AN: OK, so, I'm back at school which means updates may become less regular *dodges bricks*
More Land of Dragons…Nothing else really to say here…
Enjoy!
Disclaimer: If I owned 'em, would I be doing this...Yeah…I probably would be…I still don't own 'em though…
Ed surveyed the encampment with a scowl on his face. "Are you kidding me? All this and I'm back with the military?"
"Wait! What?" Sora stared at Ed in shock, "You were in the military? You're like thirteen!"
"I'm sixteen, I'm older than you! And I'll have you know I was the youngest state alchemist in history!"
"That's great." Sora was apathetic as he said it. He leaned over to Riku and asked "What's a state alchemist?" He said it a lot louder than he needed to.
"Nothing you need to worry about. It's just a title." Al explained. Ed was fuming again.
"Now where are the people in charge?" Goofy placed his hands above his eyes to block the bright light and scanned the layout of the camp. It was crowded, more so than Sora remembered, and hectic too.
"They look like they're going to war." Donald observed.
Riku nodded. "I guess they've already noticed the heartless invasion. At least we won't have to explain."
"Explain to who? Where is everybody?" Sora exclaimed. The rest of the group waved in the general direction of the crowd with 'are you serious?' looks on their faces. Sora rolled his eyes. "I meant everyone we know!"
"Sora?" As if answering the boy's calls, a large man in ornate, historic armor and a red cloak approached the group.
Sora recognized him instantly, "Li!"
The general nodded in recognition. He was accompanied by a serious looking, elderly man with white hair and Asian features. He was staring intently at the Elrics and Ed felt like he looked familiar, but couldn't quite place it.
"This is great!" Exclaimed Li, "Now that you're here, our soldiers actually stand a chance at driving off the heartless."
"Whoah! Hold on a second!" Ed shouted, "I just came from taking military orders! I'm here to help, but I'm not so keen on joining your little army!"
Li looked amused. "I can assure you that our army is far from 'little'." The familiar but not recognizable man next to him made a sound that was halfway between a chuckle and a grunt. "But since you were in the military, may I ask what position you held?"
"Uh, well my rank was equivalent to Major, I guess."
"Ah, okay, I'm a general so I outrank you." Li didn't look like he took Ed seriously at all.
"But I'm royalty so I outrank you all!"
The whole group turned to see the source of the overly cheery statement. A young man was coming over the rise, arms full of food, flanked by two young women.
Ed and Al's eyes widened in shock. "Ling?" They shrieked at almost the same time.
The scrawny soldier also named Ling, who walked with his friends behind the front group, looked up momentarily, but then went back to his conversation. This confusion had popped up quite a bit since the strangers' arrival, as was to be expected when two people with the same name were around each other, and he was already getting used to it.
"What? How? Ling! Lanfan! It's really you!" Ed was rambling like a kid, and Al looked too shocked for words. Both were wearing huge grins that made them look a little foolish.
"Hey! It's the tiny alchemist guy!" Ling sang cheerily. He had to dodge a well aimed punch from Ed, but was laughing the whole time. "Really, it's good to see you guys."
The reunion was actually kind of cute, and Sora was waiting for them to hug so he could snap a picture on the cell phone Kairi had given him. If nothing else, it would be cute, but in the best scenario, it would make great blackmail.
"Is Mei here?" Al asked expectantly, scanning the area, taking in every person within his line of sight, and there were quite a few who had stopped to see what the commotion was about.
"You mean that Chang princess? No I haven't seen her. Wasn't she hanging around with that Scar guy?"
"Oh right." Al looked disappointed. Sora guessed that they weren't as lucky as he'd originally thought. They had lost contact with some friends, and Sora knew the pain of not being able to find the people you care about, all too well.
"This is great! Now we can get rid of those heartless!" Mulan exclaimed!
Lanfan looked confused. "I thought you said we needed a key?"
"Yeah but he has the key." She pointed at Sora, who blushed a little from the attention. Then Mulan's face fell a little. She turned to Ling, who was arguing jokingly with Ed. "Wait, how did you beat that heartless in the marketplace?"
Ling looked at her, still smiling. "Oh, I just stabbed it 'til it died!"
"And that worked?" Mulan had tried that, the first time she'd encountered these new heartless. She'd been able to defeat the old ones, especially with Sora's help, but these new ones were stronger, and her sword had been completely useless.
"What's going on?" Sora was tired of being left out of the conversation.
"These new heartless, and how we defeat them." Mulan explained.
"Now that you mentioned it," Sora started, "Are they getting easier to beat?"
The question was aimed at Riku, who took a moment to realize he was supposed to answer. He just shrugged thinking and trying to come up with an explanation.
"Maybe we're getting stronger?" Goofy asked. Sora didn't like that it was a question.
"Perhaps we should finish this conversation elsewhere." Li offered, gesturing towards the largest tent in the encampment.
The group started heading towards the tent. Mulan stopped momentarily and looked off into the woods. "Where's Mushu?"
"You're looking for the immortal man too!" Mei was thrilled when she'd heard that she and the little dragon were following the same target.
They were slowly making their way through the bamboo, stumbling down an ancient overgrown path, marked and maintained only by the constant footsteps of travelers. Mei had told Mushu what she was doing in the woods and he had insisted she accompany him, only now had he given her the full story. "Yeah, but you see that's the thing! There is no immortal man; it's just an old fairytale." Mei looked crushed.
"So why are you looking for him?" It seemed weird that someone - something - that didn't believe the story would go this far to find the guy.
"Well, I heard some soldiers talking about a farmer in the area, apparently the guy had gone up the mountain recently to sell his crops, and he claims to have seen a man jump from a huge cliff, and get up and walk away, completely unscathed."
"You think he's the immortal man?"
"Well, it doesn't really match the story...but that's not normal. I was hoping to find this farmer and get more info, he lives on the other side of this grove. You never know, it could all be connected to the heartless."
Mei cringed at the last word, she didn't like the heartless. And Mushu's seemingly half informed explanation of what they were hadn't helped. If the immortal man was connected, maybe she'd give up on him.
"Here we are! Mushu pulled back the leaves of a bush to reveal a recently harvested field. Beyond the field lay a quaint, but not unkempt, farmhouse accompanied by an average sized barn. A few cows grazed in a nearby paddock and some farmhands sloshed around in a rice paddy.
Mushu climbed up on Mei's shoulder, but then leapt to the other one when Xao Mei tried to nip at him. "Listen, you're gonna have to do the talking, I'll hide back here and give you some guidance.
"Wait me? What about you?"
"You really think he'll give answers to a dragon?"
"Good point...wait, what were you planning on doing before you found me?"
"Uhhh...don't worry about that, c'mon we're running out of time."
And with that, Mei decided to drop it, and started towards the farmhouse.
"That settles it, they are definitely getting weaker!" Li sounded really sure, but Sora had jumped into the same boat as Goofy and was convinced that the heartless were not weaker, but that they were, in fact, stronger.
"So how do you explain Ling's sword being enough to kill one, when mine was useless?" Mulan was on Li's side. She had fought the heartless during the initial invasion, but hadn't faced them since, it was possible that they'd become weaker in that time.
"Maybe his is more effective because he's from the world with the power that's making them stronger?" Sora offered.
"I dunno..." Great Ed was on their side too, was it really so hard to believe that they were actually good at what they did?
"I remember Lieutenant Hawkeye having trouble defeating them with her guns." Al offered. "So I don't think that's it."
"For the sake of fareness, let the record show that in my experience, bullets have proved useless on more than one occasion." Ed offered. Sora just stared at him. Now that he thought about it, was there anybody he knew who fought with a gun? Leon's gunblade didn't count.
"And the first time we fought them it was difficult. Two keyblades were barely enough to take 'em out. Now, this Lin guys takes one out no problem."
"It's Ling..." No-one was really listening though.
"Okay fine! So let's say they have gotten weaker! How? Why?" Sora was ready to accept the possibility, mostly because he was out-voted.
"Maybe there's something in the air?" Goofy offered.
"Is it possible there's a person behind it?" Lanfan asked.
Riku's mind drifted to a woman in black robes with a menacing face. One he knew was all too willing to interfere in other people's wars if it suited her own needs. One with enough magical power that she could actually do something like this.
His thoughts were interrupted by an explosion, what was it with them and explosions? A second later Chien Po came storming through the front of the tent. Or rather, he collided with the front of the tent with the force of a tank, sending the whole thing flying a few feet back, and leaving it a little less grand. He never really fit through the front of the tent anyway...
"H-heartless!" He managed to wheeze out between panicked breaths.
"How did they get in?" Li was on his feet and in full general mode. Chien Po gave the full report. Apparently the heartless had ambushed the camp. The soldiers had been quick to respond but quickly overwhelmed.
"Alright let's move!" He shouted his orders and the warriors populating the tent moved into the battle field. Mulan, armed with an ornate sword, swung at a heartless near the door, hitting it square in the chest. It cried out and collapsed, fading into the shadows.
"It worked!" She cried out in shock.
"I told you! They're getting weaker!" Donald called out! Actually he hadn't been the first to bring that up, but Sora didn't feel like correcting him. Now wasn't really the time.
The group took a moment to examine the camp. It was nearly abandoned. Only a few soldiers remained Yao and the other Ling among them. Most of the tents had collapsed or were scorched or burning. One large one had been completely incinerated, leaving only a ring of ash and scorched ground, the smoke was still rising from the blackened center.
"What happened there?" Sora asked, indicating the scorched ground.
"Explosion, we were storing cannons in there." Li answered as he slashed at another heartless. They weren't doing too badly. Sora watched as Lanfan threw knives at a heartless and danced around another with advanced martial arts. Ling was getting the best of them with his sword skills, which Sora had to admit were rather impressive for a prince, even the old man was holding his own. And of course the rest of them, Mulan and Li included, had handled the heartless before.
But even if they were weaker, and even if the weapons were having an effect for some unknown reason. They were still greatly outnumbered.
Sora examined the camp again, there had to be something he could do. His gaze lingered on the charred remains of the cannon storage, and an idea came to him.
"Hey! Were you storing cannons anywhere else?" He asked Mulan, who was fighting by his side.
"Yeah, in there." She slashed at another heartless and then pointed towards a large square, plain, white tent with a red trim.
Sora grinned and bolted towards the tent. He grabbed the sleeve of Ed's jacket along the way and dragged him along. The blond tripped as he was pulled off his feel and half stumbled, half ran, along side Sora. Al looked concerned out of the corner of his eye, but couldn't stop fighting long enough to rescue his brother from whatever crazy scheme Sora had come up with.
The boys arrived at the tent and Ed stumbled free of Sora's grasp. "What are you doing? We have to fight!"
"With these numbers we don't stand a chance! Lift me up!"
"What?"
Sora pointed at the top of the tent. "I have a plan, lift me up! Use your alchemy!"
Ed clapped his hands and slapped the ground. One moment, and an array of sparks later, Sora was on top of a rising platform of stone, and a moment later, on top of the tent.
Once he found his footing, he raised his keyblade above his head and started waiving it around like an idiot. "Hey! Over here!"
"What are you doing!" Ed screamed from the ground.
"I'm trying to get the heartless to come over! They should be attracted to the keyblade!" So why weren't they? They were pretty much completely ignoring him.
"You idiot!" There was another flash of sparks and then Ed was on top of the tent next to Sora. He raised his own keyblade into the air, waiving it around. "Hey! Hey! Over here!"
Sora was about to tell him to give up, it wasn't really working. But the last thing he expected happened. The heartless actually turned around and started coming their way. No, not Their way, Ed's way.
"Okay genius, what's your plan?" Ed asked, an edge to his voice.
Sora shook off the thoughts and returned to reality, "Hang on, they need to get closer." Sora still couldn't believe that this plan was working. So far, anyway. "Closer, closer, closer..." The heartless horde was only a few feet from the tent now. The other fighters were watching in disbelief, trying to figure out what was going on.
"I think they're pretty damn close!" Ed actually sounded a little worried.
"Right!" Sora grabbed Ed by the back of his jacket. He lifted his keyblade in a large arch through the air around them calling out while he did so. "Aero!" His words initiated the spell, and though it wasn't nearly as powerful as anything Donald could summon, a gust of wind quickly lifted both boys into the air. As soon as their feet were no longer in contact with the tent Sora aimed his keyblade downwards and initiated another spell. "Fire!" A huge fireball erupted from the end of his keyblade. Hot enough that Sora could feel the heat as it shot downwards, it collided with the roof of the tent and set off a massive explosion.
The resulting fireball engulfed the surrounding heartless. Sora and Ed glided overhead, coming down safely just as the flames began to fade. The last of the heartless were fading into shadows in the middle of another massive circle of scorched earth.
Li sighed as he watched the spectacle, leaning over towards Mulan. "Remind me to order more cannons." The female soldier smiled, and the others all let out sighs of relief as the battle came to an end. Their encampment was destroyed, but at least they were safe, for now.
"You're crazy! Ya' know that?" Ed was sitting on the ground, batting at the scorched, smoking ends of his jacket and staring up at Sora, who stood proudly with the cockiest of grins on his face. He was crazy but even Ed couldn't fault him for a lack of bravery.
Riku walked over to see they were okay, Al by his side. "At least we learned that they've become easier to kill!" The younger Elric offered as he held out a hand to lift his brother off the ground.
"Two things." Sora corrected, his companions stared at him in confusion. "That, and for some reason, they're attracted to you guys." He gestured towards Ed when he said it. Ed opened his mouth to say something, but then closed it, unsure of how to respond.
"Are you sure we're going the right way?"
"Of course I'm sure, how do you think I got here?"
"You got lost remember?"
Mei and Mushu had wandering in circles through the bamboo forest for hours. Their visit to the farmer allowed them to confirm the story they'd heard about the immortal man on the mountain. The farmer hadn't been nearly as old as Mushu had made him out to be. A little past middle age, he'd told Mei that she resembled his daughter who was now married and living elsewhere. He had been more than willing to answer her questions, the questions Mushu was whispering in her ear, and told her everything she needed to know. He'd also been nice enough to feed her lunch which had been a plus since she hadn't had anything decent to eat in a while. After leaving, Mushu had insisted upon bringing the information to a military encampment where he said he had allies who might want to hear about it. Mei had wanted to climb the mountain immediately, but decided to humor the dragon, after all, it was thanks to him that she'd gotten the information in the first place, so she owed him this much.
She patted the map in her pocket, with the spot where the man had been sighted circled in dark black ink. They would leave as soon as they picked up Mushu's friends, or that's what the dragon had told her anyway.
She was starting to lose faith in the supposed family guardian. They'd been walking through the bamboo grove for a while and that particular stick looked awfully familiar to her.
"Mushu! We're definitely lost!"
"Are not! I know exactly where we are! The encampment's right beyond those trees!"
"I'm sure it is." Mei rolled her eyes and reached out to pull the branches out of the way. "Look, maybe we should ask-" She was cut off by what she saw beyond the grove. A military encampment, trashed and scorched, smoke still rising from burnt tents.
Mushu leapt from Mei's shoulder with a panicked look on his face. "Mulan? Mulan!"
"Mushu come back! You don't know if it's safe!" Mei rounded the corner and came to a skidding halt when she realized that she and the dragon were far from the only ones in the camp. Standing alongside a tent that was still relatively intact was a group of people, most of whom she didn't recognize. But the dragon obviously did, Mushu was already in the arms of a young woman with dark hair and a sword at her belt, but it was a young boy who caught Mei's attention. She could barely see him through the tears that filled her eyes and blurred her vision. A boy with a blue jacket and blond hair.
"Mister Alphonse!" And before the young alchemist knew what was happening, a young girl was crying in his arms.
"I wonder if the old man told the tale?" A dark haired man sat back on the pile of rubble he'd claimed as his chair. A light snowfall left droplets of water on his sunglasses. He smiled, revealing oddly sharp teeth and when his glasses slid down his nose one could see his red-violet eyes and slitted pupils. He adjusted his fur lined, leather vest and sat up on his throne, still smiling.
"They'll be here soon..."
AN: OOOH! I wonder who the mysterious man was. XP I tried to be all mysterious and ambiguous, but I think it's really blatantly obvious. Let's see, do you know who it is?
Oh Mushu…I'm sorry, but you are forever the most fail family guardian ever…I still love him though 3
I hope you liked it!