Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, places, and things of Walt Disney; they are their/his sole property. However, I do own the OCs, Atlantean Robots, and Xenos, as well as the Neo-Atlanteans. This story takes place after the Atlantis arc. Well, enjoy.

Aquatic Kingdom Hearts: The Rising of Atlantis

A prophecy needs no one to believe in it. For it gathers strength from those who do not.

And when it fades from memory... it becomes its most powerful.

Over nine thousand years ago, this is the Lost Age of China and Africa; a time of violence, suffering, and evil. A dynasty that spanded over the two continents and predating all other, and ruled by a strange white-haired but dark emperor... the Mandarin.

Since his reign had started, he had constructed vast cities of the ultimate technology. Fearing that his empire would be overthrown or end, the Mandarin sought to do everything in all of his part to preserve it. As his enemies drew near, he finished constructing his Sapphire City, hidden near to where the Great Wall would soon stand. Created a mighty army of creatures made of metal, birthed an army of human-beast creatures to serve his bidding. And finally, he had taken a star and forged it into a powerful weapon of untold powers...

The Spear of Longinus...

...a weapon, no enemy could conquer; a weapon that was said to control his work of art, the Sapphire Army. But he knew he could not stay in one place for long. But he could not let those who he had enslaved to know the secrets of his powerful technology. He had no choice but to sacrifice every life within his mighty empire.

To aide in this dark deed, he had fashioned for him five Elementals; Five monstrous warriors that would guard his city, his armies, and the weapon that could control them all. In one year's time, before the reign of Ghangus Khan, the Mandarin and his dark forces stripped the land of all living things. And when the last drop of innocent blood was spilt... the Mandarin vanished... the deed was sealed.

Only one citizen managed to escaped and warned the Emperor of the Middle Kingdom, of the terrible power that would wrought the land... and later the world. The survivor had told the Emperor of the Spear of Longinus; he had told the emperor that he who would possess the Spear would not only be given power of the Sapphire Army, but also grant the bearer immortality, but also all the power of the Underworld.

The Emperor had ordered his army to go forth and bring the Spear, in the hopes of banishing such a power away from the world. But when they had arrived, the city had been engulfed by the earth. There it would remain for over Ten Thousand Years.

Now all that remains is the prophecy that fortells the Mandarin's return. The City would rise once more, and the Elementals would awaken; they would join forces with a Shadowblade Knight, and find the Spear of Longinus. Then, they would seek out the Mandarin, and defeat him in battle, allowing whoever kills the Mandarin, to use his army to destroy mankind, or send the army back in its eternal slumber.

But all of Asia had not forgotten this dark chapter, nor the prophecy. The Huns had known this true and had sought out the city more times than ever. And for Ten Thousand years, the Jade Dragons, the descendents of the Emperor's most trusted soldiers who sought out to prevent the prophecy from coming true... kept watch.

The Day of the Sapphire Army's rise, as well as the Mandarin... was at hand...

China

The Great Wall

Night

In the land of Dragons that was China, the Moon shined over the Great Wall that separated the Empire from the Valley of the Mongolian Huns. Long ago, the Great Wall was constructed to block out all and known intruders. However, it wasn't much successful, but now in this day and age it had become a landmark. But this was not what was getting most attention. For standing on the side to where the Empire lay at, two figures stood to where a few group of Hun thugs, who looked like they were dressed for the Chinese Mafia.

The one standing out was a huge fellow, almost six feet tall, well built, somewhere in his forties, and dressed in a black ensemble. He was dressed in black combat pants, boots, had two belts strapped around his waist holding a twisted Chinese sword, two black shoulder pads on his shoulders, bandages all around his forearms but with one black armguard on his left forearm, and two black gloves exposing the sharp fingernails. The man's face was pale, with a long but clean sharp mustache, slightly bald but had long hair in the back of a Chinese ponytail, sharp eyebrows, and eyes as black as coal, with two golden irises that made him look like he was part animal. Perched on his right shoulder was a scary yet powerful Chinese hawk that looked around to sense any danger.

Next to him, stood a strange cloaked and hooded figure, which was around his height, with only a glowing yellow eye showing under the hood. But from the bottom of the cloak, showed a visible metallic pair of claws on both feet that were covered by the cloth. Whatever these two were up to this dark night… it was evident that it was a dark purpose.

As they stood there, someone drove up the hill on a jeep and stopped right in front of the two. Another Hun terrorist solider jumped out, along with a scrawny, nearly toothless, gutless wonder, dressed in archeological threads as he stumbled out clumsily and fell flat on his face. The man got up, and chickenly gulped as he stood in the presence of these two guys who could snap him in half without even straining at all.

The Hun-looking mercenary glared at the skinny man, "You… are late, Chi Fu."

Chi Fu bowed his head respectfully as he looked to the Hun with a little bit of annoyance at him, "A thousand apologies, Shan-Yu. It's not exactly easy these days as an informant/thief/black market profiteer."

Shan-Yu never wavered from his icy stare at the man as he asked, "You have it then?"

Chi Fu chuckled at this as he rummaged through his tattered jacket, "Oh, it was not as easy as you think. I had to have my men kill at least three young guards to even get past…" and then he pulled a small little pebble roughly around the size of a blue jay's egg, "But I got it." But just before Shan Yu could take it, Chi Fu snatched it away as he greedily smirked, "Ah. First… I want the treasure you two promised me…"

But then Chi Fu yelped as his wrist was grabbed by the hooded man's right hand. Unfortunately to the horror of Chi Fu, the man's hand and entire arm was encased in or entirely made out of a living dark blue crystal with red glowing veins sprouting out of it a little, and his fingers were sharp claws of sort. Chi Fu gritted his teeth, feeling the rocky pressure on his wrist as he let his grip slip up, dropping the gray pebble.

The man caught it in his left hand, covered in flesh and had a black forearm band and fingerless glove. The man then chuckled as he spoke in a very familiar voice; "Trust me, Mr. Fu…" and then he took the pebble from his left hand into his right as the crystal appendage began to glow, as did the red veins, "You'll get what's comin' to ya."

Then at that moment, Chi Fu, Shan-Yu, and the goons looked in confusion as to what the guy was doing. As soon as the arm glowed, a few small bolts of energy shot out from the limb's palm and struck at the pebble. Suddenly, the pebble floated in his hand, and then small rune designs glowed upon it bright blue, along with a pair of eyes. Then suddenly, two small bright blue energy wings glowed as they flapped with much speed in them. And then suddenly, it flew around them as it sped off straight forward from them, away from the Great Wall.

Just then, Shan-Yu and the Hooded Man ran towards their jeep, along with the men, who dragged Chi Fu with them. The Hooded Man shouted as he pointed out towards the speeding metallic bug, "Quick! Follow it, or we'll lose the trail!" then the jeeps sped off, following the fast-going metal cricket as it left behind a glowing blue trail for the others to follow for them. The little bug was gaining speed, not letting up on the mercenaries and business man. The Hooded Man shouted, feeling anxious and crazy to get the cricket, "FASTER!"

The metallic cricket raced across the wilderness of the forest, until it finally shot into the ground and disappeared. The jeeps stopped as they had lost track of the bug as soon as it took a dirt nosedive. Then suddenly, the ground all around them began to shake and rumble. They held on to the jeeps or jumped off as they tried to regain some balance from this mysterious earthquake. Then suddenly something shot out of the earth as the men looked in amazement by this turn of events.

After the earthquake and dirt shower they had received ended, they saw an amazing sight right in front of them. In front of them was a magnificent, ancient-looking at sight but it looked brand spanking new, Chinese palace city. It was colored metallic gray, with a few details and statuettes of gold and sapphire jade. Surrounding it was a barricaded wall of impeccable design and artistic detail. The palace at the end of the city was the City Palace; however, it didn't look to be of Chinese, but rather Egyptian, with Aztec design as well as Cambodian as well. But all around the palace, there appeared to be strange symbols written on the wall of it. Atlantean symbols.

The Hooded Man smirked at this as Shan-Yu calmly smiled at this as he proclaimed, "At last. After all my ancestors had spent their entire lives searching for it, it's now in my grasp. The Sapphire Kingdom of the Mandarin."

Chi Fu just walked next to the two as he gaped at this legendary city, "By Tai Mong…."

However, the Hooded one saw this as opportunity in front of him as he quickly glanced at Chi Fu. Then he grabbed the startled man as he ordered, "Okay, Sticks, here's the deal. I need you to go in there, go into the Palace, and find a spear head. It's supposed to be around the size of a garden shovel head, elongated hexagon shape of sorts, and has writing on the dull part of the spear."

Chi Fu grasped this situation as he asked, "Wh-Wha?"

The Hooded man growled as his yellow eye glowed, "Bring me the Spearhead. You and Shan-Yu can have the rest of the treasure that's in there. But the Spearhead… is mine."

And then Chi Fu broke loose as he stumbled forward to the palace gates. Chi Fu looked at the walls and the opened gates to where the city was, and smirked greedily at this find. He slowly and confidently made his way towards the gate with the two men and gang of mercenaries behind him. But as he took one step in the center of the opened gates, a mighty and inhuman roar shook the area, causing Chi Fu to stumble back a bit as everyone saw something fly overhead and land on the gate door.

What landed at the gate and glared down upon the mercenaries, was a huge Gray and Blue Chinese dragon. The beast was over fifty feet tall and perhaps seventy feet long with its bladed snake tail shaking in the air like a rattlesnake. It's body was mainly metallic gray but there were also strange glowing blue glyphs all over its body. Up its spine were sharp dorsal fin spikes glowing blue, and on its upper back to where its arms were was a pair of vein shape wings with disks connected to them, with the insides of the disks glowing blue as well. Its arms and legs were only connected by some sort of energy blue magnetic force, seeing as how no joints held then connected physically to the shoulders, and the claws were razor sharp. Its head was just like a dragon's; horns, teeth, and glowing blue eyes that pierced anyone just by looking at him, along with a mane of spike scales, but on its nose, at the very tip, was the same cricket robot that had led the men to this place.

The dragon growled at the group, especially at Chi Fu for trying to set in the palace. And then… it spoke to them as it growled, "WHO DISTURBS THE CITY OF THE MANDARIN?"

Chi Fu began to shake in his boots at this as he gulped, "Ah… it… it-it is I, Chi Fu." And then bowed respectfully as he finished, "A humble merchant."

The Dragon narrowed its eyes as it growled out, "KNOW THIS: ONLY ONE MAY ENTER HERE. ONE WHO'S WORTH LIES FAR WITHIN." Shan-Yu and the Hooded man looked at each other with a raised eyebrow in this confusion as the Dragon finished, "THE ONE WHO BRIDGES THE THREE HEARTS."

Chi Fu looked back to the two men and shrugged. But Shan-Yu wasn't about to give up at all at this point. Shan-Yu shooed him, "What are you waiting for? Go on!"

Chi Fu gulped by this action as he tip-toed towards the door, without the Dragon noticing. He then lightly stepped his way to the door, taking one small step at the center of the doorway's opening. As he took that step, he looked around and sighed in relief, knowing that nothing bad had happened. But when he looked back at the opening, he came face-to-face with the Dragon Guardian as it roared right in his face, causing him to almost wet himself as he screamed and squealed like a little girl as he ran away from the palace gates, but it was too late for him now.

The Dragon snatched him by the teeth as it flunged the 'screaming like a girl' Chi Fu high up in the air. And then, its dragon whiskers sparked together at its mouth, and with a little glowing light, shot out a massive blast of Electric Blue energy that hit Chi Fu, and incinerated the mousy man into dust. The dragon then curled and coiled itself at the front Gate as it was now beginning to deactivate in a guardian stance, but not before it said one last thing, "SEEK THEE OUT… THE ONE WHO BRIDGES THE THREE HEARTS….", and then its eyes finally powered down, and just stayed that way, back to sleep and guarding the city's entrance.

It was just then, just as the men and two leaders got back up, the Hooded man growled as he got up. He clenched his right fist, making the crystal scratch and creak together, "I don't believe this. I just don't freakin' believe this! We're never gonna get a hold of that Spearhead!"

Shan-Yu, who was more patient and calmly tempered than this guy was, merely cracked his neck as his falcon landed back on his shoulder. He then calmly looked to the Hooded Man as he replied, "Patience, partner, patience. It seems that anyone like Chi Fu is obviously less than worthy."

The Hooded Man just grumbled as he sarcastically shot out, "Oh, well now, that's a big surprise. Congratulations on winnin' the Solid Gold Kewpie Doll!" He then turned his direction towards Shan Yu as he shouted, "We've got a huge problem and we can't get past it!"

Shan Yu calmly nodded his head on this as he scowled at the palace gates, with the immobile dragon on guard. He then replied, "Yes. We can't, but only one can enter." His eyes then looked calm but still had their sharpness to them as he stated, "We must find this one. This… One who Bridges the Three Hearts."

It was then that the Hooded Man thought on that title for a moment, and then smirked. With his human hand, he pulled back the hood, to reveal none other than… Rourke. His hair a little messed up, and his right face petrified of Crystal, as he looked to Shan Yu, and smirked evilly, "I think I might know who we need."

Next Chapter: Meeting with Daddy; the Big News