Thank you for all the review. Some reader had expressed concern about the fact that I paired Mei Mei x Po,
After reading this chapter, you'll soon find out that Po is already get together with Tigress (so called, 'courting'). The emphasis is more towards how much trust Tigress had on her other half, and towards her friend. Especially when she observe both of them sharing a secret she doesn't know about.
Also, I would recommend reading s/11914368/1/A-Tiger-s-journey it's a fab story and I planned to incorporate the author's OC in my story. As the titled said, the story revealed Tigress journey finding about her past, her race, finding inner peace, reconciled with her adopted father and comes to term with her love life. It's a must read :-)
Special thanks to son-goku5 for letting me incorporating his story in mine.
"Uhh... *pant* finally...*pant* I'm here...," Po's crooned under his breath as he threw himself inside the kitchen. After a few moment, he scanned through and found no one there.
'Wondered where everyone could be'. He cast his gaze beyond the kitchen window, the sky letting amazing red aura and the sun was just about to set behind the horizon.
"Oh man..., almost dinner time!'" He whined. As much as he enjoyed doing a culinary experience from producing to eating his own creation, today he wasn't in the mood. Although still in early spring, it had been exceptionally humid and hot, which didn't help one bit the fact that he needed to stay in stuffy kitchen almost in its entirety - started from making breakfast for the Five, helping his dad at the restaurant, and before he knew it he had to prepare dinner. He swore he would die on kitchen overdose. Not that he had much choice, if there were any irreplaceable skills that he had above and beyond compared to the rest of the Five, it would have to be cooking. The panda dragged himself gathering all the ingredients.
Fortunately, he just about to have a company. Monkey and Mantis jumped into the kitchen.
"Hi, Big Guy!"
"Hi, guys...!" He happily replied. Monkey jumped next to him, hovered beyond his shoulder trying to check on today's menu.
"Looks like steam buns and Secret Ingredient Soup, am I right?" The golden langur had memorized numerous ingredients from Po's infamous cooking repertoire that he could guess just by scanning on what type of vegetables Po's preparing.
"Way to go buddy, you getting good at this. At some point, you need to do the practical thing, not just the theory." He muttered while his hand still nimbly dancing around the chopping board. Monkey just snickered in reply.
"So, what's happen today while I'm gone?" asked the panda. He was hoping his comrades had a better, more adrenaline spiked day than he was. Not that he didn't like spending 'quality time' with his dad. What could be worse than spending your day of working in blazing heat? and he was a panda with renown thick coat of fur, working at sweltering hot kitchen, while outside was equally smoldering, in a place jumble packed with pigs, sheep, and goose, and not even get a chance to had a proper chat with his dad. He was wondering where the 'quality' might have gone.
"Mmm... day off, so Crane went to down the market with Viper." replied Mantis.
"With Viper? just two of them?" The other two in question gave a positive nod. A contented smiled appear on the bear's muzzle. "I knew it! Do you happen to know if... they... ventured and buy something?" He dug up further.
"Shifu asked them to do errands for him, he left the list by Crane's desk, which is a little bit odd," replied Monkey. Po just let a big gale of laughter. Suddenly it all clicked with Mantis. "Po, did you made up that shopping list and left it at Crane's desk?"
The bear froze, his eyes darted towards the kitchen door to make sure Crane nor Viper were not eavesdropping.
"Well, kind-da, yeah... I actually took Shifu's last week shopping list because it was my turn, I just change the dates and add notes to Crane and Viper." He professed, one paw rubbing the back of his head that was not itchy, the other paw still busy stirring the soup.
"Can't believe that wise Crane didn't actually pay attention on your sloppy handwriting on the dates and on his and Viper's name." snorted Monkey.
"Love is blind... or possibly makes people blind," Mantis added sarcastically.
"Guys...guys...what's important is they get a chance to be alone just two of them... No harm done." The panda defended the reason behind his 'prank'... no he meant 'plan'. The rest just scorned sardonically listening to his fabricated truth. However they did agree, although every one of them undoubtedly the most stupendous group of warriors in martial art and self defence, whom had vanquished numerous formidable foe and swept any sort of bandits by empty handed, when it came to a simple task asking a girl for a date - one might need to seek a divine intervention or... simply a prank pulled by a friend. Dare to say even the boys were certain Shifu himself incompetent for the task, no matter how many scroll, inner peace or amount of chi one might have.
"But I am rather worried about them." Monkey retorted truthfully.
"Why so?"
"Normally this kind of thing never ended well. Remember your first date with Tigress? We set up a bogus spar so she lost a bet against Viper and had to go on a date with you during the lunar festival, but end up badly because you met a bunch of overly eager fans that wanted to have an intimate moment with their idol." Po recollected how Tigress nearly skinned those girls alive for ruining her date, but at least he was secretly pleased she was that bit jealous.
"And then Monkey's date was turned upside down when Temutai army raided the restaurant."
"And your dad dating profile which mistakenly printed as obituary in the weekly paper".
"And we arranged Shifu on a blind date, and he punished us all to clean the Hall for a month for having to spend the evening with an elephant and water buffalo".
"And Viper's date with a cobra, who turned up as a plot to kidnap her."
"And your date with Song, which ended up she was a bandit."
But Po was not going to give up just yet. "Okay buds, I know what are you saying. But look at me, I am courting Master Tigress!" He proudly announced.
"Yeah Man, but it took you about six years to do that," Both of them snickered. "...and numerous trip down infirmary."
"So..., anything else happened today?" The panda changed the topics.
"Oh... Po, guess what, there is a new recruit joining us.." Monkey's voice was suddenly filled with excitement.
"And... is a she... a female! ...finally!" Mantis joined up. Po was pretending to be interested, he put down the ladle, and gradually made way to scoot over and sit with his friends.
"You would never guess who it is Po." Monkey whispered as if sharing a top secret.
"Try me..." The bear said.
"It's Mei Mei, the ribbon dancer from your hometown." The bear face literally lit up like a firework in a realization of her arrival. "Awesome...!" He jumped up and shuffled his feet in a silly dance. Monkey and Mantis look at each other suspiciously. They just didn't expect Po to be that excited to see Mei Mei.
"Po, do you realize that this is the same panda that had a crush on you some time ago?" Monkey tried to get a sense out of the bear.
"And... the fact that now you are courting Tigress." Mantis gave the bear a twisted look, almost spelling out 'Dude you are in trouble'.
"And... two of them sleep in the same room, for the next 3 month." He added. The boys figured Shifu must have been forcing Tigress to share her bedroom with Mei Mei.
"You must know your limit and never be over... y'know... friendly... to her, you can end up hurting both of them, physically or mentally. Either way, both ended badly." Monkey concluded.
Po stunned for a minute contemplating his friends' apprehension, was his friends being too unreasonably negative towards the whole Tigress-Mei Mei thing? He knew the grim risk of displeasing his girlfriend - which implied not only a serious chance being dumped also ended up in a hospital, and should he being careless Mei Mei might become another punching bag venting the feline anger.
"Look guys, there is nothing between me and Mei Mei. She had a crush on me long ago. I'm sure she had moved on. We are just a good friend, I am sure Tigress won't mind. I am just glad I had a chance to meet her again after years y'know." Po said firmly, meeting his friend's eyes.
"Well if you said so dude, we were just concerned. You said the same thing about Song when she returned back to the valley." Mantis reminded the Panda about the incident that happened last year.
Song was used-to-be-a-bandit-turn-to-good kind of girl that he befriended many years ago. She was attractive slender looking clouded leopard that used to lead a troupe of dancers, performing from village to village. When their friendship just blossomed, the light-spirited panda invited her for a meal at his dad as a friendly gesture - which she interpreted as a date.
Despite only one 'date', enough to spark the feeling of the clouded leopard to the kind hearted Dragon warrior. She was determined to change her ways and come back clean for him. So, after many years apart, she decided to return back to the valley, working as the helper at local coffee shop and determine to capture the Dragon Warrior's heart. However, time wasn't on her side as Po was already courting Master Tigress, to say the least, it didn't end up pretty when Tigress found out.
"Do you remember how outrageous Tigress was when you agree to meet Song in private?" Po cringed at the memory. He inwardly admitted he had made a wrong move disobeying his girlfriend request. He was just too naive to assume that Song looked at him as a friend and long had written off her crush on him. He thought it was safe to confront her in private, until she made a valiant move to 'nearly' kiss him. Thanks Oogway, Viper and Mantis were spying them after Tigress' outburst on Po's reckless decision. Mantis managed to paralyze the leopardess right on time.
"Po, Tigress threatened she'll break up with you if you let Song made advances on you. You were lucky I was there to prevent what's going to happen next." For once, Po knew the insect was right, and he wasn't even joking. Po took another long breath. No point in frustration he thought to himself. He had learned his lesson.
However, one thing he hadn't share with his comrades. He actually knew Mei Mei was coming to the Jade Palace to see him - in fact, he was the mastermind of their imminent reunion, but he had to pretend otherwise so others wouldn't know.
"So, what are you guys suggesting?" He sighed resigning the fact he was screwed for not thinking about this potential hurdle beforehand. Monkey and Mantis looked at each other.
"Po, you are more expert on this. But I think if you asked me, I would say honesty is the best policy." Po threw an incredulous look. He bit his tongue, he wasn't prepared to drop this long, sophisticated plan, all his life he had been waiting for this.
But how could he convince Tigress to allow him speaking privately with Mei Mei? As if that not a big enough problem, living with a bunch of kung fu masters who were credulous in stealth mode would impose another threat of being pried upon. His arduous train of thought was immediately brought to a halt when Zheng appeared on the kitchen door.
"Master Po, Shifu wanted to talk to you in the Hall of Heroes."
'Ah, Master Shifu! why didn't I think of him before!'
"I am coming,Zheng." Po asked Monkey to watch the soup, as he strode towards the Hall.
Tigress ran in all four trying to catch up with the other two female to the bath house. She saw both of them entering the enclosure from a distance. She turned to a halt, musing her thought again. 'What if Mei Mei is seriously pursuing Po? but why now? Probably she wasn't aware that Po is courting me? But she is the one that encouraging me to express my feeling to Po.'
The two girls were stripping up their clothes. The steam from the tubs created some sort of natural barrier among their nudity. Not that any of them care. Tigress was following a pace behind them. But she decided not to reveal herself yet. She waited as she heard a splashing sound and a giggle from the two. With her cat hearing, she could overhear their conversation from the changing room.
"So, I heard from Mr. Ping you are quite a legendary ribbon dancer in the village," stated Viper. Mei Mei let a high pitch giggle. "Oh, of course, no other panda dancer as beautiful, agile, attractive, and full of appetite as me." She replied playfully. "Once I danced and you'll be enthralled, you won't be able to look away." She chuckled deviously.
"How about yourself?" the panda reciprocated.
"Uhm... I am an ex-ribbon dancer, I hardly had the courage to dance again." She replied shyly.
"I hardly had time to practice dancing when I arrived in Jade Palace, and now I've lost my confidence to perform in front of others." The snake admitted. Mei Mei felt sorry for the snake. "Hey, we could perform a mini performance together, probably you'll feel less intimidated?" A strike of smile graced her red lips. "That's sweet of you Mei Mei."
"So, what's with Dragon Warrior this past two years?" Mei Mei prompted the snake. Viper not sure whether she should mention about Po and Tigress knowing that Mei Mei had a crush on the Dragon Warrior previously. After a long, long moment of pondering, she concluded to mentioned the matter subtly.
"The Dragon warrior is very well, Po is very busy with his newly appointed position as late Master Oogway's successor, but thankfully Tigress helped him organizing his agenda. Sticking to schedule and planning are not Po's strongest traits. It does help to have a partner who is as tactful, insightful and meticulous as Tigress." She spelled out, with the hope Mei Mei paying enough attention to what she said.
"Wait, did you say partner? are they...a couple now?" Viper smirked, the panda had fallen on her ploy. "Yes, not long after defeating Kai, they went on a mission to Xinan, and that just help to seal the deal. So nearly two years now." the snake elaborated.
"Oh... that's good news." The panda smiled sincerely. Right, then Viper was less worried that that Mei Mei would cause a turmoil between Tigress and Po.
"As for you, what brought you here?" Viper changed her topic, she had been wondering why a feminine princessy girl like Mei Mei would ever be interested in art kung fu.
"Here?...to take a bath?" Mei Mei said incredulously. Viper mentally face-tailed (yeap sorry, she got no palm!) herself. "No I mean here… as in Jade Palace." Mei Mei discerned her misunderstanding quickly replaced her answer.
"To learn kung fu of course. When Po went to learn to master chi, he taught me to use nunchucks, and I love it since. It's almost like ribbon dancing with danger!" She giggled. The news about her dangerous dance did arrive in Jade Palace when Po told them how Mei Mei mastered nun-chuck in just one night, earning her a title 'Nunchuck Princess'.
"Wow, no one would have guessed... I mean you are all dainty and such." Viper stuttered.
"I know, isn't that even better?" Viper can't help but laugh imagining Mei Mei prancing around in her pink-red robe with ribbon and nun-chuck, sweeping bandits off their feet, literally. Little did she knew that image wasn't just an overblown figment of her imagination, it was actually happened before the panda defeating Kai two years ago.
"But Mei Mei, why now suddenly you decide to come and learn kung fu, why not last year? or even earlier? I mean, two years is a long time to wait." Viper questioned her. The bear tensed, she clearly not prepared to answer such question. Viper had caught her off guard, she fidgeted awkwardly, and drove her brain to find a good excuse.
If one knew, the panda was certainly not a race that excelled in tactical planning or as scheming as cunning as others. Probably innocency and unsophistication more of their forte, that was besides being cuddly and hungry. After a long, long moment of tension and the pandiva still didn't utter a word, in fact, she was still silently twiddling her finger and looking at bubbles around her. Viper made her next move, she wanted to confirm her initial suspicion that Mei Mei didn't keep certain feeling for Po.
"So… coming here had something to do with… meeting Po again?" The serpent winked making the panda fidget a little. To her surprise, Mei Mei gave her rather a straight answer. "Yes, It's been awhile since the last I saw him." She chortled.
"You had a crush on him, don't you? I heard about you tried to woo him with your dance move in the Panda village." Viper scrutinized the panda, whom quickly avoid her glare and started to fret. But she quickly appended in reassurance."Don't worry I won't tell Tigress. You have a right to like Po…. he is pretty cute, kind, handsome and full of…. say…. awesomeness!" Viper mimic the way Po's speak.
The panda eyes widened, "W-what? Wait! That came out wrong!" She just realized her sentences had become a double-edged sword, swiftly attempting correction. "I mean not for Po in that sense you are thinking about." She thought hard how to amend what she said without revealing the real purpose why she was here.
Then the panda sighed, giving Viper forlorn stare. Then she scanned her surrounding, checking there is no one there. She ducked down a little and move closer to Viper, holding up her paw between the snake's ears and whispered like she was admitting a serious crime. Viper scooted over obediently, coiled into more comfortable position next to Mei Mei.
"Look Viper, I actually come here for Po - but not in romantic sense. And the whole training kung fu thing was just a... decoy." She stuttered. Viper hardly believed her ears.
"I am here... on a mission." Mei Mei just smiled inwardly watching Viper flabbergasted feature. "Promise me you won't tell anyone... especially Tigress." She added, still keeping her voice low. "I am sorry I can't tell you more, but I am sure you'll find out sooner or... -"
Unbeknownst to them Tigress was listening to the whole conversation, except for the bit whereby Mei Mei starting to whisper. She decided she had heard enough and about to join the rest of them. She stepped in by the tub and cleared her throat loud enough to win the attention of the others.
"...uh hi Tigress." Mei Mei stammered. She was praying to gods that Tigress hadn't heard whatever she explicated, especially the last 3 sentences.
"You're finally here, we were wondering where were you." Viper smiled. Tigress offered a small tug on her lips but said nothing.
Mei Mei decided now was the time to stamp her pandiva charm on the situation and talked about something else completely unrelated. "So tell me, how Po was chosen as Dragon Warrior?"
"He fell from the sky in a fireball," Viper answered coolly.
Tigress failed to understand why people loved to glamorize the epic entrance of the Dragon Warrior. "Po actually sat on a chair mounted with a dozen of fireworks. Only heavens knew what he was thinking." The tiger butting in tonelessly.
Being a kung fu fanboy, Po obviously couldn't miss watching his heroine crowned the most coveted title of Dragon Warrior, unbeknownst to him that he had crushed her heroine dream. "He was desperate to see Tigress, it was her turn to do demonstrate the move". Viper snickered impishly. The tiger flushed and screeched bluntly. "Shut up!" The snake just giggled gleefully seeing her reaction. "Sister, Po is courting you now, it's just a matter of time before he asks your hand in marriage…. you don't need to shy over this kind of fluff. It's public secret by now."
"You are impossible." Tigress glare dagger at the snake while crossing her arms in front of her chest defiantly. The snake just shook it off.
For the next ten minutes, all three female just chatted casually about things around Jade Palace. Mei Mei asking about everyone's hobby and favorite food and favorite color (Tigress wondered whether all panda would ask her the same thing) - of course with the occasional teasing over Tigress' love life.
Suddenly Tigress' ears twitch. She heard a flapping sound coming from behind the wall.
"Zheng, is that you?" she was secretly relieved. She might find excuses to leave, to be alone with her thoughts. Tigress never felt comfortable being vexed over her love life, even when whatever Viper say pretty much is true.
"Yes, Master Tigress… Master Shifu is expecting you in Hall of Heros before dinner." The goose shouted from behind the wall.
"Tell him I am coming in five minutes. Thank you, Zheng".
"Seems like I have to make a move girls, enjoy your time". With that, she ascended and grabbed her towel, drying herself real quick, wore her qipao and briskly made an exit.
"Is she always been like that?" Mei mei raised her eyebrows and threw a glance at the serpent.
Viper nodded. "Tigress is always the solitary kind."
"But having Po had kept her balance. Before Po came she was always distant, cold, stoic and lose her temper so easily over things. Po used to suffer quite a bit of beating up over small little mistakes." Viper chortled remembering the Dragon warrior would be kicked down the Thousand Steps for accidentally fell on Tigress in an awkward position during sparring.
"Po must love her so much that he doesn't mind being a punching bag". Mei mei chuckled.
"Yeah, it was much worse when he just joined us at the palace, no one, not even me, believed that Po had what it takes to be the Dragon Warrior - he didn't know kung fu and didn't have quite the figure we had imagined a kung fu legend would be. We resented him so much, Shifu even put him on a nasty training regime to make him leave."
"Seems like you guys had a prejudice against panda huh?" Mei mei snickered playfully. Viper laughed in return. "Well, yeah but Tigress did open up more now, she was actually the one who offered to share a room with you. Even I can't believe my ears."
"She did?" Mei Mei beamed.
Viper couldn't help but smile. Mei Mei's response had woken up her warm memories of Po when he first joined them, her truthfulness and cordially warm persona.
"I guess I need to start writing my own obituary just in case I didn't make the whole three months." She said jokingly. Mei Mei knew that Tigress might not be the friendliest - but her loyalty to her friends are out of questions. Both of them giggled.
"Now let's get dressed, Po would be waiting for us to have dinner with the rest."
Tigress strode slowly to the Hall. There were hundreds of things going on her mind. Was Mei Mei telling the truth about her engagement dress? Was that blue box was accidentally being packed as well? Seemed hard to believe someone would accidentally pack two things at once. And why she said she had come here to see Po? what if the whole "learning kung fu" thing was just a ploy?
But, Tigress's intuition signaled that Mei Mei wasn't a threat. Unlike Po's previous love interest, Mei Mei didn't seem ever said anything but the truth, she came clean about her betrothal to Po, and she even went as far as inconveniently dropping it to Tigress' benefit. And unlike Song, Mei Mei didn't come across as aggressive or intimidating, in fact she was gentle and kind, probably a bit too flirty - which made it impossible to dislike her - or plausibly because Tigress had grown a soft spot for pandas. Tigress knew her mistrustful approach served like double edged sword. She distrusted Song and she turned to be a thief, while Lu Shi turned to work for Jun-Jie, but she knew she was mistaken about a certain someone; made her questioned about her judgment - and whether she would do the same mistake with Mei Mei.
But one thing Tigress knew for sure, the only reason why Po would see Mei Mei as more suitable mate because... she was a panda. And there was nothing that Tigress could do to change that, no amount of training, time spent she spent together with Po on missions or learning numerous scroll would have helped her in any way. She sighed. 'There is no accident, I guess only time will tell'.