Po, the Harem Master

Part 9: Po and the Wiles of a Thief

by Neoraichu

Po X Various. The story returns to the beginning of the Kung Fu Panda Movies and Legends of Awesomeness, and asked the question, "what if this was written like a Harem Anime?"

WARNING: This is a strange tale, so READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.

"Po," said Tigress slightly irritated, "The only one who wants to tour a kitchen is YOU."

"But Master Tigress," he replied, "You didn't want me to show them the student barracks, the Palace Stadium, or the Peach Tree Hill."

'It's lucky he doesn't know about the Dragon Grotto,' thought Tigress, 'I sure don't want anyone there who isn't living the Kung Fu life.'

"The barracks is a personal place," she answered, "They've already seen the Stadium, and Grand Master Oogway is meditating on the hill, so he cannot be disturbed. You know he's seeking solutions to our... current issues."

"Well, I'm sure they'd love to see the Training Hall."

"As long as they don't try use it," she replied, "It's far too dangerous for someone who's not a serious Kung Fu Student or Master to try... and Fenghuang is already well familiar with the place."

"I'm down with that," said Po, "How about the rest of you?" He was looking towards the Ladies of the Shade and the foxy Mei Ling when he asked the last part.

"Oh, that's just fine," said Su.

"Oh, I agree," said Mei Ling.

While crossing the Courtyard to the Training Hall, Fenghuang stumbled and fell. Po rushed to her side as he asked, "Are you all right?"

"I'm sorry," she said, "Perhaps I've been pushing things a little too much. I just need a moment to rest here. Sorry to worry you so."

"It's cool," he said, and then he turned around. "Here, hop on my back and I'll carry you for a while."

"You don't mind?" she asked.

"It's totally cool."

She stood and leaned against his back as he picked her up, holding her legs under the knees. Her head was rested on his back as she turned it sideways and closed her eyes a moment. The group continued on towards the Training Hall.

'Curse me for a fool,' she thought, 'Why do I love this dolt?!'

The went in, and Tigress suggested, "Perhaps you should show them how some of this equipment works, Dragon Warrior?"

"Me?" he asked.

"Well yes. You haven't done any training for being the Dragon Warrior today anyways."

"That would be nice," said Su.

"We should start with the log roller," suggested Tigress as she pointed out the twisty, curly and slightly spiky rollers. She had moved the setting up to the middle, so it was a small challenge for the Dragon Warrior to perform.

Po set down Fenghuang in the corner, and then approached the rollers. With his shoulders set, and a look of fierce determination, he closed his eyes and made his way across. He could hear the weapons as they swung close to his head. Tigress and Viper had already moved across to the other side. When he opened his eyes, he looked at the wide-eyed stares from Tigress and Viper. He looked over his shoulder to see that Scorpion, Mei Ling and ALL of the Ladies of the Shade had followed him, and none of them were even disheveled in their outfits.

"What?" asked Su, "Were we not supposed to follow you?"

"Ah..." he said stupefied.

"Moving along," said Tigress.

They moved onto the Gauntlet of Wooden Warriors. The wooden towers gleamed as their levels of spinning spiked clubs awaited those who would dare try to pass them.

"I suggest that no one tries to follow the Dragon Warrior this time."

Mei Ling and the Ladies of the Shade nodded. Tigress and Viper moved around to the end of the course and waited. Po squared himself off as he prepared to run the gauntlet. He moved in as they began spinning, blocking and dodging attacks from all levels and all directions almost at the same time. There was a few small hits along the way. Nothing Scorpion couldn't work out later.

He emerged triumphant to see Tigress face-palming herself. Everyone else had run the gauntlet and finished ahead of him. Once again, none of them looked as if they had even taken a minor hit.

"What?" asked Su, "We didn't follow him. All of us picked our own path across the gauntlet."

"Ah..." he said stupefied.

"Say," asked Mei Ling, "What's that area over there?"

"Oh, that's the Field of Fiery Death," said Po offhand.

"What's that do?"

"It teaches one how to navigate a terrain where there's no safe place to stand still."

"Oh you simply MUST show us that!"

The Ladies of the Shade and Scorpion nodded as well.

"All right," grumbled Tigress, "But NO ONE steps onto the Field of Fiery Death besides the Dragon Warrior. AM I MAKING MYSELF CLEAR?!"

They all nodded. So Po stepped up, steeled his resolve, and stepped onto the floor of bamboo tubes from which the flaming death shot into the air. He was too focused on getting across with a minimum of burns, so that when he got across, he wondered why Tigress was face-palming herself yet again. He turned around to see that Scorpion and Mei Ling were leaping all the way across the floor without touching it, and the Ladies of the Shade were taking turns throwing each other across. True to their word, not one of them set foot upon the Field of Fiery Death.

"Ah..." he said stupefied, "Am I the only one here who isn't a Kung Fu Master?"

"I think we've seen quite enough of the Training Hall," grumbled Tigress, "Let's gather up Fenghuang and move on to the Hall of Warriors, shall we?"

So Po carried the owl on his back again up the final set of stairs to one of the greatest parts of the Jade Palace: The Hall of Warriors. Tigress was beginning to wonder if Fenghuang was just faking her weakness as an excuse to ride on the Dragon Warrior's back. She certainly seemed to be enjoying herself as he carried her around. Scorpion also griped of becoming tired of all the walking, so he let her crawl up onto his head.

'This is IT!' thought Su as Po opened one of the doors to the Hall of Warriors, 'The mother lode!' She looked about at all of the treasures just sitting around, the pool sitting in the back, and all of the scrolls that were collected behind the pool. Then there was the dragon statue that looked down upon the pool with a very expensive looking scroll in it's mouth. She was almost drooling as she thought about all of the silver, no GOLD, they could make by selling all of the treasures to the Black Marketeers.

Po set down Fenghuang by the entrance so she could sit and watch the others. It wasn't like she had not already been in this room many many times already.

"This place is simply the most beautiful room I've ever seen!" exclaimed Song as she looked around.

Voiceless nodded as she walked back to the pool. She stared down into the water, and then up at the Dragon statue.

"Yeah, it's pretty awesome, isn't it?" agreed Po.

"Don't touch anything!" snapped Tigress, "There are DANGEROUS relics in here!"

"Like what?" asked Su and Po as one.

"Like that jar over there," she said as she pointed to a small green and blue jar, "That's the Mongolian Fist Demon Jar. It's a prison for... well... the Mongolian Fist Demon. It's a huge brute that terrorized the Valley of Peace hundreds of years ago with it's one massive fist and it's flames of fury."

"That sounds scary," mused Mei Ling.

"So how was the demon beaten?" asked Po.

"No one really knows," replied Tigress, "Only Grand Master Oogway beat it, and there was no one to witness his victory. He hasn't really said even to this day just what technique he used to beat the demon so he could trap it in the jar. They say that the more fiercely and skilled one fights the demon, the stronger it becomes."

Po walked over to the jar as he commented, "It just looks like a cookie jar to me."

But Tigress and Viper were distracted keeping their eyes on Mei Ling and all of the Ladies of the Shade as they walked about and looked at all of the treasures and trophies just sitting on pedestals or hanging from the walls of the Hall.

Sue leaned close to Song as she whispered, "Darn it, the tiger and the snake are watching us too closely. We need to distract them so we can steal a few things. Take some of the other ladies and put on a performance that they won't soon forget. I'm sure that Dance and Voiceless should work well for a distraction. Otherwise, this entire tour will have been for nothing."

"As you command," replied Song. She gestured for Dance and Voiceless to come to her so they could huddle, and decide what they were going to do. That alone was enough to draw the attention of both Tigress and Viper. Po was still fussing with the Mongolian Fist Demon Jar. After a moment of Song telling the other two what to do, they separated so that Voiceless was left between them. They all opened their umbrellas, but Voiceless left hers to spin like a top. Then she leaped back and forth from Song's umbrella to Dance's, just low enough to spin her own umbrella more as she passed over it.

As Su hoped, Tigress and Viper were enchanted by the performance. They watched as Voiceless used Song's spinning umbrella as a dance floor that she used to showcase her spins and cartwheels without even looking like there was a chance she might fall off. Song tossed Voiceless into the air, leaped onto Dance's umbrella, and still managed to catch Voiceless on top of her own.

Su and the remaining Ladies of the Shade stalked about the room assessing what she could take easily and what she could not. She also prioritized the treasures from the ones that looked the most expensive to the ones that looked like they had the least resale value. Mei Ling was more interested in watching them then she was looking at the three performing in the middle of the Hall, as she well knew a distraction when she saw one.

"Po?" asked Scorpion from his head, "Should you be messing with that thing? Tigress seems to think it's really really dangerous."

"I don't think it'll hurt just to take a teeny tiny little peek," he replied, "It must be something totally awesome to see! If I can just figure out how this little thing opens..."

Su and the Ladies met by the pool to trade notes, and decide what they were going to steal. About then, Dance kicked Voiceless' still spinning umbrella upwards so she could catch it. She turned it over and stood it point to point with Song's umbrella so they were spinning in opposite directions balanced on top of each other, and then Voiceless turned herself over and balanced on the handle as Tigress and Viper stared more wide eyed. It was lucky the vaulted ceiling of the Hall of Warrior was so high that they still had plenty of space over their heads.

Mei Ling wasn't quite sure where Su and the others were hiding burlap sacks, but they pulled them out as they began stealing the treasures of the Hall of Warriors. She always figured she'd let the Ladies take the heat for the theft, and then steal the best treasures from them later. But when they tried to slip out the door, they realized the way was blocked by Fenghuang.

"YOU KNOW IT'S NOT NICE TO TAKE STUFF THAT DOESN'T BELONG TO YOU, RIGHT?!" she asked with an angry tone.

"LADIES!" shouted Su, "It's time to BATTLE! Deal with this owl so we can get the hell out of here!"

They all seemed to be surprised when the Ladies' umbrellas deployed metal blades around the edges, and then fired a volley of darts from the ends at Fenghuang. With her wings still in slings, her options were severely limited. But she was able to dodge all of their fire. The Ladies tried to exploit this weakness by trying to simply swarm past her, but then the air was split by the sound of Scorpion saying, "OOPS!" Po had opened the jar and released the Mongolian Fist Demon.

"What's the big deal?" he asked as he looked down on the barely six inch tall blue and red demon, "I'll just squash it and put it back..." He stepped on the Demon, but not only did it have no effect, it made the monster grow a few inches taller. Throwing Po towards the Hall door, Scorpion managed to catch the jar and the lid before she landed on the ground. Po smacked into the door hard, the force making the door closed. When the door slammed shut, the heavy barricade fell into place, making sure that no one could leave until the heavy bar was lifted up again.

Tigress and Viper leaped at the Demon, with Tigress unloading a volley of tree-trunk splitting punches into it while Viper lashed out at its vital points. But this just made the Demon angrier as well as made it double in size. Now it was well over a foot tall.

"THERE'S NOTHING I CAN'T STAND LESS THAN THIEVES!" scowled Fenghuang as she kicked out at some of the nearby Ladies. They seemed to easily block the kicks with their umbrellas, which were built as weapons and therefore quite sturdy. Even though outnumbered and surrounded, the owl did seem to hold her own against the attacking leopards.

Mei Ling decided fighting was pointless, so she slipped back into the shadows and waited to see what happened with the others. She would leave when she was ready to.

Tigress and Viper continued their relentless attack on the Demon, which drove it down to its knees even as it grew larger. It grew and grew until it was almost half again as large as Tigress when it revealed their assault was not hurting it at all. The large fist grabbed Tigress by the tail and used her as a blunt weapon to smack down Viper, leaving the two of them in a heap against the smooth stone floor. Then Scorpion leaped on the monster's head and stung it hard in the back of its neck. Even though the poison seemed to slow the Demon, it still grabbed Scorpion with its larger fist and slammed her into the stone floor as well. Now Tigress, Viper and Scorpion were down for the count.

"We have to get the hell out of here!" shouted Su, "Half of you keep the arrogant owl busy while the rest of you lift that bar!"

"I'm not arrogant!" shouted Fenghuang, "I'm a MASTER! If my wings were fixed, I'd take you ALL down MYSELF without breaking a sweat!"

The Demon leaped to block the doorway itself. Now they would have to beat the monster in order to even try to lift the bar. Po was coming around from his little run-in with the door. He shook his head to clear the cobwebs out.

"Thieves or not, if you want to leave here alive, then you better help us fight that monster!" yelled Su at Fenghuang. All the ladies fired their darts at every vital point on the Demon as the owl leaped up into its face to try and scratch its eyes out. The darts couldn't pierce its skin enough to have any effect, and the monster simply swatted the owl aside before she could even get close to his eyes. She landed on her back and slid into the wall hard. It grew even larger after that.

"STOP!" yelled Po at the top of his lungs, "YOU CAN'T BEAT IT BY FIGHTING NO MATTER HOW HARD YOU TRY! IN FACT, THE HARDER YOU TRY, THE STRONGER IT GETS!"

"What do you suggest we do?!" screamed Su, "Sing and dance for it?!"

"EXACTLY!"

"That's just crazy enough to work!" shouted Song, "Just stay back far enough that it can't touch you!"

The Ladies began to spin and dance around the demon, just staying out of its reach. As the Ladies performed, the Demon seemed to lose anger and power, and started to shrink down again. The Demon feigned an attack in one direction, and then really lashed out the other way. His fist caught Voiceless in the stomach as she was propelled towards the wall. But Po managed to dive in front of her, so she hit his soft stomach while he slammed into the wall for her.

"Are you alright?" he gasp.

She gave him the thumbs up gesture.

The Demon continued to shrink and weaken until is was back to the size of an action figure. Scorpion used her tail to slap the monster back into the jar, and used her other claw to put the lid back in place and screw it closed again.

"Put all the stuff you stole back," snarled Tigress as she stood up, "and none of you get hurt!"

"Fine!" shouted Su, "We owe the Dragon Warrior for all he's done! Put everything back!"

The Ladies dispersed to return everything when Song asked, "Hey, when was the door opened? And where did Mei Ling go?"

"WHAT?!" asked Tigress as she looked around, "AND WHERE IS THE DRAGON CHALICE?!"

"It looks like the best thief won," muttered Su.

"We can't worry about that now!" yelled Po, "There's injured to look after!" He ran over to Fenghuang as Voiceless followed him. Taking the owl in his arms, he asked, "Are you all right?!"

"It's not as bad as it looks," she sighed before she passed out in his arms.

...

Fenghuang awoke on an infirmary cot. In addition to having her wings in slings, now she was stripped to her loincloth, and her stomach (and back) wrapped in wet bandages from her loins up to her ribcage. There was also wrappings about her neck and shoulders. The bandages smelled of medicine.

Looking around, she could see that Tigress, Viper and Po were similarly wrapped and smelling of medicine. But they were dressed over the wrappings. She looked around some more, but didn't see the Ladies of the Shade around either.

"This is payback for the bamboo forest, isn't it?" asked the owl.

"I don't know what you're carrying on about," replied the tiger with a smirk on her face.

"Never mind," she answered, "Just help me get dressed."

"Not until the medicine dries."

"Well you're dressed!"

"Different medicines," she replied, "They don't have to be fully dry."

"You know I'll get you for this!"

"Still don't know what you're talking about."

"I'm so glad you're alright!" said Po as he came to the owl's bedside, but he tripped in his rush and managed to face-plant himself into her breast feathers. But instead of getting mad, she used her legs to hug Po tighter against her.

Tigress and Viper both blushed as they turned around.

"You little sicko," she cooed, "Can't even wait to take advantage of me, can you? I like it."

"Huh? What?" spluttered Po, "It's not like that at all!"

"Just let him go!" protested Tigress.

"So where are those Ladies of the Shade?" asked Fenghuang as she let Po loose.

"Scorpion is taking care of them in the largest guest room," replied Viper, "and making sure they keep their word not to steal anything."

"And Mei Ling?"

"She's long gone."

"And Grand Master Oogway?"

"Still meditating. None of us thought we needed to bother him with this."

"It's a shame," said Tigress, "Master Shifu will be so upset by the theft of the Dragon Chalice. My sole comfort is that the Chalice is so unique, it's going to be really hard to fence."

"Well he's not around to worry about it, now is he?" asked Fenghuang a little bitterly.

"We should really get back to Po's training," said Viper.

"Come on Po," said Tigress as they walked towards the door, "We can't do too much today, but we need to get some things in before dinner."

The three stepped out into the hall and down close to the outside when Tigress stopped and turned to face Po.

"There's on other thing before we continue," she said softly.

"What's that?" he asked.

He was taken aback when Tigress hugged him tight with both arms, pushed him back into the wall, and planted a full and passionate kiss on his lips. All he could say was, "MMMPPPHHH?!" A few minutes passed as she kissed him with all of her feelings and heart. Viper blushed horribly as she looked away.

When she broke the kiss, she whispered into his ear, "I love you. Can you love me back?"

Viper slithered out into the Courtyard, leaving the two of them behind.

But Po was too stunned to reply. She let him go as she purred into his ear, "You don't have to answer now. Just take your time and think about it." With nothing holding him up, the Panda just fell face first into the floor below.