The Rude Awakening of the Great Stone Dragon

Mushu stalked down the garden flagstones in a bad mood. "Feed the chickens, Mushu!" he complained in a high falsetto voice. "Come on, Mulan! I'm a fearsome guardian dragon, not a slave! I don't ring the gong no more! Crickee! Crickeeee!!!"

A little blue cricket poked its head out from behind a plant. "Chrrk?" It said suspiciously.

"Crickee! It's your lucky day – Miss Man's got a present for ya!" The dragon beamed a wide, pointy grin.

The insect brightened up. "Zirrkle chirp?!" it asked excitedly.

"What is it?" repeated Mushu, snatching his comrade up in a cheerful claw. "What is it? It's a chore." His voice was suddenly flat. He wound his arm back like a baseball pitcher. "Feed the chickies, Crickee!" yelled the guardian, hurling the cricket in the direction of the chicken run at high speed.

"CREEEeeeeeeeee……!"

Mushu dusted his claws off, sniggering. In the distance, a mob of chickens began to ominously close in on one unlucky bug.

"Like I have time to feed the chickens. I've got a lot of preening an' sitting on a pedestal to do." He sauntered towards the ancestors' pagoda, head held high and eyes smugly shut. "My entourage will be missing me."

As he passed the shattered remains of the Great Stone Dragon, a blossom-scented wind whistled through the rubble in a sound oddly reminiscent of a yawn. He ignored this and continued sauntering until the noise changed to the grate of stone against stone. He paused in mid-stride. He swivelled round. He squinted at the rock heap – his eyes widened in alarm.

"Oh sugar -"

His voice was drowned out as the din grew louder and louder. Pebbles and boulders danced in a clattering frenzy, all the smashed smithereens of the statue whirled back into place and rippled like a snake; the huge ornate head righted itself and languidly levitated to the top of the tornado. Majestic jaws that had been carved from a single rock snapped open with a firecracker ricochet.

"I AM THE GREAT STONE DRAGON!"

"…no way…" said Mushu in disbelief.

"I AM DA SHI LONG! WHO SUMMONS ME?" The voice was overpoweringly loud, authoritative, and decidedly…female.

"You're a – you're a girl dragon?" stuttered Mushu, totally thrown. "I mean…of course you're a girl dragon, you're just ree – wait, WHAT? No! Why the heck are you a girl dragon?!"

The living statue stared down at him. There was a minute of perfect silence.

"HAVE YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT?"

"Well…no…I guess girl power is in at the moment…take Mulan…"

"DID YOU AWAKEN ME? DID YOU RING THE GONG?"

Mushu's attitude suddenly returned with a vengeance. "Yeah, LAST YEAR! Lady, haven't you heard the whole 'calm, graceful, punctual' spiel?"

"…WHAT?"

"Talk about a lie-in! There ain't no way you can tell me that was beauty sleep, Stoney." He started to get into his stride. "You missed all the action already! I had to go in your lazy place; and did an excellent job, though I say so myself. Mulan's already been to war, defeated the Huns, saved China twice, got the medal, got the honour, got the man…! Oh, and by the way, I was vital to the proceedings. Unlike 'someone' who decided to have her afternoon nap first."

"BUT…I AM THE MOST POWERFUL OF THE FA FAMILY GUARDIANS. I AM THE GREAT STONE DRAGON! THEY REALLY REPLACED ME WITH A LITTLE LIZARD?"

Mushu looked fit to explode. Lizard? Lizard?? "Dra-gon, dragon!" he yelled. "You're just the rockery formerly known as!" A miniscule fireball added emphasis to his anger.

Da Shi Long snorted. "YOU CALL THAT A FIREBALL?"

The dragon roared, and the earth trembled. A gout of flame cascaded from her fangs, reaching high into the sky and falling back down like a fountain. The blaze washed over the stones of her long crested back until they grew red-hot. The fire kept pouring up and out, orange and red and cloaked in purple-blue spirals of glittering smoke. Only when the entire length of the dragon's body had become molten, rejoined and as agile as flesh, did the inferno cease.

The two red dragons, one tiny, one titanic, stared at each other once again.

"That proves nothing," muttered Mushu, pouting defiantly.

A shiver travelled along his counterpart's form, and she lifted gently into the heat-scorched air. Da Shi Long hovered there, twisting and undulating like the flying dragons of scrolls and paintings. Mushu answered with a jealous glare.

"NOW I HAVE FULLY AWAKENED. I SHALL GO TO THE ANCESTORS, AND ASCERTAIN THE TRUTH OF YOUR TALE."

"Say what you like," sniffed the travel-sized edition. "Ain't no way Mulan could have gone undercover with a great lump like you following her around."

She ignored him, and glided away to the pagoda.

Mushu gasped a deep breath of air, and exhaled noisily, collapsing into the charred grass. His whiskers drooped. "Crickee!" he wailed. "Did you bring this bad luck on me?" Jumping up again, the serpentine saviour of China paced back and forth, mumbling to himself frantically. He froze.

"Oh NO! What if they tell ol' Stoney I smashed her? She'll – she'll fricassee me!"

Footsteps running towards him made the dragon spin round in terror. He didn't want to be seen by that crazy old granny who kept praying to him for a bingo win at the local teahouse.

It was Mulan, her face mirroring his. "What was all that noise and fire Mushu? It sounded like a cannon! Was it you?"

"Please," he sniffed, polishing his claws on the scales of his yellow underbelly. "I'm never so garish. My fireballs are refined and petite, compact and powerful, concentrated…where's pretty-boy?"

"Mushu…" said Mulan in her warning voice.

"All right, all right…the Big-Ass Stoned Drag-Queen woke up. FYI she was all OTT with the fire, then she went AWOL, but BTW, you do not wanna argue with her when she's JWU."

The heroine of China's expression was quizzical. "Big…stoned…JWU?"

"Great Stone Dragon just woke up; summoned right after you decided to try on Daddy's trousers, but didn't switch on her alarm clock. You know…" he elaborated, fidgeting; "the big statue you used to love sittin' on, the one I accidentally kinda shattered into itty-bitty pieces and had to fill in for?" He tried to look up at his guardee endearingly. "If you wanna know how lucky you were to get me, go look in the old folks' pagoda."

Mulan sprinted up to the ancestors' house without a single word of thanks.

"Ungrateful," spat Mushu, about to commence yet another litany when he found himself surrounded by shadow. He looked up, and up, and up. He met the eyes of Shang.

"Um, Mushu…" said General Shang uncertainly, still finding the real live dragon a novelty that took getting used to. "Where did Mulan go?"

The real live dragon jerked a thumb up the hill. "She's visiting the ectoplasm alliance. This big burnt patch of garden? It's not my fault. I suggest you wait here with me, pretty-boy, it's private ancestor-guardian-descendent business. Heeey, do you know how to blow smoke rings? I can teach ya whilst we wait, how 'bout that?"

~* ! *~

Inside the Fa family shrine the cool, calm, refined atmosphere of a respected memorial site had once again gone on holiday. The ancestors were arguing again.

Outside, Mulan was wondering how to get past the Great Stone Dragon blocking the doorway with its massive head. For once, however, she was inspired by patience, because elbowing superheated sculptures out of the way will only result in getting your elbows burnt off.

She tried to listen in on the argument but was unable to hear the spirited spiritual side. Maybe that was a good thing. The guardian's side was worrying enough.

"AGREED," rumbled the leviathan eventually. "I WILL KEEP THE LITTLE LIZARD IN LINE FOR YOU, UNTIL I RETURN TO MY SLUMBER."

"Finally, a useful guardian;" sniffed Mulan's great-great-great-grandmother as the dragon floated away. "That Mushu is useless – to think he destroyed the Great Stone Dragon – and probably just out of jealousy! He's certainly not from my side of the family!"

The Great Stone Dragon went very, very still. The only movement was from the dewy grass turning to steam beneath its superheated form. "MUSHU…" growled the beast dangerously. "I WILL KILL YOU FOR SUCH AN INSULT!!"

The dragon set off to hunt down her prey in a whirl of red-hot rock.

Mulan knew Mushu well enough by now to have no doubts about what chaos would next ensue. Leaning down, she tugged off one of her tough, trusty slippers and hefted it in a hand. With all the skill and power of a world-class shot-putter she pitched it the entire length of her not-inconsiderably-sized garden.

It hit Shang in the head.

Startled, he stared back in her direction, rubbing his new bruise.

"Catch Mushu!" Mulan yelled; "If he escapes that dragon's going to burn the house down trying to find him!" The problem was, of course, that such shouting could be heard by everyone else in the garden (and the neighbours, who were now totally convinced 'that Fa girl' was utterly deranged); and Mushu was nowhere to be seen when Shang lunged round to the place he'd occupied only moments before.

"…oh no…" whimpered Mulan.

In the distance, Shang screamed as the Giant Stone Dragon rampaged past him without warning, spewing flames.

In the pagoda, the head of the ancestors kneaded his forehead with one glowing, transparent hand.

"Guardians!" he sighed.