"First Time for Everything"


"Panda! Get up!"

Po's eyes shot open, tumbling onto the floor unbeknownst to a freshly awakened Alf.

"Augh! Po - get the - "

"Sorry bro…"

Shifu grumbled, watching Po's jiggling stomach repeatedly bat Alf in the face until he managed to shove himself off.

"Do you plan on wasting my time some more, panda?" Shifu addressed as harshly as possible.

"No sir!" Po noted. "I mean no master! I mean - "

"Stop - talking. Follow me."

Shifu made his way out of Po's room, gently pushing open the paper door open with a creak. Po righted himself while standing up, then turned to face Alf - still on the floor, recovering from being squashed. Po tore his blanket off.

"Get up man, we're gonna do something!"

"Over my dead noodles," Alf spat. "You heard him - he said panda."

"But what's a Dragon Warrior without his water boy?" Po fired back.

Alf sighed, covering his face with his hands in exhaustion.

"Po, I don't think it's a good idea to keep tagging along with you in public," Alf noted. "We might test someone's patience too far and - "

"Listen, the whole reason you're alive right now is because you're with me," Po rectified. "You can try hiding in the Palace solo but I'd say - it's a worse risk."

Alf mulled over this. "I suppose when I'm with you they won't kill me - maybe."

"Maybe just maim you," Po let out, tightening the strings on his brown, tattered pants with quickness. "Come on - don't wanna be late for my first day!"

. . .

The only thing more awkward than following Master Shifu around the Palace was hearing Po trying to make small talk.

For every single tired anecdote, illogical piece of rambling, or embarrassingly pathetic, gushing moment that came from Po - Master Shifu attempted to thoroughly ignore. Alf and Po had been following the smaller master around the Palace for nearly four minutes - which was much too long to be seen walking alongside Shifu. Alf in particular had an intense fear of being picked up by the rhino guards again - his gaze would dart from wall to wall, scanning for pointy horns and flashing red eyes to avoid. Po was attempting to act relaxed, but in truth was somewhat nervous - although Oogway's decision seemed to have been followed, Shifu had made no attempt to re-engage with the panda. Indeed, as the trio strutted from the dorms to the Palace courtyard, both Alf and Po were shocked to see a central structure, perhaps the most well-hidden building within the Palace - remain closed shut by two massive red doors. The sun had just barely trickled over the horizon, and the early morning light made his structure seem almost impenetrable. Yet Shifu casually pushed open the twin red doors, allowing Po and Alf to witness everything inside.

Yelling. Fists. Clanging. Fire.

The Five.

Alf and Po recognized this as a training hall. There was a moving, spiky platform of wood, hanging metal rings, a sea of wooden dummies, weapon racks, a floor that seemed to be spontaneously bursting fire...

Tigress, effortlessly jumping across the Hall, flipped over some moving spires of wood. She smashed a spiky block into pieces - a chip flew right into Po's forehead.

"Ow! Dude…" Po breathed out, mouth shaking. "The Furious, the Furious, The - "

"Will you shut up?" Alf retorted immediately.

"Let's begin," Shifu proudly declared.

"Wait wait wait," Po started, seeing a distant floor filled with cylindrical holes go ablaze with fire. "What? Now?"

"Yes, now," Shifu mentioned. "Unless you think the great Oogway was wrong - and you are not the Dragon Warrior."

Alf suppressed an urge to scream that into the heavens. He meekly followed Po, who continued to blabber nonsensically with an increasingly irritated Shifu. He soon found himself watching Po near a practice dummy, with the Five having freshly left their obstacles and moved onto Shifu's side. He kept a safe distance away.

"Go ahead panda, show us what you can do," Shifu noted, gesturing towards the dummy.

Po felt dumbfounded, nervous from the collective gazes from both the Five and Shifu. He continued to blabber nonsensically - first at Shifu, then after some forcefulness - at the practice dummy.

"You got nothing, 'cause I got it right here. You picking on my friends? - "

Alf watched this lunacy from twenty feet away, leaning lightly against a pillar. He was shocked that the Five and Shifu were even remotely tolerating this - and privately wondered how devoted they were to Oogway to allow this. He wasn't sure what was more painful - watching Po continue to delve further into this terrible comedic act, or having his mouth broken by Shifu.

At last, a breaking point seemed to have been reached.

"WOULD YOU HIT - IT!" Shifu bellowed.

Alf watched Po stop for a moment, for once taking his gaze off of the Five. He gently tapped the practice dummy.

"Why don't you try again, a little harder?" Shifu implored.

Po smacked the dummy back. "How's th - AAH!"

Alf knew what was happening before it even happened. Within moments, Po had somehow been hit back from the dummy - then tripped into the obstacle course.

Alf closed his eyes.

"AUGH! AGGGH! Oh that hurts!"

WHAM!

DING. DING. WHAM! DING!

"Oooohhh - my tenders. Oh - um - AUGH!"

DING. DING. WHAM! DING! WHAM!

"What the - wha - "

"AUGH!"

"WOAH!"

"YEEE HAHAHA!"

Alf bit back a chuckle. That last one almost sounded like Po was laughing. Reluctantly, he opened his eyes. Po - fur singed black and crawling across the wooden floorboards - just barely dragged his oversized body over to Shifu and the Five, mumbling something to Shifu.

"There is now - a level zero." Shifu announced, putting out a flame at the top of Po's head.

Alf smiled. Serves him right, he thought. We finally get to leave this place - or I guess - we get kicked out -

"Panda - tell it to come here."

The emphasis was so nonsensical, so bizarre, that Alf wasn't even sure what Shifu was talking about. With a brief scan of the environment, Alf realized that Shifu had commanded Po to ask Alf to come closer.

The panda almost felt regretful, so the words came out slow. "Alf - uh, water boy - come here."

Alf shuddered. He grimly inched closer to the group, just now seeing everyone's faces in better lighting.

Shifu's expression looked joyful, even excited - although in a disturbing way. The Five ranged tremendously - some looked just as intrigued as they were the morning of the Tournament, while others merely turned their heads above Alf. Tigress in particular flared her nostrils with every closer step Alf was taking, and her eyes seemed to be sinking deeper into her head.

Alf paused, still a safe distance away from the Five and Shifu (and even Po, completely incapacitated on the ground). Shifu cut the distance in half with a brief stride.

"Bend down, fleshling," the small master commanded.

Alf's initial thought was fear. No one was making a movement. Po couldn't understand what was happening. The Five looked confused.

"I said - bow."

Shifu kicked out Alf's knees before slamming his head onto the floor, freshly breaking the recently clotted lip.

"Ergh - hmph… ergh…"

It frustrated Alf immensely that he wasn't capable of silencing himself. If he had just learned to shut up when this happened to him…

"My friends in the Valley Guard recommended I use this," Shifu noted, pressing a cold, dark feeling against Alf's neck. "Try it on."

Alf felt like choking. Whatever was just put around his neck - it instantly seized around, restricting movement and nearly bruising fresh skin. The feeling was immeasurably tight - tight enough where Alf had to focus to control his breathing.

"The Seekers," Shifu spat, with as much hatred as possible. "One of their inventions. They called it the Obedience Collar."

Shifu whipped out a small, metallic box - something completely foreign-looking. The Five and Po eyed it with interest. Shifu laid a finger down to rest on a bright red, shiny button protruding from the metallic box.

"Concept's easy enough, even for a fleshie to understand," Shifu noted. "Do something we tell you not to do - and…"

A surge of pain. Alf writhed on the floor in agony. It felt like his neck, his entire body was being pierced with a million swords. It felt like lightning was tearing through his body. Blue crackles emitted from the collar.

"AHH! PLEASE!" Alf let out, desperately unable to remove the collar.

Shifu stopped immediately. He bent down to Alf's laid down position, seeing him quake with satisfaction.

"But do something I tell you to do, follow the Jade Palace rules - and I don't press this red button," Shifu noted.

"Pretty ironic if you ask me," Mantis suddenly spoke up, breaking his silence. "Fleshie weapon, used to control a fleshie…"

"Seems perfectly poetic to me," Tigress smoothly declared, walking forward to gaze at Alf's crumpled, heaving form. "Seekers get what's coming to them. What's been coming to them for centuries."

Alf turned his head up at the older master. For some reason, he stared down into her crimson eyes - feeling an uncontrollable thirst to be violent. Perhaps she could sense it as well.

"You got something to say to me, boy?" Tigress growled, leaning down to level with Alf.

"Nothing," Po broke in. "Nothing! My water boy is going to keep his mouth shut - right Alf?"

Alf could practically feel Po's face urging him to stay quiet. He moved his head down, staring at the wooden floorboard.

"No," Alf let out finally.

Another surge of pain. The blue crackles came again. It felt more intense this time - more permanent.

Shifu walked over to Alf. "When you address another Master in this Palace - you will call them by their proper title, do you understand?"

It took every ounce of Alf's restraint from simply annoying Shifu enough to overload the button, and help end this long process of humiliation.

"Did you hear that, boy?" Tigress spat.

Alf kept his gaze on the floorboards, determined to not engage. "Yes - Master Tigress."

He didn't want to look up and see hers - nor Shifu's - inevitably smug expressions. Alf heard footsteps move away from him before Shifu's powerful baritone came again.

"Panda. Do it again."

With a sigh, Po dragged himself onto the wooden spires again - receiving the exact same result. Alf groaned, catching a glimpse of a brief, almost fleeting set of white ears and silver fur disappear from the corner of his vision - still from his prone position on the floor.

He must have been hallucinating.


A/N

Thanks again for all the sweet comments! Everyone's making my day, sniffle :)

I should note that my interpretation/timeline of the KFP Universe is loose - the general storyline and somewhat accurate sequence of events is there, but given that this is a slight AU - I'm trying to take out and switch things around where I see fit, or add new stuff of course! Let me know if something isn't working though… However, stuff in KFP1 will show up just in KFP1 in-fic, KFP2 stuff will be in KFP2, etc… I won't switch it THAT far.

On another note, I know a lot of stuff seems up in the air! Don't worry! I'm slowly realizing a story to tell...

~TW