The Countdown

More troublesome than training

63 days and counting....

(Thank you, WinterDragons, for your suggestion. I was more than happy to include it in here....)

The next day, after hashing out training plans and settling the remaining masters in Li's house, (much to Mei-Mei's annoyance, Tigress figured), Li and Po went down to the village to announce the incoming danger. Tigress, Viper, and Mantis followed them as a way to offer any help at any point in time. After everyone in the village was called to the center for announcements, Li cleared his throat and said, "Everyone, I'm afraid I have bad news."

The pandas looked at each other in slight worry, unsure of what was going on.

"I've just been informed that there is a terrible evil on the way here to threaten us all," Li continued slowly, not willing to cause any alarm amongst the villagers. "Our visitors tell us that he brings an army more powerful than they can defeat. Meaning, alas, that we are both helpless and vulnerable when he arrives."

The villagers started looking at each other in alarm and a small, fearful chatter began.

"However," Li interrupted, glancing at Po and his friends. "As some of you are well aware, Lei-Feng knows professional kung fu along with his friends who have just arrived. They've offered to teach us how to fight so that we'll be ready once this Kai villain arrives to our village. How does this sound to the rest of you?"

Happy cheers went around the village at anticipation at being able to literally kick someone's butt kung fu style.

"Hold on a moment," one villager called out suddenly, stopping the barrage of cheers. "How can we learn kung fu? We can barely run around without catching our breath!"

"It'll take a lot of practice," Po told them, stepping up to lend a hand. "I still can't catch my breath and I've been doing it for almost eight years."

"You don't take that long to catch your breath," Tigress reminded him from a few feet behind. "You just take longer than we do."

"I know," Po assured her. He turned back to the pandas and added, "It'll take a lot of hard work and discipline, but if you guys can work together and help each other out, I know that you guys will learn how to kick butt in no time!"

The panda watched the excited looks on everyone's face and merely shrugged with a small smile.

"Now," Po announced. "Who's ready to begin?!"  A loud rumble from his stomach got everyone's attention and Po let out a sheepish laugh. "Although maybe we should break for lunch first," he added.

"Oh, come on, Po," Tigress called over from behind. "At least give them a demonstration first."

"But I'm hungry!" Po complained quietly, turning to look at her.

The master whipped out a cookie she had snitched from the kitchen, figuring that Po would try and pull a 'first snack, then kung fu'. The Dragon Warrior, seeing what she had in her paw, said, "Well, maybe if it's a short demonstration."

"Good. To start, you can show them how to get the cookie away from me."

Po smiled and pulled her up to the front. The villagers looked slightly confused since Po had already called a lunch break, so the panda quickly explained, "Really quickly though, Tigress and I are going to show you a basic demonstration about how you can get a cookie back from a thief."