Now we are getting a move on. I know I did not include Mushu last chapter, but imagine it going the same way it did in the movie. Mulan will handle the situation differently here.
Disclaimer: Do not own Mulan, stop pestering me! DX
Here the Chapter Starts
"Okay, okay, okay," Mulan huffed, crossing her arms as Khan judged her various male voices. She was used to being one of the guys, or at least an equal. But in this Han camp, she has to be a guy. Her breasts are aching in the tight bindings that make her appear to have a flat chest. The armor was loose enough to hide her curves and lack of bulge. It was humiliating and uncomfortably, but this army is her best chance at finding Shan-Yu.
Mulan let out a huff of air. "How about this one then?" Clearing her throat, she acted like she was striding up to someone. "Excuse me, sir. Where do I sign in?" Her voice was deeper, but still had the tinge of feminism to it.
Khan let out a snort and looked away. The voice could use a little work, but might do with some practice.
"You're a lot of help," she commented, crossing her arms. "It would be a miracle if I can fake it through everything."
"Did I hear someone asked for a miracle?" someone boomed behind them, making Mulan jump and draw her sword on instinct. "Let me hear you say 'Ah!'"
"Who are you? What are you?" Mulan demanded.
"Who am I? Who am I?" the shadowy creature repeated in disbelief and self-importance. "I am the guardian of lost souls! I am the powerful, the pleasurable, the indestructible Mushu!" As the shadow spoke, it shrank as the one creating it stepped out from behind the boulder.
He was roughly a foot and a half long, his body red with an orange underbelly, blue horns, dark red claws on his hands and feet, a thin dark red mane on his back, and black on the tip of his ears. Mulan blinked at him, her sword lowering in surprise as she tried to figure out what he is.
"I'm pretty hot, huh?" the creature said smugly before Khan decided it would be best to try and stomp the creature into the ground.
She pulled her horse away, earning a snort from the steed as Khan glared at the twitching red creature. Kneeling next to it, she picked it up with the tip of her fingers, which only resulted in dropping it. "Okay, what kind of lizard are you?"
"Hey, hey, dragon," Mushu corrected. "Dragon! I don't do that tongue thing." Either he does and denies it or he did it to show what he meant, his tongue stuck out like a serpent tasting the air.
"So why are you here?" she asked, poking his side.
"Your ancestors sent me to aid you in your journey!" he exclaimed happily.
"A tiny thing like you?" she asked skeptically as she stood back up.
Mushu crawled right up a nearby bamboo stick to be level with her eyes. "I'm travel size for your convenience," he pointed out. "If I was my real size, your cow here would die of fright." He patting Khan on the nose and drew back his hand before it got bit off. "Down, Bessie!" Looking back to Mulan, he continued. "My powers are beyond your comprehension. My eyes could see straight through your armor."
Automatically, she slapped him away when he went wide-eyed and stared at her chest. He fell to the ground only to snap back up, holding his head, and start shouting, "Alright, dishonor! Dishonor on your whole family! Take some notes, Cri-Kee." To Mulan's surprise, a very familiar cricket grabbed a leaf and a burnt stick like it was taking the notes as the dragon raged on. "Dishonor on you! Dishonor on your cow!"
"Enough!" she snapped, making the dragon fall silent. "Why would the ancestors be willing to help me? As far as they are aware, if at all, I am fraternizing with the enemy!"
"Wait, what?" Mushu asked in confusion. "You mean you didn't join the army to save your father from getting killed? Because that is what they're all thinking."
"Then they're idiots!" she spat, jumping onto Khan's back. "That is only part of the reason. What, as a family guardian, you don't know about my time with the Huns?"
"Give me a rundown," Mushu told her, climbing up Khan's leg and sitting in front of the disguised woman. "Like, tell me everything. What is this really about, revenge?"
She shook her head. "Love and peace," she answered lowly.
"And now I am lost," the dragon stated, rubbing the back of his head. "Okay, Mulan, I really need you to give me an explanation here or I can't help you."
Huffing, she looked towards the camp in thought. "The leader of the tribe, Nakhu, kidnapped me when I was nine," she began, telling the small dragon her story. He listened without interrupting, nodding in thought as he gazed off to the side. Then she came to her reason for joining the army. "It is not just about Fa Zhou. If I can get to Shan-Yu, I can hopefully stop this war before too much blood can be shed."
"But he is a Hun," Mushu pointed out calmly then sighing deeply. "Well, this isn't what me or the ancestors had in mind. Tell you what. I help you get back to your Hunny Bun, and when you two start having a family, I become the first guardian. Unless Huns have their own set of guardians, then I just join them. Sound good?"
"First guardian since Huns don't have them," she agreed with a small smile. "So you'll really help me?"
"What's the worst that can happen?" the dragon inquired sarcastically.
"The death of the Emperor," she supplied blandly.
"Oh… well, still helping you get your man back," he promised, already thinking that maybe it won't come to something that serious if they play their cards right. "Cri-Kee, get the bags! Now, Mulan, we need a good man voice for you. Show me what you got!"
Here is a line!
Entering the camp was no problem. Despite Mushu trying to convince her to 'walk like a man', she just went along the walked path with Khan behind her, his reins in her hands. She had to wrinkle her nose in disgust when she saw a man picking at his feet with chopsticks and another digging around in his nose.
Though she had to stop abruptly or risk crashing into a man shorter than her that was being shown a tattoo on another's chest, that man proclaiming it would protect him from harm. The stout man hummed in thought then punched the second man in the stomach, causing a taller, thinner man to laugh out that he hopes the second gets his money back.
"Almost feels like home," she muttered, staring at the stout man with the black eye.
Then the stout man noticed her staring. "What are you looking at?" he snarled.
"Punch him, it's how men say 'hello'," Mushu advised.
"No, it's not," she hissed back, shoving the stout man from her when his back was turned. But she used too much strength and he flew into the gut of a much larger man.
"Yao, you made a friend!" the big man cheerfully announced, holding the much shorter man like he weighed nothing.
"Nice, very nice. Now slap him on the behind," Mushu continued to instruct. "They like that."
"Again, no," she refused lowly before saying louder in her deeper voice, "That's what happens when you don't get out of my way!"
"Oh, now you're asking for it!" the short man growled, rolling up a sleeve. "I'm going to punch you so hard, it'll make your ancestors dizzy!"
"Yao, calm yourself and chant with me," the large man said gently, picking the one named Yao up by his arms and rocking him side to side as he chanted.
The shorter man repeated, but the longer he went, the more slurred his words became and the more relaxed his body was. When he confirmed he was better, he was placed down then dismissed Mulan. "Ah, you aren't worth my time, chicken boy."
"Chicken boy?!" Mushu shouted out in anger. "Why don't you say that to my face, you limp noodle!"
Believing it was Mulan that shouted, Yao grabbed her by her shirt and dragged her in for a punch, but she ducked down and he ended up hitting the skinnier man that went behind her to hold her in place. Seeing what he did, he apologized, "Sorry, Ling. Hey!" He spotted her trying to slip away, but was kicked in the butt by Ling before he could grab her.
The trio of men started to fight each other, which Mulan took as a chance to get away until Ling pointed out her departure, then they chased after her. She managed to slip by them while they chased her through a tent, heading straight for the line of men waiting for their bowl of rice. Yao skidded to a stop, and Ling managed to avoid running into him. But the bigger man bumped the two and started the line to fall from the force of people landing on each other all the way down to the pot of rice and the cook. Grains spilled all over the grassy ground and some of the men had it on them.
"Oops," she said to herself as the group of men advanced on her. "Hi, guys!" she greeted weakly as she backed away from the mob. She can fight, no doubt, and can hold her own. But not against a crowd this large. When she blinked, it was a surge of angry men charging at her. All she could do was duck down and cover her head from harm while the fighting erupted all around her. Any strikes to her were more like the men tripping over her curled-up body as they fought.
Through the rabble, she could make out people leaving a nearby tent. Two at first, then joined by a third shortly after. A moment passed before one pair of feet left the other two pairs and then white horses ran by the fighting crowd.
"Soldiers!" a man barked out.
The fighting instantly stopped, though someone still threw one more punch, and the crowd parted. "He started it!" they all exclaimed. Mulan noticed they were all pointing at her as she uncurled from her fetal position and got to her feet.
The man dressed in Imperial armor with an additional red cape marched up to her and got in her face. "I don't need any troublemakers in my camp," he scolded, eyes fixed into a glare.
"Short fuses are not my fault," Mulan shot back with a smirk and crossing her arms.
He huffed and held out his hand. "Let me see your conscription." Pulling it from her sash, she handed it into his hand without protest. He unrolled it quickly, eyes scanning over it before noticing the name. "Fa Zhou? The Fa Zhou?"
"I didn't know Fa Zhou had a son!" the skinny man in blue remarked.
"I'm the 'oops' child," Mulan easily excused. "He doesn't talk about me much. Even after my sister was kidnapped by Huns."
"What is your name?" the man with the cape demanded.
Shit! She didn't think of a name! Mushu was quick to come up with quite a few that had her rolling her eyes, but the captain (she assumed) thought she was being disrespectful.
"I asked you a question!"
"How 'bout Ping? That was my best friends name!" Mushu whispered.
"Ping," she accepted. "My name is Fa Ping." She had to reach around the back of her neck like she was scratching an itch when she heard Mushu muttering about whatever kind of wrong his friend did before.
"Ping," the captain repeated, looking her over with a critical eye. Circling her, he started giving out his order of the day. "Men, thanks to your new friend Ping here, you will spend the rest of the day and the night picking up every single grain of rice. Tomorrow, the real work begins."
From the corner of her eyes, she could make out some of the other men growling at her, using body language to threaten her for the punishment that is her fault. Mushu popped up out of the front of her shirt, hidden from the view of everyone else. "You know, we have got to work on your people skills," the dragon commented.
Here is a line!
She was starting to think the captain only called them by 'soldiers' because he is up on the highest horse she could ever see, right next to the one the 'advisor' rides. Then he had to strip off his shirt before grabbing a bow and arrow, walking down the line with a bare torso.
"Seen better," she muttered under her breath, earning a confused look from the skinny soldier, Ling. At least Shan-Yu never stripped when he and the others trained together. Stupid, if anything. Distracting in the cases of a few, herself included.
"You will gather swiftly and quietly every morning," the captain announced. "Anyone who doesn't… answers to me."
"Oooh, tough guy," Yao remarked, not as low as Mulan did a moment ago.
"Yao." The stout man blinked as the rest of the line took a large step back. Shang notched an arrow then shot it to the top of a pole before removing the quiver from his back. "Thank you for volunteering. Retrieve the arrow."
Yao cracked his knuckles while muttering under his breath that he will get the arrow while keeping his shirt on. As he got ready to climb the pole, the captain stopped him and placed heavy weights on the man's wrists.
What an odd exercise, Mulan noted as she watched Yao fail to climb the pole with the weights on him. One after another, men tried to climb the pole until it was her turn. She managed to get a good height up before the weight became too much for her wrists and she slid back to the ground. As she went back to her spot in line, she heard the captain mutter about having a long way to go.
Bamboo staffs were thrown out to the men, but Yao caught hers then proceeded to trip her with it before throwing it at her. Snorting, she kicked him down to the ground as she got to her feet, staff firmly in hand. At the first stance, she felt a tug on her collar before something crawled down her back, making a shiver seep up her spine as she tried to get it out. In the process, she also knocked down several of the men around her, not really knowing which one put the bug there. And just for a good laugh later on, she hit the captain when he got too close to her.
The staff was yanked from her hand and he looked furious, but she stood her ground before reaching behind her and pulling the beetle from the back of her shirt, holding it out for him to see then dropping it onto the ground. "You have an infestation of insects here," she commented with a scoff.
From there, training got both stranger and worse. Running with weights is understandable since it helps increase physical strength and stamina. Learning kung fu was difficult. She only knew the way the Huns taught her, which was usually guerilla. But hoping on poles across water? Breaking thick stone blocks with their heads? Dodging volleys of flaming arrows flying vertically? Cannons? Like the Hun tribes have half of this crap.
Most of it seemed like a pointless waste of time, especially with the three that seemed to target her specifically, making things harder on her. Even the captain seems to target her more often then not. During training, he spars against her, an expert against an amateur, and she does end up getting knocked down more often than not. She supposed it was to break her of the style she already knows since she would often lash out. Kind of like a Hun, but he didn't seem to see that. Which told her he never faced a Hun before.
Mushu helped where he could, but it often resulted in cheating. She can fire an arrow to a moving target, though is a little out of practice about it. Yet during the first exercise, he stuck the fruit on the arrow and hid back in her bag. Shang caught her with the arrow still notched. Then during a bit of training on how to fish without spears or poles, she grabbed Yao and dragged him underwater, but Mushu popped up by her holding a fish for her to take when she put the foot she grabbed back down. It was more payback for an earlier stunt than an accident, anyway.
After a week and a half of training, Shang caught her in the late at the night, leading Khan straight to her with her stallion carrying enough provisions to get back home. "What is this?" she demanded with her 'Ping voice'.
"You're unsuited for the rage of war," Shang told her sternly, dropping the reins into her hand. "So pack up. Go home. You're through."
He didn't wait for her to argue against his decision, rage bubbling in her at the sheer dismissal of his order. Like she was not worth any time at all.
"We've come too far for this to bite us in the ass now, Khan," she said to her horse.
"So what's the plan?" Mushu asked, poking out of her bag. Cri-Kee chirped beside him curiously.
"Get those weights," she stated, removing Khan's load then his bridle and reins. "We're getting serious now. And we're going to knock that arrogant ass down a few notches."
Mushu laughed humorously as he ran towards the captain's tent. Cri-Kee hopped onto Khan's back, purring gently as Mulan rubbed his head.
She gave the insect a gentle smile. "You've been good luck to me so far, especially with the Matchmaker," she said softly. "Think you can keep helping me out?"
Cri-Kee chirped in assurance, patting his tiny chest with a sharp nod.
"Then let's really get to it!"
Here is a line!
Batu watched the Imperial soldiers from the safety of the thick trees outside the village. A low growl slipped from his throat when he spotted a familiar general strutting around, his fingers itching to notch an arrow and put it through the man's skull. But he restrained himself.
Snapping away, he climbed back down the tree, jumping from the lowest branch to his horse that was standing beside the thick trunk. Silently, he urged the horse into a gallop, making his way back to Shan-Yu to report his findings. The evidence on the doll that Hayabusa brought back told them quite a bit of what to expect, but they didn't know numbers or ranking. Now they will.
Some of the men thought it would be better to just rush the village, kill all the soldiers and whoever dared to fight against them. Shan-Yu normally would not have a problem with that plan, but with soldiers at this location, he didn't want to take unnecessary risks. Considering they will also being going into a mountain range, it wasn't an unwise decision.
Hayabusa met him halfway, crying out as he circled around the archer and flew back towards camp. Batu pushed his horse to stay as close as possible. They made camp just down the valley, ready to move out as soon as the order is given. As he approached, men separated to give him a path straight to Shan-Yu.
The warlord was seated around a fire with the others considered his elite, but was truly his closest friends that most respected enough to follow without questions. Easing the horse to a stop, he jumped down from his mount and sat beside the large man.
"Definitely Imperials at this village," he informed, grabbing a strip of meat Jungsai offered. "A platoon worth. As well as a general that took part in the raid a few years back."
"Is that so?" Shan-Yu chuckled darkly, still holding the tiny doll in his massive hand. "Was it the one that took her?"
"No, but it was the one who slit my mother's throat," the archer snarled, ripping into the meat angrily. He saw which soldier did it, remembered the outfit and the build of the man, even if he didn't see the face. The man is thicker now, fatter, but it is him. "I didn't see the one that took Mulan."
"Did you kill him?" Husun inquired curiously.
"That would have given away my position," Batu answered with a tone suggesting he was smarter than to do something so stupid. "Shan-Yu, there are women and children there."
"We'll capture some to use as slaves," he stated. "I'd rather not kill people that are not suited for battle. And these Han women are just that, their children more so. It's just not as fun."
"Kill the soldiers and the men then," Ulagchi summed up, pushing his helmet back a little from his forehead. "Less to fight us later on, anyway."
"Idiots," Nogai snorted. "They should train their women instead of treating them like glass."
"When do we attack?" Batu asked impatiently.
"Settle down, Batu," Husun advised. "Charging in angry like you are will just get you killed. Meaning I would be the one to explain that to your sister."
"We'll rest here for the night," Shan-Yu decided. "We should wait to see if more men will come here before attacking. After all, it wouldn't do to kill one army only to have another at our back." He held up a hand with three fingers sticking up. "Three days. On the morning of the forth day, we attack."
Here the Chapter Ends
Okay, so Mulan does have a bit of an attitude in this story compared to the movie. Mostly because she was raised by Huns and believes respect is earned, not handed out freely.
Anyway, another change will happen next chapter. And I know I am screwing up timelines here, but oh well! I am just typing this the way it wants to be written.
Let me know what you think! ^^