Dinner was not usually that quiet. Usually Po had a lot to say to everyone, or a few commentaries to make, or even some new idea that he had recently and wanted to share with everyone (what usually turned out to be something completely "out there"). This time, however, Po was eerily quiet.

Even when Monkey and Mantis started making jokes and when Gator started asking dumb questions like he usually did, Po was still silent, eating the noodles he cooked for his friends and students and himself, as he looked down at his bowl, seeming to be in deep thought about something.

Po was acting so unlike he normally did that everyone on the table got worried, and many of them tried talking to the panda, but Po seemed like he wasn't much in a talking mood today. Dinner ended awkwardly before they all retreated to their sleeping quarters.

Po would usually take time to read some of his favorite scrolls or to play with his action figures a little bit. He had new ones that he made on the image of his new students. However, this time he didn't actually felt like doing any of that. He just laid on his bed and rested.

Some of the others were worried that Po was so quiet and tried to talk to him through the paper screens separating their bedrooms. However, the panda's answers were quick and polite, and he eventually told the guys that he just wanted to sleep a bit.

This was what it took for everyone to decide that it was better to let Po be. Including Viper, who was just about to go on his bedroom and talk to him, but was convinced not to by Crane, who placed a wing on her back and shook his beak to her, telling her silently to just let it be. The serpent was down-crested as she made her way to her own sleeping quarters, before curling on a pile of coils and going to sleep.

Po, on his end, took unusually long to go to sleep, as he tossed and turned on his bed, sometimes laying on his side, sometimes on his back looking at the ceiling, sometimes on his chest with his face on his pillow.

Eventually, he finally caught on to sleep. However, even then, he continued tossing and turning...

"Don't worry, everyone!" Po said, as he arrived on the center of the village, wearing his complete Dragon Warrior outfit and carrying Oogway's staff on his hand. "The Dragon Warrior has arrived to save the day!"

He expected everyone to be happy for seeing him and to cheer that he was in there. However, that was not what happened.

"Dragon Warrior? You?" One bunny said, looking at the panda. "Pff! Yeah, right!"

Po blinked, looking at the bunny.

"Wait, what?"

"Dude, you are a screw up!" Said a pig standing next to the bunny. "A screw up cannot be the Dragon Warrior! You are too dumb to have a title so important."

As he said that, everyone around Po started agreeing.

"He makes mistakes all the time!"

"He is such an idiot!"

"If he was smarter, maybe."

"He has had this title for how many years now? He has learned nothing!"

"He is a joke!"

"He doesn't deserve to be the Dragon Warrior."

"W-wait..." Po said, looking at everyone, "G-guys... w-why are you all...? Hey!"

Po said, as the staff suddenly flew out of his hand, flying off into the distance and disappearing.

"He is not a warrior."

"Was he ever?"

As they continued to say those things, Po felt a thug on his neck. His golden cape was being pulled, and it eventually snapped off his neck and flopped to the ground, turned into some old and dirty rag.

"He is supposed to be everyone's protector?"

"Now that's a laugh!"

"He couldn't even serve tables right when he was just a waiter!"

Po looked around, seeing how everyone seemed to become more and more hostile towards him. The hat he was wearing turned into a basket, flopping over his eyes before it fell from his head and into the ground. Po looked down, and he saw that his fancy shirt was unweaving itself, turning into strings by his side and leaving him now only wearing his tattered shorts.

"Can you believe Oogway made him the Dragon Warrior?"

"That turtle was completely senile!"

"He cannot be Dragon Warrior! He is a loser!"

"He has always been a loser!"

"He will always be a loser!"

"N-no..." Po said, looking around at everyone, "I-I..."

Then, Po felt a breeze in a place he was not supposed to. He looked down to find out his shorts had fallen off, and he was now naked.

Everyone laughed. They all laughed as they pointed at him, calling him a loser, an idiot and a disgrace. They were all laughing so hard that their voices resounded on Po's ears and reverberated through his core.

Po was unable to say or do anything other than uselessly try to cover himself and move back, trying in vain to escape their laughing and pointing. To escape their ridicule.

"Good thing you lost your title, loser!" One of them said, the bunny now had pointy horns in between his ears.

"It would be so embarrassing for someone like you to be our hero!" Said the pig to the panda, showing off how he now had razor-sharp teeth on his mouth, before continuing laughing like a demon as he pointed at the panda.

Everything had changed from the previous, golden color to a shade of purple, as Po looked around, as everyone looked like monsters and continued to laugh and mock him cruelly, calling him all kinds of names as they pointed his way.

He felt like running away. He felt like crying.

However, before he could:

"You know what else is embarrassing?" said a voice that sounded eerily familiar to the panda, causing him to stop on his tracks and slowly turn to look behind himself.

He nearly peed himself at what he saw.

The figure behind him was just a skeleton with pieces of grayish flesh and patches of fur attached to it. However, the eyes were still in there, and they were as golden as the first time that Po saw them, so there was no way he would mistake them both.

As well as the voice.

"It is embarrassing that I ended up losing my life to a pathetic little loser like this fat panda!" Tai Lung said as he pointed at Po with a bony finger. "Well, not too late to fix up something, right?"

"N-no..." Po said, too scared to move as Tai Lung's skeletal form walked to him. Opening his mouth and distending them like Viper said when she was really hungry during lunch.

"No... no... NOOOOOOOOO!" Po cried out as those unhinging jaws came over him, filling his vision as if he was being swallowed whole into a huge tunnel.

This tunnel continued, and eventually opened into a great pond, formed by a golden and blue yin-yang symbol.

Then, a figure came from the corner, a purple dragon that circled the pond, wrapping its long body around it, and causing the pond to change on the same ghastly purple color that formed its body. Then, the dragon turned to look at the viewer and lunged, it's jaws wide open.

Po gasped as he shot up from his bed. He was covered in sweat, and his fur was clinging uncomfortably to his body. The panda was in high alert after this dream, and he frantically looked to all sides as he recovered his breath, reminding himself of where he was and of what was currently happening.

The panda's breathing normalized. However, the dream he just had was still vivid on his mind. Every detail of it.

Po remained on his bed, sitting as he reflected on things, before he decided he didn't wanted to stay on bed. He knew he would not be able to get to sleep again. So, the panda instead got up and took a walk.

Leaving the sleeping quarters was no big deal. Po was much better at moving silently now than he was back when he was first on those same quarters. Stealth mode was still not his strongest mode, but he was able to walk out of the sleeping quarters while making minimal noise, and not waking up anyone who was in there. Not even Tigress, who was a surprisingly light sleeper.

Po made his way across the desert palace, and eventually made his way into the outside. The breath of the cold air should be enough to cleanse his thoughts and help him relax a bit. However, Po was still tense.

He was tense with everything that happened. He was tense with his dream, and with the events of today.

The way he lowered his guard and allowed himself to be knocked down and let the bandits escape with the loot. Man, that was a rookie mistake. The kind he should no longer make.

He had been a kung fu master for nearly ten years, he should no longer make mistakes like that!

Okay, Shifu told him that it was normal to make mistakes and have doubts, but still!

What if next time he screwed up something really big? Something really important? What if next time he ended up losing his game and allowed an entire village to be torched to the ground? What if he accidentally angered a powerful lord and started a war that would last for centuries? What if he was designated to protect the Emperor himself and ended up messing that up and allow him to be kidnapped, or even murdered by assassins?

If he made a mistake like that, it was most likely that people would want him to renounce his title of Dragon Warrior. Some could even say that he never should have been the Dragon Warrior on the first place, if he would make a mistake like that.

They would say that Oogway was the one who made a mistake by naming him the Dragon Warrior on the first place.

...

Had he made a mistake?

Was Po becoming the Dragon Warrior a mistake from Oogway's part? Or the Universe's?

Would the Universe realize its mistake if Po screwed up too hard? Like doing any of the things mentioned above?

Would that be enough to make the universe take back the title of Dragon Warrior and demote him back to the loser he was before?

A big, fat, goofy and clumsy panda who was so incompetent the only job he could find was being a waiter on his own father's restaurant?

A panda so stupid that he would never achieve to be anything on his life, and would spend all of his days messing up and being the butt of everyone's joke and the laughing stock of the Jade Palace?

So unpopular that he would have no friends, as no one would want to risk being around him and become the butt of other people's jokes as well? A panda who, while not being a complete outcast, was not the kind who had any people who would be his friend, and had to resort to spending most of his time alone sculpting action figures and playing with them all by himself, what would only add to his reputation of being an immature loser and making him even more friendless?

Po sighed, as he reflected on if that was even possible, and if it actually ended up happening.

I mean, it didn't seem likely, at least in Po's opinion, but the very idea made his stomach feel tight...

No, wait. That was probably hunger.

Was it hunger? Po thought it was. That was probably why he resorted to eating when he felt upset. Food had always been a thing that brought him joy, so it was no surprise it turned into a coping mechanism for when he was having a bad time.

Po made his way to a certain spot, all the while he continued to think of other things that have happened, and how they seemed like they reflected on his dream.

He still felt the heebie-jeebies when he remembered the skeletal leopard glaring at him with his golden eyes.

Tai Lung was a foe Po would never forget, for a variety of reasons.

In part, because he was the first foe he ever faced as the Dragon Warrior. And because Po had to eliminate him.

But... did Po really had to eliminate him? Was that really needed? Couldn't he have found another way to stop him that didn't involve skaddoshing him with the Wuxi Finger Hold?

Po didn't gave it much though for the first days after the event, but he eventually started to think about it. Like, a lot.

He didn't thought about it as often now, but it still popped on his mind from time to time. The scared look on Tai Lung's face... And Po himself was smirking.

The panda groaned, as the feeling on his stomach got stronger, and caused him to speed up his step to get to where he was supposed to go as fast as possible.

The Peach Tree of Heavenly Wisdom was still right where Po last saw it. However, it was no longer the only tree on that hill. A new peach tree grew by its side, born from a seed planted in there around the same time that Po became the Dragon Warrior. The two trees were very similar, but the younger tree had grown a bit bulkier than the other, and on a different style to its thicker branches.

Some wondered what this could mean for a while, as the peach tree remained the only tree on that hill for literal centuries, and now there was a second tree making it company. Some thought it could be a sign or maybe an omen of something to come. Others thought it were only two trees growing close to each other.

To Po, it meant twice as many peaches.

Those peaches were probably the sweeter that Po ever had, and they were so tender and juicy that biting in them felt delightful.

Man, Po loved those peaches!

All Po needed to do was give a kick and a punch on the trunk of each one of the trees and the peaches fell.

He made a considerable amount of peaches fall from both of the trees. Po picked a lot of them on his arms, and he started eating them one by one with big bites, moaning to himself as he felt the delightful juice dancing on his taste-buds. All his worries and doubts were forgotten, as the joy of eating and filling his stomach were able to erase all the strife that had been plaguing the panda's heart and mind.

Even the horrifying end of the nightmare he had was all but forgotten as he delivered himself to the joy of eating like only a panda could.

He would eat half of them and take the rest back home to share with everyone. This season's peaches were particularly good...

The panda was so busy delighting himself with the peaches that he failed to notice a figure coming up behind him.

This figure moved like a shadow behind the Dragon Warrior, each step being more silent than a snowflake landing on the ground, as the figure came from behind, closer and closer to their target, to the one they had been following for all night now, waiting for a chance like this one.

A chance to come closer and to get to the panda when no one else was around.

The figure tensed, claws unsheathing as the muscles tensed, as if getting ready to a fight. The figure stopped a few feet away from the panda, who was, quite literally, stuffing his mouth full of peach. The figure adopted a fighting pose, and then...

"Panda..." the figure said, and this caused Po to turn around to see who was it that was talking to him (he assumed to, since he was the only panda on that hill right now). As he did, his eyes widened, his arms went slack, allowing the peaches he was carrying to fall to the ground as the panda stared at the person talking to him.

At Tai Lung.

The leopard had an intense look on his golden eyes, as he glared at the panda in a fighting stance, nearly as if he was waiting for the panda's first strike.

However, this strike did not come. Po just stood in there, arms hanging limply as he looked at the leopard. The peaches on his mouth also falling from his mouth, joining the other peaches on the ground, and he just continued looking.

The leopard then rose an eyebrow, as the panda was not charging at him like he thought he would, and just kept looking at him like an idiot.

"You-" Tai Lung said. As soon as he said that one word, Po let out a scream.

A loud, panicked scream that caught the leopard off guard, nearly making him jump back as he looked at the screaming panda, who only stopped his scream when he ran out of breath.

"W-what...?" Tai Lung tried to say, but he was only more interrupted by Po.

"A GHOST!" The panda screamed, throwing his arms up in panic. "IT'S A GHOST!"

He then turned around and ran as fast as his chubby legs could carry him, all the while screaming:

"TAI LUNG'S GHOST HAS COME BACK TO HAUNT MEEEEEEEEEEE!"

Back on the hill, the leopard remained, frozen in place, trying to understand what had just happened.

"Huh?" was all that he managed to say, as he had a baffled expression on his face.

Everyone on the Jade Palace was having a good night's sleep. They were tired after a long day, and they all could very well use the night to rest and recover so they could do everything over on the following day.

That was usually how things went around there, and they often were able to have peaceful nights and wake up rested and recovered on the following day.

This night, however, was not like usual.

Shifu was the first one to rise from his bed, as his sensitive ears picked the sound on the distance.

"Po?" The small master said, looking over at the direction of the sound of panic on the familiar voice of the panda.

And it was getting louder as the owner of the voice got closer.

Po was screaming at the top of his lungs as he made his way into the living quarters, causing nearly everyone to wake up on a startle. Some of them were confused and took a while to understand what was going on, but they eventually all understood that it was the Dragon Warrior screaming.

And they all rushed to see what was going on.

Doe and Monkey both rushed to the outside, to see what was going on, and to see if there was any sign of invaders. Crane and the Swallows took off to the air, to see if there was any danger at the distance. Meanwhile, the rest of them looked through the quarters, looking for trouble and, more importantly, for Po.

Viper was the one who found him and called all the others, who soon were seeing that the panda was...

Curled in fetal position in a corner of the kitchen, rocking back and forth and muttering to himself.

"He was out there... he was out there... he was out there and he's come for me..."

"Po?" Viper asked, "Po, are you okay?"

"Po, what happened? Why were you screaming?" Tigress asked, "Did something happened? Were you attacked?"

"He was out there... he was out there... he was not a skeleton, but he was out there... just like in my nightmare..."

"What? Nightmare?" Doe asked, looking at the panda, who continued to rock back and forth while he continued muttering.

"Wait, did you wake us up in the middle of the night because of a nightmare?" Mantis asked, sounding annoyed.

"Was it one of those when you are naked in front of the whole village again?" Crane asked, "You have a lot of those, don't you?"

"I was naked." Po said, stopping rocking, but he was still trembling. "But that's not it. No, it's him. He was out there. He was out there like in my nightmare. I saw him. I saw him!"

Everyone tried to make heads and tails about what Po was saying, but the panda seemed like he was too nervous to form coherent sentences. He just kept repeating that "he was out there", and that he "saw him".

"Panda!" Shifu said, having grown tired of the Dragon Warrior's babbling, and demanding him to tell them who or what he was talking about.

"TAI LUNG!" Po blurted out, startling everyone, including Shifu. "Tai Lung was out there! He was behind me! Just like in my nightmare! I saw him! His ghost! He came for me! He is after me because I skadooshed him, and he has come back from the grave to take me with him! Like on those horror stories! He has come for me!"

Everyone looked at Po, and they all shared looks as the panda continued to ramble on about how Tai Lung had come back to haunt him, and how he is after revenge against Po for blasting him.

From what they could understand, apparently Po had a nightmare about Tai Lung coming back from the grave to pursue him, and that clearly terrified him. As it was clear by the way that Po was rambling out of nervousness, and by the way that Po started sucking on his thumb as he went back to rocking back and forth...

"Hmmm, hey guys..." Said a new voice as a figure came into the kitchen, rubbing his eyes as he carried a lot of plush toys on his arms. It was Gator. "I heard someone screaming, what is going on?" He sounded groggy, as if he just woke up.

"Po had a nightmare and is panicking over it." Mantis said, gesturing to the panda, who was not curled on a ball on the ground as he sucked on his thumb.

"Oh... was one of those where he is naked in front of the whole village?" Gator asked.

Meanwhile, Viper was talking to the panda.

"Po..." she said, as carefully and kindly as she could. "It's okay, it was just a nightmare. Tai Lung is not out there. It's fine. Don't worry, you're safe."

Po looked at her, his thumb still on his mouth, and he relaxed a little bit as he saw her gentle eyes.

"Look, why don't you drink some tea to calm down and then we get you back to bed? How does it sound?" Viper asked, and Po was in for it.

After a few cups of some calming tea that Doe prepared for him (which was very good, by the way), Po was taken by her and Viper back to his bedroom, and they assured him it was everything fine before leaving him on his bedroom to sleep, with a lantern left in there to illuminate the room to make him feel a bit safer.

Po then stayed in bed. However, he was not able to go back to sleep.

First, it was because of his conflicting feelings about what happened earlier on that day. Now, however, was for a different reason.

Po had stopping mumbling and sucking on his thumb, but he was still trembling on his bed, as he pulled his covers all the way up to his snout like when he was a cub and was afraid of the dark. His green eyes darted back and forth on the bedroom, looking at every shadow, seeing if there was anything standing on the corner of his bedroom, moving on the corner of his eyes or spying on him through the window.

He spent the rest of the nigh awake, looking for that pair of golden eyes...