Revenge of the Hearts

Chapter VIII

"I desire that you remember the ladies." ~Abagail Adams
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We got off the Gummi Ship and headed into a dense forest made up of bamboo stocks. We were walking on a cleared path in the forest so we didn't get lost. Goofy stopped suddenly and tipped his head to the side. I glanced at his direction to a rock that had smoke surrounding it. On the rock was a huge dark shadow of a dragon.

Donald leaned in and whispered, "A Heartless?"

Everyone nodded with agreement. "Let's get the jump on 'im!" Sora exclaimed.

"Gwarsh, maybe we should look before we leap," Goofy suggested.

"Goofy's right," I added.

Sora and Donald ignored me and charged towards the rock. There was a scream of a man. "Is that Mushu?" Goofy asked as he and I approached the scene.

"Who?" I said.

"That's right!" A small, red dragon popped out from the man's grasp, "I know you heard of me! I'm little, lethal, and legendary! Now y'all scram before I get my dragon dander up!"

I remembered that Sora once had a charm that summoned a red dragon. That must of been Mushu! "Hey, Mushu! We missed you!" Sora called.

"Well, you better HOPE that I miss YOU, or else you're--" he stopped and froze for a second, as if he was remembering something. "...you're...Sora! Donald! Goofy! Sakura!"

"Do you know them?" The man asked before coughing. He had black hair tied into a bun with pale skin and brown eyes.

"KNOW them?" Mushu laughed before jumping off. "Man, we used to kick all kinds of bad guy butt together! Yeah, you know, I helped these guys out of a lot of tight spots. 'Cause I'm a mighty dragon! Right?"

He leaned against Sora's leg before he pulled it away and Mushu fell down and tumbled a bit. "Something like that," Sora said sheepishly. "And...you are?"

"I'm Mulan," he said, his voice dropping to a female for a second. "No, no, no! I-I mean--"

"Ping!" Mushu interrupted.

"Mulan Ping?" Donald asked.

"Just...Ping," he replied. "I am Ping, son of Fa Zhou."

"You know Mushu?" Sora said.

"Mushu's one of my family's gardians," he explained.

"We didn't know we were borrowin' somebody as important as a family guardian," Goofy said.

"Yeah, that's right!" Mushu yelled. "And that puts you four up to your eyeballs in debt to Ping here. Well, guess what kiddies? It's payback time!"

"Mushu..." Ping whispered.

"Ah, they don't mind," he assured. "Ain't that right?"

"Hm, sounds fair," Sora agreed.

"You see, Ping here was just in his way to join the Imperial army," Mushu explained on Ping's shoulder. "We gotta go find the other recruits over at the training camp."

"Would you join us?" Ping asked. "It'll be easier to fit in if I'm with guys, like you."

"What do you mean by, 'fit in'?" Sora said.

"Well, um, don't worry about that," Mushu coughed.

"Sora, don't you see?" I sighed and rolled my eyes.

"She's pretending to be a guy," Goofy and I said at the same time.

Sora and Donald looked at us weirdly, then back at Ping. They gasped, "You're a...girl?"