Hello everyone! I finally finished this chapter, so I figured I'd share it with you since it's been a long time since I've really published one. However, I won't be publishing chapters very often anymore. I'd like to work on it if I have down time, but I'd prefer to keep Wattpad in the category of "Just for fun side hobby that I'll look at if I have the time and am in the mood." I hope you enjoy this though. I really did get stuck trying to figure out how to move forward, so that's been most of my problem with this story.... I finally got everything figured out, so hopefully it won't take me practically a year to get my brain all together. I hope you're all doing well. 

Early the next morning, everyone woke up promptly to the sound of the gong to greet Master Shifu. Or...almost everyone.

"Tigress?" Shifu called out, opening the door to her room. However, the master wasn't there.

"Well she's up early," Monkey commented.

"Maybe she's preparing herself for Po's teaching," Mantis joked.

Viper gave him a sharp look as Po began to nervously smile. "Well, I don't exactly have the best record of teaching great..." he admitted.

"Aw, come on, that was four years ago!" Monkey told him. "You're bound to be a little better now, right?"

"We'll see, won't we?" Shifu said. He instructed for everyone to follow him out of the barracks so that they could eat and go. The masters followed suit and headed over to the kitchen. Upon arriving in the kitchen, Po immediately headed over to the stove and began to prepare some fried dumplings for everyone. Mei-Ling and Shifu began to have a small side conversation while the rest of the masters talked with a mixture of excitement and nervousness about what kind of training exercise they would have with Po that day. Mantis was hoping for something simple that wouldn't kill them, but Crane reminded him of how Po's first day went at the Jade Palace which immediately threw that idea out of the window. A few more conversations of speculation later, Po served everyone breakfast and sat down at his usual spot. He glanced over at the doors to the kitchen but then turned back to his food after a second and began eating.

"Relax, Po," Monkey told him. "She's probably in the training hall. She'll show up in a bit."

Po frowned. "If you say so," he responded. Truth be told, he was a bit concerned about the master. She had seemed fine when they had first come back and they were settling back into the Jade Palace and their normal routine. However, she was suddenly becoming closed off again and now she wasn't even in the mood for fighting. Po didn't want her to regress back to her old habits again.

The masters eventually finished up breakfast and cleared the table. By the time they finished and left the barracks to head over to the training hall, Tigress still hadn't shown up.

"Does she normally miss breakfast?" Mei-Ling asked in surprise.

"Not normally," Viper answered. "Though when she does we're not usually surprised."

Mei Ling's face frowned in confusion, but she didn't say anything further. The masters soon approached the training grounds where they could clearly hear Tigress fighting off various parts of the training equipment.

"Goodness. How long has she been here for?" Mei-Ling asked the masters.

"It kinda' depends on her mood," Po explained as they followed Shifu to the training hall doors. "Sometimes she just gets up right before the gong for a warm up or sometimes she'll be up all night. Though she doesn't do it as much as she used to."

Shifu opened the doors and was immediately greeted by the sight of Tigress leaping through the Earthen Marks of Eternity and over the Blushing Arrows of Impending Demise. As she landed expertly at the very end of the training hall, she took notice of the masters walking inside and immediately looked over at them.

"Good morning, Tigress," Master Shifu called over to her.

Tigress quickly bowed. "Good morning, Master Shifu," she answered.

"Not to cut your early morning training short, but I'd like to get our training out of the way so that Po can get started on leading the afternoon class."

Po gulped.

Tigress let out a "yes sir" and walked briskly to the front of the training hall to join her friends. Mei Ling walked over to the side to observe as Master Shifu announced the day's lesson, which sounded simple at a first glance. After a brief sparring warm up which partnered Tigress with Monkey, Viper with Mantis, and Crane with Po, Shifu told the group of masters that they would be performing an exercise that was not as simple as it first looked. He then laid three long sturdy sticks across the Jade Tortoise, walked back to the group and said, "All six of you will balance on the edge of each rod."

"Wait that's it?" Po asked in surprise.

"On one foot," Shifu added. "Without falling off for twenty minutes."

"That's not so bad," Monkey noted.

"Not that bad?!" Po exclaimed. "In case you haven't noticed, I'm kind of top heavy."

"Not as much as when you first started," Tigress reminded him. "You'll be fine."

Master Shifu directed the students over towards the Tortoise bowl and joined Mei-Ling on the side to watch the spectacle.

"When you've finished, we'll break for lunch," Shifu told them.

"Lunch?!" Po exclaimed. "It's not gonna' take us that long, is it?"

"Well in that case, I have full expectations for you to finish within the half hour. Proceed."

The masters went to climb the bowl, but Tigress quickly stopped them. "This bowl isn't stable," she reminded them. "And we all have different weights. We need to figure out how to balance each other out before we even start."

"But we all have to be on individual ends," Monkey told her. "And that's impossible since we have to stand all on one rod just to keep Po from falling over."

"Aw come on! I'm only a hundred pounds over Tigress!" Po complained.

"Yeah, but that's still enough to fall off the bowl, buddy," Mantis told him.

Tigress frowned and closed her eyes in thought. After a while, she finally said, "Our first task should be just getting onto the bowl. Once we're up there, we can shift about and try to figure out where everyone should go."

"Won't Po just fling us off back off?" Mantis questioned.

"If we all grab onto the one end of the staff across the top and Po the other, we should all be able to balance each other out enough to climb up."

"Sounds like a plan to me!" Po said. He went to grab onto the one end of a rod, only for a second one to roll off and onto the floor.

"I'll get it," Crane told him. "Just try not to move anything."

Po nodded and shifted his body about so that the other rod wasn't flying everywhere. When Crane has placed the other rod back, the masters proceeded to grab a hold of the other end of the rod Po had a grip on.

"Okay, Po, on the count of three, we're all going to hang from the rod to see if we're weighing it down right!" Monkey called over.

"Got it!"

The masters counted to three and then lifted their legs off of the ground. (Or that's to say, Tigress and Monkey did so. The other masters were strategically balancing on their backs). Po was worried for a good few seconds that the plan wasn't going to work since the tortoise bowl began to wobble about and shift the sticks here and there. But the shaking soon slowed down and everyone let out a small sigh of relief.

"Well, that's one step down," Monkey commented. "Now what?"

"We need to...very carefully...climb up," Tigress answered. "We can climb up first and then adjust our balance when Po comes up."

"I'm still thinking we're all just going to fall right off," Mantis told her.

"Hey, we got this far!" Po told them. "We'll be up there in no time!"

"Getting up is only part of the challenge, in case you've forgotten," Tigress reminded him. She began to slowly pull herself and her friends up onto the rod, carefully adjusting her balance as the rod began to wobble about. She instructed Monkey to step down in front of her to help better shift their balance and the group soon found themselves in a bit of an arch.

"Can I climb up now?" Po asked. "My arms are starting to get a little sore." 

"Slowly," Tigress instructed. "Use your feet to grab onto the rod if necessary, but don't shake the bowl around." 

Po complied with the instructions and managed to propel his body underneath the rod he was holding onto. The bowl still shook about anyway, but Monkey managed to grab the other rolling rods with his feet to keep them from falling off and forcing the masters to start the process all over again. He wondered why there wasn't little niches in each one to hold them in place, but just decided to assume Master Shifu wanted the exercise to be as hard as humanly possible. In the meantime, Po managed to roll himself onto the top of the rod. It bounced about a lot, threatening to toss the masters over the edge, but the rod managed to stop see-sawing for a little bit. Po did his best to maintain his balance, but he was clearly nervous about toppling over. 

"So...how are we going to do this?" he asked everyone. 

"Beats me," Monkey said. "If we move so much as a centimeter, we're all toppling off!" 

"So do you throw things at them while they're up there?" they suddenly heard Mei-Ling ask off to the sides. "Or is this just the hard difficulty mode they have to do?"

"This particular exercise isn't about making them weary," Shifu told her, much to the relief of every kung fu master on that bowl. "Though if they are exhausted, it means I've done my job well." 

Po gulped and eyed the other rods balancing on the bowl. Monkey still had a firm grip on them, though he was starting to wobble about a bit. "Okay," he said aloud. "So we all have to stand at one end of each rod, and we all have different weights. How are we going about doing this?" 

"Yeah, especially because I don't weigh anywhere close to you guys!" Mantis added. "The only way I'd do that is if I stand on someone who's heavier. But then that's one end of the rod completely open." 

"Plus that person would need someone to balance out their weight anyway," Crane added. "Maybe if you and Viper got on opposite ends?" 

"Yeah, no. I'm still falling off." 

"There are three rods," Tigress piped up from the very edge. "And six of us. Each rod has an end on each side, which makes six. And we each have to balance on the edge with one foot."

"Yeah, and these rods are pretty thick and roundish," Po observed. "Not exactly easy to stand on." 

"And that means that spinning them around so that they're all straight across isn't an option. If we had two available feet, yes. But not an option for this exercise. So we'll need a different kind of weight distribution." 

She fell silent again, going back to thinking. Suddenly Monkey exclaimed, "Weight shifting!" 

Everyone looked at him curiously. "Come again?" Mantis asked.

"Weight shifting. If you put someone heavier closer to the center of the rod, their weight gets redistributed, which means they don't make everyone seesaw as bad as they did if they were on the very end." 

"But we're supposed to be on the end of the rod," Crane told him. 

"I was thinking that too, but Shifu said edge. Not end. Every part of the rod is an edge because it's so thin, which means that we can stand anywhere we want as long as we're on a different part."

"So should I move closer then?" Po questioned, his legs shaking quite a bit. "Because it's pretty unstable over here and I'd like to get to more solid ground." 

"It's worth a shot," Tigress said. "Just walk over slowly so that you can readjust if the rods start flailing around too much." 

Po nodded and slowly inched his way down the rod. The masters began to seesaw a little more and nearly began to hold their breath as they tried to stay off of the floor. Thankfully though, Po got closer to the edge of the bowl with little to no problem and stopped short just of the Jade Bowl's edge. 

"Perfect!" Monkey said. "Now, let's all move forward a little. Since Tigress is the heaviest, she can stay on this end and we'll slowly move out towards the edge of the other four rods." 

The plan was soon put into action. Tigress inched forward enough to let her friends start slowly moving towards the center. Her and Po began to wobble again as soon as they began to spread out, but some more back and forth maneuvering soon stabilized them. Crane and Monkey got on one rod and began to maneuver themselves about and Viper and Mantis did the same on their rod. Eventually, the six warriors reached a stable position on the bowl and began to let out victory cheers at solving their weight problem, only for Tigress to remind them that they still had to stand on the bowl on one foot for twenty minutes. Having achieved the first half of their success, the masters went into the second half with optimistic determination. Everything was quick to fall apart though as Po, still a bit wobbly on the already-unstable-rods, wildly flailed his arms about before falling to the ground. As his weight was lost, Tigress and her rod when sailing onto the floor as well, and the violent movement of the whole scene caused the remaining masters to follow suit. 

"Ah!" Viper exclaimed as she quickly dodged one of the rods that fell off the side of the bowl. 

"Sorry!" Po apologized. "Are you guys okay?" 

"It's not the worst landing I've had," Tigress answered. 

"Hey, we at least know where to stand to keep each other upright," Monkey called over, trying to stay optimistic. "So the hardest part is just going to be remaining this stable all on one foot." 

Po sighed audibly. "Yeah...don't remind me," he grumbled. 

"We still have twenty minutes left," Tigress noted as she put all the rods back on top of the bowls. "If we can hurry and get back up, we can beat the time Shifu set for us." 

"Provided you nail it on the second attempt," Shifu called over to them. "Which I find highly unlikely considering how little time there is left." 

Po gasped. "And miss the opportunity to get out of training early?!" he exclaimed. "Everyone on the bowl!!!"

Tigress reached up and grabbed a hold of her end of the rod. She told him, "We'll grab our end, then Monkey and Crane, and Viper and Mantis last." 

Po nodded and firmly grabbed a hold of his end as well. Tigress tightly held on as Po shifted about and climbed back to where he was on the rod before she quickly came up herself. The rod nearly tipped over and sent them both back onto the floor, but Tigress was able to balance themselves out before that happened. Crane then flew Monkey and himself into the middle of the rods where the two carefully paced themselves back to their places on the rod and where finally accompanied by Viper and Mantis, though Viper had to slither up the side of the bowl before the two could even climb aboard. When everyone was settled, Po took a few deep breaths before staring straight ahead towards the back of the wall and keeping himself balanced on one foot. Though he was definitely not the best at the task, he had learned over the years how to shift his weight about so as not to get in the way of his other teammates and he had managed to keep it under control in case he needed it's use for a particular scenario. Now was one of those scenarios. 

"Doing okay, buddy?" Mantis asked after five minutes had gone by.

"We'll talk later," Po answered curtly. 

"Yeah, he's doing good," Crane observed. "Just let him concentrate or else we'll have to start all over." 

"A wise idea," Tigress told him. 

The masters went back to concentrating on balancing on one foot, during which Tigress couldn't help but notice how focused Po was being. His eyes were staring past the bowl, so she assumed he was doing his best to avoid any distractions. It's too bad he isn't this focused all the time, she thought to herself as she easily kept her position on the bowl during the time count. He'd easily cream us in any sparring every single day. Though then again, knowing Po and how his mind works, that's probably exhausting. He'd rather be thinking about how epic battles of long ago went or how cool he'd look wearing battle armor. I'm surprised he hasn't sketched anything like that, actually....

Time continued to tick on by. And it went by. And it went by. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. 

Monkey yawned. Mantis hummed a little and made some small talk with Crane. Viper talked about what she planned on doing later when Po had finished teaching his first class of the day. Po said absolutely nothing. Tigress counted how much time had gone by in her mind and calculated it to be about eighteen minutes. They were almost done. She hoped they could hold out for another two minutes. Her legs were doing perfectly fine, but she wasn't sure how well Po and the others were holding up. Particularly Po, though he still seemed perfectly fine. 

"Twenty!" Shifu yelled from the side. Mei-Ling was still standing next to him, though she now carried a small smirk on her face. 

Po perked up. "Really?" he asked, beginning to stick his left foot down. 

"Keep your feet up!" Tigress swiftly yelled. "Time isn't up yet!" 

Po wobbled for a second, nearly knocking everyone off the bowl again, but he managed to stay upwards this time and quickly breathed a sigh of relief. "Come on, Shifu!" he exclaimed. "That's not funny!" 

"Just a test," Shifu answered calmly. "Good call, Tigress." 

"I've been keeping count," Tigress told everyone. "We still have two minutes left." 

"A minute and twenty," Shifu corrected. "A little less now though...." 

Po let out an exhausted sigh but turned his eyes back to the wall muttering to himself, "Just a little longer, and then there shall be cookies...." 

Tigress almost chuckled, but she didn't want to interrupt his concentration so she kept her expressions to herself. Less than two minutes felt like an eternity, now that the end was almost in sight, but finally Shifu called time and everyone was quick to jump off the bowl and rest their feet. 

"Very impressive," Shifu complimented, walking over to see how everyone was managing. "You're teamwork is improving fantastically." 

"Thanks," Monkey said with a smile. "That was hard." 

"I'm just glad we didn't all fall off again," Po commented. "Thanks for the heads-up, Tigress." 

"It's nothing," the master assured him as she got to her feet and waited for her teammates to follow suit. "He's been doing these tricks for about as long as I've lived here. It just takes some time to not fall for them." 

Crane laughed as he finished massaging his leg and got up. "Remember when we had that one training exercise on the rooftop and we were supposed to stay up there until the evening gong?"

"Oh yeah! And it was pouring rain and thundering off in the distance?!" Monkey remembered. "I thought we were all going to get struck by lightning or something!" 

"I'm sure Shifu wouldn't have let it come to that," Viper told them. She giggled and began to follow her friends into a small circle around Shifu, waiting to hear the next set of instructions. 

Mantis scratched his head. "I have no memory of this," he admitted. 

"You weren't here yet," Tigress explained. "It was just after Viper showed up." 

"Let me guess? Shifu rang another gong beforehand?" Po suggested. 

"Close. He played his flute at a really low tone. Everyone thought it was the gong and jumped inside except for me." 

"Yep. And Tigress got to go inside early while the rest of us had to run up and down the stairs in the thunder storm," Viper added. "And Tigress wasn't a good cook back then, so we had to stand around freezing before dinner was made." 

"You didn't know that yet?"

"Well, we all found out pretty fast...." 

Po turned to the group with a quizzical look. "Did she really blow up the stove?" he asked.

"Yes," came the unified answer. (With Shifu adding on the side that it had actually been the stove and most of the cabinets alongside it). 

Mantis whistled. "Glad I wasn't around then," he commented. 

"Be careful what you wish for," Tigress remarked. 

Shifu cleared his throat to interrupt the conversation before they wound up standing there for an hour. He informed the students that, because they had exceeded his expectations regarding their focus and physical balance, he would allow them a short break before Po began his training. He then dismissed the six, telling them to be back in the training hall promptly after lunch. The masters complied, making their quick exit from the training hall just in case Shifu tried to change their plans last minute to more training. Because it was Po officially teaching the class, the masters began to silently think back to their first introduction to Po and how comedically bad he had messed up in the training hall. They also thought about his previous attempts at training them, though these had been more about teaching him the importance of training every single day. (A lesson Po kept close in mind after the group got their butts creamed by mere bandits not even a week afterwards). They ate their lunch, making small nervous talk, and then finally headed back to the training hall. However, as they entered the courtyard, they were greeted by Mei-Ling standing in front of the training hall doors with a small scroll in her paws. 

"Did Shifu leave already?" Po asked in surprise. 

"Yep," Mei-Ling answered. "It's never a good idea to be late for an appointment with the emperor, so he thought it best to get to the meeting as early as possible. However, he left you some instructions. Once I hand them to you, I'm forbidden from speaking a word until he gets back, so you'll be getting no help." 

Po gulped. "No tips?" he asked in disbelief. "No teaching aids? No If Shifu gets a bad report, I'll get twenty lashes?" 

"Well don't give him any ideas!" Mantis scolded. 

"Sorry, Po," Mei-Ling apologized. "You'll only have the note to go on."

She then proceeded to hand him the scroll she held and retreated to the side of the training arena, clearly waiting for Po to get started. Po took a small breath and opened the scroll and began to read it out loud: 

Po,

As I am going to meet the emperor today, you will be left in charge of class. I firmly believe that all lessons are to be learned on the job, so you will have the responsibility of helping the Furious Five improve some aspect of themselves. As this is your first class and I personally don't feel like cleaning up blood and fur from The Earthen Marks of Eternity or The Swinging Blades of Death, I decided to leave you with a lesson plan: TIME. 

I trust this will be sufficient enough for the afternoon session of your training. I will see you later this evening for dinner. 

Shifu

"Well that's helpful!" Po exclaimed irritably. "Do I look like Master Oogway?!" 

"Well Master Po, you have your guiding plan for the day," Tigress commented with a small smirk. "Are we going to be sitting around wasting time again, or do you have something better cooked up?"

Po turned a dark shade of red and gritted his teeth as Viper scolded Tigress for being rude. "I'll think of something!" he promised. "Just...let me get my bearings...." 

Tigress shrugged and stood perfectly still, waiting for him to speak again. 

"Man, it's going to be so weird when Po officially becomes our teacher," Monkey commented excitedly. "Do you know how late we'll get to sleep in?!" 

"I'm already looking forward to it," Mantis admitted. "Just don't tell Shifu that." 

"No promises," Tigress told him. 

Mantis' face fell nervously as Viper held back a small chuckle. Po finally cleared his throat, though his eyes were still peering nervously at the singular word on the paper. 

"So," he announced, finally rolling the scroll back up. "In line with Shifu's...instructions...I have decided that we will be hitting various tiny teacups with bows and arrows." 

"Hitting teacups?" Monkey questioned. "How many?" 

"Um...just five. One for each of you." 

Tigress held back a laugh. "Whatever you say, Master," she joked. "Should I grab them for you or are you going to set up the training exercise yourself?"

"Um...I'll do it," Po told her. He quickly walked out of the training hall muttering to himself about whether or not it would be hard enough. 

"He does realize we all know how to shoot small targets, right?" Crane asked the group. 

"Let him be. It's only his first day," Viper scolded gently. 

Tigress folded her arms and stood silently by her friends, thinking of plenty of more difficult training exercises that had to do with timing. As she got lost in thought, her eyes suddenly decided to shift over to Mei-Ling. She wasn't doing much; she was just standing silently over by the weapons rack making little notations in another scroll she had on her. Her eyes moved up and met Tigress', leaving the two with a split second of awkward eye contact. Tigress wasn't really sure what to do, so she just slowly moved her eyes over to focus on something behind Mei-Ling. (Which turned out to be the wall on the far side). Mei-Ling simply smiled, waved, and went back to looking at her writing. Po finally came back to the training arena, carrying five small cups. He walked over to the training hall and opened the door where he began to walk over to the far side where the Earthen Marks of Eternity were. The Five followed him in and watched him place each tea cup onto each flat club hanging from the ceiling. When he finished, turned to his friends and said, "Okay, so Shifu said timing, so to test how good everyone is at timing arrow throws, you guys can try and shoot each of the teacups while they're moving." 

The masters couldn't help but notice how loose each of the cups were as they simply lay on the Earthen Marks of Eternity. However, the instructions had been to let Po teach the class alone, so they simply stood there and watched as the machine roared to life. The spiked wood began to slowly move back and forth and as it did so, the tea cups slipped right off and crashed onto the floor. Po quickly stopped the machine and stared at the shattered mess on the floor. Monkey tried to hold in a laugh so that Po didn't feel too bad, but a quick snicker found its way out. Po gritted his teeth and continued to stare at the mess, occasionally looking up at the Earthen Marks of Eternity. The Five waited patiently for him to speak, but he didn't seem to be in much of a talking mood. Finally, Tigress asked, "Po? Are you okay?" 

Po blinked. "Oh. Yeah," he said. "I'm just...I'm.....I'll be right back...."

He began to walk back to the front door of the training hall as Tigress added "I hope you plan on replacing those."

"I'll do it later, I promise." 

The doors then shut, leaving an echo and the restless Furious Five behind in the training hall. (Well, that and Mei-Ling who by this point was sitting by the stairs, probably to stay out of the line of danger during the training session). The echo soon left an empty silence, prompting Tigress to fill it while waiting for Po to fix the mess. 

"Well, while we're waiting..." she remarked, heading over to the Seven Swinging Clubs. "I'm going to do some warm-ups." 

"Shouldn't we wait for Po to come back though?" Viper asked her. 

"I have a feeling he's going to be a while." 

The master then proceeded to dive into a series of evasive maneuvers while on the equipment. She might as well keep her mind sharp while they had all this time. She eventually heard her friends begin to train on each of the different equipment and guessed that they figured it would be best to follow her intuition. Aside from a couple of blinding moments in her life, her intuition had never been wrong. And as it turned out, this time was no exception. While she continued to self-train, Tigress couldn't help but feel a little bit of pity for Po. It was true that it didn't take him too long to grasp onto concepts of kung fu, in fact he sometimes did it much faster than even she, but in the meantime it took him a considerable amount of effort and embarrassing moments to get to that particular point. It caused Tigress a little pain to see him embarrassed or confused, but she knew it was part of the learning process so she had to let it alone. She had to go through it herself many times in the past in order to get to where she was today. 

I wonder if Shifu ever felt that way whenever I messed up, she thought as she dodged a swinging club. He never seemed to express any emotion whenever I failed aside from harsh critiques and irritation. Though he has told me more and more recently how proud he is and how much he cared. So maybe he just felt like helping me would cause more harm than good. Like with Tai Lung. 

Tigress thought about what Po had said about the Ascending Islands and training with Master Oogway. Po had briefly mentioned that Tai Lung was there to lend Oogway a hand, much to her surprise, and that he was trying to change himself for the better but was clearly still very bitter and cynical about what had happened in the past. She shuddered a little, thinking about her battle with the snow leopard years earlier, but then pushed it away and focused more on her training. She wondered if Po had ever told Shifu about his unconscious training with Oogway, though soon dismissed it as a no since too much mention of either person could turn Shifu into an emotional wreck for a few hours. (So imagine mentioning them both at the same time...!). 

The training hall doors finally opened again after what felt like over twenty minutes and Po walked back in with five more tea cups. He seemed to have calmed down from his previous mistake and now strode somewhat confidently into the center of the room. Noticing him, the rest of the Five gathered in the center with Tigress not far behind. 

"Okay, I figured out how to keep the cups on there!" Po announced. "You guys can hold them." 

The Five stared at him. Their mouths slowly slid open and they couldn't help but feel a little nervous. "Um...are you sure?" Crane asked worriedly. 

"Hey don't worry," Po assured them. "You don't have to move around the Earthen Marks of Eternity. You just need to hold onto the cups while they swing about. And don't move them towards the arrow or else it's cheating." 

"How am I supposed to hold onto a tea cup and those death traps at the same time?" Mantis questioned. "In case you've forgotten, I'm the same size as these things!" 

"You'll manage," Tigress told him. "I promise I won't hit you with the arrow." 

Mantis gulped in terror. 

"Okay so everyone gets a tea cup," Po said, handing each one out to his friends. "And while one of you sits up on the Earthen Marks of Eternity, another person will take a turn at shooting the cup." 

"Without hitting each other?" Viper added. 

"Right. Yeah. Don't want to do that." 

Po then walked over to the switch that started the machine and added, "So who wants to be the tea cup holder first?" 

"Do we all have to do it?" Mantis asked. 

"Yes. Shifu always makes me do stuff I don't like....." 

"I'll go first," Tigress said. "And if anyone hits me, you'll be my target when it's my turn." 

The remaining Furious Five froze in fear as Tigress mounted the training equipment and kept a firm hold on the chain with one hand and the tea cup with the other. Monkey decided to go first in shooting the arrow since he didn't want Mantis to be at Tigress' mercy again due to something accidentally done. Monkey picked up a bow and arrow and Po turned on The Earthen Marks of Eternity. Tigress tightened her grip on the chain wrapped around the wood she stood on and kept her eyes narrowed at Monkey as the rest of the equipment swung by and above her. The primate kept a careful eye on the tea cup which Tigress held a good foot or so away from her body and watched as the various logs and circular clubs swung violently around. After a minute or two of careful observation, Monkey fired the arrow at the tea cup, hitting it square in the middle and shattering it on impact.  Po quickly stopped the machine, allowing Tigress to get off and swap places with someone else. He seemed a little dumbstruck, but he kept up the rest of the training session with his friends. Viper shot next with Mantis holding onto the teacup. (He wanted to get the stressful part out of the way). Then Crane took a shot, followed Mantis, and lastly Tigress. As Tigress put the bow back in the weapons' rack, Po stood nervously by the Earthen Marks of Eternity and watched as Mei-Ling scribbled casually in the scroll she had. 

"Great training exercise, Po," Monkey commented. "It was really easy." 

Po turned red and fiddled with his thumbs. "Is...that a good thing?" he asked. 

"You did fine," Viper assured him. "Creativity is a good thing for training exercises." 

Po managed to smile. "Thanks," he said. He paused. "So...you guys finished early. By a lot. So...I guess you can do whatever you want." 

"Sweet! I call swimming!" Monkey exclaimed. "Who's coming?!" 

"Sure," Viper said. "I call making a lake boat!" 

"Ooh! Count me in!" Mantis exclaimed. 

The three made a bee-line towards the door to head over to the lake while Crane and Tigress bowed to Po, thanked him for the training session, and then left saying they were going to be hanging out around the Jade Palace grounds. Left alone in the training hall, Po looked over at Mei-Ling who had finished writing and was now staring at him. She gave him a smile, seemingly trying to calm down his nervousness. 

"Did I do okay?" he asked. 

"You'll have to wait until Shifu comes back," Mei-Ling answered.