JTS here, back with AFLCH's second chapter! I'm really happy that i've already gotten reviews and follows and favorites after so few days! I'm glad my readers are enjoying what I'm writing, and seeing the alert emails from FanFiction makes me go all kawaii at the best moments. So thanks!

I promised Dragonball Z-ness, and here it is. The introduction of the heroes and some of the villains is in here, just like I promised.

To CharlieTheTurdil: OMGFIRSTREVIEWKAWAIIFREAKOUTTHANKUTHANKUTHANKU! But seriously. In answer to your question about the Skyloftians, well, my idea is this. I wanted to have as many characters from tLoZ in play as possible, so I incorporated Twilight Princess, Skyward Sword, Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, Spirit Tracks, Wind Waker, a little of the Oracle games, and Four Swords. The premise is that, after the events of Skyward Sword (first in the timeline), the Hylians explored and found the rest of Hyrule, which leads me to the map of Twilight Princess. Areas from both games are incorporated on that assumption. As a result, somewhere around 90% of all the Hylian races will be included at one point or another in AFLCH. With the Skyloftians, i'm assuming that they haven't all come down from the sky, and Skyloft still functions as well as it used to. I hope this helps!

DISCLAIMER: I, JTS, do not own Dragon Ball Z or the Legend of Zelda. However, I did come up with a few OC's and spells myself, which I'll point out at the end of each chapter so there's no confusion.

WARNING: Every section following this sentence contains SPOILERSSSSSSS for both series! Read at your own risk!

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The Consequences of Being Curious Can Be All Too Dire

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Atop Kami's Lookout, somewhere in Japan

Six months after the HyCoR assembly

One day after the defeat of Perfect Cell

Ten minutes before the Aeforce

...

"And there they go. Thank God that's over!" Yamcha sighed as Shenron flew into the sky and split into the Dragonballs, the seven glowing orange orbs speeding away from the Lookout. The atmosphere quickly faded from black back to the normal blue of mid-morning in Japan; the effects of Shenron's appearance must have worn off with their second wish.

"…Have the Z fighters ever encountered anything like that…that monster before?" Dende asked with a quaver in his voice. The little Namekkian was shaking terribly, despite the fact that he was supposed to be Guardian of Earth. Although he couldn't do anything very Guardian-like besides summon a wish-granting dragon, the powers had been passed down to him, so it's not like he had much of a choice.

The responses to his horrible question came quickly. "No." Yamcha, obviously—although in some people straightforwardness is admired, he was the only one with the inability to answer with a unique response. How much more bland could the guy be? That guy made Dende happy to have some extra cannon-fodder on hand.

"Hell, no." Tien, a tall, buff, three-eyed step above Yamcha, was next to respond. "I would have rather killed myself than seen that."

"Sorry you couldn't" was Dende's monotonous reply.

Tien's little psychic kid friend, Chiaotzu, groaned. "So many bruises, oh…"

"Are you okay, Chiaotzu?"

"Bromance," Yamcha grumbled.

"I heard that!" Tien said with a hiss.

"Does Zarbon count?" Gohan asked woozily. Dende couldn't really see him from here—the young Saiyan was probably somewhere behind him, sprawled out on the floor somewhere. Couldn't blame him, not after he defeated Cell on his own. That kind of ordeal was too exhausting for anyone to be sensate and walking after.

"Doesn't matter. Is she gone?" Piccolo, his Namekkian mentor, asked. Normally, Dende would be the scared one, and Piccolo would be the collected one, but the roles had reversed after this strange turn of events.

"Yes," Dende replied.

"I'm in Heaven, and that scared the life out of me!" That one was Goku, the high and mighty (and dead) hero of Japan. He had committed kamikaze…or something along those lines, in order to help defeat their most recent enemy, the monster known as Perfect Cell. It had taken everyone else's strength—well, actually, just Gohan's hidden power and a tiny amount of vengeance from Vegeta, long story—to defeat the monster; Goku's death had done more or less NOTHING to help. All it left Dende with was Future Trunks's half-dead body to heal (courtesy of Cell's knack for unwanted reappearances) and you can be sure that Trunks was not happy about that.

"Shut up, Kakarrot, you imbecile! Stop gloating over the fact that you're in Heaven and know I'm never going there! And as for me, I'm in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, and I'm never coming out!" a gruff voice yelled. Well, that was definitely Vegeta himself, the Prince of All (Three) Saiyans. He had retreated there after the terrifying non-canon events of ten minutes ago had become too unbearable to stand.

"I'm surrounded by idiots," a girl whispered hoarsely, so quiet that Dende wouldn't have heard her if his ears hadn't been supersize. Could that be…no. Android Eighteen, the blonde android that they had saved from Cell? Hadn't she left already?

"Now all we can do is wait to make the next wishes," Future Trunks said as he lifted himself off of the ground. His story was pretty messed up, involving an apocalyptic alternate timeline in which everyone was killed by Android Eighteen and her brother, Seventeen. Trunks had come to the official timeline to warn everyone, but had altered the future, resulting in the rise of Cell. Add the fact that he was the grown-up future version of Vegeta's child with the mechanic named Bulma Briefs, and he pretty much had it worse than everyone. Plus, the lavender hair probably earned a little more attention than he would like.

"Is everyone okay?" Dende asked. He got a few mixed mumbles from everybody, more or less saying that they would be better in a few minutes.

Except for Krillin. Who was currently too busy whining and massaging the large bump on his chrome-dome head to answer.

Piccolo sighed as he realized that the hideous creation had disappeared, straightening the cap on his head in a way that must have calmed him down. "Oh, thank Kami. She's finally gone."

"I'll freakin' say!" Vegeta's voice yelled from inside the Hyperbolic Time Chamber.

"You're in a different dimension, how the hell can you hear me?" Piccolo roared.

"I left the door open, big-ears!"

"Shut up, virgin!"

"I'm not a virgin, my kid's right in front of you!

"Leave me out of this, please," Trunks begged.

"Be quiet, Trunks! If you hadn't had a hole blasted through your chest less than two hours ago, I'd come out there and do it myself! And by the way, Piccolo, what you said; this is coming from the green slug-man?"

"It's actually half lizard—oh, GO TO HELL!"

Trunks tried to make himself look smaller.

"You've got to be kidding," Tien groaned, not referring to the squabble between prince and god, but to the Dragonballs and their unfortunate disappearance. "Now what do we do? I had a wish to make, but there aren't enough wishes to go around."

"What do you mean?" Dende frowned. "I made Shenron to grant two wishes instead of one. You should be grateful!" Honestly, these humans couldn't get more unappreciative.

"I know, I know, but still." Tien shrugged, his third eye blinking lazily.

"Two wishes from Shenron is nothing. Porunga grants three wishes, you imbeciles," Vegeta called. "Shenron pales in comparison to that Namekkian dragon. So if you wanted results, you should have gone for a Guardian that wasn't a two-year old!"

"I'm ten!" Dende protested.

"You're ten?" Gohan asked incredulously. "I'm eleven, and twice your height!"

"Pfft. Ingrates. Well, Tien, if you bring the Dragonballs here, we can maybe grant your probably-unimportant wish and restore the damage done by Cell to the environment." Dende crossed his arms and forced a smile.

"That's a great idea, Dende. We could do that as soon as the Dragonballs are restored," Krillin supplied, finally sensate.

That statement made Tien pale with embarrassment. "Well, now my wish to get rid of the third eye seems stupid. Ah, someone else can have the second one."

"This coming from the guy who claimed there…'weren't enough wishes to go around'?" an innocent Dende commented.

Suddenly, the plot twist occurred, like no plot twist Dende had ever felt before. It wasn't like that time when he had come back from the dead, or when he had become best friends with Earthlings, or when Nail and Piccolo had fused. This plot twist felt…different. Darker.

Dende faltered as he felt a strange imbalance of power appear for an instant and then vanish. The sound of lapping ocean waves was fresh in his mind for an instant, and then faded as soon as it had appeared. He caught his balance and looked to the sky.

"Something's not right."

"What's up?" Tien asked.

"One, two, three, four, five, six…" He yelped. "How in Porunga's name?! The Dragonballs are still holding their Ki energy charge, but I can only sense six of them!"

"And what am I supposed to do about it?" Vegeta yelled.

"Go back in your cell!" Piccolo roared, throwing a flowerpot against the Hyperbolic Time Chamber's door.

Dende looked from face to face, an inexperienced guardian in need of help. "It's like one of them just disappeared!"

"You lost the Dragonballs," Trunks said incredulously. "Are you serious?"

"That's…that's impossible," Yamcha stuttered. "How can that be?"

Vegeta chose this moment to kick the door to the Hyperbolic Time Chamber off its hinges, causing it to slam into the pillar that concealed Android Eighteen and knock her off into the air. With an angry yell and a few curse words that even Dende (what with such "colorful" company as Vegeta and Piccolo) had never heard before, she flew down through the clouds before anyone but Dende could see her.

"Touchy," Krillin said, staring off almost-longingly at the remains of Eighteen's hiding spot.

The prince sighed and walked out into the open, savoring the looks on everyone's faces. "Alright, miserable clods, I'm back, here to fix the problems you weaklings have caused."

Piccolo facepalmed. "And just when I was looking for a few moments of peace."

"I can break your face in pieces if you'd like!"

"Worst pun. EVER."

Dende furrowed his brow, trying to concentrate. Where's Mr. Popo? He might know what to do about the Dragonballs. At last, he got this faint, faint Ki energy reading from the Dragonball. It wasn't faint like 'normal human Ki energy' faint. It was faint as in, 'Holy Shenron, how far away is this thing?' faint. Then he tuned out as much noise and false positive readings as he could, and presto! There it was…

Surrounded by an energy barrier, which was in turn surrounded by a void, which was in turn completely separating that little pocket of existence inside the energy barrier from Japan. And somewhere inside that area, despite the lack of a specific location, was the undeniable energy reading from the One Star Dragonball.

A sweat drop streaked down the little green boy's face. Alternate dimension? No biggie. No biggie whatsoever. "…I think I can sense it. It looks like it's gone somewhere that I can't sense so easily. It also seems like there's a weird energy barrier protecting that unknown region, but it's still part of our world. The only reason we can't see it on our own is that it's a separate pocket of existence."

"So we could walk through it without even realizing?" Trunks, truly his scientifically inclined mother's son, looked positively elated to hear this possibility.

Not wanting to give him too much encouragement, Dende straightened up and looked expectantly at the Z Fighters. "Well, you're going to have to go and get it if we want to restore the damage done by Cell."

"Why not you, great and powerful little Guardian?" Vegeta asked, walking up to Dende and leaning down so he was level with the little boy's face. "Why us?"

"Because I'm powerless and weak and can't do anything but heal you guys?" offered the green boy.

Vegeta accepted that without complaint and straightened up, turning away and leaning against a pillar.

Piccolo took one look at the wrecked Lookout before sighing. "…I agree with Dende. Somebody needs to get the seventh Dragonball so some crackpot doesn't get it first. You could do that," he suggested, nodding at Tien, Chiaotzu, Krillin and Future Trunks. He stood up and stretched, yawning in the process. "In fact, maybe I'll go with you. Anything to get away from here and forget that the…demon…from before…existed." After a little shudder, he finally regained the stolid demeanor that he was known for.

"I'm going to go too." Gohan stood up, looking around with a firm resolve. "Please, Piccolo?" He looked at his old, green-skinned mentor, pleading in his eyes. "I may only be eleven, but I'm stronger than all of you combined." He turned to the shadows of Kami's Lookout, eying a ticked-off Vegeta with an equally disenchanted look. "You too."

Vegeta took a few steps towards Gohan, meeting him with a loathsome glare. "Listen, boy, I know that you're stronger than me, you don't have to rub it in." He turned away, growling. "No matter how much I train, you and your blasted father always seem to surpass me!" But when he turned back to the Z Fighters, he did so smirking. "Well, now that Kakarrot is dead, I should have a lot less competition. After all, children just don't have the drive, and I don't see you becoming like your miserable failure of a father anytime soon."

In a flash, Gohan turned Super Saiyan, his hair turning a fiery yellow and his eyes changing from black to green. "You jerk! Take what you said about my father back!"

Vegeta maintained his calm composure, still looking at the young boy. "Oh, I'm sorry," he said mockingly. "Did I upset you? Wise up, kid—your dad's gone. Accept it, or you're going to waste all of your energy before we even go to this…place."

Vegeta watched with a triumphant smirk as Gohan reverted from his Super Saiyan form. Then he proclaimed loudly, "I'm going, but only for the entertainment." He faced the rest of the Z Fighters and wiped the smirk from his face. "Let me make it perfectly clear that I don't care about repairing the damage Cell did, unless the damage was to me or to family." He cast an ambivalent glance at Trunks, who looked about as embarrassed as he could possibly be. "I don't care about this pathetic planet. I just need something to do, and my schedule is open."

Gohan looked at Dende, a thirst for adventure in his eyes. "So, Dende. How do we get there?"

"Hello, Dende."

The young Guardian spun around with a yelp to face Mr. Popo, who had come up right behind him without him even realizing. "Oh my god, Mr. Popo. You scared me. Any ideas?"

"I suppose…yes, it's possible. I've heard Kami mention this one specific Namekkian magic spell that can summon a portal to another world, a portal called an Aeforce. It's rumored that these portals lead to a hidden world that is just beyond normal sight—that might be the world in question," Mr. Popo suggested. "If I quickly showed Dende the texts that would allow one to summon this Aeforce, we'd be able to penetrate the energy field around the Dragonball. However, there is a catch. As the human world and the Otherworld are connected, and the magic concerning our Aeforce is sketchy at best, opening a portal here may possibly open one in the Otherworld, or even—Kami forbid—Hell itself." Popo's eyes spread wide. "Anyone could get in or out!"

"That's a risk we're going to have to take. I'd rather that than an alien coming into our world first and wishing for immortality. Remember Garlic Jr.?"

"Eww, no, I hate garlic," Gohan said.

"Luckily, the instructions to create an Aeforce aren't as difficult as you'd think." Popo leaned forward and quickly gave Dende the directions to make such a world-breaching portal. "You can figure out the rest by instinct, lad—just follow the magic."

Dende spread his hands in front of him to create the portal, but then stopped and looked back at Mr. Popo. "I have a question, though. Can I go too? I'd really like to see this new place and spend some time with my friends."

"Of course you can, Dende. The portal should be able to sustain itself. Now you should get started."

Dende nodded silently, dreading what he felt was going to go horribly wrong. He then spread his hands, chanting in his native language. Around him, waves of light warped through the air. The waves twisted and gyrated into a door-sized, black rectangle. The outer edge of the rectangle was lined with twisted purple energy, which swirled around violently. Satisfied to a degree, not with the appearance but the steady energy signature, Dende lowered his hands.

"So this is the legendary Aeforce," Popo murmured, going unheard by even the Namekkians.

Well, I can honestly say that Vegeta wasted no time. As soon as Dende stopped created the portal, Vegeta flew in, grinning coldly as he left everyone behind and disappeared. Tien, Chiaotzu, Krillin, and Dende then followed him in, not in the least bit hesitant.

Gohan, Trunks, and Piccolo were a little more patient, and stayed behind to get ready for the trip. Trunks changed from his tattered Saiyan battle armor into his Capsule Corp. outfit and jacket that his mother had made for him, and slipped his sword over his shoulder. He then grabbed the Dragon Radar and the small box that held the capsule that grew into his time machine.

Gohan looked at Piccolo, who was putting a pouch of Senzu beans in his belt. "Piccolo," Gohan said. The Namek turned to his young pupil. "Do you know what we might see there?"

Piccolo chuckled. "I have no idea what we're going to find. But hopefully, something we find is the seventh Dragonball." He ruffled the demi-saiyan's hair, which caused him to laugh.

Trunks walked up to them, his need for adventure evident in his shining eyes. "Let's go." Piccolo and Trunks ran into the portal, followed by Gohan. "Bye, Mr. Popo," Gohan shouted as he was swallowed up by the darkness of the Aeforce.

Popo waved to the young Saiyan, only to realize that he was gone, and then wondered what exactly he had gotten that young boy into.

...

Somewhere

Five minutes after the Aeforce

...

Nobody ever asked Willford Grandine what he wanted. Nobody really cared what he wanted, anyway. They came to him with problems.

People liked talking to Willford. The people he liked, he let them call him Will, or Grandine, or Hailstorm or even just Hail—because that's what grandine meant in this foreign language that he had discovered known as Italian. That's what Will did. He discovered things, as any intuitive person would do. He would listen to the people that came to him, and would learn from them. And as payment, he would share whatever knowledge or advice or words of friendship he could.

It was hard for people to visit Will, because, to be honest, he didn't see how he could leave an address when he didn't even know where he was. Or rather, he knew where he was, but the exact location that he was in liked to move around a lot. He knew he was in a sword, a sword called the Master Sword, but not the real one. That one was Fi, one of the few names that he knew of the real world. Fi, the Sword Spirit that served alongside the Hero of Time. He knew of her because he looked like her—almost everybody that came to visit him said so. Just like her, his eyes had no pupils and were the same color as his face and hair. But Fi had blue, aqua blue for her hair; his similar but shorter hair and skin and eyes were a lightish spring green. Just like her, there was a diamond on his chest, silver-leaded and bright magenta. While Fi wore a dress in the same shade of purple that covered her right arm, he wore the same garb in white, and black leggings with blue wrappings underneath. He didn't have hands, more like flowing arms—same as Fi—but his left arm was the same color as his skin and his right arm the same as his tunic.

They said he talked like Fi too, in that unanimously unknown yet universally understood language that she spoke in. He was rational and calm, sweet and caring. He praised anything that had to do with good.

His master hadn't been like that.

His master—he had long since forgotten his name—had neglected to tell him anything other than that the Hero of Time was evil beyond comparison. But he couldn't believe such assumptions—someone with a title including the word "hero" clearly had some background that had earned it. That had led Will to think that maybe his master was evil.

Some people also compared Will to Demon Lord Ghirahim, which scared him greatly because Ghirahim was the spirit of the Dark Master Sword—the weapon of the Demon King himself—and not exactly the nicest guy. They said he talked like Ghirahim too, with a twist of sarcasm at times but with real emotion still showing through. His eyes had soul, like the evil Demon Lord—not calculating slits like the eyes of Fi. His hair, while pointed like Fi's, looked more like Ghirahim's, and his tunic and left arm were the same color as Ghirahim's bleached-white eyes. That, they had in common. Well, that and the fact that Will actually had feelings.

That was the one thing Will resented about the idea of Fi—that she was heartless. Not necessarily bad, but without bias or connections. Just empty. How could someone so like him be heartless? Did that make him like that? No, he had discovered that he couldn't do what he did for others and be heartless at the same time.

As bad as Ghirahim sounded, he seemed like an...interesting guy. Will would have loved to meet him one day, or even just see him for an instant. Or Fi. All the people in Hyrule came to talk to him, and not one brought him a Pictograph of them.

They did say one thing about him that was unique, though, and not borrowed from a haphazard OTP meme construction. He was surprisingly short, looking about the height of an average fourteen-year old. Fi was fairly tall, as was Ghirahim. Will was unique in his size. Big heart, small stature, they said. Will never felt insulted.

Will hadn't been born—he had simply appeared in this place, the Master Sword copy, with basic knowledge of a few colors and normal kindergarten-level vocabulary. Those he hadn't discovered—but Will had been discovering things ever since he had appeared in the emptiness of what he now called home. He had discovered that, where he was, there was no blue sky, or green grass. There was only an inch of clear water covering the ground, and that was it for miles upon white empty miles. He had looked down at the ground, saw his feet, and then saw his own face, and discovered that his eyes were green, and so was the rest or his head. Then he discovered his arms, and his lack of hands, and his back, and the big magenta crystal on his chest.

He then discovered he needed a name, like all the colors he had assigned to himself. So he started playing around with sounds until he found something interesting. He liked W, and L was fun to roll around as he spoke. F and T were nice too, so he said them all together. WLFT sounded weird to him, so he added in a couple vowels and a spare R and changed it to Willfort. Then he decided it sounded too flashy with the T at the end and changed it to a D, and got his name. Willford. Which he could shorten to Will.

After his name, he discovered that if he thought about something hard enough, the crystal on his chest would start to glow with emerald bright light. He had discovered that, if he concentrated enough on air and only air, he could float off the ground. Then he could move on air as if he were walking. To go back to the water, he only had to think of solid ground, and back down he was. It got easier and more natural to pull off the more he practiced, to the point where Will didn't need to think to fly. He just did.

He had tried to discover more, but there was only so much one could discover in a place where nothing happened. All that came to him were basic adjectives in his vocabulary, so that by the time he looked about fourteen, he knew a mere portion of the descriptive words any teenager his age would know.

He had sat in the water, in silence, waiting for anything, for years, aging slowly and stopping when he looked still fairly youthful.

Dreaming for anything.

And then, the first person had come to him. 29 years ago, almost exactly.

He hadn't known then that she was a, well, she. He would discover that later. But she had the same color on her dress, the purplish one that was on his tunic, and perhaps a little darker. And there was white too, near her upper body. Besides that, he didn't recognize the colors on the armor of her shoulders or the color of her hair. It looked to be the opposite of white, which he soon discovered was called black.

Whoever she was, she looked disoriented. She had just stumbled out of the whiteness around Will and crashed directly into him. The impact had no effect on Will except to startle him.

"Oh!" she yelped, and flew back to land on her back. Her voice seemed soft, like Will's, but a little bit deeper and more mature. She was taller than him, he discovered, at least by a head's distance.

"Can you talk?" he asked her, floating above to stare into her eyes. They had little tiny black dots in them, surrounded by a ring of the same color as the armor. Beautiful.

The person looked down at her stomach with shock, as if she was surprised to see her own body.

"...Hello?" Will innocently asked, waving an arm in her face.

She ignored every gesture she made as she stared at her two hands like they were devil spawn. "Am...am I alive still?" she breathed.

"Hellooooo?" he dragged out, almost yelling in exasperation.

"...Sorry, young one," she said after a beat, looking into Will's big green eyes. Young one? Does this mean she has been around longer than me? Maybe she knows something about the world outside. "Hello to you too. Who are you?"

"Willford. I tried being Willfort, with a T, but I didn't like it."

"Ah. Not Kami, then."

"Kami? And anyway, who are you?" he retorted. He hadn't meant it to come out like that, but it had anyway.

"Kami is my people's word for God. As for me…my name is Rosicheena. I am a queen" was the person's reply as she got to her feet slowly and brushed off her dress.

"What's that?"

She raised an eyebrow. "Don't play games with me."

"What's...'play'?"

Rosicheena pinched the bridge of her nose between her fingers and exhaled. "It's when you have fun. When you do things that make you feel happy. Children like you do it, and adults like me do so less frequently."

"Children like me?" Will was exceedingly confused. "And adults...like you? So you're an adult? Are all adults queens?"

She laughed softly—her voice really had a wonderful timbre to it. "No, don't be foolish, young one. My planet only has one queen, who must be an adult female like me." Then, as if she knew what Will was wondering, she added, "Females and males are the two genders that make up a race, which in turn can be made up of billions and billions of people. You are either female or male, a girl or a boy. I am a female, and you, Willford, are a male."

"Oh." It made little sense, to have two genders. It just made everyone different. Up until that moment, Will had thought that he Fi, Ghirahim, and his old master were the only things in existence with sentience. Now this Rosicheena was saying that there were billions of others that lived and breathed as she did, perhaps more.

"How are you not confused?" Will found himself asking. The question was out before he could help it.

"What do you mean?"

"I don't look like you. How are you not confused by something that is so...different?"

Rosicheena looked about to laugh, but she stopped before she could let it out and said quietly. "I am used to different things. My children were quite unique."

"You have children? Do all adults have children?"

The look in her eyes revealed otherwise as she said, "Only a lucky few."

"So you are one of the lucky few?... For someone so lucky, you look really lost. Are you lost?"

"…I am, aren't I?" For the first time, she seemed to realize that she was in this place, and that she had no idea where here was, and that she was talking to a green and white and purple boy.

"Did you lose something?"

"Yes," she replied softly, voice cracking. "Two someones. I lost my sons."

"Sons? What's that? Is it a thing?"

"No!" she snapped, and Will shied away at the gesture of anger. She sighed and turned away, sinking to the ground and slowly sitting. Then she motioned for him to sit next to down to her. Brimming with curiosity, he waited a moment, flew down next to her, and sat with his hands drawing his knees to his chest. After an instant, she spoke.

"My sons are my children. Two boys. Two princes. One of them almost five, one of them barely three. I was protecting the older one, my planet's crown prince, when I was attacked by an assassin."

"Assassin?" he echoed, fearful. There was a sinister echo to the word.

"Hired killer. She called herself Impara, a demon woman."

"...Killer?"

Rosicheena sighed to herself firmly, then turned and placed her hands on Will's shoulders. The gesture of closeness was shocking to him—he had been alone, without this feeling, for so long. How have I lived without this? She looked directly into his eyes and spoke.

"When someone kills another, they steal the life that another person has." She placed a hand on his heart and continued, "When your heart stops, something has killed you, be it natural causes or another's grasp for your power and strength. People kill for power. It makes killers feel strong, when in truth they're the weakest of all."

Then she leaned back and surveyed the emptiness around them. Again she laid a hand on her stomach. "This killer, Impara. She was able to kill me. And...well, that makes me dead."

The finality with which Rosicheena spoke made Will tremble.

"…Dead?" He knew that word, and it chilled his soul inside, through and through. "Then why are you here? Shouldn't you be in the place where good dead people go?"

Rosicheena looked around for a moment, smiled at Will, and then said, "I think I'm already there, or at least on my way. I think this is a waiting place."

"A what?"

"Where people wait after their deaths, to go to heaven. It's the doorway to the afterlife. I've heard about it in legends from other worlds, but I never thought it to be true."

"It is?"

"Yes," she said with a chuckle. "And that makes you"—she poked his nose playfully with a finger—"the guardian. You should protect anyone you see here, and make them feel welcome. Can you do that?"

"I…" Could he do it? Yes, he could. He wanted to be good to others, or to at least see others. "I can. I will."

"Good. Now, if you'll excuse me," she said as she got to her feet, "I must go."

Will immediately leapt into the air to protest, but she shushed him before he could say a word.

"Don't be afraid. I'm sure others will find you, if I'm right about this place. I need you to do something for me." Rosicheena took a deep, shaky breath, then said, "If you ever see my sons, any number of years from now, tell them that I made it to the other side and I am waiting for them."

"I'll do whatever you say, just please don't leave me," he begged quietly.

"Everyone leaves eventually." She reached out and ruffled his hair slowly, smiling lightly to him. "Willford, I asked you do something for me. As a queen, I ask you to please carry out my wishes. Perhaps someday we'll meet again, young one."

And then, with no goodbye, she was suddenly…gone.

From that day on, Will did what she asked. Every time he met with someone new, he learned as much as he could about the world outside his, and made them feel welcome for the short while they were there. Once Rosicheena had charged him with his duty and disappeared, another person had come, this one an older man from a place called Italy. He said that he had died in a freak hailstorm, which was how Will came to be known as Willford Grandine. The man had disappeared after a while, just like Rosicheena, and leaving Will with the same empty feeling.

Then more people came to see him. More from other places, other countries, other worlds. Teachers, parents, children, students, workers, everyone. Thousands had flocked to him, one by one. He'd barely finish talking to someone before he found another. He had no reprieve, and to be honest he didn't want any. He loved being surrounded by people that he could learn from, talk to, make happy.

By the time he had seen somewhere around three trillion people, he had come to see himself as the guardian of death. He even found a pattern to it. People died in waves, a lot, then a little, and so forth—a short period of visitors usually meant that a larger group was on its way. The smaller the first group, the larger the second.

So when the waiting place was, for the first time in thirty years, completely and utterly silent for five minutes, Will immediately knew that something was horribly, horribly wrong.

...

...

Kyrior Ambala's room, Councilmen Quarters of Hyrule Castle

Ten minutes after the Aeforce

...

The letter from his girlfriend began something like this.

...

Kyrior,

Long time no see, huh, oh mighty Gerudo King? You know, I get bored without you around. You should have sent Geror or Kota or some other advisor to be a HyCoR rep, instead of taking charge yourself. That way, I could be with you a little more. Besides, I hear everyone hates you for ruining everything between the Zora and Rito. Chill out, Kyrior, and stop making everyone miserable. For me, please? *cue the doe eyes of a thief about to snatch a billionaire's wallet*

Sorry in advance. I'm cancelling my trip this week to Hyrule Castle—now, before you kill me, listen. Something's come up, something I wasn't expecting. I'm heading into Faron Woods for a while in three days, don't know for how long, and I was kind of hoping you could meet me here before then. If you don't see me before then, it might be a while before I see my dear, "sweet" hero again.

I'm not feeling so good these days. Something's up, I know it. Don't worry about me. I'll be waiting where I'm always waiting.

Nabooru

...

Don't worry about her, she said? That was the one line that made him worry.

Trying to mask his discomfort from the young guard who was standing at his desk with a worried frown, he let out a small halfhearted chuckle and ripped the sheet of paper in half, throwing the pieces into the fire at the hearth. The parchment roll crinkled up and turned brown with ash, then black as the paper itself melted into the flames.

"Everything okay, sir?" the Gerudo guard asked, leaning against the wall as she stared at him through narrow yellow eyes. She seemed to care a little more about his safety than most Gerudo females, which was why he had promoted her to head of the Gerudo guards.

"Don't pry, Kota," he snapped, his gaze fixed on the fire.

He didn't expect her to listen. And she didn't. But the Gerudos trusted her enough for Kyrior not to care when she butted in. "Letters from Nabooru are hard to come by, sir."

"Hmm."

"…I'll leave you be with your…'ashes of affection', then," Kota muttered with a knowing look, and walked out of the room to guard her King from the hallway. This left him alone to think.

Kyrior hadn't gotten a letter from Nabooru before—Nabooru didn't trust media that much, and preferred personal conversations. So the letter was a strange surprise from her, although it was nice to get the warning that their reunion would be delayed. Kyrior, he didn't care about much in life, that was fairly clear to every Hylian—but the Sage of Spirit, Nabooru, was the one person he respected in this world. Perhaps, more than respect was involved in their relationship. In public, everybody saw Kyrior as a flirt and playboy, but not one person would ever dare doubt the caring those two shared behind the scenes.

Something's come up. He couldn't shake the odd feeling that the something in question was bigger than what she had made it out to be. What did she mean, she's not feelin' well? Is she sick, or is her sagely power acting up again? …I hope everythin's okay with her. Maybe I should go today?

But after a tense moment of staring at the hearth, Kyrior shrugged and decided that he needed to stop worrying about her and calm down. He'd meet her in a day, meaning he'd leave that night.

And, despite the fact that he was not widely known for his religious belief, he sincerely prayed to Hylia that nothing was wrong.

...

In the Otherworld

Zero minutes after the Aeforce

...

Deep in the depths of Hell, a portal popped open, nearly scaring the life (or death, in this particular little case of ours) out of Frieza.

"What the—?" Frieza jumped back, almost tripping over King Cold. He spun around, a nervous and guilty look on his face as he feared the imminent wrath of his father. "Sorry, Father," he stammered. "I was just sitting there and that thing just popped up out of nowhere and I didn't mean to and—"

Frieza was stopped by a solid fist in the gut from Perfect Cell, who had been listening to Frieza's rapid rant. "You talk too much, Frieza. You should be focusing on figuring out what that thing is. Personally, I think it's a portal of some kind."

Frieza stopped wheezing and rested against the wall, facing the ominous tear in the fabric of existence. "A portal?" he gasped. "Why would a portal out of Hell open here? It's literally the most secure prison in existence!"

"Plotline?" Cell suggested with a shrug.

"Probably."

"Why didn't you tell me you saw a portal out of here, son?" King Cold looked at his son with an icy glare.

Frieza returned his father's glare, a look of pity replacing his look of evident pain. "Father, Father, Father. I tried, but Cell stopped me before I could." Frieza pointed accusingly at Cell, who was sitting on an outcropping of rock, idly inspecting his fingernails and trying not to be interested. "Maybe he knows my plan and just doesn't want me to take credit for it."

As Frieza said that, Cell closed both eyes and moaned while King Cold squinted. "Will the idiocy never cease!? Jesus, Frieza, you're paranoid as hell. I didn't want to take credit for a plan that's undoubtedly obvious. I just wanted to punch you!"

"Tell us your plan, son," King Cold said. "We're all dying to hear it, which is barely possible since we're already dead."

Cell crossed his arms and smiled heinously. "I want to know what you've figured out in that purple-plated head of yours." When Frieza self-consciously put a hand to his head, Cell laughed loudly. "Oh, come on. Obviously you can't take a joke."

Frieza regained his composure and pointed to the portal. "I bet," he declared, "that if we go through that portal, it will lead us to another place, a place NOT in the world of death. Not in Hell, nor in the Otherworld, which is a less-likely possibility. The world of the living."

Nobody moved for a second. Then Cell began to slowly and mockingly clap. King Cold burst out in a maniacal laugh that pierced the barriers of Hell and reverberated throughout the Otherworld.

"Oh, my, and nobody else has EVER thought of that!" King Cold spoke his mind through barely-concealed laughter. His tone quickly changed as he whirled around and slapped his son across the face, sending him flying into the prison chamber's wall headfirst. "You fool! A plan is supposed to be innovative, not common knowledge!"

Cell stopped clapping and stood up, yawning for a good ten seconds before speaking. "I say we go through the portal and hope that we don't end up on the surface, or anywhere on Earth for that matter."

"Agreed," King Cold proclaimed. He walked briskly to his son and grabbed his leg. With one flick of his wrist, Frieza was extracted from the wall and dumped on the ground, rubbing his neck and groaning.

"I'll get Cell for that." Frieza stood and caressed his purple head indignantly. "Well, if you guys aren't going to go, I will." With that, Frieza jumped in the air and flew straight for the portal, the speed at which he accelerated creating a shockwave.

Cell and King Cold looked at each other with a roll of their eyes, unsurprised by Frieza's willingness to get the hell out of, well, Hell. They all did—Frieza just sucked at masking it.

"So," Cell said, idly whistling between words, "You think this is gonna blow up in our faces?"

It took a few seconds for King Cold to answer, but in the end he replied, "Probably. But maybe not."

"That's a big maybe."

"Do I look like I care?"

After contemplating a moment, Cell shook his head. "Not really. It might be interesting to watch it blow up in Frieza's face, though."

King Cold grinned. "Let's make sure we're there to see that."

"After you, your Highness."

So the two of the walked through the Aeforce into a new world.

...

Second chapter! WOOOOOOOOO! Thank you, people who have read this story and liked it! I plan to post on Fridays or Saturdays, due to the annoying homeworks...UGH AP. Again, if it's not constant, feel free to complain when things get up and running. Me likey reviews, me likey readers, me likey everything!

OC's... Willford Grandine, OBVIOUSLY. I won't spoil whose sword spirit he is, but i'm sure you'll figure it out. Queen Rosicheena, as well. Her, I'm not gonna say where she's the queen, only that she has familial ties to one of our DBZ heroes. Kota is a new one, but she's not very recurring at all. The Aeforce is an original concept of mine-basically just a fancy name for the portal that was created by Dende. Its creation serves as a time reference for the rest of the story.

Well, that's all. JTS out!