Kingdom Hearts Gaiden

Written by Shaun Garin

Kingdom Hearts is owned in it's entirety by SquareEnix and Disney.

01: Mulan

I suppose I should start from the beginning. You know, so that the scene is properly set. Imagine that you're the child of a noble family. Or as noble as a family that had a father who fought in the last previous great war against Nippon. Now imagine that your father, tired and old, also had an only daughter. Yeah, that's me; Fa Mulan. The greatest woman of China's history. Or at least I would be if I pulled this off and didn't get my head cut off for impersonating a guy.

My family was, to say the least, odd. Father was of what people would call a modern notion. In short, I didn't die almost right off the bat when mother and father barely brought me into this world. I was healthy, no doubt about that, but the family doctor, otherwise known as grandmamma told my mother that she was too weak to bring about another child into the world. My father took to me immediately, despite the age-old custom of drowning girls when they are born if there has not been a son raised in the family by now.

Don't LOOK at me like that, I know by your standards it's barbaric, but to us, it's normal. If I was born a guy, which I'm NOT mind you, it would have solved a lot of problems in the long run. Aw well, back to the story at hand.

It begun about, oh, several weeks ago, when Chi Fu, the Emperor's right hand man himself came to our village and delivered a missive to the people. The Huns had invaded China. One man from each family had to serve the army. Good old Yi Tsung, always out there. His father fought alongside my own, although his father was also quite old by the time that Chi Fu had come to deliver the missive of a draft.

Then, of course, and predictably my chest tightened when my own last name was called.

Father looked so proud, walking up to Chi Fu and taking the missive, stating that he would be honoured to defend China once more. Of course, me being myself, I just HAD to interfere.

After the spectacular fiasco of trying to persuade The Idiot In Charge and father looking at me crossly, I fled into the house where I buried myself in chores. With no son, I was raised up stronger than most girls, having to work in the fields. Although, if I thought about it now, I thought I was strong back then but nowadays, it's easy to swing a sword or channel fire through my blade like it was nothing. Certainly magic hadn't entered my life, being mostly grounded. The Ancestors of course were always looking out for us, but I hadn't really thought about things till now.

The rest of the evening was spent in silence. The village doctor, also known as The Quack from my grandmamma had also recommended three cups of tea in the morning and three at night. Father was into his second cup when I slammed my cup down in frustration.

"Why do you have to go and fight for China? Haven't you done enough for the country!" I demanded, ignoring my mother's scandalized exclamation of "Mulan!" but I pressed on. "There are other younger and stronger men out there!"

"I will fight for my honour and my country," replied my father neutrally.

"So you'll DIE for honour," I snapped angrily and his eyes bore into mine.

"I will DIE, doing what's RIGHT. I know my place, and it's time you know yours."

I couldn't take it. My cup spiralling out onto the table, I fled into the garden, despite the rain beginning to pour. It matched my mood, I had to admit. But, if I had just considered what my father said, I would have realized that in time, I would have learned what my place in the world was like.

Rain poured that night, and my tears mingled with the rain streaking down my face. I liked it out here, especially when it wasn't raining like no other, but today as I huddled under the stone statue of the Great Stone Dragon, the guardian of the Fa family, I couldn't help but feel terrible at the thought of my old father going out to possibly march into his death.

Now we have to back up for a second here. My father, previously in the day had also quite literally encouraged me to find my own path. He doesn't say things like normal people, preferring to take the Old Wise China Man route with explanations through Cherry Blossoms and other such things like that. At times, I thought he was just comforting me and really, I NEEDED the comfort at that point in time. I suppose I should rewind the tape and show you a scene from before, just before we head on. Gotta thank Sora for this anyhow. The TV and all. Changed my life, being able to torment friends and family with home movies. Evil? What is this evil you speak of? I'm not evil… Oh Shang…c'mere!

So here we are, standing in the middle of the scene. It's a perfect day, the sun is shining, the people are out in market, the pigs aren't making much of a smell, and here I am stampeding through every shortcut I can think of to get to the Market in time. Granted I probably upset a few farmers, a couple of chickens and gave a cow a heart attack when Khan jumped it, but it was in the way. This isn't India after all.

"I'm here!" I declared, jumping off my horse. Mamma merely picked a straw out of my hair and gave me The Look. The Look that read "You're LATE" in every language known to mankind. "But mamma I was just…" I begun to protest but she merely shook off my protests and then I was off. A whirlwind of make up, a cold bath (Mamma said it was warm previously but I think she deliberately had them draw cold water from the well to torment me), and a very constricting outfit. The white make up went on, the blush, the ladylike poise, and I'm certain that Grandmamma had put a CRICKET onto my sash! Rather smart cricket though. I'll name him Cri-kee.

Falling in line, also clumsily, I hid myself behind a bamboo umbrella as delicately as possible. Now I admit I'm not the delicate type. When I was a girl, I gave Tsung a black eye for calling me a wimp. Since then, I've been the outcast tomboy as it were. Sora said I was shy of being a hair between butch and ladylike. I slugged him for THAT comment.

"Fa Mulan," pronounced the heavyset matchmaker. I DISLIKED this woman with every fibre of my being. And I don't like people usually on sight but the woman, obese, grumpy and with make up so thick she couldn't pass as a china doll much less than a BUDDHA… ahem. In any case, I made my way into the house. And as I passed the gates, I was reminded of a saying that had strayed into father's books one day, from a land far, far away. I think it was named Hollow Bastion or some type of that. Sora sort of whistled nonchalantly in a manner that wasn't even misleading. Those jerks are hiding something from me and I intend to beat it out of them sometime. On the note of the saying, I think it translated to "Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here". It seemed reasonable enough to say I felt like walking into the jaws of a very big dragon.

The ceremony was, of course a disaster. I couldn't have imagined a more suitable event to take place, even with my dislike of the woman. Tea on the lap, the cricket jumping around in her outfit, ashes on her backside, ashes LIGHTING her backside, being splashed by a pot of hot tea… yeah.

In other words, I rushed home feeling like I had betrayed seventeen generations of Ancestors just by EXISTING. Then father happened to cheer me up, just before the day went COMPLETELY to pot.

So here I am, sneaking into the room where father keeps his armour. On goes a full tunic and pants, soft sandals and… hmm… I think Sora called them socks or something like that. Aw well. On goes the armour… WHOOF, this stuff is HEAVY… sword… must remember to tie sword properly so it won't fall out of sheath, and then make certain I won't spook Khan by leaving.

In retrospect, I didn't plan this out AT ALL. Really.

I travelled for the better part of the night and found out that heavy soaking wet armour that likes to catch water in every single place of said outfit gets HEAVY. I also found out that I didn't bring a single coin with me. Or food. Or water. Or even a map, save for my father's missive. That was the only thing leading me on and I spent the better part of three weeks wandering aimlessly, asking every farmer, villager and person I can think of to find the damn Wu Tshung Camp. Hey, I found a use for the word Sora taught me! Nice.

After bartering some of my useless items I had brought with me, mostly female stuff and all, I was able to acquire some hard tack, water and other such necessary items to make it to said camp. Then it was another week of slogging through muddy tracks, following the occasional man in armour and then sleeping restlessly under the stars.

What, you thought I made it there overnight? Yeah RIGHT. For one, the Wu Tshung Camp is situated in a large plain that is miles from home. I was lucky to find it, being that I went the wrong way for almost a week. I kept my head down when some of my neighbours and neighbours sons rode past. No sense letting them know that I was there. That would be a hard one to explain; little Mulan sitting in the middle of a man-only army with the penalty of death and eternal shame to the Fa family riding on a horse in full armour. Yeah, I'm prepared. About as prepared as facing down a horde of Huns. I wonder how I'm going to avoid even talking to any of them?

So here I was, standing in a clearing, practicing my manly drawl and trying to draw my sword and failing miserably at it. Did I mention that my HORSE is laughing at me? Yeah, it is. After bouncing a slipper off it's head and scolding it, I dropped to a rock, palmed my face and exclaimed, "I need a MIRACLE to pull this off."

"DID I HEAR SOMEONE ASK FOR A MIRACLE! LEMME HEAR YOU SAY AAAAAAH!"

"YEAAAAAAAAAUGH!"

"THAT'S CLOSE ENOUGH!"

Aaah, enter Mushu, the eternally chipper, self absorbed piece of work I called a Guardian. Granted he's my friend for life and eternal slave or something of the sort, but that first impression? Not a good thing. At least the fear was broken as three people, a boy dressed in odd clothes, a DUCK and a DOG, pounced the thing and begun a scuffle that would have lasted if it weren't for the dog breaking up the fight.

The boy, duck and dog knew the dragon who introduced himself as Mushu. Khan wasn't too impressed with his big dramatic fiery appearance and made it known by trampling him like a little bug. If I wasn't too surprised at this turn of events, read; shell-shocked, I would have said something wittier than "My Ancestors sent a little LIZARD to help me?"

"Hey, hey, dragon Dra-Gon. Not Lizard. I don't do that tongue thing." Mushu stuck his tongue out at me and then introduced me to the three, naming them Sora, Donald and Goofy. Apparently he and them went way back for some reason or another, and me, being my gullible self followed it.

I figured things would get better by the time we went to the camp. Boy was I wrong.

Rule Number One for impersonating a man : NEVER follow Mushu's advice.

Sora kept giving me a funny look as I "strutted" into the camp like a big important guy, bow legged with chest out. I suppose it was in part my fault for listening to Mushu about that, but he was destined to get me into BIGGER trouble soon.

Men are gross, mind you. Hygiene isn't a big part of them and Oh Ancestors, HIDE!

Ducking behind a tent, I neatly avoided getting seen by some of my neighbours. This was going to be DIFFICULT.

Trying to act like nothing was going on, and coincidentally drawing even MORE attention to myself, I meandered out of hiding and Sora gave me a grin. "Trying to be inconspicuous, huh?"

I wished I could smite him with my mind. Instead, utilized plan B and followed Mushu's advice. BAD MOVE.

"Oh Yao, you made a friend," said the giant known as Chien Po.

That punch was surprisingly strong. Must have gotten stronger lugging this armour around. The slap on the butt though, that was a mistake as Yao grabbed my armour and dragged me close. "Whoa ho, ho there, I'm gonna hit you so hard, your ANCESTORS'LL feel dizzy."

I had no intention of getting into a fight so I subsequently ignored Mushu. Chien Po, bless his soul decided to drag Yao away and put him through some nice little calming mantra. Then, after calming himself with the metaphorical count to ten move, he called me a Chicken Wuss.

Mushu, obviously took offence to this. So did Donald and Sora. I think the first words were "CHICKEN WUSS! SAY THAT AGAIN, YOU LIMP NOODLE!"

OUCH. In short order, the camp was in ruins and I think the newcomers were also buried under a pile of men, or otherwise pounding the rest of them into stupors. With any luck, I can just sneak away real quiet-like…

"HE STARTED IT!"

DAMN!

Mushu was no help whatsoever, running me through a gamut of names before we settled on Ping. Ping. Huh. Fa Ping. Sounds like I was part of some type of musical or something. Shang gave me this look while Chi Fu uttered the words that would seal my doom. "I can see why… the boy's an absolute LUNATIC."

Joy, enter Fa Ping, the idiot child of the family complete with a string of spit hanging from the edge of his mouth. Oh great Ancestors, please don't let anyone call me on this!

I snuck a look at the rest of the people who were from my hometown. I think they were laughing too hard to even say something. Jerks, keeping this under a lid for so long… must develop amazing mental killing powers NOW. I think Sora said a guy named Sephiroth had them. Must find this man and make him teach me for the next time I'm forced into combat.

The evening and the subsequent night sucked terribly.

Shang supervised the whole thing as we picked up every single grain of rice from the spilt pot. How the rice grains travelled across the entire camp, it was beyond me. Donald was muttering something about a spell that would draw all of them to him, but I ignored it in favour of picking up food. Goofy lent the use of his shield, a weapon that surprised me as he had startling offence with it. A shield was really known for bludgeoning things or defending your life.

Morning couldn't come fast enough. It really couldn't and yet I wanted it to reset itself a few more times. Mushu was my early morning wake up call using Cri-kee as a alarm clock. Of course, Goofy was there too with a hearty "G'mornin!"

The rest of the camp was settled into a ragged line by the time I dressed and got over to the training camp. Sora looked FAR too eager for this training to begin and Donald wore a face that suggested he wasn't too happy with the delays. Tough. Three months of training is also part of the job description.

Shang comes out, straightens the line and summarily humiliates Yao. My day was looking up, till he forced ALL of us to get up to the top. To my credit, I didn't figure out the whole trick to the weights till the night I was going to be kicked out, but that's another story to itself. There's a few events I wanted to follow first before getting into the meat of the journey. The long, terrible, aching journey.

Sora didn't even figure things out. Shang put Donald on latrine duty for using magic to fly. Goofy tried to tell us how the trick worked out since he too trained people like that being Captain of the Guard but we summarily ignored him or often was caught up in a situation.

Three months later after subsequently learning HOW to climb the dratted pole and earning the respect of the men, along after a disastrous bath and seeing many men naked; something I didn't ever want to see with the camp's personal hygiene, I tried to cheer up Shang after Chi Fu gave him a dressing down. The Idiot In Charge struck again and me, being my Ping-self, offered to hold him down for a punching bag. For a moment, I thought Shang had actually considered it, his expression turning upwards for a brief moment before I added "I think you'd be a great Captain," before he left. And then the patrol of People Who Have Nothing To Do decided to waltz in and start teasing me mercilessly.

Have I ever told you how much I hate marching? That, and I just happened to be babysitting Sora who was singing some inane song about bottles of ether falling down. If he was a Hun saboteur, he was definitely weakening our morale. Ling had suggested stuffing our ears with parsley or rice to block out the sound. Oh dear Buddha, GOOFY joined in. The world hates us.

At times, during the camping we also traded songs and stories. Sora was a wellspring of stories, but at times I noticed he deliberately left out things. I resolved to drag the reason out of him later on mind you, but our feet ached far too much for us to say anything.

It was a week and a half to the Tshung Zhao Pass and the weather grew steadily colder. Donald looked miserable, being a duck. Feathers made for a good insulator but webbed bare feet did not. Sora must had been cold too, since his pants didn't go to his ankles while Goofy bore with it like the soldier he was. I lent him my socks of course, and then we spent the rest of the trip in misery because both our feet were freezing.

It was just when the boys were about to bury us in snow when we crested the hill. The mountain village where Shang's father was stationed with his army was in ruins. Beyond it lay a literal open morgue.

They say that the stench of death is overwhelming. I couldn't agree more as I restrained the urge to become sick behind the snow banks. Some of the men did and I knew that Sora hit the ground in abject shock. Poor kid, having to see something like that.

Shang found his father and we held a burial for him. He took his father's sword and then planted his own into the ground as a sign of respect. I could barely say anything, too cold and numb from the shock of seeing someone dead in front of me.

And then, two days later upon the mountain pass, Mushu in his infinite wisdom decided to light a fire in the CANNON CART.

Huns EVERYWHERE. I doubt we could have gone two feet without running into them if they were close at hand. The enemy of all who live, Shan Yu the Hun leader stood at the top of the ridge, gloating as a group of men, almost a thousand strong stood on the ridges. And that wasn't all. A group of floating creatures were accompanying each one, making it two thousand heads strong.

Sora knew what they were, spitting out a word. "Heartless," he said. I didn't think about it for the moment as cannons were blazing and spilling snow everywhere. Our last cannon silenced the archers but Yao was ordered to aim for Shan Yu.

Then, I noticed something. A huge snow-covered mountain far above the pass.

I suppose I earned a reckless streak somewhere after being a "guy" for so long, but this one took the cake. The weapon discharged with Mushu atop it and Shan Yu skidded to a halt in front of me as it did so. The cannon exploded and on came the snow-covered death. His face twisted into a snarl and he and the creatures, whom Sora and company were dealing with in efficient strokes of his curious sword, were buried under a ton of snow.

One quick save of Shang's life later and I was on cloud nine. I was a hero, a great warrior… and then I was bleeding. Shan Yu cut me up good and lo and behold, they ignored Donald's attempts at trying to cure me.

I hate snow with every fibre of my being.

It matched the miserable countenance that I retained that night as I stared into Cri-kee's attempts at making a fire. Khan snorted, Sora, Donald and Goofy looked miserable as well. Sora offered to take some of the blame as well, but I was too cold to even think about things like that.

In a fit of irrational rage, I also pitched father's armour over the mountain. In retrospect, it did count as clothing and I was FREEZING. What was left of the armour was his helmet and it didn't make a very good cap. At least I hadn't pitched the sword; I'd probably need it in case I got accosted by bandits on the way home. Mushu then dropped the bombshell. "I ain't no Guardian. Your Ancestors don't even LIKE me."

Then, Sora, looking as miserable as I felt, added, "We're sorry too."

"For what?" I asked, confused.

"For not helping you when you were dragged off to the doctor. And for a lot of things we could have helped with." Sora raised the weapon of his into the light and he snorted before putting it away. It was the second time I saw him use it, once during training when he had abruptly left all of a sudden. "And for not telling you the truth of why we're here."

Donald protested loudly. Goofy on the other hand figured that Sora had a reason for it. They had never stayed on a world for such a long time, and they felt like they owed me an explanation of why they were here and what misfortune could follow them. Other worlds, other people, other hearts. It was surprising that there were other things outside our own sleepy country, and yet, it was amazing. I wanted to see them badly and then, before I could broach the subject, Shan Yu just happened to pick that time to get his butt out of the snow. Harder to kill than a COCKROACH. More of his men dragged themselves out of the snow and those creatures just simply appeared, as if they hadn't even been touched by the avalanche of frosty death. Shan Yu's men were vastly whittled down to a mere thirteen, but something in my gut told me that these men were the toughest in his entire army to survive an avalanche.

You know, it was worth it, seeing the boys in, what was it Sora called it? Drag? He shouldn't be laughing either since he had to dress up as a girl to get in as well.

Shang's an excellent fighter, there's no doubt about it. Sora as well and he, Donald and Goofy took on those flying creatures while the rest of the boys mopped up Shan's men. One quick deployment of Mushu-based weaponry and Shan was living the rest of his days six feet under. I dunno about you, but gunpowder is quite the interesting weapon. Donald muttered something about adapting a spell to do something similar.

So in all, the day was saved, the Emperor BOWED to us which threw me off so much, and we left for home. I wanted to bring Sora, Donald and Goofy home with me to meet my father, and Shang too but he couldn't get away I guess.

Although mind you, Shang showed up a month later, a mere few minutes after I arrived home. Things compounded when Sora, Donald and Goofy returned. Grandma invited China, as it were and we had a big celebration. I think the Ancestors were having one too, considering Mushu was plastered the last time I saw him.

That night I made good to get Sora to promise me that he'd show me a world. He decided on a fairly safe one, in his respect of safe, and introduced me to a few odd people.

Then again, when you live under the sea, it would be considered odd, even without the standard of legs.