Backtracking to Chapter 26: With the Valley under siege by the Big Bad and his servants (some willing, some not), it is imperative that the Jade Palace warriors learn new means of combating their enemies and defending their charges--and in particular, Tai Lung needs to learn how to control his temper while Po needs to learn how to stand up for himself and be ready to face multiple enemies who use multiple styles and weapons. So Shifu takes them both back to Wu Dan, so that they can learn how to employ elemental chi. The snow leopard, as seen from his fight with the red panda at the end of the first movie, has power over Fire...and while at first his rage and resentments make it difficult, eventually he does learn the balance that will allow him to consume and redirect his aggressions into his inner flames. The results are impressive indeed.

The poses for this piece were inspired by the woodcut-like, 2D illustrations used during the end credits from the first movie (specifically, the portion from 4:33 to 4:59). Ever since I first saw that part, I rather thought that while Tai still looks a bit villainous there, Shifu looks more like he's having fun, which suggests to me this was either a scene from the past during Tai's training or maybe, hopefully, a future scene after Tai repented and was working to become a hero again. While later events in the franchise sadly put paid to the latter, the former is still more likely than a scene from their fight in the movie. So I thought it worked well for this scene in my fic, when Tai is overcome at first by fury and temper, but eventually learns to master them and himself...and he and Shifu end up having a much more fun and competitive combat instead.

Characters copyrighted to DreamWorks, but from the story and situation copyrighted to me. Art by MasterLan12.