The Ticking Contingent: The Countdown vo.2

Knots

When Po's training session finished that afternoon, he dismissed the Furious Five for the day and went right to the kitchen to make dinner. There was no trace of Zhen anywhere so the Dragon Warrior assumed she had slunk off to clean herself up. She had set up a lot of sticky traps, so it might take a while to clean up that mess. Monkey was still pretty excited about his victory over her during the long chase in the mountains and thus was pretty much the only one in a good mood at the table that evening. Tigress was not one to get tricked or pranked, so she was in the least happy mood. Especially since Po refused to put cuffs on Zhen for any reason.

"She hasn't done anything bad since she got here," Po reminded Tigress. "What's the point of giving her a chance if we're going to lock her up?"

"I know I'd feel better."

"I get it, Tigress. But I'm still trying to figure out how to help her, and treating her like a delinquent isn't going to get me anywhere."

"Hey, I'll help out if you want," Monkey offered happily. "I like a person who enjoys a good prank."

"Unless she pulls one on you," Viper piped up worriedly.

"Ah, I'd be fine. I've pulled all the old classic pranks. I know how to stay out of them."

Po soon finished dinner and dished out bowls for his friends and himself before sitting down at the table. They decided to drop the subject of Zhen for the time being and move onto a different topic of discussion. Po initially took great pleasure in chatting about new exercises and upcoming festivals (it was starting to turn to fall, so the autumn festival was coming soon), but his mind soon wandered back to Zhen. He had already known that training a former thief and helping her be good wasn't going to be the easiest thing. However, it kind of stung that she had so little respect for the art of kung fu. She couldn't even do it very well! Sure, she was good with thieving and evasive maneuvers, but if she wanted to get better, she needed more time spent strengthening those elements and understanding the reason why kung fu was so important. And right now all she seemed interested in doing was spitting in his face and tormenting his friends. The idea of training her was so exhausting that Po didn't put up much resistance when she opted to duck out of a training exercise to do her own thing. He wondered if this is how Shifu felt when he tried to train him, except Po was not difficult on purpose. Just abnormally clumsy and nothing like the Furious five.

Maybe he should talk to Shifu?

Po thought a lot during dinner, becoming abnormally quiet. The Five didn't notice at first, but as dinner was wrapping up and Po got up to clean the dishes, Crane asked, "Po, are you okay?"

"Huh? Oh. Yeah. Just...I have a lot of thoughts kinda' going on in my head right now."

"Do you want to talk about it?" Viper encouraged.

"Nah. I'll be okay. But thanks."

Po finished the dishes and headed out. He glanced in the direction of the barracks before sighing and heading to the Sacred Hall of Warriors. He needed a fresh brain before going back over the Zhen problem and playing with his action figures was the perfect recipe for that. The Dragon Warrior yawned and eventually made his way to the stairs and started up them. As he reached the front doors, he was startled by Mrs. Jun opening them.