-CHAPTER 1-

Time was always against Sora. No matter how many times she would try to go with it, it always twisted into another direction. She hated the fact that she would have to live for eternity, watching her friends grow old and die while she stayed young.
It had been 76 years since Sora had fallen in love and joined up with D, becoming his pupil at the same time. Working as a bounty hunter had its advantages, although it was a feast-or-famine job. The only one of her friends that was still alive was Kurt, but only because Sora had found a medicine made from unicorn hair that prolonged both life and youth. Clara and Eric both died three years ago, both dying in their sleep about five months apart. Not she, D, nor Kurt had heard any word from Lilith, Mazier, or even the ancient Incubus Markus and his lover Menroc. Hell, not even the little skeletal imp, Penance, had shown himself!
D and Sora were planning to get married soon, but the problem was getting someone to marry them. Neither of them had birth certificates since D was over 600 years old, and Sora was born in a country that was in an alternate dimension. D didn't have a social security number, and therefore didn't exist as far as the government was concerned, and let's just face it: No one's married a couple that had a groom older than the United States and looked like he was in his late twenties to early thirties. Kurt was forced to give up his priesthood as soon as the church discovered his 'aging defect'. If that hadn't have happened, he would have been able to do it, minus the holy ceremony.
They had just gotten back home from a long bounty hunt and had literally walked in the door when the phone rang. Kurt had given the phone to D, insisting that it was important since the caller had asked for 'Morian Tepes'. Only few people knew D's real name, and whoever did was considered very close to him.
"You still haven't answered me as to why you were talking in a foreign language, D." Sora tried to ask D what the call was about as they rode horseback to where the person had said to meet.
"She wished me to speak to her in a tongue that no one in the room would understand."
"She?" Sora scoffed, folding her arms across her chest. "What, is it an old girlfriend of yours?"
D glanced back at her, shaking his head slowly before continuing. Sora looked at his horse and couldn't believe that D was riding the newest in transportation technology- a cyborg. A DL-4 cyborg horse was the best there was available, and acted like a real horse, with the exception of speed faster than an Arabian and unlimited endurance. Sora just stuck to a regular horse. She never got into technology.
"Where are we supposed to meet this woman?" Again, D didn't respond. Sora sighed heavily, letting go of her horse's reins and leaning back in the saddle, let the horse, of which she had called Orion, follow D's horse.
"Face it, Sora, D never talks whenever he's on important missions," D's parasite told her. Sora nodded. It was true. During the last mission that nearly killed both of them, D had hardly talked. Maybe this job proposition was more serious than she thought.
She took hold of the reins and rode up next to D. "D? Hey, what's wrong? Are some old friends of yours needing help or something?"
D glanced at her, and gave a single nod. He suddenly halted his horse, as did Sora. It took her a moment to recognize her surroundings as being under the bridge near a small stream. "Oh great. now I really expect an ambush."
The older Dunpeal rolled his eyes as he dismounted his horse and walked to Sora, holding a hand to help her down, but she turned it down and hopped off of the saddle before checking to see none of her weapons fell off on the ride. Her sword was sheathed in its scabbard, which was fastened across her back; her dagger was secure in a secret sheath in her boot, and she had a short sword fastened to her belt. D was just content with his katana-like blade across his back. As he had once quoted to her before: If she kept up the holding of so many weapons, she would end up like Mazier; cold hearted and emotionless. He had said that before he realized that his magic book had converted his mind.
"Where's our client?" Sora looked around as she asked that question. The typical answer from D: Silence. As soon as she sighed and leaned against Orion, she heard a woman's voice speaking in a foreign tongue that she couldn't exactly put. The accent was really weird. D responded in the same tongue, and Sora's eyes widened in disbelief, recognizing it as the language he had spoken on the phone with. The woman came out of the shadows. She was dressed in a spice orange robe, but underneath, her clothes looked like something out of Arabian Nights. She wore big pink breeches, and her top was that of possibly a gypsy belly dancer, for lack of a better description. She wore a broad choker of gold and rubies, along with matching rings that hugged her upper arms, and her bright red hair was tied up in a gold band with a giant ruby standing atop it, and she wore a ruby necklace. The tone of her skin said she was from the desert.
"Sora, this is Nabooru," D told her, turning to face her. "She's our client."
"Hello," Nabooru said, bowing her head to Sora. So she could speak in a language Sora could understand.
"What seems to be the problem?" Sora asked, moving a strand of hair away from her left eye, no longer worrying about people seeing the bright scar across her eye that had been there since she was struck with a silver blade while she was an infant. Nabooru shook her head. "It is too complicated to tell you here. The place where I come from has fallen under a terrible evil that threatens your world as well as mine."
Sora was confused; the place where she had come from? She had watched the news faithfully for the past few years -she was bored- and had heard nothing about an entire country under threat.
Nabooru rubbed her forehead. "Forgive me, you probably have no idea as to what I'm talking about, do you? I come from a land called Hyrule. It isn't in this world, but in an alternate dimension, parallel to yours. I'm one of the nine sages there that protects Hyrule."
"Hyrule?" Sora quirked an eyebrow, looking to D. "Didn't Menroc say that was where he was from?"
D nodded slowly. "It's a fantasy world, but also very dangerous. I've been there before. It's magical, and unlike this world, the gods actually exist."
Sora had made up a joke-rule: Anything D says, goes. He was rarely wrong.
"So are we going to have to go to this Hyrule?"
Nabooru nodded towards Sora. "I can make a portal this instant and take you there. You'll have to meet our queen first before you come to my area of the country."
"Queen?" D asked, surprised. "Zelda's been made queen?"
"Harkinian died a few years after your last visit. Zelda's made a huge improvement of Hyrule, don't get me wrong, but not even she could stop what just happened last week. Not even Link could."
Sora just watched them talk back and forth; she had NO idea of what was going on. Nabooru looked at Sora once, then almost reluctantly said something to D in that foreign language. Was Sora somehow an important key in this?
"You know," she said, narrowing her eyes suspiciously, "I'm helping with this mission too. I can hear any information that Nabooru has to offer as well."
Nabooru grinned, looking at Sora, and then back at D. "I cannot see how this girl's your type."
"I wonder that sometimes, too," Sora replied. "So. are the people in Hyrule familiar with D?"
"Very. He came just over 90 ago, just right after a major crisis occurred. A young girl was driven crazy by all four of our major goddesses fighting over her soul. Morian killed any remaining demons that the girl had let into Hyrule and helped rebuild villages. He's been known as Hyrule's second foreign hero."
The younger Dunpeal looked at D, who remained silent. Sora had just turned 90 years old a few years ago. That meant he had been there just before she was born.
"Well, enough with the chit-chat. We need to get to Hyrule. It won't take long to make a portal. Oh, and bring your horses. You'll be traveling a lot," Nabooru told them. Both of them obeyed, mounting their horses as Nabooru turned around and chanted a spell for a portal.
"Second foreign hero?" Sora asked. D shrugged. "A girl named Vanessa came a long time before I did and helped with an even bigger problem. I'm familiar with both her and their resident hero, Link."
An orange light flashed, and Sora shielded her eyes for a moment before turning to see the portal that Nabooru made. The sage turned to both of them. "Hurry up before it closes. I won't be with you when you get to Hyrule, but head to Hyrule Castle where Queen Zelda will be expecting you. She'll tell you what's going on."
Sora blinked in confusion, still not having digested what had happened. This woman just opened a portal, told them to go in it, didn't give any details, or a price for the bounty. This was just WEIRD. She looked to D, hoping he would say something that could clear this up, but D just looked pointedly to the portal. "Ladies first," he said, mocking her confusion and whatever fear she harbored. She'd never been to an alternate dimension.
Scoffing at him, Sora mounted Orion, and lightly tapped her heel against his flanks. The horse nickered and walked forward into the portal. As soon as she disappeared into it, she closed her eyes, trying to keep out the nausea that came with portal travel. Her head swam, and her muscles cramped. She tried to move to clutch her gut but she couldn't. She couldn't even breathe.
It was over in a few seconds, and Orion jumped out of the portal without hesitation, careful not to have his mistress fall off. Sora leaned forward, gasping for air and blinking uncontrollably until her vision cleared. She heard the ripping and tearing of the portal as it closed, but not hearing the DL-4 as it came through with D.
She felt D's hand touch her shoulder, and she sat up straight, turning to face him. For a moment, Sora envied him; D had never been distraught by portals, and he looked just the same as he always did.
Sora turned away from him and looked at where they had arrived, her eyes widening. Green fields caressed the landscape in every way, small patches of forest scattered about every few hundred yards.
"Whoa. D, I don't think we're in Transylvania anymore." She heard D chuckle behind her, and turned to glare at him. "What? What's so funny?"
"Nothing," he said, "Welcome to Hyrule. that's all."