Disclaimer: Anything you recognize, I do not own.
A/N: So, since the prologue was so short, I decided to just go ahead and give you guys Chapter One. Let me know what you think! Also, I tried to catch any errors, but I am only human, so if you see anything, let me know! And, you know, if anyone wants to beta this, I'd be honored... Read on!
Chapter One
Kat slid out of the shadows, ignoring the slight hum that filled her head afterwords, and took in her surroundings. She was in a back alley. Trash littered the ground around a few dumpsters. Kicking around the trash as she made her way to the mouth, she found that one of the black bags contained bagels. Still fresh, too. She must be behind that bakery on 23rd and Rolf Street. The trash was the food left over from the day. Perfect, she thought as her stomach grumbled. She hadn't eaten all day. Now that she was on the run, she didn't know when her next meal would be. She carefully picked up a bagel and inspected it. No damage, no mold. Still relatively warm. What was wrong with these people? This food was still perfect; couldn't they take it to a homeless shelter or something and donate it to those who needed it, instead of leaving it to rot in the trash? Such a waste. Shaking her head, she grabbed a few more bagels and headed to the street.
It was dark, the moon in it's new phase, and no one seemed to be out. It couldn't have been that late, though. She had been in and out of the Compound, not taking long too find her file and get the Evil Realm out of there. She looked around, trying to get her bearings. It was always disorienting after she used her shadow magic. The world felt false, too bright, too loud. She spotted a park across the street and headed there, hoping to clear her head before she went home.
But she didn't have a home anymore. There was no way she could bring this down on her foster family. In all of her foster life, she had only had one other home that she truly enjoyed. Some people went into the foster program for the government checks, or because they were sadistic fucks. But then there were some people who truly cared about the children they took in and truly wanted to give them a better life. The Adams were one of the latter families. Her first home had been like that too. Miss Mae had been an elderly woman who had no family, so she took care of other people's kids. She was probably the only reason why Kat wasn't in a mental institution. But then the old woman had the accident and couldn't take care of her any more. So Kat had been moved from family to family until she ended up with the Adams a year prior. They were so different then any other family Kat had known. With two other children, both biologically theirs, Mary and Kevin Adams had taken her in and treated her like she had been a part of the family since she was born. They didn't ask questions about her long, pointed ears or her red eyes. They didn't push her to obey their rules or punish her harshly when she did break them. In the year that Kat had been with them, they had never yelled at her, or hit her, or even scolded her. When she was inevitably bad, the only gave her the disappointed looks and the "you know better" speech. Somehow that made her feel all the more worse. She wondered what speech she would get if they found out that she had broken into a government facility and stolen the most valuable possession in there.
So, home was out of the question for their protection. She sat down on a swing and bit into one of the bagels. Cinnamon. Still warm. Still absolutely delicious. She had eaten at that bakery a few times with her "friends" from school on the few occasions that she actually hung out with anyone. Kat wasn't much for company. She had learned the hard way that people were nothing but evil and would use and hurt her if she let them in too close. She found the Bakery to be over-priced, but on the few occasions that she ate there, she always got the cinnamon bagel.
Finishing the bagel, she got up and started wandering around the park. She had no idea what her next move was. Maybe destroy the File? Opening it up, she was confronted with a picture of herself. It was from a few years ago; a mug shot from when she had been caught doing a drug run for her foster father at the time. The hollow look in her red eyes was discerning. She had hated living with that asshole and had been caught on purpose so she could be moved again. She flipped the picture up and saw that it was attached to her police record. She had been arrested several times during the past eight years, all for petty theft and the like. Kat was what most considered a problem child. She considered herself as someone just trying to get by. She was a product of her environment. If she had been put with someone like the Adams earlier, her record would be shorter.
But the File contained more than her police record. She turned the page and saw what she had been dreading. A map of Hyrule, replete with population demographics and labeled with the different races. She was disappointed to see that the Sheikah had been left off. Kakariko belongs to us, she thought bitterly, resisting the urge to tear the map to pieces. If she ever went Home, it might prove useful. She flipped passed the map and was confronted with another file on her, though this one she had no clue existed. There was another picture of her attached to it, this one taken from a distance. She was walking up the steps of her school, her back to the camera, but her face turned so that it was still discernibly her. Her white-blonde hair was in a messy, loose bun, her shirt a faded black band-tee and her jeans ripped and worn. There was a pink bandanna tied to her left motorcycle boot. That had been taken her first day living with the Adams. She scanned the first page of this new file and saw that whoever wrote this knew what she was. It had her age, her height, her eye color, hair color, and an accurate label for her race. The next page was incomplete; it listed her relations. All the person had gotten was who her mother was. That was public record, though, so no big deal there. The next page had a description of the Sheikah, most of it wrong and extremely racist. Dark magic users, she read, not to be trusted. Pure evil. But it was the next line that made her blood run cold. Team will be sent to eradicate them and salvage the pure land of Hyrule for profitable use.
Kat had to go Home. She had no other choice. She had to get to Kakariko and warn her aunt and her people. She had to do something! The only problem was that she had no clue how to get Home. And even if she knew, her grasp of magic was dismal at best. Any Sheikah could disguise herself in the shadows or use a glamour. But traversing worlds would take a lot of power. And skill. And concentration. And if there was anything Kat didn't have, it was all of the above. She had heard that people often thought that they could move between worlds if they got high enough. Maybe if she used again, then it would be easier to do it. She didn't know. But…
Breath, she told herself. The last thing that she needed to do was freak out. The young Sheikah sat down on a park bench and placed her head in between her knees. At this rate, she'd be too sick to save her people in time. And then there was that other line. What had it said? Something about Hyrule being used for profit. Whatever the person who wrote it meant, it couldn't be good. Oh, why did this all have to fall to her? She only ever wanted to live a simple life, free from all this bull shit. But, no. The fates must have decided that she didn't have nearly enough crap in her life.
It was starting to look like she was going to have to go home. Which really sucked, since she had been gone for a few days now. Kat honestly hadn't planned on being gone for so long. But as soon as she caught wind of the File, and of the people that were hunting her, she ran. That had been almost a week ago. She didn't want to deal with Mary's disappointment, or Kevin shaking his head as if she had failed him. And furthermore, she didn't have time to explain to them where she had been and why she was leaving. The less they knew, the safer they were. It looked like she was going to have to do things the hard way.
