He was late, so so late, he had woken up well after four o'clock, and the only reason he didn't sleep longer was because Crane had woken up and he had heard Po's snoring, which reminded him that the Panda should have been training on the field a long time ago. After being woken up by Crane, Po had panicked and now he was running as fast as he could as if there was a bloodthirsty monster chasing his shadow. When he finally arrived at the doors to the training grounds, he could only pray that he hadn't ruined his chance to train with Master Tigress.

His arms felt as limp as boiled noodles as he pushed open those giant wooden doors, and his breathing was so fast from running that he felt light-headed. He placed one of his paws on his chest, quickly trying to catch his breath as he entered the training grounds, his gaze searching, ready to meet an angry tiger, but to Po's surprise, there was no one there. The whole training area was quiet and lifeless, all the training tools were exactly where they had been left the night before.

The doors slowly closed behind him, and Po stepped forward, looking around at areas that seemed downright ghostly with all the silence and emptiness. The sun had risen a little, but not enough to bring full light, the ground and the air were still cold as night, and a light mist still hung in the air. Chills ran through the panda's body, he didn't like the silence, and also the reason why the silence was here.

'I'm so late that Master Tigress has already left,' he thought to himself disappointedly, 'Goodbye master's title! Maybe we'll see each other someday when stupid me learns to wake up on time!'

Po was ready to turn around and go back to the student barracks when suddenly something ran through behind him, he couldn't see who or what it was but he could hear and feel the air moving. He hopped around, looking at the area behind him, but all he could see was an empty training field, and the tacky training dummy that had taunted him on his first day. The old training doll stood there, it's painted eyes and crooked smile haunting Po, staring at him like prey.

Po's eyes narrowed, "Our paths cross again, Dummy!" he took a step closer, bringing one of his fists forward and the other hand above his head, ready to attack, "Are you thirsty for my fist again? Didn't get enough last time?" he glared at the old dummy in front of him, as if giving the dummy time to respond, but as it said nothing, Po continued, "You've been waiting for this, haven't you? I sure have. So, let's stop this dance fo waiting, IT'S TIME TO FIGHT!" he ran forward, his eyes boring into the dummy, a loud and mocking war cry escaping from his mouth, he was ready to whip, give that pesky dummy a good beating...

Did he run past it?

He stopped as fast as he could and looked behind him, the dummy was not where it had been before, but now, it's hard painted gaze was looking at him from the other end of the field.

"Wow, you're quick for a sandbag," Po praised the dummy before he started hopping from one foot to the other, warming himself up for his next attack, "Okay Dummy-Lunny, try to avoid this!" he ran towards the sand filled dummy again, jumping up and delivering a powerful roundhouse kick to it's center, but when his foot reached the point where it should have touched the dummy, there was nothing but empty air, "What the..." and as Po turned once more, he saw now that same training dummy grinning at him at the training court doors, "How do you do that? Are...are you hunted?" he looked around for white robed ghosts floating in the air in the gentle sunlight, dancing their ghostly dance in the early morning fog, but he saw nothing, no one...except this dapper dummy of course.

He raised his arms again, into his signature attack stance, he slid his right leg into a more comfortable starting position, he was ready, it was the last time he will be laughed at by this dummy!

He was engrossed, so focused on his target that he didn't notice anything else, not until suddenly, he was startled out of his stance, "If this was a battle, you'd be dead five times already," Po jumped and turned around, tripping over his own feet and landing on his back on the gravel ground.

As his fear filled eyes looked up, he expected to see a ghost, but instead he was met with the glowing amber eyes of Master Tigress, and for some reason his fear did not escape him.

"M-master T-Tigress?!?"

"Your concentration is lacking, you pay all your attention to things that don't pose a threat to you, and you don't notice things that would actually endanger you or, in some other situation, your teammates and those you were supposed to protect. You only focused on the dummy moving, not the reason why it moved or who moved it. If it was a battle, the dummy would be the bait and I would have been an armed opponent, and you...you would have been a pool of blood on the ground, and it would not have been a heroic death, but the death of a fool who didn't look at his surroundings," Tigress' arms were crossed, and although she looked extremely disappointed, you couldn't hear it in her voice, instead it was the same cold tone that Po was already used to hearing.

He pushed himself up from the ground, quickly bowing to the master, "I apologize for being late,"

"I didn't think for a second that you would make it here on time," Tigress replied, and Po nodded in understanding because of course, of course she had known that," But from now on, I expect you to make it here on time,"

"Of course, Master Tigress," Po quickly replied, happy to be given another chance," So what are we doing today? Burning obstacle course? Weapon training? Oh, maybe you can teach me how to deflect arrows or...or how you moved unseen or maybe..."

"We are doing slow training today," Tigress replied, walking past Po, heading to the back of the training hall building.

Po's brow furrowed and he hurried after the tiger, "Slow training?"

"This is a training method that tests your patience and ability to sustain your movement. You will go through a hundred and one Kung Fu moves, all as slowly as candle burning, you must not stop with your moves until the entire candle has stopped burning. If you miss a move or do it too fast, I'll replace the candle and you'll start over."

"Ho...how long will this candle take to burn out?" the panda asked worriedly.

Tigress had disappeared around the corner of the house, and Po picked up his pace to catch up with her, and when he reached the back of the training hall, he was met with a different outdoor training area that he hadn't been to before, it was a smaller and narrower area with no nothing but old broken training equipment, and half of the training hall's obstacle course that Tigress had destroyed the day before. Why they will be training here?

"Answer to your question number two," Tigress said without looking at him," You train here so you don't disturb the five's training and so they don't ruin yours. Monkey already tried to convince me to come watch your training. If you want to develop in the right direction, you have to focus. Before you can focus with the difficult surroundings around you, you must learn to focus only with the surroundings that are inside your own head. And the answer to your question number one," she finally turned around and Po noticed a long candle on an old table next to her, "This candle burns for three hours,"

"Th...three...THREE HOURS!"

"You better turn your concentration and patience up and your impatience down. Focus only on your task,"

Po took a second to think about it, and he convinced himself that he could do it. Three hours, it's not that bad, three hours to do 101 Kung Fu moves, that means each pose has to last just under two minutes, it's...it's agony...AGONY THAT HE IS WILLING TO EXPERIENCE! The only concern...

"Umm, Master Tigress, what...what are the 101 moves?"

He could have sworn he saw a smirk on Tigress's lips that lasted only a second before she rolled her eyes and picked up a scroll from the table, throwing it at Po, "Scroll 34, I thought you'd already worked through it,"

"I did," Po replied with pride before that pride sank and he added, "I...I just didn't memorize everything,"

"You should have," was all Tigress replied before leaning her weight against the rubble as if waiting for Po to quickly finish reading the scroll.

This put pressure on Po, he read the scroll faster, staring at the pictures painted on it of a sheep making these movements, showing each end position.

He concentrated so hard that his eyes misted up and empty words started echoing in his head, 'Focus, focus, focus...umm is that the smell of bean bun? Wait, no, focus, FOCUS,'

While Po was reading, Tigress was regretting all the decisions she had made in her life, she could already tell from the look on the panda's face and the way his tongue was sticking out from between his teeth that he wasn't concentrating, and if anyone asked him anything now, he probably wouldn't be able to tell them the first step of the exercise or not even his own name. This panda's attention span was shorter than that of a child's, and Tigress already felt like just punching him in the face every time his eyes darted away from the words, and his look betrayed that a new thought had popped into his head. She took a deep breath, held it for a moment, then exhaled again, an old method she had learned to lower her fiery temper. She had known that this was going to be probably the most frustrating month of her life, but how could she say no when her team, her sister and brothers expected her to do this, how could she not train this panda when Master Oogway had asked her to do it in his last moments, how could she not do it when it seemed to make Master Shifu happy.

Yesterday had been a day full of crazy changes, she wasn't good with change, she always had a routine that she followed like a law, it said when she woke up, when and how much she ate, when, how much and how hard she trained, and how long or how short was her sleep, everything was always unchanged in her routine. The only changes were the missions, which didn't happen often as few dared to threaten the Valley or China when the infamous furious five were there to thwart all their evil plans. But now everything had changed, and these changes were intruding themselves into her routine, and...and not all of these changes were bad.

Tigress can't even remember the last time she felt as calm, as happy as when she and Master Shifu had sat together under the peach tree yesterday. Silence buried them as they sat there meditating, the only sounds around them being the slow breathing of both of them and the peach blossoms playing in the wind, flying around them. They hadn't spoken a word, not since leaving the training hall, and while Tigress wished he had said something, she also enjoyed the silence. Silence is better than disappointment, better than anger and frustration. It was calm, she felt calm, not in peace, she was very far from it, but calm in a way she hadn't felt in so long that she couldn't even remember it.

She will train that panda if it makes Shifu happy, if it makes Shifu happy with her.

"You're not concentrating," Tigress' dead serious voice echoed in Po's ears.

"I'm trying," he replied, "These words seem to run away from me, they are too cowardly, too cowardly for me to read them, for me to learn their secrets,"

"You have read it before,"

"Not with a thought!"

She was so close to hitting him, how Shifu managed to stay calm with him was a mystery to her," Just think of these movements, they are in a logical order, put together for a smooth and efficient movement. Visualize them quickly as if you were doing them normally, and then turn the speed down. These moves are in Master Shifu's initial training plan, you've probably done them, but at a fast pace, now slow down,"

It sounded simple, but Po doubted that it really was, nothing was ever easy for him. But still he looked at the scroll again, now focusing on what Tigress had said, looking at those movements with a new eye now.

"You're right!" he said animatedly as he noticed a familiar pattern in those movements.

Slowly he reviewed them again, now thinking about the training he had done with Shifu and the things he already knew. It was all there.

Over the next few minutes, Po read through all of these moves over and over again, playing their pattern in his head as images, piecing them together with the memories of the training he had had. Finally feeling that he was ready, he walked over to the table and placed the scroll on it before stepping back to find a place where he would have enough space. After breathing in and out a few times, he closed his eyes and nodded his head, and when he smelled the faint smell of burning candle, he began, stretching his movements as slow as he could. Concentration was difficult because of moving so slowly, every mistake was visible, and he had a lot of time to make mistakes and to lose his concentration.

"Again," Tigress's voice rang out and Po's eyes popped open.

"What?"

"Start again," Tigress repeated, extinguishing the candle with two of her fingers and then pulling a new one from the box under the table," Your leg was in the wrong position during your lower stance, your knee should be pointing more to the right instead of straight ahead. Again,"

And so he did, and once again he didn't get very far because at about the twentieth pose, Tigress stopped him, telling him to start again and again. He had no idea how many hours he had been there by the time he finally reached the end of the routine and he breathed a sigh of relief, opening his eyes to see...a candle that wasn't even halfway through melting.

"Good job, you did it in seven minutes," Tigress stated, "Now slow it down so it takes you three hours,"

This part was even worse than getting all the hundred and one moves right, the slowness was painful to his muscles, his arms felt like they were on fire, all his limbs felt so heavy after trying for a short time, and...heck how many candles Tigress has? And how many times can she say 'Again' before she gets bored? After a while, Po heard voices talking, but he didn't open his eyes to look at them, nor did he open his mouth to answer them.

"Oh, you made him do the slow torture," Mantis' voice was heared, there was a clear smirk in his voice.

"Wait, you're using those little candles?" Monkey's voice was the next to come in, "Wow, you're very merciful to him, I thought you would use the bigger ones,"

The talk of bigger candles scared Po's eyes open, breaking his concentration, "Bigger candles?"

"Yeah, Shifu once made us do the same task with candles that burned for twelve hours," Crane explained, looking at the utterly terrified look on the panda's face.

"T-twelve hours? Wha...how did you do that?"

"Oh, most of us couldn't," Monkey replied, "Actually, there was only one of us who could," and without Po having to follow his gaze, he knew who he was looking at, but still, Po turned his gaze to Tigress who had just put a new candle on the table and looked strangely amused, like she was more than ready to watch Po suffer for at least the next three hours.

"Again," she said.

And Po obeyed, closing his eyes and starting over. He wasn't sure if the other five were still there or if they had already left, his focus was now completely on his own body, on how much it hurt right now to be exact.

No matter how hard he tried, the pain finally got the better of him, and as if a blessing from a god answering a prayer for help, Tigress finally said, "You may stop, Dragon Warrior,"

No one had to tell him that twice, as soon as these words reached his ears he fell down motionless, fatigue drowning him under it's own great weight and tension, as if he was a rock being swallowed by the weight of the sea and carried deeper and deeper to the bottom.

He breathed, deep and tired, his voice half dead as he finally asked, "How long...what time is it?"

"We've been here for nine hours," Tigress answered him, gathering up all the candles, none of which were even close to burning out completely.

"I...I failed..." came a frustrated whisper that surprised the tiger.

She turned around, staring at the tired panda lying on the grass, he looked like he couldn't even move a single muscle, as if his whole body was in burning pain, but the most obvious emotion was the intense disappointment he carried when he looked at these not-so melted candles.

"You will not master it in one training, it takes time," she said, continuing to clean.

"That's the point! I don't have time!" Po tried to raise his hands to show his frustration but couldn't, they were completely dead after nine hours of slow torture.

"There are worse things than not getting your title,"

For some reason, those words sounded very emotional, despite Tigress's voice not being emotional. Po tried to raise his head, but by the time he got it up enough to see anything, Tigress had already walked past him.

"That's enough for today, we'll continue tomorrow," and Po didn't have a chance to answer her before she was already gone from Po's hazy horizon.

He sighed and let his head fall to the ground again. It fell more painfully than he would have liked, but he was too tired to care. Kung Fu training was painful, tiring and very often agony, but oh how much worth it, because soon he will maybe be just as fierce as the five.

—

Who could have believed that patience is such an impossible thing to master. Three long days, Po spent trying to get through this three hour candle melting speed training routine, after three days he finally did it, and oh how happy he was that he had been able to do it. His limbs felt like a ton of weight, and there was so much discomfort in his muscles. These had definitely been the worst days of his life, and somehow, looking at Tigress, he believed that this was just the beginning.

And that was the truth. This was only the beginning of Po's torment as his next lesson was discipline, and for that Tigress made him perform the same task, this time with weights attached to his wrists.

He couldn't do it, after three days of torturing his body he couldn't, there was no way, and he said it to Tigress, whose response had been, "You need to learn discipline for yourself, do it or don't do it, it's up to you, Dragon Warrior,"

He didn't do it that day, nor the day after that, nor the next three days after that, he tried, he really tried, but he couldn't, and he stopped after some trial and error. Every time he stopped, Tigress told him to meditate, told him to think through why he couldn't do it, to understand what was holding him back. Meditation was the rest and relief his abused body needed, but it didn't help him find answers that satisfied Tigress.

"It's the pain that holds me back," he had told her, "I can't stop the pain!"

"Maybe, but you can choose how you react to it,"

At times it seemed to Po that Tigress wasn't quite mentally healthy, the way she dealt with pain and training was scary to think about and even scarier to watch. What had she done to gain such discipline against all this? How had she managed to gain so much control over the sensations in her body? A part of Po wished he could do that too, but another part not so much.

Discipline seems to come with a price to pay.

"I'm tired," he had said next, hoping that maybe that would be an answer that would make her happy.

"Then choose more wisely what to focus your energy on,"

Yeah, that was for sure, she was crazy. CRAZY AWESOME!

The more Po spent training with her, the more respect he gained for her. Everything she did to herself, she did to be strong to protect others. She was selfless, sacrificing everything to make herself the perfect warrior who could protect those who didn't have the strength to do so. This was extremely honorable and something Po greatly looked up to. Tigress always put the needs of others before herself, giving her absolute all. She did it all for others.

"Discipline is not just your obedience to your master," she explained after Po's repeated failures, "It is obedience to yourself, to your goals, to where you want to go. You can't give up as soon as one setback comes. Discipline is how you don't give up and keep going no matter how much you fail. When those dominoes fall, you put them back up, when your opponent hits you, you get up and step forward to hit them back, when your arms can't carry the weight anymore..."

"You try harder!" Po finished, feeling renewed motivation.

She was good at that, at motivating. Despite not talking much, she was good with her words when she chose to speak. You couldn't be more professional than her, as she was the living meaning of the word professionalism, a living example of discipline, patience, confidence, courage and...probably also compassion somewhere behind that mask of hers.

Po wasn't sure if the training was getting worse or easier each day. Maybe his body was getting used to it? Or maybe Mantis' acupuncture skills really were that good.

It was one of the usual nights after training, and Po was once again sitting on the kitchen floor, Mantis' beloved needles stuck all over his body. It had become a daily tradition, as without Mantis' help, Po doubted he would physically be able to get himself up the next morning otherwise.

"It's funny," Mantis said suddenly, the first words anyone had said in several minutes.

"What's funny?" Po asked, trying to turn his head towards the insect, but he couldn't see it as Mantis was somewhere on Po's back out of his sight.

"Oh, nothing," came the insect's reply, but Po believed that something else would come soon, and not too long after, there was an additional reply," So...whose training is worse? Shifu's or Tigress'?"

"They are...similar?" was what Po decided to answer," Master Tigress is a little tougher, but she doesn't yell as much as Shifu, she...I don't understand what emotion she has, she just has that hardcore Master Tigress face constantly on the face,"

Mantis smirked at that, "Yeah, the last time we saw her smile was like umm...five? Seven years ago? I'm not even sure anymore,"

Po wanted to ask as much, but he knew Mantis wouldn't give him an answer, so he decided not to waste his words. And not too long later, the rest of the Five came into the kitchen as well, and to Po's surprise, Tigress was with them.

"Hi, guys," Po said to them with a smile, receiving tired smiles from the three members of the five, "Hard training day?"

"Yeah, Master Shifu must have been in a bit of a bad mood today," said Crane, his straw hat close to falling off his head.

"Oh, Tigress, nice to have you here," Mantis said, jumping on top of Po's head," What do you think, would you be willing to be my test patient? I read in a scroll about a specific nerve point that could help me figure out this nerve strike thing,"

"And I thought you were actually happy to see me," Tigress replied with death seriousness, and Mantis' mouth immediately began to open and close as if his nerves had gotten the best of him and he had lost the ability to speak," Take it easy, I was just kidding. And sure, I'm up to it,"

"Sweet, let me finish with the big guy and then we can begin,"

Tigress gave him a small nod and sat down at the table, "You trying to learn nerve attacks?"

"It seems to be useful, and since my fighting style is already quite close to them, so I thought, heck, if Shifu doesn't teach us them, I'll find a way to figure them out myself."

The tiger's eyes narrowed slightly at this, but she said nothing. The other five also sat down at the table, starting to have their own conversation where Monkey whined about how cruel Shifu had been today, and Viper and Crane tried to offer explanations as to why their Master had been in a bad mood today.

"Did his inner peace go away?" Monkey said with fear, "I don't want old Shifu back,"

"Maybe he just slept badly," Viper offered.

They made a few more offers before Crane decided to ask, "Tigress, you and Shifu have been meditating together a lot these past few days, has…has he said anything to you?"

She turned her gaze towards him, her brow slightly furrowed, "We don't talk when we meditate."

"Even you don't know anything then?" Monkey asked.

The five looked at their leader and even Po's curiosity got the better of him. He wasn't quite sure that he understood the current situation as he hadn't even seen Shifu for the past three days, but from five's story he had understood that Shifu had been out of his mind and in an extremely bad mood for two days. Monkey had said that it was as if the old and cold Master Shifu was back, and the more cheerful and calm master had just been a good dream.

After a silence that seemed to last forever, Tigress finally answered Monkey's earlier question, "He's not calm when he meditates. He was at first, but every time he gets more tense and can't meditate calmly. I think there is something on his mind, but he doesn't say anything,"

"Why don't you just ask him?" Po asked, receiving several surprised looks, "If you're worried about him, wouldn't it be best to just ask him so you know how to help him?"

"You don't know him," Tigress said, not aggressively but the tone of her voice sounded aggressive.

"What Tigress means is that Shifu never talks about such things, even when we ask he ignores it," Viper explained," But," she turned her gaze to Tigress with a small hopeful smile," maybe you could try, Ti? Next time he invites you to meditate, you might try asking him,"

Tigress glared at her as if Viper's words were in a language she didn't understand, "I can try," she said very uncertainly which seemed so out of character, as if the thought of talking to Shifu made her anxious.

Which of course Po thought was ridiculous since hey, it's Master Tigress! It must have been the lighting in the kitchen, the shadows of which made Po see wrong. Because he refused to believe that Tigress could actually be anxious.

Suddenly Po felt a very strong sting in his back, and it brought his thoughts back to the present, he whimpered in pain, raising his hand to rub the painful spot but Mantis slapped it away, "Don't touch!"

After that, all the conversation had died down, and they just sat in silence, enjoying the peaceful evening. Crane made tea, offering it to everyone, and most agreed. Not too long later, Mantis stopped poking Po with the needles, and he moved on to his next victim, who seemed far more indifferent to the needles than the panda before her. Mantis immediately seemed much more alive and excited as if it was something he wanted to do for a long time, but couldn't find anyone to be his guinea pig.

While Mantis began to explain to Tigress more precisely what he was going to do and what muscles and nerves he was trying to find in her arm, Po finally decided to start cooking dinner. After a very long argument with the palace chefs, he had won the right to be in charge of the dinner himself. It had been one very long argument and a promise to Master Shifu that he would follow a healthy diet and not poison the five with unhealthy stuff. Most of the five were extremely happy for this change, they had never dared to say anything, but they were sick to death of the monotonous cooking of the palace chefs. However, Po only cooked for five people as Tigress and Shifu both didn't eat the food he prepared, Po wasn't sometimes even sure if Shifu actually ate, if he hadn't seen him eat on those few rare occasions he would believe that he only lives on the energy of meditation and of Kung Fu scented air. And with Tigress, Po had two theories, the first one was that she hates him and won't eat the food he makes out of pure disgust for him, and theory number two is that she's an extremely picky eater, like really, really picky, as Po had only seen her eating tofu and drinking tea during these past months his been there.

"Let me know when it feels wrong," Mantis said, sticking the first needle into Tigress' arm, the Tiger gave the insect a look with narrowed eyes, upon which Mantis seemed to remember something," Sorry, of course, you can't tell me that. That's fine, I...I hope I'm just not screwing anything up,"

"Like last time you made her arm twitch endlessly?" Crane said, the look on his face and the worry in his eyes clearly betraying that there was some sort of trauma behind his words.

"Crane has a point," Tigress turned a warning look to her insect teammate," Don't do that again!"

"Easy, Ti, I know what I'm doing!" Mantis argued, jabbing the stinging needle into the tiger's hand, her hand gave a sudden jerk that startled Mantis' heart to a stop, "SHIT," his eyes were huge with panic, he quickly began to scan where he had stuck the needle, looking once at her hand and once at the open scroll lying on the table that showed the nervous system of mammals, "Wait," he studied the drawing more carefully before the confusion completely swallowed him, "There is no such nerve that could have... HEY. .." he jumped around, pointing one of his forelegs accusingly at Tigress," YOU EVIL THING! You faked it!"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," she replied seriously, no one would ever be able to read it from her face that she was lying, but her team knew, they always did.

"Good one," Monkey laughed, raising his hand as if expecting a high five, but when it didn't happen, he lowered his hand, clearly disappointed but not at all surprised.

Mantis continued with his work, muttering in hushed tones at Tigress' wickedness for scaring him like this. Po had a soft smile on his lips as he stood with his back to the five just chopping some vegetables. For the first time in months, he felt like he was seeing the real five. All the members of this legendary team were here, being their honest selves, interacting with each other in a way Po had never seen before. He had seen most of them interact with each other like this, but it was new to see Tigress' dynamic in this mix. It was...new but definitely extremely awesome. SHE WAS JOKING! In her own way, but still! And Po couldn't help but wonder if it was the Tigress the others had mentioned earlier. The one who spent time with them and interacted with them. Was this a small sign that she is coming back and if so what has caused it?

"So...Shifu is trying to hang out with you?" Viper's words filled the room, and everyone could physically feel Tigress's eyes rise up to her.

"What are you getting at?" her look was suspicious but it seemed that she actually knew exactly what Viper was talking about.

"It's great that you two are hanging out,"

Tigress sighed, rolling her eyes, but she didn't say anything, and it wasn't sure if it was because she didn't want to or because she didn't know how to. And when everyone knew that this was another conversation that had died and would not be continued, Monkey decided to come up with a joke that one of the servants of the palace had told him.

By the time Po had finished his soup, Monkey had told them about how one of the palace geese was supposedly divorcing his wife and how they had a very messy divorce process involving a very large collection of spoons that both parties wanted. Panda, who was extremely interested in this story and was listening to it with great interest, had just filled five bowls of soup and was balancing them on his hands, he had begun his short journey to the table, when suddenly something appeared under his feet, unbeknownst to Po, he had failed to notice a single onion that had fallen out of the bag and was now sitting alone on the floor ready to fulfill its mission of making the Dragon Warrior fall. Before anyone could do anything to save him, Po screamed, tripping face-first to the floor, sending all five bowls of soup into flying.

Monkey and Mantis both flinched at the noise, while Crane only covered his face with his hat to avoid getting hit with the hot soup.

Viper was the first to leave her chair, going over to Po worriedly, "Are you okay, dear?"

"Yeah," the panda replied as he sat up from the ground, one of his paws touching his chin, which he had hit painfully into the floor, "I'm fine...the kitchen, not so much," he added, looking around the kitchen, most of which was covered with soup and noodles.

Suddenly a completely frantic voice of Monkey yelled," HOLY SWORD, TIGRESS?!?"

"What?" Tigress asked as she turned her head towards the primate, she looked like she was absolutely unconcerned by what had happened and rather resentful that Monkey had spoken to her at this point.

"THERE'S A NEEDLE THROUGH YOUR ARM!"

At these words, everyone's eyes were quickly on Tigress' left hand that Mantis had been working on, and when Tigress raised her hand a little, they saw that...

"Oh," was all that came out of Tigress' mouth as she looked inquisitively at the needle that went in one end of her arm and came out the other side of her wrist, she moved her hand, turning it repeatedly.

"Please don't move it," Crane begged her, having the most disgusted look on his face.

"I think I'm about to pass out," Monkey added, wide eyes glued to that needle.

"You pushed it right through my hand," Tigress said, her voice disturbingly calm, "I'm actually quite impressed,"

They all just stared at her as if they couldn't believe she just said that. If someone walked into that kitchen right now, they would have been met with a very disturbing and very chaotic scene of the entire kitchen covered in soup, the Dragon Warrior kneeling on the floor, covered in noodles, chin slightly tilted, four members out of the five, completely frozen in shock, very close to screaming, and then there was a completely undisturbed Tiger in the midst of all this attention and chaos of a situation, a long acupuncture needle right through her wrist, her eyes looking at it with surprising interest as if it was the most interesting thing she had ever seen.

"Who screamed? What happened?" Master Shifu's hurried voice rang out as he opened the kitchen doors.

And the silence that followed was so loud.