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Jill Kennedy and her friends were just living their lives, trying to get through college. That came to a screeching halt when they suddenly found themselves taken away by a malevolent force. What was even more shocking was where they ended up: Hyrule of all places! It turns out Hyrule is facing another battle, and this time, these humans from Earth have a part to play. Oh, and they still have to contend with a certain King of Evil. That's fun. (T rating for language)
Jill Kennedy braced herself as she landed on her back with a thud on the padded floor. Her best friend, Alexandria Crane, had taken her down.
"Good job," she said, as Alex helped her stand.
They were in their tae kwon do class and they were practicing take-downs. Now it was Jill's turn. She went through the motions their instructor had demonstrated for them and she soon had Alex on the floor.
"Nice," Alex said with a little laugh.
This wasn't anything new for them. They had been taking tae kwon do together for years. In fact, that was the way they met. Alex had been taking it for about three years before Jill joined and they became fast friends.
Alex took Jill down again.
They had both been in high school at the time, but lived in different school districts, so they sadly couldn't wreak havoc together in a regular classroom.
Jill took Alex down.
However, when they started college together over three years ago, they got to change that. They were currently living in a dorm together, but not so far away from home that they couldn't commute back twice a week for karate, hence why they were there now.
Alex took Jill down.
Their instructor ordered the class to stop and shake their partners' hands. Alex helped Jill up once again and they shook hands. Alex decided to squeeze harder than necessary as if she were trying to be intimidating. They both giggled quietly. They certainly couldn't let their instructor know that they were cutting up. He always urged his black belts to lead by example. That included them.
When class was over, they walked outside to go to their cars. Jill relished the cool breeze as it tossed up her short brown (and currently greasy) hair. Autumn was by far her favorite time of year. Alex walked up beside her.
"You going back to the dorm, or are you staying with your parents tonight?"
Jill looked over at her. Due to the hair gel, Alex's hair was pretty much in the same shape it had been all day. It was even shorter than hers and spiky with choppy ends. It was currently bleach blonde with pink streaks. For as long as Jill had known her, she was always a "punk". Jill always wished she could be as bold as her.
"I'm staying home tonight," Jill replied. "I don't feel like driving back. I'll just suck it up and get up earlier tomorrow."
"Yeah, you just want to go home 'cuz I kicked your butt in sparring tonight," Alex said with a smirk.
"Hey! I won a couple of rounds and you know it!"
"Alright, easy! Take a Jill Pill!"
Jill let all of her disdain flow out of one glare. Curse the day Alex came up with that horrible pun! It was not even the first time she used it, and it certainly wouldn't be the last. As usual, Alex busted out laughing at her displeasure. Jill REALLY didn't want to laugh, but she ended up doing so. She finally turned to start heading for her car.
"See you tomorrow."
"See you tomorrow!"
-.-.-
After her shower, Jill was eating dinner with her parents. She tuned in and out of their conversation as Lauren Kennedy, her mother, talked about her newest client. Lauren was a self-employed website designer, which Jill always thought was cool. The newest client was the owner of a fairly new restaurant. She tuned out some time after learning that.
She kept obsessing over the project she was working on in her animation class. She was majoring in New Media and Animation, which she sometimes enjoyed and sometimes did not. It was a college program, after all. It was bound to get tough sometimes. Her class was recently tasked to create a walk cycle. She kept mentally going over all the things she needed to tweak in her own project. At least she was having a better time at it than Alex.
Alex had also decided to study art, but her focus was more on photography. This was one of the rare occasions when they were lucky enough to take a class together, which made it that much more fun. Jill smiled to herself as she remembered the time the bear Alex had been trying to animate ended up "exploding".
"What'cha smiling about, kiddo?"
She snapped out of her thoughts to see her father looking at her with amusement.
"Oh, just…something funny that Alex did," she replied, smiling back.
Michael Kennedy was a mechanic. Sadly, Jill didn't inherit his proficiency in fixing cars. He had tried to explain some things before, but she just didn't pick it up. She knew how to change a tire and oil, at least. What Jill did inherit was his blue eyes. Well, her eyes weren't pure blue like his. They were more gray-blue.
"Speaking of Alex," Michael said, "who did better in sparring this time?"
"Alex. As usual."
Michael gave a little sigh.
"I keep telling you to go for the eyes."
Jill gave a little laugh.
"C'mon."
"You're right, you're right. Save it for the boys."
"Okay, Dad. Sure."
"I think a throat punch would suffice," Lauren added.
Jill smirked at her mother.
"I'll keep that in mind."
"So you're going to drive back to school in the morning?"
"Yep."
She heard an "Ew!" from her father.
"Have fun getting up at six," he said.
Jill sighed.
"Yeah…"
-.-.-
Jill and Alex were sitting in the student union while on break between classes. Aidan Bell had joined them. Alex had met him during their very first semester of college in her art history class. They all had actually built up a little "group" since then to hang out with. Of course, they were only able to hang out with certain people on certain days while at school thanks to everyone's different class schedules. On this particular day, for instance, Aidan was the only other one available to hang out.
Jill and Alex were doing their best not to act antsy as they waited and hoped that Aidan would get up and walk away for a little while. They had planned beforehand that if he did, Jill would empty a packet of salt into his drink. It was going to be payback for all the times that he purposely took a sip from her drink. He had done it because she would then have to get a whole other one, simply because she didn't like the idea of sharing germs. He got such a kick out of it, he did it almost every single time they hung out. She had formed the habit of TRYING to keep her drink close and out of reach, but he always managed to get to it. That dang dickweed. In fact, he had already done it that day!
At last, he left to use the bathroom. Once he was out of sight, Jill put the salt in his drink as planned. When he returned, she waited in anticipation. It took her all just not to laugh when he finally took a sip.
…There was no reaction.
Their conversation carried on as normal, but Jill and Alex both were inwardly stunned.
Oh well. It somehow didn't affect the drink at all. Maybe I'll try pepper next time.
She eventually had to go to the bathroom herself. She returned and took a sip of her own drink…and had to spit it out. The taste of salt was sickening! She looked back and forth between Alex and Aidan, who were both laughing at her.
"What the hell?!"
"I switched the drinks while you were in the bathroom," Aidan said through his laughter.
"But…but…what…you…"
"Yeah, I tasted the salt. But I wasn't about to let you know that until now."
He smirked at her. That friggin' dickweed! She whipped her head toward Alex.
"You! You let him do it!"
"Sorry. I couldn't resist."
"Traitor!"
Then she realized with horror that, since Aidan switched the drinks, she got his germs!
"Ack!"
Alex and Aidan's laughter was renewed at the sight of her apparent realization.
"I hate you guys!"
-.-.-
That night, the three were in Jill and Alex's dorm. They were also joined by three more members of their "group": Madison Parker, Luka Gray, and Scott Mason. Luka and Madison had been a couple when Jill first met them a year ago and were still inseparable. Jill wouldn't be surprised if they ended up getting married. Jill and Alex had met Scott through Aidan.
They were all sitting in a circle, playing Cards Against Humanity. As they chatted, the love birds had brought up the subject of video games, specifically some funny glitches they had encountered.
"Oh, I remember a funny glitch," Aidan said. "I was playing Twilight Princess and I accidentally jumped through a wall. I got to see the outer dimension."
He used an overly dramatic tone as he said the last sentence.
Jill's interest was suddenly peaked. The Legend of Zelda was her childhood. She remembered everything she felt when she played Ocarina of Time for the very first time. Thinking about it all filled her with nostalgia.
"So what did it look like?" Madison asked.
"It kinda looked like a surreal alien land or whatever. I was surrounded by white and there were floating 'islands' and stuff around me."
"Haha, that's cool."
"At least you never got stuck in a wall like I did," Scott piped up.
"Oh, yeah…"
Aidan smiled as he reminisced. Alex, meanwhile, had a mischievous look on her face.
"Hey, Jill. Didn't you used to have a huge crush on Link?"
Jill went rigid. She was right. Link was indeed her first crush. But no one else had to know that! Her glare shot daggers at Alex, to which she replied by sticking out her tongue a little.
"Oh, so you like the blonde elves, Jill?" Aidan jeered.
She gave him a wry smile in return.
"Yeah, too bad for you."
Aidan had a combo of black hair and green eyes. Not that that actually mattered to her. He was pretty nice looking, actually. She would never admit that to him, of course.
"I have no idea what you're talking about," he said in a joking manner as he began looking through his cards.
"It's okay, Jill," Madison said. "I had a crush on him too, hehe."
"Until you met me, right?" Luka asked jokingly.
"Of course, of course."
She gave him a playful little shove.
"Yo everyone, listen up!" Alex said a little more loudly than necessary. "I'm about to read the black card."
-.-.-
The next day, in the early afternoon, Jill was sitting in the student union. She checked her phone for about the twentieth time. Today was a day that she would usually hang out with Alex and Madison around this time. But neither of them showed up. She didn't expect any notice from Madison, but it was odd that she hadn't heard from Alex.
She had already eaten and already tried to send Alex a text, asking where she was. However, whenever she tried to send the text, she only got a message saying that it failed to send. She tried to resend it a couple of times, but no luck.
Sighing in defeat, she glanced at the time on her phone. It was almost time for her next class to start. She looked out through the large windows. It had been raining for about two hours. It figured that would happen on a day she didn't take her umbrella. In fact, she was still damp from her trip to the union. But if she didn't want her grade to suffer, she had no choice but to bite the cold, wet bullet.
She put her phone in her army green messenger bag, where she had her other belongings: her phone charger, her wallet, her keys, her mp3 player, a notebook, a couple of pens, and even her Taser. The last item had been given to her as a gift from her dad, right before she started college. She was grateful, but of course hoped she would never have to use it.
She hadn't bothered bringing her books, since her teachers of today's classes hardly used them. Needless to say, she was happy to forego the extra weight.
She slipped her bag over her shoulder, walked out, and started jogging. This was one of the times when wearing tennis shoes every day paid off. She took the shortest route to her class, which led through a nice patch of trees. They weren't so thick or close together that they obscured anything from view, but they provided some nice shade on hot days. Her feet sloshed through some shallow puddles as she ran.
Confusion hit her first when she felt something wrap around her ankle. That foot was then yanked back and out from underneath her. She yelped as she went down. She managed to keep herself from falling on her face, but she still landed hard on the pavement.
Did I manage to get snagged in some vines? But there weren't any on the path.
These thoughts rushed through Jill's mind in the second it took her to look back at her ankle. Confusion hit her again to see that there were indeed vines wrapped around her ankle. But these vines were so tightly wound together, they looked like a single rope. Her eyes trailed this "rope" to its source…and her heart leapt in her chest.
Before her eyes was a dark cloudy mass that seemed to continuously swirl around. A humming sound emanated from it. The source of the "rope" was somewhere within the black void. Adrenaline rushed through her as she scrambled to get away. She didn't even get to stand, however, as the rope yanked on her ankle once again, dragging her toward the swirling mass.
"No! NO!"
She clawed at the slippery ground as she was dragged. She attempted to resist the pull of the rope, but to no avail. She just kept getting dragged closer and closer as she watched the mass approach.
"HELP! SOMEONE, PLEASE! Oh god, please!"
She finally managed to get a hold of the vines wrapped around her ankle. She clawed at them, trying to yank them loose, but they were too strong. Nothing about this situation was natural and she knew it.
She looked up to see the swirling mass towering over her. Her feet were already being dragged into it.
Someone please help! Can't anyone see me?! Help!
Her last thoughts before being consumed in darkness were of her parents. Was the past weekend the last time she would ever see them? Was this how she was going to die?
She squeezed her eyes shut and braced herself for whatever may lie in the darkness. For a short moment, she felt weightless. She realized she was floating, but she refused to open her eyes. Then gravity took hold again and she was still being dragged. This time, however, she felt grass underneath her.
She suddenly could see red through her eyelids as sunlight hit them. She also felt warmer than she did before. Soon, the humming ceased, as did the dragging. She could still feel the vines around her ankle, though.
Realizing she wasn't quite dead yet, she chanced opening her eyes.
She looked up and tried to process what she was looking at. At first glance, it looked like a skeleton but very dark brown in color. There were little twigs and dead leaves attached to it, and the "bones" seemed to be made of vines. One of its arms and hands looked skeletal like the rest of it. Its other arm was twisted in a shape that resembled a rope, the very same rope that was tied around her ankle.
A chill ran down her spine as she stared at the creature's skeletal face. Its eyes were black voids. It just stood there, peering at her with those empty eyes. She screamed as she tried to scramble away. She didn't know what the thing was, or what was going on. She just knew she had to get away.
Of course, the vines prevented her from doing so. She watched in horror as it raised its other arm, which began to transform. The skeletal fingers grew out into long, sharp claws.
She knew she had to escape, but she didn't know how. She tried to stand and run, but the monster just pulled her down again. She looked back just in time to see the claws pointed at her. She saw them shoot out at her.
For a split second, she knew she was dead. At least, she thought she knew. Before she knew it, the claws were severed from the hand and had fallen on the ground in front of her. She blinked a couple of times and tried to process what just happened. It finally registered in her mind that she had seen the claws rush toward her face, but something intercepted them. The thing had moved toward her right and cut them before they could impale her.
She turned her head toward where the blur went. A man stood there, staring at the monster. He was in a dark blue, skin-tight suit of some sort with white fabric around his forearms and some around his dark blue boots. A white cowl covered his shoulders. On the front of that cowl was a very familiar red eye and tear. Looking at his features, Jill noticed that he had white hair and red eyes that currently looked intense.
The man had a dagger in each hand as he stood in a fighting stance. Jill was still stunned as she watched the monster turn its attention to the man. The hand that had had its claws severed reformed those claws. It then shot that arm out at the man. He dodged it easily and rushed at the monster. The monster retracted its arm so that it could make another attempt, but the man was already too close.
He leapt high into the air, looking as though he were weightless, and flipped over the monster's head. As he did so, he sliced at the monster's neck with both daggers, severing the head. He landed gracefully on his feet as the head fell to the ground.
Soon after, the monster's body quickly withered away. It was soon reduced to dust and Jill's ankle was finally free. She quickly stood up and briefly scanned her surroundings. She was in a large, open field. It must have been massive because the only tree lines she could see were tiny in her view. How was this possible? She was just at her school's campus! She realized that the dark mass must have been a portal. But there was no such thing as magic portals!
She was still greatly confused as she looked back at the man, who was now approaching her.
"It looks like I got here just in time," he said. "Thank goodness."
He looked away and down with a stressed look on his face.
"It wasn't supposed to happen this way…"
Jill naturally had no idea what he was talking about. She was grateful that this man arrived, but she wanted answers more than anything. She wanted to shout and ask what was going on, but the words wouldn't come. She was still dazed.
All she could do was stare at him. She looked from his snow white hair and red eyes to the symbol on his chest, then back to his features and back to the symbol again. There was no way this guy was a Sheikah, but that was all she could think of.
"You must be very confused right now," he continued.
He had pity in his eyes as he watched her.
"Let me try to explain. It's no accident that you were brought here. You have been selected to complete a very important mission here. That's why that monster was sent to kill you."
"What…?"
Jill was finally finding her voice.
"Where am I…?"
"You are in Hyrule Field."
She immediately gave him a look of disbelief. Hyrule Field? Impossible!
"You can deny it all you like, but I'm telling you the truth. You should learn to accept it quickly if you wish to survive."
"What the hell are you talking about?! I've had enough! I want to go home!"
"That's impossible right now. Even if I did have the power to send you home, you have a duty to fulfill here."
"What duty?!"
They were interrupted when pitch black clouds formed around them. More wooden skeleton creatures stepped out of those clouds.
Oh no no no no…
The man quickly killed one of them to make an opening for Jill and himself. He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her out of harm's way, placing himself between her and the monsters.
"You have to go quickly!"
He turned halfway toward her and pointed in a direction.
"Go north! You will find Gale Village. I'll take care of these monsters."
"By yourself?"
"I'm more than capable. Now go! You must survive!"
As frightened as Jill was, it didn't feel right to leave the man. However, the look in his eyes told her that there was no arguing. Knowing that she couldn't do much to help anyway, she got moving. She turned and began running in the direction he had pointed.
Oh, how she wished she could go home. How could the day turn out like this?