The Dragon Awakens

Chapter Two

THREE YEARS LATER

Mulan threw her cap in the air, yelling and shouting along with the hundred or so other girls surrounding her. She clutched her diploma close to her chest and gazed around the crowd for her parents whom she'd sent graduation invitations to earlier that week. Everyone in attendance looked like her parents at first glance, not the physical attributes of tan skin, almond-shaped eyes, and black hair, but how they were dressed and how they held themselves. Nannies held onto crying, screaming children while parents air-kissed their newly graduated daughters while keeping one eye on their phone, Bluetooth in their ears. It was a touching sight, really.

She sighed when she couldn't find them in the crowd and was just about to make her way out of the throng when she spotted a man in an all black suit looking directly at her from the cark corner of the auditorium. No one else would have noticed the small wire in his ear but she did. She took a deep breath and pushed her way through the crowd towards him.

"You know I'm so glad the DA could send someone out for my graduation. After all these years I'm touched," she said as she approached him. "And who are you exactly?"

"The message," he responded, pulling a small envelope from his inside jacket pocket. If the passerby's paid attention it would have looked like a relative handing over a congratulations card filled with money. Or the keys to a new BMW or Mercedes. The old one, only a year old, would obviously be going to the younger sibling.
   As Mulan opened the card she caught a flyer and a fake ID and sighed. Her eyes scanned the note and she snapped the card shut and tucked it under her arm.

"Take me to the car please." She ordered and he turned on his heel and lead her outside into the brilliant Valley heat. Her graduation gown fluttered around her and she slipped it off, annoyed now at the black polyester gown. A black GMC Denali waited at the curb and he opened the back door for her and she hopped inside to the cool air conditioning and smooth leather seats.

The suited man started the car and they drove off towards the city. A large manila envelope sat on the seat beside her and Mulan picked it up and opened it. A tablet fell out onto her lap and she typed in the code, 371466, and a video lit up her screen.

"Good afternoon Lanie and congratulations on your graduation. We are all very proud of you here at Dragon Army," Lanie rolled her eyes again and settled back into the leather. A man with a black shadow over his face was sitting in front of the camera in a nondescript suit surrounded by a nondescript office. The only reason she knew it was a man and not a woman was because she had harassed a messenger once to tell her. The Director of the DA was a man. "We have a new mission for you, one that will take you further undercover than you've been before. We want to disguise you as an army recruit for the 57th cavalry unit. The public doesn't know this yet, but our northern wall has been breached by HUNS and they're aiming to attack our capital within the next few weeks.
      "Generally this wouldn't be our problem but the commander has some... Wavering loyalties. You need to get rid of the issue. And don't worry about being undercover as a male, you should be out of there before your first actual day of training. And stay low, will you? As low as you can. You don't need anyone giving you a second glance."

The video shut off and with it the faceless man in the suit who had been giving her missions since she first got recruited by Dragon Army, the longest military branch the Valley employed. She called him the Matchmaker since he matched her to her missions. Most people in the government didn't even know the DA existed, which made Lanie's life a whole lot easier. Dragon Army were the people who stopped the bad things from happening as soon as there was even a whiff of it in the air. Sometimes things got through them, but most times it was flawless. Lanie was in charge of eliminating those problems before they started.
   
They'd found Lanie four years ago after her IQ and physical results from her boarding school reached their desk and she was sent her first envelope. She trained for one grueling, intense summer under the guise of an internship and then they set her off. on her first mission. She still remembered the first boy she ever killed. It was such a shame too that he planned on hacking the Valley National Bank and crashing the economy. He had such a pretty face. 

But the HUNS were another problem. They were a terrorist organization north of the Valley and had been harassing them for years through hacking and minor terrorist attacks on military outposts on the Valley border. Their official name was "Humans United for National Security" which made them sound absolutely harmless, but from what Lanie had heard they were the most ruthless, vicious men Dragon Army had ever had to deal with.

"When do I leave?" Lanie asked the man in the front seat who was pulling down the street to get to her parent's villa. It was a traditional Asian style home out in the countryside, a rare and expensive piece of land, surrounded by cherry blossoms with views of the rolling hills the Valley was so famous for. They even had a horse, Khan, that Lanie was the sole caretaker of. It was the one thing in her life that was completely hers.

"Tomorrow," he replied. "And you have to bring the horse."

Lanie raised an eyebrow and looked back down at her paperwork. Right, she was joining the cavalry unit. "Awesome," she mumbled as the car stopped right outside her gates. She hopped out, slammed the door, and punched in the gate code. The bright red gates, wood on the outside with reinforced steel underneath, swung open to reveal a wide courtyard surrounded in a U-shape by three buildings. The one on the left was the stable and garage, the one in the middle was their "entertainment home" for parties and guests, and the one on the right was the private residence. 

Lanie made her way over to the right, and up the few steps onto the porch that was cast in shade. It was minimally cooler under here than it was in the sun, and with the fans going it was kind of nice. She was thinking about coming back out to the porch to do some reading when a voice interrupted her thoughts. 

"Kāihuā," a voice called and Mulan turned quickly. It couldn't be, she thought. The only person that had ever called her Blossom in traditional Chinese, was her grandmother.