Chapter 15: A New Plan

Li's orders to evacuate the village had sent the pandas into a panic.

They scurried back and forth, not sure of what to pack or where to go. Po walked through them, determined. Mr. Ping trailed after him.

"Po, I'm so worried for you that I can't even enjoy being right about everything,"

Mr. Ping said. "Now run, run, run, as fast as those chubby legs can go!"

"Run?" Po snorted. "There's nowhere to run."

Mr. Ping knew that stubborn look in his son's eyes. "What're you gonna do?"

"I'm gonna stay. And fight that monster."

"Po, he may be a monster, but he's still your father," Mr. Ping said.

"Not him. Kai!"

Po pushed past his dad and rushed to the bamboo forest, kicking and punching, breaking the bamboo to bits. He used the broken parts to piece together a training dummy shaped like Kai.

Po went into his old training routine—dodging, kicking, punching, jumping—but Mr. Ping knew this wasn't the way.

He left Po and went to Li's hut, where he found Li staring at a picture of his wife holding baby Po.

"Hungry?" Mr. Ping asked, holding out a bowl of dumplings.

"Not really," Li said.

"For later, then," Mr. Ping said. He handed the bowl to Li.

"You know, you weren't the only one who was lying," he said.

Li raised a furry eyebrow. "Oh?"

Mr. Ping took a deep breath. "I didn't really come along because I was worried Po would go hungry. I was worried . . . about you," he confessed.

Li was confused. "Worried that I'd go hungry?"

"No!" Mr. Ping corrected him. "I was worried you'd steal Po from me."

Now Li was shocked. "I'd what?"

Mr. Ping looked away, embarrassed.

"I know. That was crazy," said Mr. Ping. "But I realized having you in Po's life doesn't mean less for me. It means more for Po."

Li thought about this. Mr. Ping was right, but what did it matter now?

"Well I'm not in his life," he pointed out. "Not anymore."

"Your son got mad at you. Welcome to parenthood."

"I lied to him. . . . He'll never forgive me."

"I lied to him for twenty years. He still thinks he came from an egg. . . . Sometimes we do the wrong things for the right reasons."

Mr. Ping unfolded a piece of paper, placing it next to the picture of Po and his mom.

"Look, he's hurt, he's confused, and he still has to save the world," Mr. Ping told him. "He needs both his dads."

Mr. Ping turned and walked out, and Li looked back at the paper he had left. It was the sketch of Po, Li, and Mr. Ping from the restaurant.

Po did need them. And he wasn't going to give up on Po.

He just had to hope that Po hadn't totally given up on him.

* * *

Po was still punching furiously at the training dummy when Tigress blocked his fist mid-punch.

"This isn't going to work," she said.

"It has to," Po replied, winded.

"You're not thinking straight."

"I am!"

"You're not," she argued back.

As they bickered, they began to spar.

"I've seen Kai. I've seen what he can do," Tigress said, blocking another punch from Po.

"But he hasn't seen what I can do," Po said, flipping over. He held Tigress's paw in a familiar pose.

Tigress gasped. "The Wuxi Finger Hold?"

"It's my best move," Po replied. "I just have to get Kai, grab his finger, and then . . . Skadoosh! Back to the Spirit Realm."

Tigress broke his hold. "He has an army of jade creatures. They see everything he sees, so there's no sneaking up on him. You will never get close enough."

"It's gonna work!" Po cried as she dodged a kick from him.

"He can only be stopped by a Master of Chi."

"Oh, you sound just like Shifu with the chi chi chi!" Po shouted, throwing another exhausted punch. "Chi this! Chi that! Chi chi chi chi! I'm not a Master of Chi, okay? I don't know if I'm the Dragon Warrior."

Po breathed in shakily. "I don't even know if I'm a panda. I don't know who I am!" His voice dropped to a whisper, and he collapsed in a heap. "You're right. There's no way I can stop him."

Li emerged from the fog, breaking the silence. "Unless you had an army of your own."

"You?" Po asked.

"Not just me," Li said.

"Us," said Mr. Ping, by Li's side.

"All of us," Li said. All of the pandas from the village emerged from the fog. "I finally found my son after all these years. It's gonna take a lot more than the end of the world to keep us apart."

Po sighed. "But you don't even know kung fu."

"Then you will teach us," Li said.

"What? I can't teach you kung fu. I couldn't even teach Tigress, and she already knows kung fu!"

Li came closer to his son. "Po, I know I'm the last guy you want to trust right now. But you gotta believe me—we can do this. We can learn kung fu. We can be just like you."

Po's eyes lit up. He looked around at all the pandas as an idea started to take hold. "What did you just say?" he asked.

"'We can do this'?" Li ventured.

"No!"

"'We can learn kung fu'?"

"After that!"

"'We can be just like you'?!" Li said, his voice rising.

"Yes!" Po cried.

"We can?"

"No! You can't!" Po burst into laughter. The pandas around him thought he'd finally lost it. "But you don't have to be! That's what Shifu meant—I don't have to turn you into me. I have to turn you into you!"

Mr. Ping shook his head. "That doesn't make any sense."

Po wrapped his two dads in a huge hug. "I know!" Po laughed. "Thanks, Dads!"

"You're welcome?" Ping and Li chorused.

"I'm gonna do something I never thought I'd be bale to do. I'm gonna teach Kung Fu.