The Countdown

Murmurs of the Mind

The next morning, the masters were eating in the kitchen when Master Shifu came in to greet them.

"Good morning, master," they said in unison.

"Good morning," Shifu answered back with a smile. "I trust you all enjoyed sleeping in while I was away?"

"What makes you think we slept in, master?" Tigress asked.

"I've known you all for quite a long time," Shifu told her. "And knowing you fairly well, I can imagine that most of you chose to sleep in during my absence."

"Tigress didn't sleep in," Viper piped up.

"I figured that," Shifu responded. He cleared his throat and said, "Well now that I'm back, your time for relaxing has expired, so after breakfast, I want you all in the training hall.

"Yes master," the students agreed, bowing in respect. The master grabbed some food from the pot so as to eat alongside the students, Tigress lost in thought every once in a while as the group talked. She was puzzling over her bizarre symptoms of a heavy head and the paralyzed feeling she got every time she and Po locked eyes. However, she didn't want anyone to think that she was ill considering that she had spent quite enough time on bed-rest and wasn't about to do it again. After everyone finished eating, they followed Shifu out to the training hall where they got back on top of their exercises. Shifu told them that they would be working with weapons, specifically the tri-bo-yao, bamboo staffs, and nunchucks. The group would be divided in half with each master picking one of the three weapons to use in a sparring match against the other. The winner of each group would then face down against the other in the same manner. Shifu put Tigress, Monkey, and Crane in one group while Po, Mantis, and Viper were put in another group.

"Tigress, Monkey, and Crane," Shifu said. "You three will be going first. Don't spar until I say to."

The students bowed and got into a fighting position, awaiting Shifu's orders.

"Begin."

Tigress immediately grabbed Monkey by the tail, whirling him into Crane who crashed against the side of the training hall. She then dashed over towards the weapons rack and grabbed the tri-bo-yao and ran over to attack the masters. Monkey dodged the hit and grabbed the weapon so as to make it miss Crane by an inch or so. Tigress threw him off, accidentally throwing him over by the weapons where the master quickly grabbed a bamboo staff-an obvious choice, by Tigress' definition. Monkey went to hit Tigress, only for her to duck, and come back to whack him in the face with the tri-bo-yao. Crane, in the meantime, had flown over to the weapons rack in order to grab the last weapon: the nun-chucks. He dived towards the two masters who had begun to spar, dodging Tigress' attack with the nun-chucks and managing to wrap them around Monkey's leg. The primate stumbled for a second, allowing Tigress enough time to kick him across the grounds. She then dropped down to a split and threw her arms forward, swinging the tri-bo-yao ahead and knocking Crane onto the ground. The master quickly spun around and tried to wind blast the master with his wings, but Tigress dug her feet into the ground and flip-kicked him into a nearby wall. Seeing that she was distracted with battling Crane, Monkey came up behind the master and whipped the bamboo stick around, knocking her into the rack.

The master groaned and sat up, quickly dodging another blow from her friend. She glanced quickly across the grounds, seeing her weapon laying stiffly in the dirt. She had accidentally dropped it when she had gotten hit, but didn't have too much time to reflect on it as she rolled out of the way so as to avoid another blow.

I'm surprised Monkey didn't see that I dropped the tri-boe-yao, she thought to herself. Hopefully I can snatch it back up before he notices.