Thanks to Guan and zhugeliangsgrl for the reviews! Sorry I didn't update as soon as I would normally do. I've been lazy lately. I lost my notes for Chi Bi, so since I'm lazy, I don't feel like taking more notes or playing the stage again. I'm going to end the battle before the fire start. You'll see. Oh my... did I compare Xu Zhu to Santa Claus? -shrugs- Eh, oh well.
Disclaimer: I do not own Dynasty Warriors or their characters.
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CHAPTER 10 START
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After much fighting, the area surrounding the altar had finally been cleared of enemies. Yue Ying and Zhao Yun returned to the altar to see how Zhuge Liang was fairing, making sure to leave some of their troops to look out for anymore enemies approaching.
"How is it going, Master Liang? Can you do it?" asked Zhao Yun as they rode up and stopped at the steps that led to the altar. Zhuge Liang was standing with his eyes closed and muttering something and occasionally made signs with his arms and hands. He opened one eye and glared at the one who dared interrupt his ceremony.
"Of course I can do it! It was going well until you interrupted!" he snapped. "This will add another five minutes..." he mumbled to himself before closing his eye and continuing the ceremony. Zhao Yun and Yue Ying looked at each other.
"Touchy touchy..." whispered Yun. Zhuge Liang had reached a part in the ceremony where he needed to pause and not say anything for a minute. He took this time to yell,
"I heard that!" without interrupting anything. Yun cringed while Ying suppressed a laugh. Both dismounted their horses and stood on the edge of the river to watch what they could of the battle while they waited for the wind to blow. It appeared as though the Wei army had the upper hand at the moment, which was no surprise as they had many more troops. As she watched, Yue Ying could see the general they called Xu Zhu. He looked very fat and stupid, but he was also very strong. He was taking out soldiers left and right with his giant, heavy, stone mace.
"Ouch! He looks like he can pack a powerful punch..." muttered Zhao Yun as he watched the mace slam into the deck of the ship, making a large hole. The owner of the mace began trying to pull it out, for it had gotten stuck. When he did manage to get it free, it flew up to fast and smashed into members of both sides of the army.
"Hmm..." answered Ying. "But he does not look to intelligent. Perhaps he could be defeated by other means besides physical attacks..." As they both stood watching the battle, they felt a gust of wind. Neither thought anything of it, until the noise of the cheering soldiers behind them shook them out of their thoughts.
"The southeast wind... It is blowing!" cried Ying as she turned and watched the banners some of the soldiers were carrying flow towards the southeast. Zhuge Liang stood looking up at the sky, calmly fanning himself. He had gotten a short temper during the ceremony, with the stress of being the only one capable of calling the winds. Now, however, he had returned to his normally calm self.
"Well then, my part is done. I suppose I shall take my leave, there is no other use for me here. Yue Ying, Zhao Yun, you two get going now. The Allies need your help." Yun nodded and mounted his horse. He led his troops over to the nearby ship and boarded. Ying stood for a moment and watched Liang, who nodded at her. He turned around and walked off with his bodyguards following.
x-x-x
After mounting her horse and boarding the ship herself, Yue Ying galloped along the ships and stopped when she reached the part where Liu Bei, Sun Jian, and Zhou Yu were at. Liu Bei was smiling broadly as the wind went by in strong gusts. Sun Jian was smiling as well, though not as big as this was not an accomplishment for his own strategist. Zhou Yu stood with his mouth agape, staring at the banners and the way they were blowing. When he saw Yue Ying coming up, he shut his mouth and showed no signs of any expression on his face. He could not let this Zhuge Liang's wife know that he was impressed; she would surely tell he husband if he did.
'This Zhuge Liang... He may one day be a great threat to Wu...' he thought and then turned to a strong, elder looking man.
"Huang Gai, you are the key to this plan. Go and fulfill your part. You must start the fires, no matter what." Huang Gai bowed. He took his small group of troops who were specially trained for matters such as this, and boarded a small boat. As they took off, Zhou Yu turned to Yue Ying.
"Lady Huang, is it not? May I ask of you a favor as you are the nearest general?"
"It depends on what the favor is," returned Yue Ying coldly. Even though it was her name, she for some reason still despised being called "Lady Huang". Apparently, Zhou Yu was aware of this somehow; A mischievous glint in his eye told her so.
"From what I have heard, you are a very skilled warrior, are you not? Then how about you go and clear the way for Huang Gai? It would make things much easier for him. If you run into that Zhao Yun fellow on the way, ask him to help as well. I am sure he could be of some use there." Yue Ying looked at Liu Bei, who had overheard the conversation, and nodded, giving her permission to go.
"Fine, I shall go," she said and took off again towards the area where the fire task unit was to arrive. Her bodyguards and troops, which had just caught up with her due to the fact that she was on horse, groaned. The bodyguards ran off after her. Zhuge Liang would have their heads if they weren't doing their jobs and she got hurt. Her troops stayed behind for a moment to rest before following.
x-x-x
As Yue Ying rode along, she soon found herself confronted by the giant Xu Zhu and his troops. She looked behind her and could see that her bodyguards were right behind her; she had not ridden as fast as she had before. Her troops were much further behind, slowly inching their way forward. Xu Zhu ran up with his belly jiggling like a bowl full of jelly. He stopped in front of Yue Ying and swung his mace down.
"Fight, fight, fight me!" he yelled. Ying dismounted from her horse, which was a beautiful black stallion. It would certainly be a shame if that mace crushed him.
"Fine. I shall prove my might to you!" she answered as she readied her scythe.
"Ahh!!!" cried Xu Zhu as he started running towards Yue Ying.
'He is slow...' she thought. 'That does not mean that he cannot hit me though. I have to be on my guard. If he does manage to hit me, there will certainly be a lot of pain involved...' She dodged the attack and swung her scythe, cutting him on his right forearm.
"Ouch!! That hurt..." he said as he looked at the red line and blood that had formed on his arm. "You're gonna pay now!"
While all of this was happening, Ying's bodyguards had caught up and were holding back the Wei soldiers so that they wouldn't interfere with the fight between the generals. Unfortunately, the least experienced of the women guards was overpowered by the sheer amount of attackers and cut down. This allowed a passage for the solders to get in to attack Yue Ying. She hissed through her teeth.
'Great,' she thought. 'Now I have to look out for attacks from Xu Zhu and the soldiers. This will make things more difficult...'
"Got you now!" laughed Xu Zhu. The soldiers surrounded the two generals, to make sure that their prey did not escape. The remaining five bodyguards were desperately trying to reach their lady, but there were just too many soldiers. There wasn't much of a chance of getting to her unless the rest of her troops would show up. Luckily, the troops were close, but were they close enough to reach Yue Ying before it was to late?
Xu Zhu and Yue Ying, who was occasionally poked in the back by the point of a sword, circled around each other. The soldiers not involved in keeping the bodyguards busy stood and jeered at her. Xu Zhu laughed as he charged and swung his mace at his opponent. Somehow, Ying was able to dodge the blow. To fix it so this couldn't happen again, the soldiers standing behind her moved out of the way, revealing part of a wooden wall. The rest closed in some to give her less space to move, but enough space so that they would hopefully not be hit by their commander's weapon. Xu Zhu swung his mace again. Ying tried her best to dodge, but there just was enough room to evade it completely. The heavy weapon crashed into the wooden wall, as well as her left arm. She tried to suppress a scream as she heard the cracking of breaking bones, but still cried out a little from the excruciating pain.
Yue Ying lifted her head slowly and saw Xu Zhu with his mace held above his head, about to go in for the kill. One blow to her chest would certainly crush all of her ribs and make it impossible to breathe.
"No!!" cried out a familiar male voice.
"Lady Yue Ying!" cried another.
"I am sorry, my husband..." she whispered and closed her eyes tightly. She had heard some of her fellow generals, of who she couldn't place at the moment, but there was no way they could reach her in time. She could hear the sound of the mace whistling through the air... And then there was a loud sound of stone hitting flesh. But... Wait a minute! She was still alive... wasn't she? She snapped open her eyes and was greeted by the sight of a large rock on top of Xu Zhu, who appeared to just be knocked out. His fat probably had protected him from being killed.
"What?" she thought out loud and looked around. There was Zhao Yun, angrily cutting down the Wei soldiers one by one. Kneeling at her left side was Pang Tong.
"Ouchie..." he said as he looked at her crushed arm. "That must've hurt, and I bet it still does."
"What?" Yue Ying repeated. "But... You are not supposed to be here?" she said in more of a question than statement. Pang Tong grinned mischievously and pulled his hat down a little.
"Remember the ceremony you saw me doing one time? The one seer's do to tell the future? Well... sometimes I can get something out of it. Anyway, it's a good thing I did come, huh? Good thing the first thing out of my mouth was a stone summoning spell too."
"Zhuge Liang will be mad, you know..."
"Mad? Why would he be mad? I save his wife's life! If anything, he should be very grateful! Well, now, I suppose we better get you out of here and fixed up by a doctor, eh? That arm probably hurts like hell! Hey! Carrier pigeon! Get over here!" yelled Pang Tong.
"Carrier pigeon?" asked Zhao Yun, who with the help of his and Ying's now caught up troops, had taken out the Wei soldiers. "What is that?"
"Not what, who! And that's you, carrier pigeon! You gotta carry Ying, because obviously I can't. She's way to heavy for me to pick up..." this statement caused a piercing glare from Yue Ying. "I... I mean, she's taller than me and all. I'm just a lowly, physically weak strategist! Spare me!" he cried as he backed up to make sure there was no way Ying could reach him. Zhao Yun shook his head. He walked over to Ying and gently picked her up, making sure not to touch her left arm or shoulder. Despite this, she still groaned a little in pain. It really didn't hurt that much if her arm was still, but once it was moved, it felt like a thousand daggers were being pushed into it.
"Hold on! We need to help Huang Gai! We have to help him clear the bridge so he can start the fires! You cannot take me back now; you must go help him! His little group along cannot defeat all the soldiers there! Please, you must go help him! The fires must be ignited!" pleaded Yue Ying after Zhao Yun put her on top of his horse and had started leading it back to the main camp where Liu Bei was stationed. Yun looked over at Pang Tong, who shrugged.
"Umm... well, you're right I guess. Hey! You guys!" he turned around and pointed at Ying's remaining bodyguards. "You guys take her back to Liu Bei, okay? Zhao Yun'll go help Huang Gai."
"What about you?" asked Zhao Yun.
"Me? I gotta get out of here before I get in anymore trouble with Zhuge Liang then I already am!" Tong answered and ran off to get back to where he was supposed to be.
x-x-x
Along the way to reach where Liu Bei was, the group of women were met by Zhuge Liang. He looked worried and walked hastily to Yue Ying's side.
"Are you alright?" he asked as he looked at her arm.
"I will be fine, but how did you know to come? I thought that you had left..." answered Ying.
"I had left, but I got a bad feeling. I felt that something had happened to you, so I came back as quickly as I could. Enough chatting though, let us get you back to camp and fixed up."
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CHAPTER 10 END
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Hmm... I seem to be putting Yue Ying in places where someone else saves her or she gets hurt or something lately, don't I? Well, once she gets better than she'll be back and kicking major butt! But she will still get scratches and cuts, because it's not realistic for someone to never get hurt in battle. I seriously doubt anyone who has ever gone to a battle, no matter who or how good the person was, has ever come out of a battle without at least one wound, no matter how big or small. Heck, I get a scratch everyday from my stupid cat biting my hand!
Next chapter: Let me think... What is the next chapter about? Well, I guess Zhuge Liang will explain the ending of Chi Bi to Yue Ying while she is stuck in her room to heal, or something along the lines of that.
