The Dragon Awakens

Chapter Seven

As Mulan approached the gates she heard a crackle in her ear and then Mushu's voice came flooding through.

"Get off your god damn horse, you're not a captain, general, or commander. You don't have the right to be above your fellow soldiers unless you earn it," he snapped. Lanie growled but did as she was told and hopped off. She took Khan by the reins and lead him past the gates. 

All around her were men in much more ordinary everyday clothing, none of them in the military gear she was wearing. She took a deep breath and stopped in the middle of the road, lost as to where to go from here. Her tent? Sneak into the mess hall to get her assignment over with? She much preferred the latter but then she bumped into someone and frantically looked around and her eyes traveled down to an incredibly short, stocky man with thick mutton chops and a mean glare.

"Hey, watch where you're goin' pipsqueak," he snapped, pushing her out of his way. She was speechless as she watched him walk up to a small group of guys, one of them showing off a massive tattoo on his chest, preaching about how it was going to protect him and all this other nonsense. Without even hesitating the man with the mutton chops swung his arm back and nailed him right in the gut and all of them burst out laughing. 

Lanie didn't even realize she was gaping until Mutton Chops looked over and saw her. "Hey, what are you staring at chicken boy?"

"Chicken boy?" she snapped, stepping towards him. She heard Mushu's voice in her ear but drowned it out. A plan was forming in her head and she needed to follow through with it now. "Why don't you come closer and say it to my face you limp noodle," she snapped and held herself up a little taller as he stalked over to her and two of the other guys followed- one skinnier and weaker than Mushu if that was possible, and the other one a six-foot seven-inch behemoth of a man with a peace sign necklace dangling over a "Make Love Not War" t-shirt she found incredibly ironic.

"Who are you calling a limp noodle you-" he tried to swing at her but she ducked and she hard a loud thwap as his fist connected with someone else's face.
   "Whoops, sorry Linc. Hey, where'd he go?" Mulan started crawling away but felt Mutton Man grab her ankle but suddenly he was sailing over her head as Linc's foot connected with his butt. He sailed straight into the Peace guy who toppled over and that's when Mulan took off running towards the mess hall. Khan wandered away from the fighting, through the tents and away from all the drama.

"Mulan what the hell are you doing?" Mushu shouted in her ear and Mulan laughed as she ducked behind the mess hall and scaled the wall and got on top of the roof. She crawled on her belly towards the skylight and peered down inside. Fifty fully outfitted men sat around long bench tables, eating a huge feast. She scanned every man and his uniform but found no commander. Sighing, she sat up and looked around and saw a lone horse tied up outside the cabin and she mentally kicked herself. How had she missed that?

Sliding off the roof she hurried over to the cabin and leaned against the back window and looked inside. Three men sat around a small wooden table, a huge map spread out in front of them. She couldn't hear anything but she didn't need to in order to determine who the commander was. He was the one with his back to her, broad shoulders and chest with arms the size of tree trunks.
    Lanie felt the small pistol still tucked into her waistband and looked around her for a fast and immediate exit. One hundred yards to her right was a thick grove of trees and Lanie hadn't run track in high school just to simply do a sport.

Slowly she turned and pulled out the gun and gently slid open the window so she wouldn't have to break the glass. She loaded one bullet into the chamber and clicked off the safety as she raised the gun when a man burst into the cabin, shirt ripped and blood dripping out of his nose.

"Sir! The camp is in utter chaos! Somehow every single one of them has gotten into a fight!" he shouted and all three men stood and Lanie ducked just in time and ran around the side of the cabin, popping out the bullet as she went and clicking the safety back on.

"-Well, that's my cue to leave. Good luck captain," the commander chuckled, "you're going to need it." The commander picked up his walkie talkie clipped to his belt and ten seconds later all fifty men who had been in the mess hall were running out and climbing on their horses. Lanie watched helplessly as her target rode off and she heard a lot of colorful expletives in her ear.

"You! Hey!" Lanie turned and felt the color drain from her face as her new Captain approached her; someone she hadn't paid attention to in the cabin because she hadn't thought she'd need to. Up close, he was incredibly attractive and had all the physical attributes she imagined a captain would have: tall, nice jaw, muscular, and an incredibly pissed off look on his face. The old man in the silk suit next to him snorted and started typing something on his tablet.

"Yes... sir?"

"What the hell happened here?" he shouted, gesturing out to the mass fight going on in front of him. Lanie looked out to a war zone of a fistfight she had started and shook her head.

"I don't..."

"You!" Mutton Man emerged from the throng and pointed at Mulan who tried not to run towards the woods. This was bad. This was going very, very bad. "Captain, it's all his fault!" Just at that moment, a chef emerged from a tent carrying a massive pot of steaming rice and was laboring slowly towards the mess hall with a deep look of concentration. A man from the fight got nailed in the jaw and stumbled backward, tripping over a rock before landing on the chef who teetered with his load before falling, the entire pot tipping forward and spilling all over the ground. Mulan gasped and then covered her face in horror. This was turning into a nightmare. One she couldn't wake up from. First her target leaves and then this fight, and to top it all off spilled rice. 

The captain took a deep breath and whistled so loudly all the fighting came to a sudden halt. "I'm glad you men decided that you wanted to spend your first day fighting each other instead of learning each other's names as most recruits do," he strolled forward into the group of men who all parted as he walked, shocked and warry looks on their faces. "So because of your poor decisions," he snapped a look at Mulan, "you're all going to spend tonight without dinner. Instead, you will be picking up every single grain of spilled rice. And you can thank your new friend for that."

He turned and strolled back to Mulan who pinched her lips together. "And your name is?"

Mulan opened her mouth but no sound came out. "Uh..." Her brain was in overdrive. Never in her life had a mission gone so badly so fast. The DA had given her papers to use in case someone questions her but she hadn't bothered memorizing it because she wasn't supposed to be here long enough to use it. How had this happened?

"Name soldier!" he snapped and Mushu's voice came into her ear.

"Ping. Your name is Ping."

"Ping. Sir," she answered and handed over her papers. He glanced at them and then handed them back to her.

"You certainly aren't living up to your military lineage Ping. I'm sure your father and grandfather would be very proud if they could see you now," he went into his cabin and slammed the door and Mulan looked down at her papers and was floored to see they used her real last name, Fa. As she turned towards the angry hoard of men in front of her Mulan hoped that there existed another Fa family in the Captain's universe and it wasn't her father he was talking about. She didn't have the mental capacity at the moment to deal with the implications of those words.