A/N – Hey! Its been a VERY long time since we have updated… and we are both EXTREMELY sorry! =) the slightly humorous thing about all this is we've had what is written for like 8 months… but we just kept telling ourselves that we'd add on to it =) that obviously has yet to happen.. so we decided to just go ahead and post this and start working on Chapter 5! Which.. will HOPEFULLY come out soon - much sooner than this one =) we'll try not to make y'all wait another year =)
Disclaimer – Although we both have Mulan merchandise… we still don't own it =( =) – it belongs to Disney, and the Legend of Hua MuLan!
Thank you to ALL who reviewed! =) – Becky, Sue, General Mevneriel, AD, zumamoonlight, YunCyn, gonergal, dragonheart, and Rory!!
Sorry again for the long wait! But we won't make you wait any longer – here is CHAPTER 4!! =)
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Chapter 4
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When Mulan could start to see the camp, she knew she was getting closer. She couldn't wait to be with all her old friends again, even if they were not able to know who she was. Mulan kept walking as Mushu complained; she did not know what it was about since she tuned him out nearly an hour ago. She continued thinking about how great it would be with all her friends and how it was going to be harder than she thought to keep this all a secret.
She was worn-out when they finally reached the camp. As a result, she wasn't paying attention to where she was going and ploughed into Yao on accident. This, of course, made him extremely mad and he wanted to fight right away. Mulan was used to this and just stood there.
"Why aren't you running?" Yao scowled at the new boy.
"Because, I'm not afraid of some little chicken boy" Mulan said jokingly.
Yao grabbed onto Mulan's shirt but Chien-Po held him back.
"Ping?" Ling asked.
Mulan turned towards her old friend and corrected, "No… my name is Mula-… wait… I mean Fai Chen."
"Nice try Mulan."
"Shh! Not so loud"
"What are you doing here?"
"I came after Shang, and you HAVE to promise not to tell him or anyone else who I am, because if he finds out he'll be furious with me… he made me agree to stay home… but I wanted to come back. So please don't tell him or call me either Ping or Mulan… I'm Fai Chen now." Mulan said this all very fast.
"We promise. You really did change though… hardly look like yourself."
Mulan rolled her eyes, "That was the idea."
"Umm… Hi Captain." Yao said to the figure that came up behind Mulan.
"You mean General."
Mulan paled when she recognized Shang's voice.
"And what are you three doing here? You need to be training the new troops."
"We are sir." Ling said pointing to Mulan.
Shang looked down at Mulan "Do I know you? You look very familiar." Mulan was getting extremely nervous "Umm... I don't think so Sir."
"Hmm… maybe I know your father or someone, let me see your conscription notice."
Mulan hesitated for a second but quickly found her hand-made notice and handed it to Shang.
"Hmm… Fai Chen… does sound familiar… so what is your name?"
"Uhh... I have the same name as my father, Fai Chen."
"Strange… not many people do that anymore. Yet, anyway carry on, you'll learn a lot from these three."
Mulan nodded and Shang walked off to another group of idle soldiers.
"That was too close for my liking."
"Still get weak in the knees when you see him huh?" Yao teased. But stopped when Mulan hit him on the back of the head.
"Ow! Living with Shang made you mean."
Mulan rolled her eyes; it was good to be back with her friends.
"Lets at least look like you are teaching me how to fight, but you do know that I can take all three of you simple, right?"
"Hah, I'd like to see you try."
"We can't let the General get suspicious though, and if you two start a fight, that would make Chen here more obvious."
"Chien-Po is right, I think I have enough suspicion drawn to me with my bad choice of name…"
"Okay, well where should we start?" Yao asked.
"The beginning I guess…" Ling stated.
"Here it goes then, this is how you throw a punch, here… let me use an example. Ling… just stand right there… and don't move."
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That night Mulan spent her time unpacking her bags and setting up her tent. She was nearly done when she heard a knock at her door.
"Come in." She called out in her deepened voice.
The door opens and she sees her three friends.
"What are you guys doing here?"
"We just wanted to check up on you. So what are you doing here anyway? I thought you said that Shang told you to stay home this time." Ling asked.
"I already told you. I just wanted to come."
"Why would you want to go back to war?"
"I dunno, to make sure Shang doesn't get hurt."
"Awww… how cute." Yao began but stopped when Mulan glared at him, "Ok suure Mulan!"
"Shhh! Not so loud! I don't want Shang to hear you! You guys HAVE to keep this a secret, promise?" Mulan hissed.
"Okay, okay we promise but this is gonna be really hard. Do you know how much trouble you'll be in with Shang if he finds you out?"
"Yes! That's precisely the reason I want you to be quiet. My name is Fai Chen, not Mulan or Ping."
"Right. Hey… look on the bright side, if Shang does catch you at least he probably won't kill you." Yao said thoughtfully.
Mulan became silent for a few moments 'Would he really get mad enough to kill me? ...nah! He wouldn't would he?'
Her thoughts were interrupted by Yao, "Don't you think he's gonna notice? I mean you are his wife!"
Mulan sighed, "Well I'm just hoping he won't."
Her friends laughed.
"Hey, not to be rude or anything, but I don't want Shang to come in here, so I think we should call it a night."
"Chen is right, it would be strange for us to be such good friends with a newcomer after one afternoon." Chien-Po rationalized.
"True, and besides we don't want to be late tomorrow for training." Yao said smirking at Mulan who rolled her eyes.
"Good Night Pi—Chen" Ling said correcting himself as he waved and exited the tent followed shortly by Chien-Po and Yao.
Mulan sighed and finished putting away the last of her things. She then made her bed and climbed into it, falling into a deep slumber.
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Mulan woke up when she heard a lot of noise outside of her tent. She quickly scrambled out of bed and peeked out the flap of her tent.
"Oh no! I'm late...again!" she mumbled to herself while she quickly began to search for her uniform. In less than a minute she was ready. Looking at herself, she made sure that she looked like Fai Chen, not Li Mulan.
'Good' she thought to herself, 'Now if only Chein-Po, Yao, Ling, and I can keep this a secret from Shang...'
She knew it was going to be hard but she had to try. She ran out of her tent and lined up with the other soldiers to begin morning training.
"Fai Chen" Shang's voiced thundered down at her, "Care to tell us why you are late?"
"Uh. Overslept Sir."
Shang chuckled to himself, "Well be sure that this doesn't happen again."
"Yes Sir." Mulan answered shocked, 'Why was Shang being nice all of a sudden?'
"Now, today you will try to retrieve that arrow." Shang said speaking to the whole group of young soldiers, pointing to the top of a high pole, "Many of you have already done this from last time, but for our new soldiers I believe this will be most beneficial. Fai Chen?"
"Uh… Yes Sir?"
"You'll be first." He said with a small smirk.
'This is going to be really easy' Mulan thought as she took the two weights from Shang.
She quickly climbed up the pole using the same method she used last time. Though she didn't do it as easily as she would have been able to if she practiced more, everyone was in shock about how fast she was going. She took the arrow from the pole and threw it down to Shang and quickly climbed down. Everyone began to cheer.
"That was quite impressive, how did you do that so fast?" Shang asked her.
'Uh oh!' she thought 'I should have thought about this more, I should have messed up. Now I probably have given myself away'
Shang soon interrupted her thoughts by congratulating her, "Keep up the good work!"
Mulan smiled and said, "I'll try"
'Okay good so he doesn't know who I am, or does he?'
