Thank you everyone for leaving your thoughts/opinions! They really helped and I appreciate it! I hope some questions are answered in this chapter for you :)

xxxx

They found a place far enough away from the mountain where they couldn't be seen; at least only if Longwei didn't go sniffing them out along with his other dogs and dragons—dragons that probably weren't as forgiving as the one Chao had managed to stop from killing his father.

Po had remained in dragon form for the time being, creating a fire that was low enough so it wouldn't be seen from a distance, but that was just warm enough to blanket the air that had turned chilly in the night. There were trees and foliage around them that were enough to hide Chao. He had stayed awake for the most part upon their arrival to the safe spot, just watching his parents with that same innocent and curious look until he had finally fallen asleep next to the fire.

In a flash, Po changed back to a panda, smiling softly at Tigress who smiled back, but he could see a solemn expression behind it.

"...Do you think he can still change back?" she asked quietly, concentrating on the small and dancing flames.

Po looked away. "I don't think so..."

Unless there were a few spontaneous transformations, Chao had been a dragon all of his short life—though six years was a long time for his bones and system to develop, which while in dragon form had caused him to grow as big as he was now; an abnormal size for a regular six year old. Even some of his markings had changed, like his freckles that had first been a faint black and now were a faint white, and how he no longer had his stripes. His 'panda' eye patches were white now, as well; the only thing that hadn't changed drastically were his yellow Tigress-like eyes.

He was most likely stuck as a dragon.

Po sighed. When he had been stuck in his own dragon form, there had been a reason for it—the end of the world, and as soon as he had saved the world, he had been able to change back into his normal self. Well, not right away, at least. The end of the world had been a recurring event every thousand years, and so he'd had to go into hibernation for a thousand years himself—until he'd met a good friend who had given him the idea of making the universe immortal.

It was only until he'd actually succeeded in his mission to make the universe immortal did he get the chance to go back home and to have the power to switch between forms at will after his little quarrel with Kai. Unless there was a reason for Chao to be a dragon and he had to figure that reason out so his son could change back, Po doubted that he would be able to at all—or if he even wanted to, for that matter. Chao was probably so used to his dragon form by now that his first form would be strange and unnatural to him.

Dragon or 'panger,' Chao was still his son and they were together at last.

"You've never told me about Chao," Tigress split the silence.

"What?" Po asked, face frowning in confusion.

"Your friend that Chao was named after...I don't think I've ever met him," Tigress explained. "I know you got the name Lotus from your dad who named you Lotus originally, but I'd love to know Chao's story..."

"Oh..." Po visibly faltered. How was he going to tell her that Chao was actually a friend from the future? A friend who wasn't going to be born until a thousand years later? He couldn't, and he struggled for a moment to come up with some sort of story that was believable enough.

"Chao was a student in one of my classes," he settled. "A young tiger who wanted to take an introductory course to kung fu."

Tigress perked at the fact that Chao had been a tiger like her; not many were ever in the Valley of Peace, and Po knew she had been adopted by Shifu from an orphanage as a cub.

"Why didn't you ever introduce us?" she teased lightly.

"His family wasn't staying for long...they had to move. But he was a pretty quick learner and reminded me a lot of you." Well, at least that part wasn't a lie. What she didn't know was that Chao had been a descendant of hers, and Po wasn't about to tell her anytime soon; not with the way he had sparked a memory in her just by telling her his 'crazy dream' that he'd had before everything happened.

Silence reigned for a few more moments. Po spotted movement out of the corner of his eye and he looked, seeing Chao twitch in his sleep as if he were dreaming...or having a nightmare. Tigress moved closer to the dragon and placed a paw on his side; his twitches lessened almost immediately and she smiled at how peaceful he looked. Po couldn't help but be reminded of a similar night sitting by a fire when he had been stuck, and how Tigress had managed to calm him down before his dragon half had completely taken him over.

Tigress's smile faded when her eyes landed on Chao's bruised and scarred neck in the fire's glow, her fists clenching at the thought that her baby had been so alone, scared and abused at the hands of a certain dog. When she crossed paths with Longwei again, she was going to make him sorry that he had ever even thought of kidnapping and torturing her child.

"Why do you think the other dragons never had collars on when I first saw them?" She pondered aimlessly. "They still don't..."

Po wondered the same. "My guess is that they 'behave' so well for Longwei now that he doesn't have to worry about them flying off."

The dragon that they'd encountered earlier had been the one that had taken Chao. When he was missing, Tigress had thought of every possible attack that she would use to get her son back, and she had almost used one today when it had pinned down Po. Now that she knew the other dragons were just as hurt as Chao, she only felt empathy for the two beings who Longwei had broken. Maybe when this was all over, they could free the others who had been captured. Prisoners in their own home...

A frantic whining was suddenly heard. Tigress had to back away when Chao nearly leapt up from his once-peaceful sleep, fully alert and turning his head in every way that he possibly could.

"Woah! What is it, buddy?" Po asked, raising his paws in an attempt to calm Chao down. Had they been found? Was Longwei coming? But Chao ignored his attempts, pawing at the dirt and finally resting his terrified gaze in the direction that they had come.

Po followed his gaze, and he was slowly beginning to have an idea of why Chao must have escaped Longwei the first time when he had found him in the forest, his own gaze resting on the very tip of the volcano that stood out behind the brush.

Po could hear screaming like he'd heard in his vision again, and the same boom as before that left his ears ringing.

He could barely feel Tigress resting a comforting hand on his shoulder as the ground below them shook.