Love of the Dragon Warrior

Pressure Points

The following morning, the masters and some of the girls sleeping on the second floor of the barracks were woken up to a very loud yelp of pain from Madame Zhou. Upon going to inspect, they discovered that she had twisted her ankle getting out of her bed, which had caused her to break into a series of frustrated laughs and rambles.

"I sometimes forget my age," she told Xiao-Niao as the young buffalo helped her into bed and asked Snow Leopard to grab some ice. "I love to brag about being spry at my age, but I suppose being hip with the kids is too much to ask for."

"To be fair, we did a lot of walking yesterday," Po told her, rubbing his eyes and yawning. "I'm exhausted."

"Well that's expected. But I suppose you're right."

She winced as her foot was propped up with a couple of pillows. Some of the girls and the masters left the room and headed to the kitchen upon seeing that Madame Zhou was perfectly fine. Viper, who was a little more awake and definitely more of the mothering type, suggested, "Why don't we take today to just relax? Mantis is good with acupuncture, so maybe we can do a little spa type of day."

"Uh," Mantis said, having caught the idea half-way down the stairs. He made his way back up and said, "That depends on Shifu, and we all know he's not into giving us days off from training unless absolutely necessary."

Tigress, who was also half-way down the stairs, came up behind him and weighed on the idea by reminding the master that they also had to deal with Ming during the day.

"Since we also have our favorite spoiled brat showing up later this week," she stated flatly, suppressing a yawn. "And Superintendent Wu and Ming grating on everybody's nerves, I'm sure convincing him to rotate out masters to "meditate" or "practice first aid training" won't be difficult....."

"You and Leopard are not morning people, I've noticed," Ordai told her from next to Madame Zhou's door.

Tigress frowned and visibly rolled her eyes before trekking back down the stairs. Mantis however thought the comment over and decided that it might be worth a shot and walked down after the master. Po said he'd go and make breakfast since he was up already and he walked after his friends with the rest of the girls in tow. Xiao-Niao told Madame Zhou she'd be back in a little bit and to try not to move her foot before following behind in the rear. Everyone eventually made their way to the kitchen where they indeed found out that convincing Master Shifu to give them a day off would not be difficult. The civilian who had his chi frozen was now recovering, and since Shifu, being grandmaster, had to deal with Superintendent Wu and all imperial presentation matters, Master Tigress would be sent to the Red Pass to interrogate him and discover what had happened. (Which Shifu reiterated his hope that it was a misunderstanding and nothing too serious). Because of the preoccupation, he allowed Mantis and Viper to "examine" the girls for any further potential injuries, which would naturally of course allow Mantis to brush up on his acupuncture skills and any other first aid techniques, as Mantis had suggested. Monkey and Crane would then assist Shifu and take breaks every so often to "run errands" in the village, which Monkey and Crane were more than happy to do.

Po then made breakfast for everyone, upon which Xiao-Niao took a bowl and some tea and went across the Jade Palace grounds to give some to Madame Zhou. Afterwards, Shifu and Tigress left the table to tend to the matter of the inured civilian while Monkey and Crane reluctantly went to meet Superintendent Woo and Mantis and Viper left to set up massage and spa stations in the barracks for everyone. Viper's room was set up so that she could give everyone a nice back massage complete with relaxing hot stones and Mantis had an acupuncture station and first aid center set up in his room. The rooms didn't take very long to set up and upon being completed, Viper and Mantis set up a schedule with each of the girls: to rest from the hike, Viper would help relax everyone's muscles, after which Mantis would give them an acupuncture session to help heal any torn or ripped ligaments and put their body back into balance. Lam and a few of the other girls were very eager to get right into it, and so it would up that Lam went first with Ordai right after her, followed by Destiny, Jai-Rong, and Xiao Niao. (Though she was more interested in helping Madame Zhou with her ankle and waited as long as possible for her turn). Kay was a little reluctant to have a spa session, but Leopard managed to convince her by adding some relaxing flowers to the room to calm her nerves, afterwards she had to calm herself down to do it. As it turned out, she was not a fan of needles, something Shifu used to tease her about while he was learning acupuncture from Master Oogway since he always approached her first when asking for a test dummy.