The Countdown

The final nightmare

When practice finished for the day, the masted retired to the kitchen where Po proceeded to cook dinner. The masters had spent a long afternoon battling each other in order to take out each partner pair and Mantis had zero trouble with relating his joy at beating at least one team during the sparring.

"I still can't believe that we beat you two!" Monkey exclaimed, looking over at Crane who was getting some acupuncture from Mantis to help his sore muscles. "I mean, you guys were the least battered out of all of us!"

"You two weren't bad yourselves," Crane told him. "We were pretty evened out until you pulled off that clever pressure-point attack."

"Even though it wasn't exactly my favorite one," Viper added, watching Mantis stick another needle into Crane's wing.

"It wasn't that bad," Mantis told her. "And in case you were looking to yell at me, that wasn't my fault. Crane moved at the last second and I hit the wrong nerve point."

"I wish I could call you a liar," Crane grumbled. "But unfortunately, I can't."

"Next time we'll get them to hug on their own," Monkey whispered over to Po as he began to finish up dinner.

"Don't count on it," Po told him sternly.

He finished the dumplings as Mantis finished doing acupuncture on Crane and quietly put the needles away.

"Order up!" Po called out, sliding the bowls over to each of his friends.

"Thank you, Po," Tigress said, taking her chopsticks and eating her dinner.

"How are your wounds, Tigress?" Viper asked.

"They're alright," the master told her. "It hurt holding up the Spiked Bamboo Staff, but I'm perfectly fine."

Master Shifu introduced three different weapons to the masters earlier during their sparring. The first one, the one that Crane and Viper used, was the Iron Nunchucks. They were impossible to break, hurt anyone they hit, and were extremely fast and heavy, making them difficult to use. (Crane actually hit himself a few times while trying to use them). The second weapon which was used by Mantis and Monkey, was called the Death Shield. It looked like a normal shield except it had a mechanism that fired arrows from the front and projected spikes from the sides for extra oomph. Po and Tigress used the Spiked Bamboo Staff which was sturdy bamboo staff that had nasty spikes all over it except for a small part for the bearer to wield it. As Monkey and Mantis already had the shield, Po and Tigress had to use the staff but injured themselves a few times while trying to use it. However, they managed to pull themselves together in order to evade the chi attacks from Mantis and the shield lunges from Monkey. (Tigress managed to grab the shield and the two worked together in order to take over the sparring match).

"We almost had you too!" Mantis exclaimed, eating some of his dumplings. "If Po hadn't sat on me, I probably could have kicked both of your butts."

"Since when have you ever kicked my butt?" Tigress asked him.

"Well, at least Po's butt."

Po sat down to eat, glancing around the table so as to look at who was there. "Where's Shifu?" he asked.

"Probably meditating," Viper answered.

"Are you sure?" the Dragon Warrior asked suspiciously. "Because he normally comes to the kitchen to eat after achieving the inner peace thing he's been working on. But lately, he's been skipping meals and I don't know where he is."

"Running errands?" Mantis suggested.

"For almost a whole week in a row?"

"Hmm...got a point there."