperated groan that he almost released. "There hasn't been a Dragon Warrior in a hundred and five years. And she was assassinated."

"What?" Po seems to be saying that a lot, these days. "But the scrolls said the only Dragon Warrior that has ever existed ascended directly to the spirit world because she figured out the mystery of the universe... or something." The stories are vague, but as far as he knows, that's the gist of it.

Viper gives Monkey a strange look. "Monkey, we're not supposed to be telling this to anyone."

"Why not? It happened ages ago, anyway." He dismisses. "And yeah, she was assassinated during the war back then."

Po still can't wrap his head around the idea. "But I thought the Dragon Warrior was supposed to be the ultimate fighter! Invincible and all that."

"You know what else?"

Viper nudges him in his gut. "Monkey..."

"Viper, come on, you've got to admit something seriously shady is going on." Monkey tells her, before he turns to the cook. "No one's ever seen the Dragon Warrior actually fight. It's always been the Furious Five."

Tigress sighs. It seems that she does have to listen to this all the way.

Monkey doesn't mind the irritated noise that comes from the tiger. "The Dragon Warrior only showed up for speeches and public appearances and stuff."

"How do you know this?" Po can't help but ask.

"When Masters are first chosen, we go to the home of the Grandmasters to study the greatest that came before us." Viper explains. The memory of the thin air and clouds that are close enough for her to touch makes her nostalgic, somehow. "The five of us were left there for a week to learn all about them, but there was this one vault where we weren't supposed to enter..."

"And Monkey went in anyway." Tigress still remembers the silly look on his face when he came back to their quarters.

"Anyway, the scrolls we had to read usually detailed fighting styles and the battles that they were known for, standard information." Monkey leans forward as if he's about to whisper something. "But when I went in the vault, there was only one scroll there."

Po nearly glows with awe. "The scroll of the Dragon Warrior..."

"And you know what?" Monkey suspiciously looks around. "It only said that she stopped this war and that, brokered peace with this army, rallied troops... no battles at all."

"You shouldn't have done that, Monkey." Tigress disapprovingly crosses her arms.

"That's not the point," He refutes. "Something weird is going on with all this Dragon Warrior business, I tell you. And it said right there on the bottom of the scroll that she was killed during the Siege of Yue Pin."

Viper seems doubtful to speak out. "I suppose it's strange that the Grandmasters hid this."

"There hasn't been a Dragon Warrior ever since, huh." Po observes. "I wonder why."

"Everyone wonders why." Monkey elaborates. "No one even knows what makes someone a Dragon Warrior. They just read the scroll, and boom!" He raises his arms dramatically. "Either you see nothing or suddenly some age old whatever goes into you and you become famous."

"Wait, nothing?" Po interjects.

Viper nods. "Apparently, that's what anyone but the Dragon Warrior sees when they read the scroll."

Tigress huffs. "This speculation is meaningless. We simply need to find that scroll and bring it back," Or I will. "No matter what the cost."

"Calm down, Tigress." Mantis smiles, laid back as usual. "I wasn't going to storm to the Grandmasters' and throw rocks through their window. I was just wondering, that's all."

"Honestly, it's always bothered me too." Viper says, her voice distant. "Every Master's dream is to be the Dragon Warrior. We just don't know what we can do to become one." She wistfully sighs.

Po feels a pang of sympathy at her words. "Do you want to be the Dragon Warrior?"

"Everyone does." Viper smiles kindly at him, but she doesn't answer with a 'yes' or 'no'. It's clear which one would be her answer, anyway.


Nighttime rolls in before Po realizes it. He had spent the day responding and laughing at Monkey's jokes, asked Crane all about how he and Master Mountain Lion, then called Mei Ling, secured their former academy from the One Hundred Dire Wolves, and delighted in the stories Viper told about the times when she posed as a ribbon dancer before she surprised the marks she hunted by defeating them in hand-to-hand combat. Mantis gave him an interesting account of life as someone who's that much smaller than everyone else, telling him about the time he hid in a bag of potatoes to infiltrate a fort of slavers and took over the place from the inside out.

In short, it was a very good day for the panda. He can't think of better things to do than listen to the tales of the brightest and the youngest of Kung Fu, although he wished Tigress would talk more. She's been even more quiet, today. He had wanted to cheer her up with something, but before he could call out to her, the tiger had retired to her room in the inn.

"You don't think she's mad at me, right?" Po throws his back onto his bed, cracking his neck tiredly. Sitting in a carriage for a whole day does have a way of tiring him.

Monkey lounges on his bed without a care in the world, actually seeming pleased by how neat the room is. Of course the owners would give the Furious Five their best rooms. "Nah, don't think about it too much. She's probably just thinking about the best way to slice up that owl lady."

Po laughs softly, glad that the monkey is rooming with him tonight. For a moment, the panda feared that no one would want to stay with him. It's fairly common knowledge that he's quite the raucous snore. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

"So, Po, I heard what you said about Fenghuang." Monkey lowers his voice, sitting up on his sheets.

"Oh, about that," Po looks away in embarrassment. "Don't worry about what I said, I was just rambling."

"What?" Monkey blinks. "Don't let the others get you down, Po, I actually think you had a point there."

The cook's eyes widen as he sits on his own bed. It creaks in response. "Really?"

Monkey nods. "Yeah, Po, I'm the only one out of everyone here who's really from the streets." Po knows, but he doesn't say anything about it—it's fairly common knowledge that Master Monkey used to be a notorious thief from the East side of China. A lot of people didn't take it well when the former criminal was selected to be one of the Five. "I know how the empire works."

"So..."

Monkey's eyes darken. "I think this whole Dragon Warrior thing is—"

The door suddenly opens, a fresh-faced Crane walking in with Mantis on his hat. "Hey," The avian greets, certainly looking invigorated by his long nap. "Let's have some dinner. I saw this restaurant down the street owned by this gazelle from the Southern Isles."

"Yeah, I'm starving." Mantis rubs his belly. Po remembers a time when he thought the smallest of the Five couldn't possibly eat so much—he was wrong. Then he sees Monkey leaning towards Po like they're a couple of schoolboys in a sleepover, whispering secrets in each other's ears. "Uh, what's going on?"

"Nothing. As I was saying," Monkey turns to Po with a message in his eyes. 'Later' is what it says. "If you think it'll cheer her up, you could whip up one of your snacks. It's not too late, maybe the kitchen staff will let you borrow their stuff."

"Hold up," Mantis grins at the implications. "Are you talking about Tigress, our dear battering ram?"

"No?" Po's answer comes too hastily.

Monkey ignores him. "Yeah, we were, before you boys decided to come along."

The door that Crane neglected to close suddenly has a long, serpentine head poking through. "Who's talking about Tigress?"

"Exactly." The tiger walks from just behind the snake. "Who's been talking about me?"

"Po." Monkey innocently says.

"What?" Po harshly whispers.

He gives Po his best apologetic look, but nobody misses Monkey's snicker when Po gulps and averts his gaze.


Oh, Monkey...

Thanks for reading this far, guys! I'm very happy about the positive reaction I've gotten, so far. Honestly, I didn't expect to get this good of a reception, so that makes me even happier.

Prepare for some camping shenanigans in the future chapters! If you have any camping scenarios you'd like to request (fluffy or funny or sad, whatever), feel free to send them to me... 'cause I feel the writer's block coming and any suggestions would help a lot.