~Z~

Chapter 2 Unfamiliar Territory

"Hold it right there!" a stern female voice yelled in his direction. Diego touched his sword to make sure that it was still in place. He held up his hands, announcing, "I mean you no harm Senorita as I am a bit lost." He looked up and saw a female holding a very odd rifle. She appeared to be dressed as a male but had long and thick dark auburn hair. There was no mistaking that she was a female. The female began to slowly walk towards him.

"Who are you, and why are you dressed up like Zorro?" The female asked him. "I am Zorro, and this is my horse Toronado," he answered her. He looked around and discovered that Toronado had wandered slightly to graze upon the grass. The female reached his side and turned to him while still holding the now lowered rifle. She appeared to be looking at him very suspiciously with her brilliant hazel green eyes. "This has to be a prank!" she exclaimed. "I assure you Senorita that this is no prank," Diego replied with a bit of confusion.

"Zorro died well over 100 years ago if the legend even has any truth to it," she informed him. "But that is not true as I stand here in front of you my lady," Diego responded to her as he tried to understand what she was saying. "What is your name Senorita?" he asked her. She shuffled her feet and slowly answered, "My name is Zorra de la Vega, and I want to know who put you up to pranking me." "You can drop the act," she added. "de la Vega" he slowly repeated out loud to himself. She seemed to be a bit startled by his reaction to hearing her name.

"Yes, my parents named me after a legend that has been passed down about one of my great great great grandfathers over the years," Zorra added with mild amusement as she watched his facial expression change from confused to what appeared to be disbelief. "A female fox, and a de la Vega…" Diego pondered aloud as he shook his head in disbelief. "So who are you really?" Zorra asked him. He whistled for Tornado. With a snort Toronado looked up and trotted over to Diego's side. After carefully considering his response and taking in all of the information that she had just told him, he responded, "My name is Don Diego de la Vega, and I am your grandfather." This time it was Zorra's turn to look at him in shock. "How would that even remotely be possible?" she asked as she eyed him suspiciously.

Diego tried to decide where to begin his explanation. "I was in my secret cave with my son Felipe…" he began to tell her of the very last moments he remembered before his eyesight had faded. He pulled out his pocket watch and showed it to her as she processed his explanation. She silently gazed into his blue eyes as he stood still, allowing her to look him over. "Ok, so I'm probably crazy, but your eyes appear to be very honest," she confessed, "so come with me into the house." "You can put your horse in the pole barn," she added while beginning to lead the way up the strange black path.

Zorra led him to a wooden structure with a stack of hay in a corner and some rather strange looking contraptions. After making sure that Toronado appeared to be settled he followed her to the strange building that she had called a house. Upon entering the dwelling he discovered that the room he was in was extremely bright as if he was still outside. He must have been showing the level of confusion he felt on his face as he glanced around the strange room. Zorra looked at him with her head cocked to the side as if she were studying him.

"I'm starting to think you really might be telling the truth," she admitted after watching how confused he seemed to be by everything around him. She also almost appeared to be staring intently at something behind him. Diego turned around, and his eyes found a portrait of a man with very similar features as his own. "That's my grandfather Victor de la Vega," she answered his unspoken question when she saw him looking at it.

Diego wondered to himself if that was a clue about his future with Victoria. He had to have been able to get back to his own time after all if he had been able to have a child and how ever many grandchildren to have this beautiful granddaughter so many years later. He watched her with amusement as she picked up a small object and began to talk to it. He heard her say, "Hey Dad, I uh have a horse in the pole barn so please stop at the farm supply store, and buy everything we need for a horse, and I promise to explain when you get home."

Zorra sat down in what appeared to be a chair and motioned for him to sit in the one beside her. Diego sat down in the chair and removed his mask. All of a sudden he heard talking while there was no one else there but them. He looked around and was unsure of where the voices were coming from. He spotted what appeared to be people or at least half of their bodies moving around across from him on something attached to the wall. Upon seeing his confusion Zorra informed him that someone, a scientist, had used a camera that takes moving images of people and invented a way to look at the moving images. He could appreciate that being a scientist himself. "Sometimes it shows what people were actually doing, and sometimes it shows something kind of like a play called a movie or tv show," Zorra had explained.

Diego tried to follow along with what she had said were television programs. They were strange, but interesting. "I have an idea!" she exclaimed. "Let me pull up something on the Roku!" she said, full of excitement as he tried to decide what a Roku could be. He watched the moving images closely and studied the information he was gathering from the dialogue and the actions of the people and the very strange beings he didn't quite have a name for. So far he had gathered the idea that this man moving in the large box on the wall was a doctor and brilliant scientist. The man had a unique blue rectangular shaped device that could apparently travel through time and even space.

After listening to the people in the box discussing their situations, he had come to the conclusion that the chemicals that had landed on his watch must have been responsible for sending him to the future. He wondered if anyone had actually been successful in reaching space as well. The day had been more exhausting than he was accustomed to with finding himself in the future. Diego felt fatigue creeping in on him and closed his eyes.

He found himself walking through the tavern and staring at Victoria's smiling face. After doing a quick check to see what clothes he was wearing he realized that he was himself as Diego and not Zorro. "I must have been so tired that I had fallen asleep," he thought to himself. "What a strange dream that was…." he pondered aloud. He heard a laugh and turned to find Sargent Mendoza laughing at what he had just said. "Don Diego you should really watch what you eat before you go to sleep," Mendoza said between laughs.