The Countdown

Training Troubles

A few days later, the students, excluding Tigress, resumed training. Tigress still had another four days of bedrest before she was even allowed to get up and walk around.

"Good morning, students," Shifu greeted as he watched everyone get up out of their rooms.

"Good morning, master" the students called out in unison.

"Head into the training hall and begin warming up," the master instructed them. "I'll be along shortly after I check up on Tigress."

The students bowed their heads and headed outside. Shifu walked to Tigress room, watching her sit up easily.

"How's your chest?" he asked her.

"Much better," Tigress answered. The pain had stopped about two days ago, relieving Tigress as she hadn't had much luck falling asleep because of the loose ribs. "I could get up now if the doctor hadn't insisted I stayed in bed."

"Better safe than sorry," Shifu told her. "But on the bright side, you only have four more days of bedrest until you can finally go and explore."

"Then I'll be counting down the days until I can actually perform kung fu," Tigress replied with a sigh.

"And even then, you'll be taking it easy," Shifu told her sternly. "I'm doing easy kung fu with the others since I want to make sure that their injuries haven't hindered them in any way."

"Understandable," Tigress replied.

"We'll be in the training hall for most of the day," Shifu informed her. "So you won't have much of a chance to be entertained."

"I understand master. I'll be perfectly fine."

"Very well. Po will be in soon with breakfast, and after that, we'll see you later on today."

"Yes, master."

With that, Shifu walked out, gently shutting the master's door behind him.

Back in the training hall, Po and the other five were stretching and warming up, getting back into the kung fu swing. Shifu entered the training hall after a few minutes and announced, "Lets get back into the swing of things. We're going to take it a bit easy today since I want to ease Crane back in due to his wing just healing up."

"Thank you, Master Shifu," Crane said gratefully.

"We're going to start today with a few sparring rounds. Afterwards, we're going to go through a course run through the obstacles in here. After lunch, we're going to meditate and practice using some of the weapons. Lets begin with Po and Mantis."

The masters nodded, heading onto the side of the training hall as Mantis and Po got into fighting positions.

"Begin," Shifu commanded.

Mantis jumped at Po and knocked him onto the ground, but Po was quick to launch himself back on his feet in time to dodge the next blow. Mantis threw a few more punches which were quick to be blocked but then went for Po's feet. Po flipped over the bug, squashing him when he landed onto the ground.

"Ow," Mantis groaned irritably.

"Sorry, Mantis" Po apologized. He got up and helped Mantis to his feet, only for Mantis to take a hold of his paw and flip him onto the ground with a battle cry. Po retaliated by flinging Mantis into the wall, causing Shifu to call a KO.

"Nicely done, Dragon Warrior," he acknowledged. "Next time though, don't let your guard down. As I'm sure you're well aware, doing so can easily result in life or death."

Po caught a glimpse of light, his mind flashing back to when he had let Shen escape after discovering he knew about his past. He swallowed. "Right," he replied quietly.