Chapter II

Rally opened her eyes and found herself flying through a lit up portal with bright colors of green, red, and blue. She tried to grab onto something, but her hands only went through the sides of the tunnel like it was water. She looked straight ahead and saw another bright white light at the end. Getting closer and closer, the light became so bright that she had to shut her eyes and wrap her arms around her face.

Going through the end, it felt like pure silk had embraced her, warmth shrouding her. The feeling was overwhelming, and Rally found herself completely relaxed.

Opening her eyes again, she saw that she was no longer in the portal, but now flying through the sky. There was a bright full moon above her, so close that she thought she could touch it.

Her eyes widened as she even tried to reach out for it, slowly realizing that she was beginning to fall. It did not scare her though. She was moving down so slowly, it was more like she was floating than falling to her death. Time had slowed down around her, hearing nothing, but only feeling.

"What is…"

She was brought back to full common sense when the last five feet, she fell at normal speed into a lake, icy water quickly washing away all bodily warmth. She did a somersault and kicked off from the bottom, submerging in a rush.

"Cold!" was all she could scream. "Good God!"

She quickly swam over to shore and pulled out, lying on the ground for a moment to let the numbness go away. She shivered violently and slowly sat up, feeling slightly nauseas and dizzy.

Everything that had just happened, everything that she had just seen, must have all been a dream. She ran her hand through her wet hair and sighed. "A dream?"

No, it couldn't be. Otherwise she wouldn't be soaking wet and shivering and…be sitting in the middle of a camp?

Rally stood up and looked around bewildered. What was this place? She saw wooden daises posted all around her with massive tents pitched up on top. The smell of burning wood and horses filled her nostrils, and she saw lit camp fires everywhere.

Not able to explain to herself just how she got there, she wrapped her arms around herself and walked towards one of the fires, thinking she was bound to run into someone who could help her.

"Halt!" a voice suddenly shouted from behind her.

Rally turned around and found herself…looking into the face of an extremely short man with a very peeved look on his face.

"Eh…hello?" Rally said after a moment. "Could you tell me where I am? I think I've lost my way somehow, but I don't—"

"Silence, intruder! Who are you? A Wei or Wu spy?"

Rally blinked. "Excuse me?" she asked. She looked the short little man up and down and realized he was in strange garb. He wore loose pants and a shirt, with a bamboo made armor wrapped around his torso. He had pitch black hair that was long and tied up on the top of his head. He looked very familiar…

"I asked you a question!" he yelled, stabbing something painfully sharp into her side. Rally yelped and jumped back, out of reach.

"What the hell, mister?! Watch we're your pointing that thing or I'll shove it up—"

"Rally!" another voice yelled out, sounding defiantly familiar.

Rally turned around and sighed in relief. "Selin! There you are."

Her breath caught when she noticed Selin was being held captive by two more men, keeping her arms behind her back, and one hand holding her hair painfully. Now Rally was getting pissed.

"Bastards!" she snarled. "Let go of her!"

Again, she felt the painful stab in her sides. Without looking back, Rally reached behind her, grabbed hold of the spear-like weapon below the tip and yanked it out of the man's hands. She then brought it up over her head and thrust it behind her again, the butt of the weapon ramming into the soldier's stomach. Armor or not, he felt the impact of the blow and fell to his knees, out of breath.

Selin widened her eyes in amazement, then in panic as she opened her mouth to shout out something, but the blow had already been delivered to Rally's head, and she too fell to the floor unconscious.

It was a few hours before Rally began blinking to consciousness, and for a moment she wished she could continue on sleeping. Her head pounded painfully and even her eyes failed to see straight. Shaking her head as though it would clear things, she sat up using the weight of her legs and found her ankles and wrists were tied behind her.

Fear struck into Rally's heart as she realized she was now trapped and unable to defend herself. Looking around silently but with alert eyes, her surroundings were of a massive wooden hall with doors a giant could proceed through, and before her an oriental tapestry behind that of a throne with a man draped in green sitting in it.

"You have awakened," he said with a neutral tone. "Who are you?"

Rally studied him for a moment before she answered. He wore of a complex, fancy uniform with a rich hunter's green to it with tan breeches and brown boots. His hair was black and pulled up in a tight hold above his head with a golden headband around it and a pointy beard to frame the oval shape of his pale-like face.

"I'll only say when I am told where I am and where my friend is."

The man seemed unmoved by Rally's threatening voice. He rested his head in his palm, his elbow on the armrest of his throne. "I'll do better. I'll bring her to you."

The man than raised his other hand and snapped his fingers. At the corner of Rally's eye, she saw movement and turned to see two guards she had not noticed before bringing out Selin who was also bound, but only at her wrists, placed in front of her. With a quick thrust, they shoved her down to the floor next to Rally. Terrified, she moved closely beside Rally without saying a word and kept her gaze to the floor.

Rally turned again to watch as the man rose from the throne, standing at a height shorter than both of the girls. "You are in the Shu Kingdom, and I am the leader, Liu Bei."

Now the Dynasty Warrior fan girl thought it a odd coincidence that the man was dressed very much like a certain character from the game, but that he held the same name and claimed he was the ruler of a kingdom from it was just too weird.

"What is this, a Dynasty Warrior Convention? If so, the way how you're trying to gain popularity sucks!"

"I have no idea what this 'convention' is you speak of, and I'm not trying to gain anything but your name, which you promised you would give if I did my part."

The corner of Rally's lips drew thin and her eyes narrowed, but she stood up straight and tall and replied, "Rally Windom. Now can you tell me what is going on?"

"Prisoners are allowed only one request. I will be asking the questions now."

Rally's eyebrow twitched.

"Are you a spy of Cao Cao's or the Sun Family?"

No answer.

"Do you come from the far land of the Nanman Tribe?"

Only a growl escaped her throat.

"Where is it do you come from and what is your purpose here?"

"You seriously won't give up until I go along with this, will you? All right, I'm a spy under the Sun Family, second cousin them in fact, and I am in charge of a massive army with indestructible artillery, and if I am not released with my friend in twenty minutes, that will be the signal for them to charge straight into your camp, causing chaos wherever they go."

At first, Liu Bei's eyes widened, not in fear but surprise. Than after a moment of studying Rally, he bent down to look her in the eye and said, "I don't believe a word of it."

A dry smirk crossed over Rally's face. "Oh, no shit, Sherlock? What gave it away…my peach colored skin, my abnormal height and build, or my American round eyes?"

Liu Bei stood straight up again and turned to walk back to his throne. When he sat back down, he looked not at the girls but the guards standing beside them.

"Release them and send them out of the camp."

Both the guards looked slightly confused at the unexpected order and eyed one another.

"I said release them," Liu Bei repeated with slight irritation. "Now do it."

"Yes, lord!"

At once, both Rally and Selin were cut loose from their bonds and pulled up to their feet. They were than led out the hall, through several more corridors, and finally out the main doors. Two other guards took them to the outskirt of the camp after receiving instructions from the prior ones, leading them in silence. Selin was too confused to asked questions and Rally's head was hurting too much to complain.

After they were led far from the last tent, the two men stopped, turned, and left them alone in a clearing of a forest.

Rally gave a heavy sigh and fell to her knees. Selin did the same, breathing like she had been holding her breath the entire time.

"Rally, what was that all about? What happened?! How'd we get here?"

"Selin, not so loud. My head hurts too much…"

"How can you be so calm? If you haven't noticed, we were supposedly in your room when we somehow ended up here. It was so weird…that tunnel of light and than landing in that thicket of bushes. That hurt."

"Hey, at least you had a better landing than me and didn't freeze your ass off. Right now all I can say is…this has to be a convention or committee of some sort with Dynasty Warrior fans playing out the characters of the game, and even the time setting itself. I got to admit, they're pretty damn good."

"Some friendly bunch," Selin said dryly. "I go up to this short little guy and ask him where I am, and he just shoves the butt of his spear into my stomach and demands to know who I am."

"Been there, done that, got the T-shirt…and would so love to strangle one of these guys with it."

"So…how do we get back?"

After a moment of silence, Rally sat up and wrapped her arms loosely around her legs. "I suppose we just walk around and see if we can find our way out of here."

Nodding in agreement, Selin got up on her feet and helped Rally up, only to try and catch her as her friend stumbled. "Ral, you all right?"

"Jesus, my head. I've gotten blows to this noggin before, but never that hard. Feels like a bag of bricks hit me."

"It was a huge guy who did it to you with a long beard," Selin said, swinging her friend's arm over her shoulders. "He just took this weird staff he had and whacked you over the head with the flat side of the metal tip."

"Oh, how sweet of him. I know a couple of people at school who should meet him."

As the two began walking, slowly with one slightly dragging, they found themselves going only deeper into the forest. The trees were much larger than the ones at the outskirt, and the limbs were thicker and harder to move around. After two hours of walking, the girls became tired and again sat down to rest at the trunk of an ancient oak.

"Damn, my feet are killing me," Rally said, shifting her arms behind her head.

"How do you think my shoulders feel after being the support of half your weight?" Selin retorted.

"Sorry, I just don't know why my head hurts so much. I don't think I can even see straight anymore."

"It's nighttime," the other girl pointed out. "You really have no way of telling."

"Your right. Lets take a nap for a while and we'll see how things go from there."

"Sounds good."

Both girls, finding the trunk highly uncomfortable, leaned on each other with Selin's head on Rally's shoulder, and Rally's cheek resting on top. Soon, the girls' breathing deepened and they were in a deep slumber.