Sorry for the super late update guys. I was busy with assessments. I will try to get back on schedule (probably once every two or three days) but no promises. As always, enjoy!

Tigress awoke just as she normally did, right before dawn. Her eye was hazy and failed to adjust from the sheer bliss of the best sleep she had in a long time. Her arms were upon a large furry being, moving ever so slightly up and down according to rising and falling of his chest. Her head was on a tougher but still comfortable area in which was his shoulder, near his collar bone. In was a divine feeling greater than any pillow not just for her body but her mind and heart as well. Her hands caressed the being's fur and her fingers playfully drew small circles and she giggled to herself. Never before had she felt so peaceful, so happy...so in love...just as she was as a child seven years ago.

"Morning," Po said with a rough, though yet incredibly sweet voice.

She flinched. Po, it was Po. Her eyes snapped in realization to the jade green eyes that looked upon her and she gasped. It was the same eyes that had stared into her seven years ago. The same ones that melted her heart and instantly made her day better. The same ones in which she would dream about every. single. night. Without knowing, she followed her instincts and leaned in for a kiss. The gasp Po made along with the groan that came after as he kissed her back passionately sent butterflies down her stomach. More, she wanted more. Losing herself in the moment, she swang herself above Po and kissed him with a higher, needing intensity that she so desperately needed the past years. She gave a growl, menacing but extremely sexy, and explored the inner canals of his mouth with her tongue. He pulled her in, matching her intensity and kissed her the same way she did. His tongue roamed and wandered as if her mouth was an exciting adventure that needed exploring. She melted, again, relieved to see Po needing her as much as she needed him. A silent agreement was made between their souls and bodies, an agreement that said that they would never be full again unless they were with each other. An agreement she loved with all her heart for she wouldn't know how she would even spend a day without him anymore. She wanted him to be in her life now and forever. She was abruptly pulled back, breaking their sweet-savory kiss, and those beautiful jade green eyes fell on her again. Gods, those eyes. She was leaning back in again asking for another kiss before Po said:

"We're going to wake up the others and the morning gong is going to ring soon."

Reality quickly snapped back at her. As much as she would love staying longer with Po, she wouldn't want the five and Master Shifu seeing them come out of the same room greeting good morning. They weren't ready for that yet. Quickly, she got up and tightened her now loosened silk vest and her training pants which were crumpled from sleeping with Po. She tried to get herself ready by patting herself down and made her way towards the door. But before she could open it and slide into her room, she was pulled back and was met with a kiss that made her knees buckle like sloppy wet noodles.

"I've missed you Tigress," Po said after he pulled back.

Tigress, blissfully stunned, gathered herself once more before meeting Po's gaze with her own. "I've missed you too," she replied, "far more than you can ever imagine."

With that, she quickly sneaked back into her room without making a single creak of the wooden floorboards. Soon after, the morning bell came and all six greeted Master Shifu with their disciplined hand to fist gesture. Their day was going to begin...along with an extra bear sized guest named Po. Po the panda.

~0~o~o~0~

It was quite disappointing for the five and master Shifu to find that Master Oogway has called his disciple in to meet with him during their training times. They all wanted to see the next Great Sage in action. However, they must respect the wishes of the old master and allow the panda to go with him. As usual, their training went by, hard and intense, with tigress leading all exercises with expertise and mastery that she gained over the years. She was overly eager to get her training done so that she could have extra time with her panda during lunch by heading there early. The five were shocked to see Tigress like this. There was nothing more important to Tigress than her training and for her to treat it as a nuisance shows how much more she cared about Po…

Tigress finished her last course in the field of fiery death and even Shifu was shocked to see her bolting out of the training hall to meet her friend for lunch. She was soaked with sweat, which made her feel a bit insecure, but Po had said he actually didn't mind it and, in fact, found it nice since long ago so she wasn't worrying too much. She finished her session at an entire twenty minutes early and quickly found her panda in the kitchen making his noodles as he did before he left. That same spiced, delicious aroma filled Tigress with wanted nostalgia, a memory which she could have had more off. She greeted Po by wrapping her arms around him as he was still chopping the onions. He turned, knowing that she was already coming as he sensed her leave the training hall minutes ago, and gave her a bright loving smile as he always would. She gave a smile of her own.

"Hey, Po," She said, "I missed you"

Po chuckled, "but it only been since this morning."

"You think you can stay away from me any longer than seven years, then you are mistaken. You are mine from now on and you'll be with me for the rest of my life. Understand?" tigress replied.

Taken aback, Po was shocked to see Tigress now crying and he was sure it wasn't the onions. He saw that she was only just able to absorb the news of him even being here at this moment, and it all finally came crashing in, filling her with the emotions she contained for seven years. Tears filled her eyes and droplets were crawling down her orange cheeks, cascading its way to the ground. Po turned back and gave her a hug that engulfed her entire being. She tensed at first before melting into the hug she wished she had felt over her years of being without Po. She needed him here, she needed him here forever, with her, always with her. She sobbed for a moment longer before reaching out to his head and kissing him again. She felt this connection with him that was stretched apart but never severed over the time they spent away from each other and she was never going to let go of this again. She's in love with Po...and she wasn't sure he felt the same. But his action said otherwise as he leaned in and kissed her back with that fiery intensity that he showed this morning. He pulled her in, hard, and it was his turn to kiss the daylights out of her, and never before had Tigress felt so vulnerable, so at mercy of someone else that her knees would be jelly and her heart was like a thousand drums beating at once. She felt light, above the clouds and drowning in lukewarm euphoria that was called love. Her tail subconsciously rubbed around Po's leg as they enjoyed each other's company. Their tongues greeted in many different ways than one and each made her heart stop a millisecond before hammering like crazy again. Oh if she could have spent this moment with him the last seven years, she would have sacrificed anything she had. Po pulled her back and whispered something into her ears that made her world stop and lifted the anguish from the depths of her soul. I love you. He said. That was it. She couldn't hold on any longer. She tugged at his rugged robe trying to pry it loose but a large warm hand stopped her.

"The rest of the five are coming, not now," Po said.

Still dazed and drunk in her own delight, she struggled to force herself out of his embrace and sat down on the dinner table, more exhausted than whatever training could give her. She smiled, giggled as she watched her panda go back to peacefully making noodles as if their kiss never happened. She didn't feel bad about it, she understood that it was far to soon to express their love to everyone else.

"What took you so long…?" Tigress asked.

Po stopped preparing the ingredients for a minute and replied: "I needed to complete the final trial in a different way master Oogway expected."

"A trial? To become the great sage?" Tigress further questioned. As much of a mystery the great sage is to her, she couldn't help but wonder what type of trial would allow only a great sage to pass. She was curious but not curious enough to pry Po after getting him back. "You know what? Tell me later. I'm just glad you're back."

"Yeah, I got that the moment you kissed me in broad daylight, in front of Shifu even," Po teased and as a result, he was hit by a wooden spoon tigress threw at him.

"You have no Idea about how much I worried about you," Tigress said in frustration whilst clutching her pendant, an action she subconsciously became accustomed to when she was worried." I thought you were dead Po. I-If you were I don't know what I'd be fighting for anymore."

Po watched tigress' anguished expression and smiled back to cheer her up. "At least, I'm alive now right?" Po says a twitch of a smile in the corner of Tigress' mouth as he turned to continue making lunch.

"Mmm, what is that smell?" Said an approaching voice from the outside. It was Monkey.

"That smells delicious!" said another voice, most likely to be Mantis.

The furious five opened the door to the dining hall only to be greeted with a mouth-watering aroma of delicious spices. Their stomachs grumbled in unison including Viper's who hid her face instantly in embarrassment. Never before had they anticipated such luxury of good food up in the jade palace. No chef would ever make their way up here every day just to make their lunch. So to have such delicious smelling food had made them all drool in anticipation.

"Sup guys," Po greeted, "Order up! Hope you like it."

With graceful skill, Po slid the five bowls from his hands on the table until it landed in front of each member of the furious five as they sat down. To everyone's surprise, except Po, Tigress dug in immediately devouring the noodles like it was her last meal on earth. The rest of the five hesitated for a moment longer before starting to have a try themselves. Soon after, they were all devouring their dishes and slurping the noodles to sate their hunger.

"This is really good!" Mantis said as he sipped the soup with his spoon.

"Yep, this is my dad's secret ingredient soup after all," Po replied, "I'd tell you what it is but that wouldn't make it a secret."

"This is amazing," viper continued, "You guard that secret ingredient with your life."

"Will do," Po responded.

"Why wasn't this served when we went down to the valley," Crane asked, "I'm sure the business would boom if they were to sell this."

"Yeah, we were selling it before my dad and I had to leave to complete the sage training," Po answered, "It opened up again since yesterday though after dad returned with me from Gongmen city where he waited for me to complete the last trial."

"The last trial, huh?"Monkey said, " Must've been tough"

Po responded with a sad smile that made Tigress look up from her soup and into him, but the rest of the five were too busy enjoying themselves to pay attention to their silent communication. Tigress gave him a questioning, almost accusing look -not accusing him but her own grandfather of what he had done to Po - but Po gave her a reassuring smile before starting to eat his own fill of noodles.

After the furious five asked for seconds and thirds after they finished bowl after bowl of noodles, they all went back to their training but they found master Shifu and Oogway waiting for them in the dueling grounds. Po had followed them of course as he wanted to see their training personally and not through the vision of the universe. However, Oogway's gaze had allowed him to understand what he had to do. He cannot just walk in here and demand respect as a great sage. Respect must be earned through righteous deeds and strength. The strength he had to show...well part of it at least.

The furious five seemed to understand what is about to happen as well, as they all lined up and gave their bow along with the hand to fist gesture.

"As Master Oogway and I had discussed, we would like to see how far Po had developed the last years through this light spar….now Po who would you like to go against first?" Shifu asked with an accusing sneer.

However Oogway interrupted "Ah, you misunderstand Shifu, we are not doing this to see how far Po has come after all these years, I have already seen it all. We are dueling to see how far you and the furious five has come"

Shifu gave a flabbergasted expression. Making us fight Po was a test of our strength? Not his? "As you wish Master, now who would like to go first?"

"If you'd please," Tigress answered instantly with a bow.

The rest of the furious five were stunned. Starting off with Tigress from the bat? She has never lost before...Oh boy, this Po is going to get a beating, great sage or not.

Tigress approached the center of the training ground and readied her stance. Po gulped the spit he didn't know he was holding in his mouth. He anticipated this match but as much as he cared for his friend, or more now, he will NOT dishonor her by going easy. Thus, he readied his own stance leaving his staff away at the side for he did not need it. As master Shifu stated the word begin, both warriors dashed at each other in blinding speed and exchanged a flurry of blows. Po's hits weren't as strong as Tigress for he did not do "hard style" but to simply engage her in counterattacking so he could analyze her. He flowed, like water absorbing each of her strikes as they almost landed on him. Both wasted no unnecessary movements but Po had seen enough. He had wandered the void for three years and experienced the worst of its horror. As much as Tigress was a warrior, he had faced worse, far far far worse odds than this. As tigress did a palm strike, Po dodged with such grace that he flowed into her momentum, and without warning, his arm wrapped up her arm, locking it in place, and his palm reaching the back of her neck, grabbing her. With blinding speed, he brought her head down to his knees, careful not to hit her too hard and it landed squarely on her forehead...or so he thought. Tigress knew she was facing Po, and she was not unprepared. She expertly twisted her way out of his head hold and did a spinning backflip away to distance herself before he could land the knee and readied herself in a stance again.

The rest of the furious five, along with master Shifu was in shock. They had never seen such a battle between high-level masters and Shifu was even surprised Po could even match Tigress now, whom even he, himself, had trouble to win against. But Po was unfazed as he adjusted his stance as well to face Tigress. They dashed at each other again, and Tigress' incredible amount of training showed as each of her strikes were blindingly fast yet precise and powerful. She was matching Po in terms of speed and exceeding him in strength. However, just a moment later the course of the fighting changed as something switched within Po. He was focused now, and he no longer contained empathy for his greatest friend. As of now, they were opponents and whether it be his own dad or a monster from the void, he will triumph. His techniques flowed into one and another striking Tigress whenever he wanted, however, he wanted with almost all his blows. He avoided Tigress' strikes with ease and the five along with Shifu watched in horror as Tigress, known to be one of the greatest Kung Fu prodigies of all time was being overwhelmed. A moment later Tigress struck with her signature double palm strike, which to Oogway's surprise, along with Po's had caused him to stagger back a few steps...but it was not enough….nowhere near enough. Tigress went for a double palm strike again but this time Po grabbed both her wrist right before it impacted upon him and forcefully spread them apart. He then used Tigress' momentum against her as he did a double vertical fist strike to knock her back, clinched her head and pulled it down to knee her ribs. Tigress, for the first time in seven years, kneeled catching her breath and time stood still for all the observers. Po didn't strike hard enough for her ribs to break but the force behind it knocked everything out of her. She tried to stand back up but her knees failed her and once again became jelly as she collapsed in pain. However, before she fell onto the ground, she was held up by a familiar black and white mass who was sort of hugging her to keep her steady. She sighed in defeat. She knew she was going to lose anyway but she wanted to have done more, to have lasted longer than ten minutes, to have at least showed Po that she could be his equal. She almost sobbed but before it came out she heard.

"That double palm strike really did a number on me, I think you cracked my ribs Ti," Po whispered into her ear. All shame washed out of her after hearing her friend address her in that all too familiar name with his all too familiar voice. She injured him, and as much as she felt guilty about hurting her friend, she was simply glad all her years of training didn't go to waste. She may not be able to stand equal to Po, but she was a close second, and she intended to, at the very least, keep it that way. She hugged him back not caring in the slightest about what the others might think, and she felt she wanted more, she wanted to explore what was underneath his brown robe that covered his upper half. Would it still be soft as before and cuddly, or would it be hard as stone from years of training? She wanted to know. But before she could let out a low purr she was interrupted.

"I see Tigress has grown leaps and bounds," Oogway said, "She has far exceeded my expectations...as expected for the future dragon warrior."

With that, the five -along with Tigress this time - gasped in shock. Shifu was dumbfounded.

Tigress was going to be...the dragon warrior?

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