By: Vilya
With help from Kaede, Norli and Avaria, and our alter-egos, Phoenix, Era, Kerena, and Elariel.
Hmm…what to say what to say…well, as the official first fic written by Vilya n Company, lets get this party started! Only, it's not exactly a party.
Disclaimer-er-er-er-er: Not mine. Nope. Well, Zoe, her oddball brothers, and her friends, and her blue baseball cap, they're mine. The rest of it isn't, I hope. And if it is…well, then my birthday wish has been granted early ;)
Summary-ish-thing: A Golden Sun fic. An average, ordinary girl gets thrown—literally—into the game. Yes, I know it's been done before. And I pray to whatever powers be that this isn't a Mary Sue. Besides, the character's half-based on Norli, so there's no way she's perfect ;)
Norli: I HEARD THAT!
Vil: And? On with the ficcy!
Note: This prologue isn't really Golden Sun-ish, not yet, but chapter one will be. And every chapter henceforth. Hehehe, that's a big word ;)
Prologue: It Wasn't Gonna be Pretty
"Zoe! Zoe, c'mere! You gotta see this!" Zoe Stanton rolled her eyes. Evan was always yelling. Well, almost always, and what time wasn't spent yelling was instead focused on eating. She had been wondering for years if her brother even possessed the quality of a soft voice or a whisper.
"What do you want, Evan?" She asked, tired of his need to show her things that she never thought were important. The one time he had shown her something worthwhile it had ended rather disastrously.
"Look at this! I beat the thing, Zoe! It was so awesome! It exploded!" Zoe raised an eyebrow at her younger brother, shook her head, and sighed. She didn't understand his love for those violent video games. Never did, never would.
"And I'm sure it was a very explosive explosion. Now if you don't mind, not that it makes a difference whether you mind or not, I have things to do. Have fun, little brother." Technically he wasn't Zoe's 'little' brother, being about a foot taller than she. But he was two years younger, and, as her older brother liked to say, about two centuries dumber.
Laughing to herself as she thought of her older brother, Zoe went back into her room, intending to finish her drawings. Drawing was her passion. Any picture she had finished and liked hung on her walls, her ceiling, her doors, everywhere. She didn't consider herself a master artist, in fact she thought she was far from, but it was her best work.
She looked down at the picture she was drawing now. It was a sketch of two boys, one slightly taller than the other. The shorter one's arms were thrown up in what she hoped looked like exasperation, and the taller one's were folded angrily across his chest. The boys' eyes glared angrily at each other.
Zoe giggled. The looks on their faces were pure anger. In the back of her mind a story began to take place. The shorter boy had been made fun of for being short, yet he was older than the taller boy, and smarter. The background of the picture was a roughly-sketched forest, and it made Zoe wish she could visit whatever place her mind had just created. Face it, she thought bitterly, you're stuck where you are, and as you are.
'As she was' wasn't all that great. Zoe looked in my mirror and sighed. Straight brown hair, plain brown eyes. Like always.
As for where she was…the sound of laughter outside her window startled her, and she looked out and down. Smiling and waving up at her were her two best friends, Anna and Julie. They were pushing their bikes along ahead of them.
"We're meeting the team down at the park for a game of capture the flag!" Julie yelled up. Zoe assumed she meant their softball team. Besides softball, capture the flag was the sport they always played. "You wanna come?"
"Sure!" Zoe yelled back. She put her sketchpad down, quickly gathered her shoulder-length hair into a ponytail, put on her favorite blue baseball cap, and turned to go.
Something stopped her at the door. Some odd…feeling. Zoe turned and looked at the mess that was her room, and bent down and picked a backpack up off the floor. Almost without realizing it, she put her sketchpad, pencils, and other drawing tools in the bag, then at the last minute put in what she considered to be her best picture.
Slinging one of the straps over her shoulder and walking out the door, Zoe stopped in the kitchen to leave a note, puzzling over what had just occurred. Why would she be taking her drawing things to the park? She'd be playing capture the flag, so she knew she wouldn't need her things. Things like that didn't happen often, however, so she decided to take her things anyway.
Hurrying out the door and ignoring the looks Julie and Anna shot at her backpack, Zoe tugged on the visor of her hat and went into the garage for her bike. The park wasn't far—she wouldn't need her helmet. Getting on the bike, she rode with Anna and Julie towards the park, still wondering why she'd brought her pencils and paper with her.
When they got to their usual meeting place, a small, open-walled building that was usually called "the shelter," Zoe left her bike among the eleven other bikes and waved a hello to everyone else.
"What's in the backpack?" one of the girls asked.
"Well…" Zoe started, searching her mind for an explanation. "It's in case you have me guard our flag. It would give me something to do to pass the time."
"Oh," the girl said, seeming almost disappointed that she hadn't gotten some juicy story or some such. That must be the reason, Zoe thought. Why else would I have brought art supplies to play a game?
Teams were chosen, and somewhat surprisingly Zoe was picked to lead the team meant to go after the other team's flag. The teams split off, each on their own side of the park. One team would hide their flag, and the other team would plot how to get it.
"I have an idea!" Anna said. Both she and Julie were on Zoe's team, though Zoe had sent Julie around to spy. Standing a little ways off were two other members of Zoe's team, watching for any of the other team's spies. Zoe looked at Anna, who reached up and grabbed the hat off Zoe's head. Placing it on her own head, Anna grinned.
"I get it!" said Isabel, grinning. "You two do look alike, you know. And, if they do like always and go after the captain first, they'll think it's Anna, because she's wearing Zoe's hat!" Zoe smiled, and though not liking being unable to wear her favorite hat, they did have a point, and a good strategy. "In the meantime, Zoe, you go around like usual and sneak out the flag." Zoe nodded, wondering for a second why Isabel wasn't captain.
Almost right after that, Julie returned to say that she knew the location of the other team's flag. Everyone huddled close as she told them what she knew, then split off into groups, Zoe being the only one to go alone, and in a completely different direction. She knew of a few shortcuts to where she was going, and she didn't mind taking her bike to get there.
Jumping onto her bike, she hurriedly rode it into the woods, knowing where the trails were and not wanting to use them, to avoid being seen. Aside from softball and snowboarding, capture the flag was her favorite thing to do, and she had the tendency to take the game a bit too seriously.
Zoning out on one random thought after another, Zoe didn't see the fence ahead of her. She ran into it head-on, flying over her handlebars and, strangely, over the fence. Tumbling through the air, she knew she wasn't going to land on her feet. And even if she did, it wasn't gonna be pretty.
That was her last thought before her world went dark.
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Well? Review and tell me what you think, I PROMISE chapter one will come soon, and I'll get really into the Golden Sun part of the story. Til then, Vil, Kae, Nor, and Ava.