The Ticking Contingent: The Countdown vo.2

A New Dawn

Po made it clear before going down to the village to eat that he didn't want to tell the villagers about picking a new Dragon Warrior just yet. Po had been the Dragon Warrior for a long time and he had absolutely no idea who the new one would be, so he didn't want to overexcite people when it wasn't quite time. Shifu agreed with this and Li reluctantly complied, though he said that it would be good to get the villagers used to the idea of a new potential Dragon Warrior so that there would be no shock. The masters talked about this after lunch, (after informing Mr. Ping who Po made sure to keep in the know), and decided on a compromise: Po would tell the villagers that he had a vision about a future Dragon Warrior who would replace him. Whether this was after he died or before he didn't know yet, but the villagers could be confident that they'd always have a Dragon Warrior to keep them and all of China safe from harm. Po thought this was a good idea, and at the end of the day he announced this to the villagers, keeping the other bits of information they had learned from Oogway to himself for the time being. There wasn't much to tell anyway. The villagers were surprised to hear this news, but they did seem happy to know that, if Po wasn't around to save them, somebody else would, and soon speculation on who would replace Po began. (Most of the villagers assumed Po would be replaced when he died).

Once this was out of the way though, the masters counsel had a serious sit-down discussion with Po about his time management. Po had gotten a lot better with managing the tasks that Shifu used to do as grandmaster. However, Po also had the duties of Dragon Warrior to perform as well as drop everything and keep out invading bandits, so it wasn't a surprise that he tended to forget things that even he was excited about. It was eventually decided that the master needed extra help since he got easily flustered and forgetful, someone like the Soothsayer who helped support the masters counsel in Gongmen City. Po didn't think he needed a soothsayer or somebody important since all he needed was an extra reminder here or there that he had something else to do. However, the palace servants weren't always readily available to help Po. He needed somebody specifically there to remind him of important meetings and who could help do little things that could take some weight off of Po's shoulders. And after some debating and thinking over the matter, Po eventually agreed to this.

Master Shifu and Zeng offered to help Po in this area and soon had a couple of candidates lined up at the door, though since everybody and their mother wanted to be assistant to the Dragon Warrior. The two planned clever and helpful questions to help separate the people who were there to actually help and the people who signed up just to follow Po around and swoon every so often. When they finally finished, they had about 33 candidates available for Po and the Five to interview which they promptly sent to the Jade Palace.

"This is weird," Po admitted when the day for the interviews finally came. "I know this'll help me, but it still feels like a lot having an assistant. That's like, fancy emperor or noble stuff."

"Well, you're a Grandmaster Dragon Warrior," Mantis reminded him. "Sounds like a pretty big deal to me."

Seeing he was still nervous, Tigress put a paw on Po's shoulder and promised that he'd be fine. "Think of it as having a glorified secretary or on-hand servant," she added. "Then it won't be so strange."

"I'll try," Po promised.

He and the Furious Five had set up an interview station by the moon pool in the Sacred Hall of Warriors in order to give themselves plenty of space and privacy. It was agreed that each interviewee would come in for about fifteen minutes just to see if they could make a good first impression, and then come back later when they had narrowed down the list for a more in-depth interview. Since there were many people available, the masters had decided to conduct the interviews early in the morning.

The first person to be interviewed was a middle aged goose who was so boring and monotone that Po nearly fell asleep during the interview process. However, he had good time management skills and clearly had no problem with slapping Po awake, so Tigress told Po to at least keep him in mind as a possibility.