The Countdown

"I'm always going to be there"

Tigress woke up the next morning in a cold sweat, an icy fear wrapped around her as she tried to breathe. She felt herself begin to shake as she sat up and tried to take slow breaths in order to calm herself down. The gong went off in the far distance and she heard everyone in the barracks say, "Good morning, master."

"Good morning everyone," Shifu answered. "Eat your breakfast quickly because I have a special task for all of you to perform this morning."

"Awesome!" Po exclaimed. "Special task and time for breakfast!"

"Not quite," Shifu told him as everyone began to walk out.

Tigress layed her head in her paws, trying to keep the nightmare out of her mind. She could still see the flashes of red from the cannon. She could still hear the shrieks from her friends as they perished one by one, she could still feel the pain welling up inside of her and she tried fervently to block it out.

It's just a stupid nightmare! she tried to tell herself. Everyone is still here, you defeated Lord Shen, all of China is safe! Stop worrying so much! What's wrong with you?!

Tigress slowly stood up and headed out of the barracks and towards the kitchen, thinking of the last part she had considered. What was wrong with her? She was Master Tigress, the leader of the Furious Five, the bravest in the face of danger, master of the hard-core tiger style kung fu! And right now, she was having frequent nightmares and was constantly going to people in order to drive them out. Sure, she had nightmares before, but they weren't as bad or frequent and they didn't leave horrible knots in her stomach. Normally, she would drive such issues away with kung fu, but as she was still forbidden from practicing kung fu for about another week, (she had been impatiently waiting to do it since she was freed from bed rest three weeks ago), that hadn't been much of an option. Meditating might help, she told herself. I haven't been really doing it that much lately because I've just been helping Shifu set up training exercises.

The master entered the kitchen, accidentally bumping heads with Po who was in an excited rush to do some kung fu.

"Oof! Oh, sorry Tigress!" the Dragon Warrior exclaimed. "I didn't see you there!"

"Heading out already?" Tigress asked, rubbing the spot on her head where she had gotten whacked.

"Yeah, Shifu was pretty serious when he said to eat quickly."

"When isn't he?"

"Alright, you two, enough chit-chat," Shifu interrupted. "I know you'd love to talk, Po, but we have training to get to,"

"Right," Po acknowledged.

Tigress stepped over to the side so that he could get out.

"We'll see you later, Tigress," Shifu promised her, heading out with the other Five. "There's dumplings in the pot if you're hungry."

"Thank you, master," Tigress said, bowing as the rest of her friends left. Soon, she was standing by herself in the kitchen. The master took a small breath to steady her breathing and walked over to get herself some breakfast, glad no one had noticed that she was shaking. The master sat down at the table and began to eat pondering over what everyone could have been doing for their "special task". As she wasn't allowed to do kung fu, she wasn't allowed to see what it was and even if she wanted to find out herself, Shifu had made sure that certain villagers were keeping an eye on her whenever she went out so that she didn't do kung fu. If Tigress knew who they were, she would have followed everyone out in a heartbeat. But she couldn't, so she sat there and ate, figuring out what she was going to do until her friends got back. She knew that meditation was in order as she needed to get back to her warrior side and fast, but besides that, the only other thing she was really able to do was wander around.