Chapter 5
The Furious Five were deeply unhappy with how the ceremony had gone. In their view, it had been turned into a surrealist spectacle of public humiliation.
They found it absurd and unjust that such an important role had been given to a clumsy, overweight panda.
The whole affair had made a mockery of every year of grueling training and hard work put in by the students of the Jade Palace.
Master Shifu, no less furious, sent his charges to the training hall immediately after dinner with a single directive:
"Today you will show this fat fool what real mastery looks like on those training grounds. Let him see the difference between himself and true masters. And he—" He paused, sweeping his gaze across his students. His expression at that moment was thunderous.
The Furious Five went still, waiting for the end of their master's speech.
"—will either leave today in disgrace of his own accord, or he will attempt the training ground, and then he will leave the Jade Palace on a stretcher!" Shifu finished, his voice landing on a note of particular menace.
The students bowed, received their dismissal, and departed, having promised their master they would do everything in their power to make the panda understand his position as quickly as possible — and arrive at the only reasonable conclusion, which was to get out.
The five masters arrived at the training hall and immediately began to say what had been weighing on them. They hadn't been able to speak freely before, as servants had been bustling around them constantly, any one of whom might have overheard.
Tigress spoke first. Normally she was composed and measured; her behavior now said everything that needed to be said. Eyes blazing, claws slightly extended, fur bristling — it was plain how deeply the situation had shaken her.
"I couldn't have imagined an outcome like this in my worst nightmares. It isn't just that Master Oogway chose an outsider, a simple fat drunk who doesn't understand the first thing about kung fu — he chose the very one who destroyed part of our home!" Her voice was barely steady, every word forced through clenched teeth.
"Calm down, Tigress. Remember Master Shifu's teachings — it's important to stay composed and not let feelings take over," Viper said carefully, trying to soothe her.
Monkey backed Viper up, though his own voice carried considerably more tension:
"We need to be especially careful right now, more than ever. Otherwise we risk becoming like *him*. He was also denied the title of Dragon Warrior — and he couldn't accept it. Look where that led."
The others exchanged surprised glances. It was unusual to hear something that serious from Monkey. A heavy silence settled over them, each person turning the thought over privately. The only sound was the quiet rustle of Mantis shifting his wings.
To break the oppressive quiet, Mantis ventured carefully: "Does anyone actually know where this panda came from? I've heard rumors that pandas are rare now — on the verge of dying out entirely because of their clumsiness. How did he even end up here?"
They all looked at each other and shook their heads.
Crane spoke up: "The servants are saying his name is Po and he lives just nearby, in the local noodle shop. Apparently he's the only panda in the Valley of Peace. If nothing changes, it looks like the future will be in the hands of a chubby incompetent cook." The last part came out with particular weight.
That final remark drew a bitter smirk from Monkey.
"That's probably why he looks like a balloon. He should have stayed in his noodle shop where he belongs," Monkey said, and there was poison in every word.
Viper offered a quietly dissenting view: "Perhaps we should give him a chance to show what he can do? After all, if we think about Master Oogway's wisdom—" Her tail swayed nervously as she spoke, betraying her unease.
Tigress cut her off, irritated: "No one deserves that chance when the fate of all kung fu is at stake. That panda has no right to be here." She finished with open disgust, her face set in a scowl.
"Agreed," Crane added with a snort. "If he manages anything worth noticing today, I'll eat my own hat."
Mantis listened to all of it and said nothing. Admitting what he was feeling to himself wasn't easy, but deep down something genuinely resembling pity for the panda was stirring in his chest. He knew that dismissive treatment from a long time ago — he too had spent years being taken seriously by no one, never even given the chance to show what he was capable of.
The conversation could have gone on longer, but Tigress caught something with her sharp hearing — the light shuffle of Shifu's paws and the heavy thud of the panda's footsteps.
She gave a signal. In an instant the five of them dispersed across different sections of the training ground, each falling into the demonstration of skills honed through years of relentless work in this very place.
The Jade Palace training hall was a unique space, designed for the perfecting of martial arts. It was a large open-air area enclosed by solid wooden walls and a floor made from a particular species of timber resistant to both fire and heavy impact.
Along the perimeter stood wooden racks and stands, densely stocked with every variety of weapon imaginable, from crude clubs to crossbows and heavy shields.
At the center of the hall lay a large rectangular pit with a stone floor, where the training mechanisms were spaced at measured intervals.
First in line were massive rotating cylinders that moved in sinuous, serpentine patterns, above which spiked clubs swung on chains.
Behind them sat an enormous jade bowl shaped like a tortoise, which served as a sparring platform. Its design kept it so stable as to make tipping it over nearly impossible.
After that came a forest of mechanical devices that resembled wooden pillars divided into independently moving segments, each fitted with thick wooden blades. The defining feature of these contraptions was that every segment moved completely independently. Even the lightest touch on one part activated all the others, which could rotate in entirely different directions.
At the far end lay a zone scattered with protruding pipes that periodically shot columns of flame in random bursts.
Above everything, chains hung from the overhead beams, each bearing a wooden ring ringed with sharp metal spikes.
All of these mechanisms, as one could reasonably guess, were designed primarily to develop reflexes and agility — but most of them offered no margin for error, and a single wrong move could result in serious injury.
A short while later the doors of the training hall swung open, and Master Shifu entered, followed by the enormous panda.
***
At that moment Tigress was balancing on the first row of the training ground, holding her footing with ease on a cylinder that writhed like a snake beneath her. The swinging clubs that tried to strike her caught nothing but air, or were deflected with precise economy. She cast a sharp sideways look and took the opportunity to study the panda properly — during the ceremony her own inner turmoil had made that impossible.
The panda stood over two meters tall. His massive body carried a heavy layer of fat, most noticeably in the round, substantial belly and the thick arms and legs. He wore loose, baggy shorts and crudely made wooden sandals, and he was still holding the metal flask.
Although most of his body was obscured beneath layers of fat, his head was comparatively lean. Large, vivid green eyes formed a striking contrast with his square jaw and straight, firm nose. His black-and-white fur had lost some of its sheen and looked slightly dusty after the day's events.
What caught her attention most, however, was the look he directed across the training ground — an expression of profound, undisguised disappointment.
Something flared inside Tigress. How dare he look at this place — at *them* — with such casual disrespect?
She struck one of the clubs with fury, and the impact was too much for its mounting. It tore free of the chain and shot toward the panda's head like a cannonball.
The instant awareness of what she had done sent a spike of fear through her. If the panda didn't get out of the way, he would likely be killed — and she would have disappointed Master Shifu once again.
But contrary to her fears, and to her considerable relief, the panda raised one arm with startling speed and caught the projectile cleanly. His face registered genuine surprise, as though he couldn't quite believe he'd done it himself.
*He didn't even flinch. Is there so much fat on him that he simply absorbed all the momentum?* Tigress thought, genuinely taken aback.
Crane, who had also been watching the panda sidelong while sparring with Monkey in the bowl, felt an inward nervous lurch — it was beginning to look like he might actually have to eat his hat.
The panda turned the incoming club over in his hands, studying it with interest. It looked more like a stump covered in sharp spikes than any conventional weapon. He tossed it aside as though discarding litter. Tigress noticed, though, that his hand was trembling very slightly.
"Warm welcome," he said in a low rumble. "Couldn't ask for more."
Shifu, his expression unreadable, signaled the Furious Five. They stopped their exercises immediately and gathered around him and the panda.
"Well, Panda. Your training begins now," Shifu said with a pleasantness that promised nothing good.
"Master Shifu, this isn't even a training hall," the panda began calmly, choosing his words with care.
*He doesn't even think this place looks like a training hall,* the members of the Furious Five noted privately, each adding another layer of hostility to their already considerable resentment.
"It looks more like some kind of torture chamber. I can see plainly that everything in here was built for suffering and pain," the panda finished, looking the training ground over.
"In the art of kung fu, pain and suffering are considered the finest teachers. Students develop their mastery by overcoming them," said Master Shifu, embellishing rather freely, though the panda had no need to know that.
"And as the Dragon Warrior, naturally, you will face unending trials, and only by overcoming them will you be able to prove your strength of spirit and earn access to the Dragon Scroll." He continued working on Po without restraint.
"And you're suggesting I throw myself straight into all of this, on the theory that I might learn something?" the panda replied with open skepticism.
"You won't know until you try," said Shifu with a smirk.
"But, Master, as the wise Jason Statham once said, there's no need to taste a rotten flatbread to understand that it's unfit for—" Everyone in the hall understood perfectly well what he meant.
Viper was puzzled by the unfamiliar name. She had read a great many ancient scrolls in her time and had never once come across a figure by that name.
"Of course, you could simply decline the title, if you feel you're not ready for what lies ahead. Go home and return to your comfortable life," Shifu said in a honeyed voice, his manner radiating benevolence.
He was hoping the panda was not stupid enough to miss the obvious right answer. Shifu had no real desire to push things to extremes.
The panda looked at Shifu with clear mistrust, his eyes reflecting total uncertainty about the master's words — as though he sensed some enormous trap beneath the surface.
"It's not that I'm not ready," the panda said in a tone of someone who has given up fighting. "I just need to warm up first." He set the flask aside and began his warm-up.
Mantis, standing nearby, caught a familiar scent drifting from the panda and the flask. He recognized it with surprise — the flask contained an alchemical preparation known as the Dragon's Eternal Sleep. The concoction was brewed from a mixture of particular roots and medicinal herbs steeped in pure spirits, through an alchemical reaction that dramatically increased its potency. It was typically administered diluted with water to severely wounded fighters, to prevent death from pain shock and induce unconscious sleep.
Meanwhile the panda worked through his warm-up, running through basic exercises — stretching, push-ups, squats — and doing so with deliberate slowness. Either he was stalling before the real ordeal began, or he simply enjoyed the process.
Finally, after ten long minutes that felt considerably longer to everyone watching, he approached the rotating cylinder obstacle and stood there staring at it from under his brow, unable to bring himself to step onto the first bar. Master Shifu ran out of patience, swung a foot, and shoved the unfortunate panda forward, effectively sending him sprawling onto the equipment.
Once on the cylinders, the panda thrashed and swore loudly, waving his arms desperately and frantically shuffling his feet to keep from falling. The clubs kept swinging, forcing him to dodge instinctively. But it was an unequal contest, and an unlucky move led inevitably to a fall.
Almost every member of the Furious Five, despite their genuine hatred of the panda, felt the same instinctive impulse to step in and prevent injury. They had been raised to help those in need, and the reflex engaged automatically. But Shifu cut off the attempt with a firm gesture. The look in the master's eyes told his students he was confident the panda could take the impact without serious harm.
The panda ended up horizontal, essentially in a plank position, both paws gripping two of the rotating cylinders — which were spinning in opposite directions. The powerful mechanism strained with everything it had to keep turning, and fought in vain against the resistance of the creature holding it.
What happened next struck the Furious Five as frankly absurd. The panda began to tense the muscles in his arms, rising slightly against the pressure of the system. The mechanism began to give ground — it had not been built to sustain a load this large for this long.
Eventually a sharp crack sounded from somewhere to the side, and the remaining active cylinders ground to a halt. The wooden clubs that had been swinging rhythmically overhead slowed and went still.
Tigress watched with irritation as the panda's clumsy flailing broke her favorite piece of training equipment. It was yet another infraction from the fool, doing nothing to improve her opinion of him.
Monkey was asking himself silently: *Master Shifu, why did you put the panda on the training ground? This walking disaster is going to break everything in here.*
Shifu looked on coldly, calculating in his head the cost of repairing the damaged mechanism.
Po sighed heavily, got up, and looked at what he had done with an embarrassed wince, scratching the back of his head.
"Maybe we call it a day here? We can start fresh tomorrow with new energy," he offered hopefully.
Shifu's expression made it perfectly clear that the panda was not getting off that easily.
"No. Move to the next station. Go to the wooden fighters. And don't even look at the Jade Tortoise of Wisdom," the master said sharply.
The panda did not look remotely disappointed by this news. Quite the opposite — something like relief lit up his eyes, though he did his best not to show it. Shifu noticed, and moved immediately to extinguish it.
"After all, you aren't worthy of standing beside my students, let alone sparring with them," he said with a contemptuous curl of his lip, looking down at the panda from his full height.
"Wasn't planning on it," the panda muttered with a dark look, and approached the wooden pillars, eyeing them with open suspicion.
"Are you going to stare at them all night? Hit it!" Shifu said, losing patience.
"What if I break these too," the panda asked.
To the Furious Five, the concern was laughable. The mechanisms were extremely sturdy and almost never broke down.
"Panda, just *hit the pillar!*" Shifu snapped, his patience finally spent.
"Fine." Po shrugged and tapped a palm against one of the mechanism's blades with moderate force. The segments began turning smoothly in the direction away from the strike. He intercepted the movement clumsily with his arms and legs and brought it to a stop.
From Viper's perspective, this wasn't actually bad. Beginning practitioners of kung fu typically started exactly this way. Shifu, however, had entirely different objectives in mind.
"Good. Now hit it harder!" he demanded.
The panda struck one of the blades again, a little more firmly this time — and failed to notice that at the exact same instant a small stone struck the neighboring lower blade, flicked there by Shifu with extraordinary speed.
The impact of that seemingly insignificant pebble multiplied the mechanism's rotational speed several times over in an instant.
At that precise moment the panda was shifting his stance to block a predictable incoming strike, and for a fraction of a second left himself exposed. He paid for it immediately, taking a devastating and completely unexpected blow directly to the groin from one of the spinning blades.
A sound followed that seemed almost illusory — like the crack of a shell shattering — and the panda folded in half with a sharp groan.
The male members of the Furious Five winced as one, as though they had felt the blow themselves, and were briefly flooded with unwilling sympathy.
Shifu felt a surge of guilt, and something close to shame — he had intended the strike to catch the panda in the leg. Despite this, he made every effort to mask his embarrassment.
"There is your first lesson. A true kung fu master is prepared to meet an attack from any direction, not only when the threat is visible. The ability to respond and counter at the right moment is what distinguishes a real fighter from a beginner," he declared, stroking his neat beard with the air of a man dispensing wisdom.
What happened next made every member of the Furious Five's jaw drop, and shattered their settled opinion of the panda's uselessness entirely.
The panda straightened up with a sharp jerk. His eyes had gone red. His fur was standing on end. What was in his gaze was pure, raw, animal fury.
"I understand, Master. Thank you for the lesson," he said. His voice carried a growling undertone beneath the rage barely contained within it.
But Shifu did not hear the answer. He was no longer looking at the panda. He was seeing a different figure entirely. Without warning he had been dragged back — deep into a painful memory he had spent years trying to erase.
Meanwhile the panda's right forearm and hand had begun to swell visibly in painful spasms. Through the thick layer of fat, massive cords of muscle pushed to the surface, straining to their limit. Above them, veins pulsed and swelled, clearly visible even through the dense fur, as though ready to burst through.
With a savage roar the panda pivoted at the hips. The massive paw shot forward like lightning, long sharp claws fully extended. The strike was accompanied by a visible wake of displaced air that stirred the dust around it.
The impact on its target was catastrophic. The mechanism was literally torn apart — more than half of it exploded into splinters, while larger fragments flew outward like shrapnel, destroying everything in their path.
Every member of the Furious Five found themselves involuntarily imagining what it would feel like to be in the place of the mechanism that had just been annihilated. They each quietly wondered whether they would have survived that.
The doubt deepened as they took in the damage the flying debris had done to the surrounding equipment. Several pieces were now beyond any hope of repair.
The entire training ground fell into stunned silence. The only sound was the panda's heavy breathing as he slowly came back to himself in the aftermath of annihilating his opponent. Then he hunched over sharply and rasped in a subdued voice:
"Oh no… my bells…"
Having recovered somewhat from the immediate aftermath, the panda straightened halfway and turned his head toward Master Shifu with an uncertain look.
"Maybe we call it here for tonight? I think I've demonstrated I can respond appropriately to an opponent's attack," he said, a little louder this time.
"Yes. We're done for tonight. My students will show you to a free room," said Shifu. His voice had a distant, distracted quality to it, and his eyes were clouded — it was clear his thoughts were somewhere else entirely.
"Well, thank goodness for that…" came the panda's voice, heavy with relief.