"Po!!!" Li cried in alarm. "Are you okay? You fainted! Did we hit you?! Are you blind?! Is it too hot?! Do you need some water?!"

Still exhausted and out breath (and a bit hot actually), Po just said he was hot and sat up, allowing Li to run around looking for a cool bucket of water to give him. Mr. Ping was just as concerned and began to press Po with another thousand questions. The Dragon Teacher was still very discombobulated and decided, while his dad was going on about him working himself too hard, that he should keep this vision to himself for the time being. It had been pretty spooky, thinking on it, and Po would rather not discuss it at the moment. Li soon came back with the water and Po gulped as much of it down as he could, thanking his dad for the help. He then got back onto his feet and apologized for worrying everyone. Li made him sit in the shade while the class continued on with practicing the claps. Po didn't pay much attention to them though as the vision swirled around in his head for a while. Particularly the death part.

Was someone going to die?

Po went over what he had seen, but nothing concrete really came to mind. He saw a place he didn't recognize, felt pain he had never experienced, heard noises that overwhelmed him....

Was...he going to die?

Was this why he needed a new dragon warrior?!

Po's head still swirled with thoughts as he finished up the class and headed up to the Jade Palace. He needed to sit down and get this vision cleared up in his head! Po debated on whether or not to tell his friends, but decided not to for the time being. If someone was going to die, he'd rather know for definite than send everyone into a panic. He just needed to maintain a good poker face so someone didn't ask too many questions. Fortunately, he was able to put his thoughts to the side when he reached the kitchen and saw a familiar face laughing away with his friends.

"SHIFU!" Po exclaimed happily. "What are you doing here?!"

"Oh, good evening Master Po," Shifu greeted. "I was thinking today that I hadn't seen everyone in a while, and I thought today might be a good day to stop by and say hello. And also meet your new trainee."

Zhen, who was sitting next to Shifu, started laughing, surprising Po. "You never told me your old master had a great sense of humor!" she remarked.

Po chuckled sheepishly at varying memories of getting smacked with a flute or staff. "Yeah, nothing but laughs with Shifu," he said. "Great memories."

As he went to the stove to start making dinner, Mantis told Shifu that it was great to see him after a whole year and asked how he was doing with his tea classes.

"It's been very relaxing I have to admit," Shifu told him. "I didn't think I'd like retirement, especially after figuring out chi, but there's something about sitting outside and looking up at the sky that's strangely exhilarating."

"I know!" Zhen exclaimed. "People always think that you can get your thrills from beating the livin' snot outta' the little guys. But stargazing and strollin' through the woods does the same thing, you know? I don't even know how. You just get this weird sensory feeling that just...fits."

"My sentiments exactly!"

"I didn't take you for the stargazing type, Zhen," Po remarked from the stove. "Is that why you almost never rob people at night?"

"No, but it's a bonus," Zhen admitted with an eye roll.

"Don't mind Po, now," Shifu told her, taking a sip of tea from a cup he had on the table. "He works with simple logic."

"Aw come on Shifu! Let's not start insulting me now! I haven't had that for four years!"

Zhen laughed. "Wait, is that why you get mad at me?" she asked. "Because Shifu used to do it?"

"Well, to be fair, Po was so bad when he started that it was almost child's play," Shifu admitted.

From the stove, Po frowned.

"Even children have the basic adrenaline and survival tactics down," Shifu continued. "Able to manage well with a training dummy. Po was so bad that the dummy beat him up."

Zhen started cracking up.

"Okay, Shifu," Po called over. "Glad to hash out memories, but let's get to the part when you realized I wasn't so bad."

"Well, it certainly took me a while. Especially since we were dealing with a threat at the time," Shifu said, redirecting the conversation back to Zhen. "Naturally I was under a lot of distress, and Po, some random panda with absolutley zero experience or sense, being picked didn't help. I admit it was probably one of the worst days of my life."

"Yeah, maybe when he's done, he'll tell you about the next worse things," Po interrupted. "Like losing all your friends to a mind-controlled emperor, or failing to save an entire village from a rampaging monster."

"Po..." Tigress warned.

"Well I wasn't expecting you to defeat Tai Lung, if that's what you're referring to," Shifu said. "And that idea was what made it all feel worse. I even tried kicking him down the stairs and he still came back."

Zhen laughed again.

"You should have been here for Zhen's first day then," Crane noted, which got the brown fox to quickly shut up.

"Hey, easy there, feathers!" she snapped.

Shifu looked at Po with peaked curiosity. When Po noticed, he said, "Yeah, learned my lesson from all the times you've done that to me."

"Was he that bad of a student?" Zhen asked, eager to switch topics again. "Did he eat dumplings in the training hall or snore during lessons?"

"And broke several artifacts in the Sacred Hall of Warriors," Shifu added. "Not to mention accidentally almost starting a war between provinces, destroying parts of the Wu Dan mountains, nearly dooming the valley because he didn't listen to directions, getting tricked by bandits poorly disguised as circus performers...."

"Okay, that one wasn't my fault," Po interrupted again. "I knew they were bandits, but dad insisted I let them be so he could get more money before they went off to prison."

"And you're telling us this now?" Mantis exclaimed.

"Hey, between that and pretending to not know they were bandits, neither option looked good, so I went with the lesser of two evils."

Shifu groaned. Zhen just laughed. "You and your dad are as thick as thieves," she observed. "I can see why you put more effort into saving his shop."

"For the last time! It wasn't special treatment! Trust me! We tried everything with you guys! You're just too sneaky!"

"I appreciate the compliment," Zhen said. She then turned back to Shifu and continued to talk about Po, with Shifu more than happy to keep up the conversation. Eventually, to Po's relief, the conversation switched to kung fu styles, Shifu's personal interest in kung fu, some advice for Zhen since he was familiar with fox style (he had met one at an annual masters meeting and had engaged in light sparring with him), and his favorite tea. Soon Po had finished dinner and had served it to everyone and was able to chat with his friends without the stress of Shifu embarrassing him with more first year training blunders. Zhen didn't seem to mind the old master's company and spent a good part of the evening chatting with him and laughing over old stories and being fascinated with Shifu's cranky training techniques in comparison to Po's. Eventually dinner ended and Shifu dismissed himself from the table. Po offered to accompany him to the door since he hadn't spoken to him in a while, though in reality this was more to ask Shifu why on earth he felt the need to embarrass him in front of Zhen.

"She already thinks I'm a blundering idiot," he grumbled irritably as the two made their way to the Jade Palace gates. "Why rub salt in the wound?"

"What feels like a blunder to you can be of comfort to others," Shifu told him simply. Seeing the confused look on Po's face, Shifu stopped walking and looked at him firmly. "Before you came to the Jade Palace," he explained. "How did you feel about the Furious Five?"

"I thought you guys were all awesome and amazing and I couldn't wait to train next to you, and it felt like a big dream coming true!"

"Except the first day didn't go so well, did it?"

"Well...no. And to speak truthfully, it did hurt my feelings a lot. Which you guys have totally apologized for, so...no hard feelings."

"Acknowledged. How about after a month? How did things go?"

"Better. I could hold my own against Tigress, but a lot of stuff still kind of got to my head, so it was still kind of distracting. Plus, you know, eating with legends? I know I asked a lot of annoying questions."

"How about after a year?"

"It felt kinda' normal. Especially when you started letting me go on missions with everyone and we started doing the weakness exercises and I thought, hey! I'm not the only one who gets stuck on random kung fu stuff." He paused. "Oh. I see what you mean."

"Zhen doesn't see masters in the same light as you do, it's true," Shifu admitted. "She sees them as broken, corrupted, imperfect. You've always seen us as beacons of perfection and amazing legends. But just as your perspective changed and matured the longer you trained here, so will hers. It will just take time and patience. Besides, I think she'll fit in quite well. She amuses me."

"I could tell...."

Shifu laughed in thought and headed towards the gates. "Goodnight, Dragon Warrior," he said.

"Goodnight Shifu," Po answered back. As he turned to leave, Master Shifu called over, "And Po...."

Po turned back around. "Yeah?" he asked.

"Tell Tigress that there's no need to feel cautious about bringing Tai Lung or other aspects of my past up. I've moved on from that."

"You could tell her yourself?"

"I will when she comes to see me with Lei-Lei, but in the meantime, letting her know that might ease her mind before the next visit."

"Oh. Ok. Gotcha. Goodnight! Again!"

"Goodnight, Po."