Chapter 8: Level 0

Opening the doors to the Training Hall, Po and the turtles could help but watch in a bit awe (or in Po's case, a large amount of awe) as they watched the Furious Five going through their intense training routine. The room itself was layered with several obstacles that, to a normal person, would seem impossible.

In a weird way, it reminded the turtles of the Foot Clan Dojo in Shredder's Mansion.

Crane swooped in from the roof, maneuvering past several pillars before landing on the rocky Jade Tortoise of Wisdom, deflecting several arrows with his wings.

He then swiftly dodged out of the way as Tigress flipped onto the tortoise shell, swiping and kicking at the master of crane-style, to which he quickly blocked all of her strikes while both maintained their balance perfectly.

Down below, Mantis speedily made his way through the Gauntlet of Wooden Warriors, bouncing off the spinning spiky wooden arms with ease and great speed.

Meanwhile, over on the Fiery Field of Death, Viper easily maneuvered her way through the maze of fire that spurted from the pipes she slithered on.

Monkey swung across Seven-Talon Rings like he were swinging on vines before curling up into a kick and going through the seventh ring with ease.

Finally, Tigress balanced herself on the spinning serpent logs as she dodged the Seven Swinging Clubs of Instant Oblivion. Her movements were tight and graceful as she flipped past the clubs before she thrust her palms into her signature double palm strike, shattering one of the clubs with her bare fists and sending splinters and fragments of the club everywhere, one of those pieces heading right towards Mikey.

The party turtle quickly drew his head into his shell, the piece sailing harmlessly past the place where his head would have been and instead hitting Po right in the forehead.

Po let out a yelp of pain before holding his aching noggin.

"It's like I've died and gone to a giant beautiful armory in the sky." Raph whispered, looking at some of the training equipment in amazement.

Shifu walked in, closing the doors behind them. "Alright, let's begin."

Po eyes widened comically while Leo, Donnie, Raph, and Mikey looked mildly stunned. "Wait, what?" Po asked.

"We'll start with you four." Shifu said, pointing to the turtles as the Furious Five halted their training to observe the new arrivals.

Leo, Donnie, Raph, and Mikey all stiffened slightly, unconsciously lining up in single file like they would with Master Splinter.

"Well, show us what you can do." Shifu told them. "Cross the training course and we'll see how you all fair."

All four turtles glanced at the training course, which was about as inviting as a fully operational death-trap.

"Doesn't look too hard." Mikey remarked confidently before leaping onto the spinning serpent logs.

Looking to each other, Leo shrugged before following after his youngest brother, with Raph and Donnie following soon after.

Mikey quickly dodged the Swinging Clubs of Instant Oblivion before swinging across the Seven-Talon Rings.

Donnie jumped from the spinning serpent logs onto Jade Tortoise of Wisdom, twirling his staff to deflect the oncoming arrows all the while keeping his balance.

Raph quickly swung off the Seven-Talon Rings and was making his way through Gauntlet of Wooden Warriors, just barely blocking and dodging the swinging arms that came his way.

Finally, Leo managed to make his own way through the Gauntlet of Wooden Warriors and onto the Fiery Field of Death, quickly anticipating and rolling out of the way of several fires that were spurted out from the pipes before jumping over a full stream of flames and landing safely on the other end of the room with his other brothers quickly behind him.

"Woo hoo!" Mikey cried in relief. "We made it!" He then raised his hand up high. "High three!" Leo, Raph, and Donnie cheered as they slapped their hands together.

"Ya like that?" Raph smirked, folding his arms across his chest.

Viper, Crane, Monkey, and Mantis had impressed and surprised expressions on their faces. They obviously hadn't expected these four young turtles to be able to cruise through the training course with such ease as they had (though not quite as fast), and on their first try no less.

Even Tigress looked mildly surprised and even a bit impressed at their display, but her expression quickly faded back to her usual stoic self.

Po, of course, was once again in awe of his friends as they had managed to seemingly do the impossible.

Shifu, meanwhile, scowled slightly. It seemed that getting these young terrapins to quit was going to be harder than he thought.

"Well, it seems you have proven yourselves, turtles. Perhaps you are not as hopeless as I thought." Shifu begrudgingly admitted as the turtles walked back over to them. "However, now it is the panda's turn."

Po froze. "Now?" He asked, shifting uncomfortably.

"Yes, now." Shifu said with a firm nod, before looking up at the panda with a smirk. "Unless you think that the great Oogway was wrong and you are not the Dragon Warrior?"

Po roughly cleared his throat. "Okay, well… I don't know if I can do all of those… moves." He said, sounding very very unsure.

"Well, if we don't try, we'll never know now will we?" Shifu said with a smug smirk.

"Uh, yeah." Po agreed nervously. "It's just – maybe we could find something more suited to my level…"

"And what level is that?" Shifu questioned.

"Well, ya know… I'm not a master or a ninja, but uh, let's start at zero. Level zero." Po suggested.

"'Level zero'?" Raph muttered incredulously, only to shut up when he was elbowed in the shoulder by Donnie.

Shifu actually chuckled in amusement. "Oh no, there is no such thing as level zero."

Mikey just then noticed something to the side of the room, something he hadn't noticed earlier. It looked like a small inflatable training dummy. "Hey, maybe Po could start off with that?" Suggested the party turtle.

Everyone else looked in Mikey's direction, noticing the dummy. "That?" Shifu asked, sounding a little incredulous. "We use that for training children. And for propping the door open when it's hot." He explained. "But, if you insist…" He smirked.

"Before we do that…" Po decided to change the subject of the conversation as he turned to the Furious Five as they approached the so-called 'training session'. "I didn't say this before but, whoa, the Furious Five. You're so much bigger than your action figures." Po said rather awkwardly, too much in awe about standing right in front of his heroes. "Except you, Mantis. You're about the same." Mantis frowned at that particular remark.

"Go ahead, panda." Shifu encouraged mockingly. "Show us what you can do."

"You got this, Po!" Mikey encouraged, with Donnie and Leo at least having the kindness to give him a helpful thumbs up while Raph just folded arms, watching expectantly.

Po smiled at his four friends before nervously looking towards the Five. "Um, are they gonna watch? Or should I wait until they get back to work or something…?" He asked, trying to stall a bit.

Tigress, Viper, Crane, Monkey, and Mantis all glanced at each other as the panda continued stalling.

"Hit it." Shifu told him, now sounding a little more irritable.

"Okay. I just ate." Po continued to stall. "Um, so I'm still digesting… so my kung fu may not be as good as… later on."

"Just hit it." Shifu again told him, his eye twitching slightly with impatience.

Po shrunk back a little at the master's tone, probably realizing he couldn't stall much longer. "Alright." He stood in front of the training dummy, bouncing on the balls of his feets as he held up his fist like a boxer. "Whatcha got? You got nothin' 'cause I got it right here." He spoke directly to the dummy. "You picking on my friends? Get ready to feel the thunder. I'm comin' at him with the crazy feet. Whatcha gonna do about my crazy feet? I'm a blur, I'm a blur. You never seen bear style, you only seen praying Mantis! Or… I could come at you with Monkey style." He then made a monkey sound, getting raised eyebrow from Monkey. "Or… I'm comin' at ya snickety-snake-"

"WOULD YOU HIT IT!?" Shifu shouted, finally losing his patience.

Po immediately stopped stalling. "Alright… alright." Hesitantly, he very lightly punched the dummy, making it rock a little.

"Why don't you try again?" Shifu hissed slowly. "A little harder."

Po pulled his fist back and he hit the dummy as hard as he could, knocking the dummy all the way backwards.

"Heh, how's that-" Po was about to gloat a little when the dummy suddenly righted itself, whacking Po, knocking out a tooth and sending the panda flying right into the training course.

Leo, Raph, Donnie, Mikey, Viper, Crane, Mantis, Monkey, and even Tigress were about to instinctively step forward to help him, but Shifu quickly raised his hand to stop them.

Meanwhile, Po struggled to keep his balance on the spinning serpent logs before he comically slipped and ended up doing a painful split in between them.

"Oh, that hurts!" Po yelped in pain before he was hit in the face by one of the tethered clubs, sending him flying across the room and into the Jade Tortoise which rattled around with him in it.

The turtles and the Five all collectively winced with sympathy towards the panda (except for Tigress, who still kept her stoic and unemotional look) while Shifu smirked.

"This'll be easier than I thought." He said to himself.

"Feeling a little nauseous…" Po groaned as he finally spilled out of the Jade Tortoise and right into the Gauntlet of Wooden Warriors, which kept hitting him in various places with their spinning wooden clubs, one of which ended up hitting him in the… well… 'tenders'.

"OOOOOhoohoo… my tenders." Po groaned, holding his privates as he collapsed to his knees, Leo, Raph, Donnie, Mikey, Crane, Monkey, Viper, and Mantis' eyes all widened as they winced hard at the poor panda's suffering while Tigress and Shifu kept up their emotionless demeanor.

"How'd you guys even survive this when you first started training?" Donnie asked the Five incredulously. At least with the turtles, they had actually done many acrobatic stunts that were just as dangerous if not more than this training course.

"We didn't." Mantis replied bluntly.

"It just never happened, to be perfectly honest." Crane added.

"We were basically good from the get-go." Viper also added. "This place just helps us stay in shape." She then hummed. "It's actually pretty impressive you were able to make it through on your first try."

"Hey, we're ninjas. It's what we do." Mikey said with a wave.

"Still, that had to hurt." Monkey nodded with a wince, shifting his gaze back to the panda.

Po, meanwhile, struggled to his feet, his legs shaking as he leaned against a wooden warrior's arm, only for it to immediately spin around and whack him in the face and resulting in the poor panda getting pummeled again.

Eventually, though, he came stumbling out of the Gauntlet battered and bruised as he shook his head of his dizziness.

Suddenly, Po felt the floor below him suddenly getting hot and he looked down to see he was standing on Fiery Field of Death with the pipes all about to erupt.

"Uh oh." Was all he could say.

The turtles, the Five, and Shifu shielded their vision as the fire spewed up, as they could hear Po's cries of pain as he was bathed in the fire.

Soon, the flames died down as Po came crawling over to them, his body charred and looking very dazed, a little tuft of his head on fire.

"How did I do?" Po asked weakly, gasping for breath.

Shifu approached him. "There is now a level zero." he said simply, putting out the tuft of fire on Po's head with his fingers.

Po's equally simple response was to let his face flop to the floor.