70 days and counting....

Tigress, Viper, Mr. Ping, and Monkey stood in the now deserted panda village, unsure of what to do.

"Um...hello!" Monkey called out. "We're not here to attack! We're just looking for our friend Po!"

No one answered. Tigress sighed and glanced around the village. "Looks like we'll have to find him ourselves," she said flatly. "I have a feeling everyone here has some vendetta against newcomers."

"After that whole issue with Shen, I wouldn't be surprised," Viper told her.

The group of four looked around the village, taking cautious steps towards some of the houses in the hope of finding Po.

"Son?!" Mr. Ping called out. "Po, are you over here?!"

Monkey peeked into a house, seeing everything completely deserted. "He's not here," he called out.

Viper slithered back over after peeking into another house. "He's not in there either," she noted.

Mr. Ping looked about anxiously. "There are a ton of houses!" he cried. "How are we supposed to figure out which one?!"

"The orb?" Monkey offered.

"The orb's not flashing to a specific spot," Tigress told him. "It's just staying on Po."

"Where is he then?" Mr. Ping asked, quickly walking over to look at the image.

"Not in a house, by the looks of it," Tigress said. "He just left one."

"Which one?"

"How would I know? I don't know where anything is here."

The masters (and Mr. Ping) looked at the orb carefully, trying to figure out where Po could have been.

"Hey, there's a pond he just passed by," Viper noted. "Could that be a clue?"

"It could be," Tigress admitted. "Now the question becomes where is that pond?"

"Guys?!" came Po's voice suddenly.

Everyone jumped and looked behind them, seeing Po and his dad coming towards them. Just behind them was the pond that was seen in the orb.

"Po!!!" Mr. Ping cried happily, dashing over to give his son a hug.

"Dad?!" Po exclaimed as his dad jumped up and gave him a tight squeeze. Hugging him as well, he smiled and added, "How on earth did you find me?"

"There's an orb that can locate you at any point in time," Mr. Ping explained. "Master Shifu happened to have one on hand so that we could find you."

By this point, the remaining masters had darted over to the Dragon Warrior, ready to tightly hug him as well.

"Po! Thank goodness you're okay!!!" Monkey exclaimed, trying to not topple his friend over in the group hug.

"Of course I'm okay," Po replied with a slightly confused look. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"It's certainly nice to have you as guests," Li told them. "But I promise that L-Po is perfectly safe here."

"Not for long, I'm afraid," Tigress said solemnly, breaking free from the group hug. "We have bad news."

"Tai Lung's not back from the dead, is he?" the Dragon Warrior asked nervously.

"No. It's worse than Tai Lung. And Shen. And probably even worse than Ke-Pa."

"Worse than Ke-Pa?!" Po exclaimed. "What could be worse than Ke-Pa?!"

Li cleared his throat to get everyone's attention. "Perhaps we should discuss this inside," he suggested. "I don't want to scare people if it isn't necessary."

"Can't argue with that," Monkey answered as the group hug ended.

Li walked over to the center of the village and called out, "It's alright, everyone! There's no danger! These visitors are friends of my son!"

Relieved, the villagers came back out of their homes, craning their necks curiously to get a better look at who had arrived. Mr. Ping looked at everyone and whistled. "That's a lot of pandas," he noted. "How do you feed everyone here?"

"A lot of farming," Li answered, walking back over to them. "And speaking of food, we were about to grab lunch with Mei-Mei so I hope you don't mind eating first."

"I can multi-task," Tigress answered simply as the group followed him and Po. (And Mr. Ping who refused to let go of Po).

Li chuckled at her comment. "You're a pretty serious young woman," he noted. "Is that you talking or the kung fu?"

Po clapped an embarrassed paw to his head. Don't let him make her mad, please... he thought to himself.

"Both," Tigress answered.

"Do you at least laugh?"

"Only around Po," Monkey joked.

"Excuse me?!" Tigress snapped. "That is not true! I've laughed plenty of times by myself, thank you!"

"And I can vouch for that," Viper offered, giving the primate a harsh look.

Monkey held up his hands in defense. "Okay, I got it," he promised. "Geez! Women!"

A slap from both the female warriors caused him to quickly scamper ahead to Po where he was greeted by an amused laugh.

"I see you haven't changed at all since I've been gone," Po joked.

Monkey grinned. "And proud of it!" he acknowledged.

The group walked for a while until they came to Mei-Mei's house, a quaint, two-story house settled right on top of a steady river. They walked across the bridge, Monkey excited to tell Po about what had happened since he had left. (Besides the bad news, obviously).

"I have news too," Po told him with a dazed look on his face. "Just don't ask me if it's good or bad."

"Why?" Mr. Ping asked anyway. "Which is it?"

"Um...I'm not sure...."

"Well he does have good news!" Li called over as they approached the door. "He's getting married!"

"He-wha- hold on!" Tigress stuttered. "Married?!"

"Um...I didn't say that was-" Po tried to explain, but Mei-Mei, having caught sight of him from the doorway, came barreling over to hug him. Seeing the eminent danger, Mr. Ping finally let go of Po and dove over to Tigress just as Po was hugged and knocked to the ground.

"Lei-Fe- Po!!!!!" Mei-Mei cried happily.

"Mei-Mei, do you have to do this every time?" Po asked weakly. "I don't want to die by suffocation."

Mei-Mei sat him up and squeezed him tighter. "You're so adorable!!!!" she squeaked happily. "I can't wait to have kids with you!!!"

Po felt his cheeks flush bright red in embarrassment, but with no air to even breathe and with his arms pinned in a hug, he was pretty much helpless. I never thought I'd prefer dad embarrassing me, but I would really prefer that right now! he thought anxiously.

"Shall we have lunch now?" Li asked casually.

"Of course!" Mei-Mei exclaimed cheerfully. She released Po and stood up, grabbing his paw and dragging him into the house. The masters walked into the house, Mr. Ping giving Li a suspicious look. "How long have they been engaged?" he asked.

"Since they were babies," the panda replied with a happy smile. "We had planned for them to be married at the age of 21, but obviously with Shen's attack, that didn't happen as expected."

"Uh huh..."

As they began to head into the kitchen, Tigress quietly piped up from behind, "When...when exactly were you planning on them getting married then?"

"Once they get better acquainted," Li answered. "Which I hope is soon."

Everyone entered the kitchen and sat down at the table where they saw Po sitting with an awkward look on his face. He looked relieved to not being squished by his bride-to-be who was currently getting the food into bowls to be served.

"So, you're getting married, huh?" Monkey said with a grin.

"I guess," Po said sadly, looking down at the table. "I mean, I was just told about it, like, three days ago."

"Wait a minute," Viper said. "You've been here for almost two weeks and you just found out about this?"

"I thought I'd introduce them later on once Po got settled," Li explained as Mei-Mei placed their stir-fried noodles in front of them. "That way there was a nice easy transition."

Mei-Mei walked over to the door and called out, "BAO!!! DINNERTIME!!!!"

"Bao?" Tigress asked.

"Yeah, he's an orphan Mei-Mei adopted," Po explained with a smile. "He has a lot of energy though, so I'd be careful around him."

Small footsteps could be heard going down the stairs and soon, a small panda with a red hat came flying into the room. He stopped short upon seeing the extra guests in the room.

"Aw," Viper cooed. "He's adorable!!!"

Bao smiled and waved. "Hi," he said. "Are you here for the wedding too?"

Mei-Mei giggled. "No, Bao," she corrected. "These are daddy's friends."

"And father," Mr. Ping added with a wave of his wing.

"I thought Mister Li was Po's baba," Bao said in confusion.

"He is," Po explained as Bao and Mei-Mei sat back down at the table. "But dad over here raised me when I was separated from my parents."

"Oh," Bao said, stuffing a large amount of noodles in his mouth. Looking at the old goose, he asked, "You're gonna' be my grandpa too?"

Mr. Ping blinked. "Um..." he said slowly. "I...suppose...."

"What should I call you?"

"You can call me Mr. Ping."

"What's your last name?"

"That is his last name," Po told him. "He doesn't tell anyone his first name since he wants to save it for a tipping game at the restaurant."

Mr. Ping chuckled. "I have yet to do that," he admitted.

"You get paid to cook?" Bao asked excitedly. "That's so cool!!!"

"Po used to help me run the restaurant," the noodle maker informed the boy with a happy and far-away look. "Until he became Dragon Warrior that is, but he still comes down to help me."

Bao smiled and went to talk, but Mei-Mei warned him about chewing with his mouth open so the boy didn't say anything else. The ribbon dancer then glanced at the new comers and said dreamily, "So Po...who are your friends here? Other kung fu masters like you?"

"Yeah," Po acknowledged. "This is Monkey, Viper, and Tigress."

"It's so nice to meet friends of Po," Mei-Mei cooed. "I hope you can attend our wedding soon."

"There may not be a wedding to attend to," Tigress interrupted, not in the mood to listen to anymore talk on Po getting married to someone else. "As we've mentioned to Po and Li earlier, there's some bad news."

"Oh, that's right," Po said. "We were going to discuss that privately, weren't we?"

"Yep."

"So what's going on then?"

"Your life is in danger."

Po froze, his food half-way to his mouth. Mei-Mei looked shocked and stopped chewing, glancing at Po in horror.

"Someone's trying to kill me?!" the Dragon Warrior exclaimed, putting his noodles back into the bowl.

"And unfortunately, if he comes for you with his army, the pandas who live here will also be in danger."

A look of worry passed over Li's face as well. "He has an army?!" he exclaimed. "Oh no! No no no no no! Not again!"

"Who's trying to kill me?" Po asked his friends. "And for any particular reason?"

"His name is Kai," Viper explained. "He used to work with Master Shifu under Oogway until he was banished from China for trying to obtain ultimate power."

"He's not really trying to kill you," Monkey added. "More than he's trying to control your mind and make you help him take over China."

"Take over China?! Um...then you're gonna' have to tell him that I pass. I mean, that would defeat the whole point of me being the Dragon Warrior."

"Po!" Tigress snapped. "This is serious!"

"I know, I am being serious!" Po answered back just as harshly. "Forgive me for trying to not panic about everyone here being potentially dead if he finds us!"

Mei-Mei leaped over and covered Bao's ears, saying quickly, "Fengy, not in front of Bao, please! I don't want him to have nightmares!"

"Now hold on for just one moment," Li piped up, trying to break the heated tension. "When was the last time you saw this guy?"

"Three days ago," Monkey informed him. "He was coming to the valley to fight and control Po, but when he saw Po wasn't there, he just left the valley almost completely demolished and left."

"He destroyed the valley?!" Po exclaimed in alarm.

"Most of it," Mr. Ping muttered. "Which really gets in my feathers since now I have to use half of my funds to repair the shop! He had some nerve!"

"Does this Kai have a Locator Orb too?" Po asked, ignoring his dad's complaints.

"I don't think so," Tigress said. "But he mentioned something about making three trips, so we assumed he was going somewhere to figure out your present location."

Po groaned. "Great," he mumbled.

The entire kitchen grew silent for a moment before the Dragon Warrior announced that he was going outside to clear his head. Tigress watched him leave the house before going after him in worry. She was quick to find him sitting by the river, looking down in the water with a concerned expression on his face.

"Po?" she said, walking over to him. "Can I sit here?"

"Sure...."

The master sat down beside her friend, watching him kick some of the water away. "Po," she asked. "Is it Kai you're worried about or is there something else?"

"It's the people here," Po told her sadly. "In the valley, if ever there was an attack, it'd be easy to evacuate everyone since we could just go out to a nearby village. Here though...everyone's in the mountains. And that's pretty high up. So if Kai comes and attacks here...how are we supposed to help everyone?" He sighed and went back to staring down at the water.

"You could teach them how to fight back," Tigress offered.

Po perked up. "Teach them kung fu?" he repeated.

"I don't see why not. You learned kung fu despite everything. Perhaps you can teach them how to do the same."

The Dragon Warrior started happily freaking out. "That is the most bodaciously awesome idea I've ever heard!" he practically squealed. "We'll kick his army's butt with a whole brethren of kung fu pandas!!!!"

Tigress, failing to hold in a small laugh, told him, "You sound ready to begin training."

"Are you kidding? I was born ready!!! Thank you, Tigress!!!"

The Dragon Warrior engulfed the master in a tight hug where she felt hot blood rise to her face. However, Po was quick to put her down and dash into the house in excitement.

"Dad!!!!" Tigress heard him yell. "Tigress just had this really awesome idea I think we should try!!!"

The master smiled and walked back into the house after him. The second she shut the door, she felt someone grab her arm and pull her over where she almost immediately came face-to-face with Mei-Mei.

"Stay away from my husband, you beast!" the panda hissed in her ear.

"You're not married," Tigress responded flatly. "He's not your husband."

"No, but he will be once we get Kai away from this village. We were betrothed to each other at infancy and now that Lei-Feng is-"

"Po," Tigress corrected.

Mei-Mei groaned. "Po," she grumbled. "is here with me and bonding with me and my son, I refuse to let anything else happen. Like you being a saboteur."

"I'm not sabotaging anything," Tigress told her. "I'm just helping him. He's my friend."

"Oh please," Mei-Mei muttered with an eye roll, keeping her voice down so that no one overheard. "I was watching you two from the window. You're face has 'I love you, Po' written all over it!"

"It does not!" Tigress snapped quietly.

"I've seen that look before; don't try and lie to me! Just stay away from my husband and no one gets hurt."

"You're not-" Tigress began, but then gave up and rolled her eyes with a sigh. "Why do I bother? Trying to talk to you is like trying to ask Shifu to give us a day off."

"Just leave Po alone. He loves me and we don't want you to interfere."

Mei-Mei released the master and walked cheerily back into the kitchen. Tigress stood there with a look of annoyance plastered on her face. She already knew that Po wasn't interested in Mei-Mei; the look of dread and defeat was pretty obvious whenever the two were by themselves. Whether or not Mei-Mei was truly blind to this, Tigress didn't know. She did know that Mei-Mei was dead-set on marrying Po no matter what and the master felt almost completely helpless knowing it.

Looks like I waited too long to tell him how I felt......