The Countdown

The beginning of the end

56 days and counting......

A long five days passed by as the masters continued to train the pandas. Tigress and Viper were able to teach the ribbon dancers how to implement their dancing skills into kung fu as well as wield the nunchucks correctly and efficiently. (With Tigress and Mei-Mei having some difficulty getting along with each other). By the end of the week, most of the pandas had the ability to defend themselves for a semi-long period of time. Obviously they couldn't fight nearly as well as the masters, but they could still hold their ground well.

Which was nice considering the fact that Kai and his master minions hadn't shown up at all.

"When you said that Po was in danger and this Kai was coming for everyone," Li admitted, as everyone sat around the table at Mei-Mei's house. "I was kind of expecting him to show up within a matter of two or three days. Not a whole week."

"Considering the circumstances though," Po told him. "It's not a lot of time. I learned kung fu in four days and even then, I could barely defeat the baddie coming to destroy everyone."

Everyone was sitting at the kitchen table finishing up some cake that Mei-Mei and Po had prepared while discussing how to deal with Kai. It had been a long day of extensive training and Li had convinced everyone to quit early to help everyone relax. Tigress had been  reluctant to do so with the impending danger looming about, but seeing that she was somewhat stressed herself, Po persuaded her to let everyone have some time to themselves. At the moment, she was currently missing from the room as she was outside meditating. Mei-Mei thought this was somewhat silly since socializing seemed to be a better option, but Po explained that Tigress did things differently than most people.

"I'm still worried about this Kai guy," Li said, still on the subject of Kai's incoming attack. "I don't want a repeat of the last invasion."

"Maybe you should have someone on watch," Viper suggested. "If you have a lookout around the village, we can spot Kai coming before he gets much of a chance to attack."

"That'd be perfect! I'll do that on the way back to the house."

"I'll come too!" Bao exclaimed happily, hopping out of his seat.

"Bao," Mei-Mei told the young panda. "You can't go anywhere; it's bedtime."

"Aw!" Bao whined. "But I want to help look out for Kai!"

"Another time. You need to get some sleep."

"She does have a point," Po informed the cub. "You can't fight Kai if you're sleepy."

Bao sighed. "Okay," he said dejectedly. Looking at Po, he smiled and added, "Can you put me to bed, baba?"

"Um...sure," Po said, getting up from the table.

"Once you've finished, we can head out," Li told him, watching the two head up the stairs.

"I should go tell Tigress we're getting ready to go," Viper piped up.

She went to get out of her seat, but Mei-Mei quickly said, "No, no, it's okay. I can get her!"

"Are you sure?" Mr. Ping questioned suspiciously. "I may be no expert here, but you and Tigress in the same area is like putting oil on a fire."

"We're okay," Mei-Mei assured him cheerily. "She's probably just grumpy because she envies my ribbon dancing skills."

"Tigress doesn't like ribbon dancing," Viper pointed out.

"All girls say that when they can't dance."

The panda flitted out of the room, leaving Viper to roll her eyes in annoyance. "Is Mei-Mei usually like this?" she asked Li. "Because if not, I think I can guess what the problem is."