Chapter 20: Land of the Dragons

Land of the Dragons: 7:25am

Sora and company were coming near their landing spot for the next world.

However, they had hit a problem. It was bight as day at the moment, and that meant Sora and Sophie would be confined until night time.

Um… guys? We got a problem…" Riku said, at the controls.

"What is it?" Sora asked him in return. Sora was looking sleepy.

"It's 7 'o clock at Land of the Dragons." Riku replied, worry in his voice.

"Cool, night time already?" Sora said, obviously not realizing it was the exact opposite.

"No, in the morning." Riku said, with a serious tone.

"Oh, damn. OK, I and Sophie will go in the back until its night time then.

Come on Sophie." Sora said, with Sophie following him to the back where there were no holes or windows to the outside.

'Why does he take his situation so calmly? He'll never be able to see the outside world at a regular time ever again, as long as he is a vampire.

And he takes the situation so unserious? He gets me annoyed sometimes…' Riku thought, again having great concern about his friend.

"Come on Cloud, looks like we're on our own." Riku said, signaling to

Cloud to follow him.

Sora and Sophie went into the back room. It was a dusty room, showing that no-one had been in there for quite some time, and nothing was there but the 3 pipes running alongside the walls perpendicular to each other.

"This is the room we gotta sit in for 12 hours? I think I'd rather burn." Sophie complained.

"It's the only room that has no outside view or access. All the other rooms have windows, and they're pretty big. Sorry, but this has gotta be the room." Sora said in an apologetic way.

"We're coming into the atmosphere, so you're gonna wanna close that door!" Riku shouted down to them. Sora closed the door in response, and locked it on his side of it.

Meanwhile, Cloud and Sora stepped out into the open world, and upon setting foot on the ground, Cloud tripped and fell, not expecting to be stepping in snow (No side windows at the door, people so he wasn't clumsy, he just didn't look)

"It's wintertime in this world, so expect more snow as we move on.

Riku told Cloud as he helped him up.

They reached the village very quickly, but were not pleased at what they saw.

Parts of the village were destroyed, and it looked like no-one lived there anymore. Suddenly Riku saw a woman walking about in normal civilian robes but with a sword drawn, looking for something.

"Um, excuse me, are you Mu-" He was cut off by Mulan clamping her hand over his mouth, silencing him.

"Shh! You must be quiet! Someone is out there trying to kill us! You must get inside, quickly!" She whispered. With haste, Mulan pulled the two into a nearby tent and sat them down.

"Look, stay here and I'll take care of-" It was her turn to be cut off by Riku.

"Hold up! We're friends of Sora, he mentioned you! Are you Mulan?" She stopped and looked at them strangely, then smiled in relief.

"Sora? Sora is here? Where is he?" Mulan asked.

"He's unavailable right now, but we're good friends of him. We can fight too, if you've got a problem then let us help!" Riku said.

"Okay, if you're friends of Sora, then I trust you, but Shang won't be so trustworthy..." She trailed off, worried about what he would say if he found out she broke what was at the moment, law.

Flashback

"Mulan, you must promise me, no matter what, no matter who comes to this village, you will turn them away. No matter who they are, no matter where they came from you must turn them away. And we don't need outside help. If Sora turns up, then turn him away." Shang said to Mulan in the Emperor's

Hallway.

"Shang, this won't work. Turning away refugees is one thing, but turning away help-"

"I know, but the emperor has laid it out for us. We must obey our given orders."

They said nothing more, not even a goodbye as Mulan left for the Village...

End Flashback

"Mulan? It's Shang! We must talk!"

Mulan gasped. She realized that Riku and Cloud were in danger. She opened up the other side of the tent which was adjacent to the wall of the village.

"Quick! Climb over!" She ordered. Riku and Cloud quickly obeyed and scrambled over the wall. Luckily, it wasn't very tall, so they got over it with ease, and Shang hadn't reached her tent yet, so he wouldn't have seen them.

Shang came into the tent and greeted Mulan with a smile. But a smile didn't hide his true emotions well. Everyone was under stress from the way the emperor had been acting lately; Mulan and Shang weren't the only ones.

"Mulan." Shang greeted.

"Shang... what brings you to the Village?" Mulan asked, cutting to the point.

"Reassigned. For now. The general wants me to stay close to you so I can make sure you stay safe."

"And since when did I need protecting?" Mulan questioned, raising an eyebrow.

"Well, I wouldn't want you to get hurt." He drew her close, and hugged her.

"Listen, Mulan, I think the Emperor is not in the state of mind to rule

China right now. We need help. So... if Sora does perhaps show up then give him some hospitality, but keep it secret. The emperor won't be pleased if we disobey orders."

"Are you sure? Isn't this dangerous?"

"Not if we can get a quicker way of disposing of this problem we're having. Maybe if we dispose of these things that have been troubling us, then the Emperor may calm down and loosen the restrictions again."

They stepped out of their tent and gazed into the morning sun, covered by clouds white as the snow, threatening to drop more white hell onto them.

"Today is gonna be a long day..."

Meanwhile

Riku and Cloud had given up on waiting for Mulan to signal them back in or something, so they decided to head back to the ship. Without Sora, they were pretty useless on this world.

"Man, this place is different from what Sora described it as… Not much freedom, no happy people, and we can't even visit."

Riku paused, waiting for a reply from Cloud, but to no avail.

"Man of few words, aren't you?" Riku said.

"I prefer to only speak when it's necessary for me to speak." He muttered, just loud enough for Riku to hear it.

"In other words, never…"

"You talk a lot, but I haven't seen you do much at all. So maybe it is you who needs to be quiet."

"Oh be silent. It's not like you did any fighting at the courtyard yesterday. Nor did you do anything when Sora needed us the most!" Riku was getting hot-tempered now.

"Neither did you. From what I remember, Sophie helped him out the most.

You did as much as I did, so stop acting like you're the centre of attention."

"I'm not! You're just getting me pissed off! Leave me alone!" He shoved Cloud a bit, before running ahead.

'Kid's got emotional issues or something, but it's not my business to pry into others personal lives, just as much as I don't want others poking into mine.' Cloud thought, first feeling slight concern for Riku, but shutting it out as being none of his business.

Meanwhile, in the Gummi…

Sora struggled to stay awake. Every time his eyes shut, he shook himself to get them back open.

"Look, why don't you just sleep, Sora, you shaking constantly is annoying me." Sophie complained as she hung upside down, her feet seemingly glued to the roof.

"Can't." Sora replied, not wanting to have another 'dream'.

"Anyway, how do you do that?" He asked, noticing that she was hanging on to the flat roof, meaning nothing to grip on.

"Do what?"

"That!"

"What? Oh, you mean this? Well, if you just focus, you can walk up walls and stuff. Just concentrate and you'll do it easy." Sora stood up, and looked at the wall. He put one foot on the wall, but as he tried to put his other foot onto the wall, he fell backwards and landed on his head. While no pain was felt for obvious reasons, it made him look stupid still. Sophie laughed at Sora, who was flat on his back, grumbling.

"All it takes is a simple jump! Or, you can try running up the wall. Simple, seeing as how you can't walk on them yet."

Sora jumped in response, and turned upside down mid-jump and landed feet first on the roof. To his surprise and excitement, he stayed, and it felt like gravity was keeping him clamped to the roof, as if that jump had thrown gravity upwards.

"Wow, cool! I can walk on roofs and walls and-"

"Sora, don't, you'll-" She was cut off by his inevitable fall. "Fall…"

The excitement was cut short by the Gummi door outside opening. They heard it, and concealed themselves behind the pipes so as not to get scorched if someone opened the doors, and to be hidden if it was an intruder. A knock on the doors was heard.

"Sora?" Riku called, telling Sora and Sophie that Cloud was not too far behind also, or at least they thought he was…

"Come in. And close the door behind you." Sora called.

Riku walked in as instructed, and closed the door. But then he realized he

Couldn't see anything, as it was pitch black.

"Sora, where are you? I can't see a thing! Turn the light back on!"

"Umm… there is no light in this room?"

"You sure? Why have rooms with no lights?"

"Beats me, go ask Cid, he built the thing."

"Anyway, what did you want, Riku?" Sophie asked, pushing the topic forward.

"Seems like something bad is happening down at the village area. Maybe vampires, I can't confirm it yet. They've locked the place down too so it may be hard to get back in. We did meet Mulan however, but we had to leave pretty quickly after that."

"Well, it's nearly sundown, then we can go see her again."

Sora dropped from the ceiling, but landed on his head again. "Ouch…"

6:45pm: Sundown

The gang was already making their way towards the village, keeping their eyes open for any trouble.

"So Mulan's okay?" Sora asked Riku, getting details on his friend.

"Yeah, she's fine, but the village is on lockdown. The emperor has stopped all people entering or leaving the village until further notice. So it's best we avoid the village till we either find out what is going on, or make friends with the emperor."

"They've most likely got vampires after them, but just to-"

Sophie was cut off by a vampire springing out of the snow towards her. She quickly pulled out her gun and shot the vampire in the head, and a pile of ash landed at her feet. She put the gun away, as she saw the others had taken up battle stances. They were surrounded.

"It's 9 on 4 here, you got a plan?" Riku said, getting agitated as he held his keyblade up.

"Might be difficult if a few more show up. But we can handle this rabble." Cloud said, before rushing forward, sword pointing in said direction. He ended the attack with an upward strike, sending two enemies flying upwards. They both landed harshly, moaning in pain.

Sora and Riku tagged up, Riku dealing out the heavy damage, Sora finishing them off with his keyblade (My mistake for not mentioning that his keyblade has the power of silver and can kill a vampire!).

One by one, the vampires died. Eventually, only one was left.

"Alright, spill it, who sent you? You must have known we were definitely gonna come back, so who gave you that info?"

The vampire showed genuine fear. He clearly felt he was gonna die.

"You there! Stop!" Someone shouted. Sora looked toward the village to se several guards approaching. With everyone's attention drawn to the noise, the vampire took his chance and bolted it.

Sophie noticed, and went after him. "Hey! Get back here!" Sora and the others didn't follow, still concentrating on the approaching company. Sora had turned to look, but just brushed it off, thinking Sophie could handle herself.

The guards surrounded them.

"Drop your weapons. You are all under arrest."

"For what? What did we do?" Riku questioned, but a poke from the speakers spear told him he wasn't going to get an answer.

"Riku, put it away! We can't get into trouble with these guys. We

Haven't done anything, so they might let us go if we're quiet."

The speaker chucked a few ropes to the person holding a spear to Sora's neck.

"Tie them up."

Chapter End