The soft sound of hooves echoed through the valley as Matt Medic and his daughter, Rachel Solace, rode horseback through the unfamiliar land of TalVarloren. The sun was dimming the path, making it hard for the doctor to see; however, his daughter was able to see well in the dark thanks to her moonlain “curse.”

“We should stop and stay the night at the next village,” Matt suggested, as he guided his horse next to Rachel’s horse.

“‘Kay,” Rachel replied with just one word, a sign that she was getting tired. The next village wasn’t far from where they were, as it was just a few miles away.

The second sign of Rachel’s exhaustion was her body language- her ears and tail drooped down, her posture was stooped, and she was extremely quiet. Matt chuckled to himself as he commanded his horse, Clopper, to go up a gait. Rachel soon followed suit, grunting softly and giving her horse, Scout, a gentle poke with her foot.

Soon, the two got to the little mountain village with little to no electricity. It felt like a new world to the two, as they had came from the big city. The only thing that seems like home is the fact that the villagers use monsters and creatures to help with their daily tasks.

Rachel and Matt got off their horses and sent them back to the land of Hyrule, with Rachel’s portal to the royal land, and proceeded to walk through the busy yet quiet village, with the daylight soon fleeting them.

Like clockwork, Rachel’s energy was renewed as she looked around the village with excitement. “Rachel,” Matt said softly to her. “If you want, you can talk to the villagers. I’ll go on ahead to the inn and get us a room.”

“Yes, sir!” Rachel shouted excitedly as she saluted him. With a nod of their heads, the father and daughter duo split up and took off in two different directions.

Rachel approached a middle-aged woman, who was wearing a blue dress, white apron and a cute blue bonnet. She looked at the woman with curiosity before waving. “Good evening!”

The woman looked up at the young beast woman and smiled. “Oh, good evening, dear. Are you a traveler?” The woman asked Rachel as she put her broom to the side.

“Yup.” Solace nodded, as she wagged her tail.” My father, Matt Medic, and I, Rachel Medic, are… well… traveling medics. We-”

The woman’s face suddenly lit up, as if her prayers were answered. “Medics?! Oh, thank goodness! Are you here in regards to the mysterious illness that has plaguing our country of TalVarloren?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Solace nodded. “We were on our way to the capital when… well…” Solace paused, the words were hard for her to say. “The sun… the light. The sun was setting and making it hard for my father and I to see.” She lied. She knew she could see well in the dark. Her father, however, not so much.

“Oh, I see. Well, if you do find out what is causing our illness, will you please let us know… and give us a cure?” The woman asked, worry slowly appearing on her face.

“Will do. We don’t plan to tell any other doctors until this country has the cure.” Rachel reasured. “I know how scummy other doctors are.” Though it was hard to tell, her face went pale. “Scummy bunch.”

The woman laughed. “Well it seems like you have some experiences, Ms. Medic. I hope you enjoy our little town of Wildnisstadt! If you ever need anything, you are free to come to my little bakery. My name is Yalecia.”

“I’m Rachel Medic” Rachel said, forgetting that she already introduced herself. “It’s uh pleasure to meet you.” She paused before waving “Well, I uh.. Better go. Have uh… nice day!” She shouted, with a wave. The woman giggled, as she saw the young beast take off.

Rachel ran into the inn her father was staying at, as her father was paying the clerk up front with some information about various medicianal herbs. “Father!” Rachel shouted excitedly.

Matt turned and looked at his daughter. “Oh, Rachel, you’re back.” he said, glad to see her. Rachel ran and hugged her father, her tail wagging. He continued. “I got us a room,” Matt began to say, which room they were in, but she paid no attention to what he said, and instead looked around the little quaint inn. Matt placed a hand on Rachel’s shoulder, smiled and lead her to the room they were sleeping in.

The next morning, Rachel woke up and ran out of the inn, excitement building within her. As she ran towards a popular lookout point in the city, she happily greeted Yalecia, who was at her store sweeping. “Good morning Ms. Yalecia!” Rachel cried out.

“Morning, Ms. Medic!” Yalecia replied. As the moonlain girl fled her sights, something within Yalecia changed. She suddenly dropped the broom, and started to follow after her, slowly.

Rachel reached the lookout point, her eyes glimmering. What she heard about the village’s forest lookout point wasn’t wrong. The colorful forest that edged the city glistened in the morning sun’s light. Its beauty had stolen the moonlain girl’s attention. That was until she heard footsteps behind her. She turned around to see the city folk, slowly staggering towards her, their eyes vacant of any light.

Fear quickly set in her chest, as she thought she had nowhere to go. That was when she looked down the cliff that the Forest Lookout stood upon- a fountain laid at the bottom. With no other choice, she jumped over the railing and landed in the fountain with a harsh thud. Her ankle screamed in pain, but she ignored it, as she rushed through the village streets. As she rushed through the streets, she glanced around to see other villagers wearing the same vacant expression… and then… she saw her father, with the same expression as the rest of the townsfolk. Her eyes widen, as she kept running, looking for a safe place.

She took a sharp left into a little alleyway, before skidding to a stop and quickly hiding behind some boxes, her heart was pounding in her ears. She peeked over the boxes, seeing if anyone was coming after her, unaware of the individual behind her.

Rachel was surprised by the sudden attack, as a giant blade attacked her from behind, causing her to collapse. Dazed and slightly stunned from the opening attack, Rachel turned around to see a woman, about her size, hovering above her. Rachel gasped as she backflipped, dodging another one of the woman’s attacks. Rachel retaliated with an attack of her own, as a blast of hot fire from her mouth. The woman blocked the attack and launched her sword. The moonlain backflipped to dodge the attack but slip and fell at the landing, due to her injured ankle.

Rachel looked up at her attacker, eyes voided of much empathy. With one final breath, Rachel closed her eyes and awaited the killing blow… and like always, she felt no pain from that final attack…

Her body collapsed but made no sound, as she landed in the arms of a person standing behind her. A tall man, that was leaning to match her hight, with a syringe in his other hand. His face was hard to read, due to the brown paper bag over his head.

“Doctor?” The woman asked, though her voice was soft, it carried little emotion, though not totally robotic.

“Hmmm.” The Doctor pondered, as he carefully placed the beast on her back and carefully examed her. “She doesn’t seem to be effected by the strange phenomenon that plagued this city…” He paused before picking her up again and cradling her in one arm. “Let us take her back and await for her awakening”

###

“Am I still alive?” was the only question that lingered in her mind, as the sound of voices pulled her out of what could only be described as an endless darkness. As she wandered aimlessly through the darkness, a bright light came from behind her and filled her comforting shadows with the overstimulating white. Rachel covered her eyes as she winced from the harsh light. While her eyes adjusted to the bright light, the shadow of a young teen boy stood in front of her.

“Oh I’m sorry, is the light too much for you? Though I suppose a creature with fur that is dark as night can’t handle the bright lights- though I suppose thats just your species. Strange that you are neither human nor gear, though I could categorize you as an animal yet you don’t seem to be like an animal because you have a mind of your own and you do not lack the stupidity of most if not all animals. Well I have an animosity towards long and boring conversations. The spotlight is on you, so entertain me, what exactly are you?!”

Rachel sighed, “For someone who hates long and boring conversations…” Her defeated look turned into a scowl “You sure love to monologue… I’m a moonlain! And next time, don’t ramble so much! I have the attention span and memory of a goldfish, maybe shorter. And who-”

Before she could continue the boy laughed “Oh you’re so funny. Well your little harmless theory about goldfish is false because they do not have a nine-second attention span, like most human suggests, and they also have a memory that lasts up to five months. Though with the rise of what people call “brainrot”, humans are starting to have short attention spans. Tell me, Ms. Moonlain, you implied that you have a short attention span, but is it because you watch too much TV? Or maybe because you seek something more… exciting?” The boy paused, almost as if he was waiting for Rachel’s response.

Frustrated, Rachel sighed out loud. “Do you like hearing your own voice?! Did your parents not give you enough attention so now you wander the Soul Realm, looking for people to harass with your vernacular?” Rachel walked up to the boy, shoved him aside, and continued walking before stopping and glaring at him. “Look, none of that matters! I just want to know who you are! Oh and the name is Rachel! Not moonlain!”

The boy laughed once more, still amused by Rachel. “Well, since you're desperate to get answers, I will simply say no. This is not your so-called “Soul Realm.” Unless that is what you call your dreams. As for your state of being, you are very much alive, as well as being asleep. The little scrap you had with Ms. Ramathal Valantine was not as painful as you had perceived. Perhaps the anxiety of losing someone you love made you.. Well… weak. Plus, the final blow you were expecting was just a simple anesthetic. As for my name, you may refer to me as Bedman. A-” Bedman suddenly stopped as Rachel laughed at his name. He turned to Rachel and glared at her. “What is so funny?!”

“Bed-man?!” Rachel said mid-laugh. “I’m sorry, out of all of the people and big baddies I’ve faced, Bedman just takes the cake! What are you?! Some sleeping robot master?!”

Bedman glared at Rachel as he shrugged, “I’m sure you’ve fought plenty of adversaries with ridiculous names, I should assure you that I am not here to have a little fight, but rather I was asked to watch over you.”

Rachel’s eyes narrowed as she glared at Bedman. “Who? Who sent you to watch over me?!”

Before Rachel’s question was answered, Bedman vanished and the white room suddenly went pitch black again.

###

Rachel opened her eyes slowly, greeted by a man wearing a paper bag over his head. Rachel gasped as she scrambled to sit up, statled by the man.

“Woah, woah! It’s okay, Ms. Rachel Solace!” The man calmly spoke up. Rachel froze at the sound of her own name. She recognized that voice before.

“Doctor… Doctor Faust?” She softly asked, looking up and down at the man. It clicked with her that she was in his clinic… but she didn’t know where his clinic was. The soft click of the door alerted both the Doctor and Rachel, as she looked to the door, but the doctor didn’t even bat an eye at the door- or so it seemed. The person at the door was none other than- “B-brown?!” Rachel cried out in shock.

“Hey, Kiddo.” Brown said, softly. “How are you feeling?”

Rachel thought about it, she wanted to tell them about “Bedman”, the boy in her dream. But she figured it was just a weird dream and had no meaning. “Fine.”

Faust stood up and clapped his hands. “We shall see how fine you are. Ready for some tests?” He asked, the eye-hole he had on his bag glistened with a shine of excitement.

Rachel pinned her ears back, as she looked at brown. Rachel Brown walked up to faust and tried to placed her hand on his shoulder, but could only reach his lower back. “Faust, don’t overwhelm her with tests, especailly mental ones… those stress her out.”

Faust shook his head “I wasn’t planning on giving her a mental evaluation. I was going to give her one more of her style… A fighting evaluation.”

Rachel’s ears perked up, as she jumped out of the bed and harshly landed on her ankle. But she couldn’t feel any pain from her ankle. Either way, she couldn’t ignore a fight- especially one to test her fighting skills. Brown looked at Rachel with worry and ran to her. “Rachel Ella Solace Medic! Slow down, your ankle-!”

“No need to worry about that!” Faust reassured Brown. “I treated that while you were away” Faust then turned to Solace, ignoring the look of concern on Brown’s face. “So, Ms. Solace, are you ready?” He asked, as his trusty scalpel appeared out of nowhere and into his hand. He then knelt down, making sure it was a fair fight for the 5’3 beast, while Rachel brown backed away, as to not get in the middle of their training.

Rachel smirked as she summoned her sword and ran toward faust. The sound of their weapons clanged against each other, Rachel smirked as she used her tail to grab hold of faust’s knee. In a flash she dropped her sword and grabbed onto the blade of his scalpel, causing faust to try and stand up, and fling her off. Her tail slipped off of his knee, but she knew what to do next- swing off of his scapel and kick him in the chest.

“Wuff!” Faust grunted, as he had two paws slam into his chest. “Alright, thats enough!” He said. Rachel Brown looked at faust, with a smug “I told you so” look, but knew he wasn’t looking. “It seems that you’re still capable of fighting.”

Rachel smirked as she let go of faust’s weapon and did a backflip before standing straight up. “So what’s the meaning of all this? Why did you want to test my fighting skills?”

“We need you, Sols.” Brown said, as she walked up to the younger one. “Your world is in danger… Theres some kind of… virus… going on.” She explained

“Or so we theorize that its a virus. We do know a common symptom though; slow and exaderated movements, almost similar to a zombie.” Faust added on

“However, when they find their target, they seem to get extremly fast. But what their target is… that’s just a mystery.” Rachel brown paused before sighing, and looking back up at Rachel Solace. “You and Dr. Matt… you were in the land of TalVarloren, researching a mysterious illness, right?” Solace silently nodded, as Brown continued. “Did either one of you treat anyone yet?”

“No… We had just settled in the little village of Wildnisstadt when, in the morning, they had started acting strange… including…” Solace paused, as she looked down at the ground, an image flashed in her mind of her father wearing the vacant expression that the others had. Voice shaking, she uttered the words. “Including father… and then… I was attacked….”

Rachel Brown softened her expression, as she saw the joyful spark in her eyes slowly went away. “It’s alright, Rachel… That woman that attacked you… She’s with us. Her name is Ramlathal Valintine”

Rachel looked up, a bit confused. “Ramlathal?”

Rachel Brown nodded “Yeah, we had to send her after you… To make sure you weren’t infected yet… And you passed that… though I do apologize”

Rachel smiled and shook her head “No, no, its fine. I understand. If my ankle wasn’t hurting earlier, I would of enjoyed it.” She laughed

Brown straightened up her back and smiled “Well, thats good. Well then, one last thing. Darkness Hunter Squad Commander Rachel Ella “Zero” Solace Medic, would you assist us in finding a cure for this mysterious illness. Will you accept this Mission?”

Solace looked up, the spark in her eyes returning, as she stood up straight and went straight into a salute. “As the Squad Commander of the Zero Company, I, Darkness Hunter Rachel “Zero” Solace Medic accept the mission!”

Rachel Brown nodded, as she turned to Faust. “Doctor Faust, as an eyewitness to this, you are obligated to alert any offical darkness hunters and/or their affiliates if questions arise about this mission and the members are involved.”

Faust, who was watching the whole mission statement, nodded. “Alright, Ms. Brown.”

Rachel Solace laughed as she deflated her serious stance. “Are you seriously trying to be this offical?”

“Hey, its standard protocol. Besides, you’re in my world.” Rachel Brown said plainly. “I’m the Commander of the Rising D-Hunters.” She smiled. “When Sanford and I aren’t working for your Darkness Hunters, we’re rebuilding the Darkness Hunters here. We had to change the name so the civilians aren’t scared of us.”

“I see.” Rachel Solace said with a nod. “So, what is my first mission?” Rachel asked, looking around the room.

Rachel Brown laughed. “Well, we don’t have a full mission yet, however I want you to explore Revival City.”

“Revival City?” Solace asked, as she turned to Brown and tilted her head. “So… your Neo Heart City is called Revival City?”

Brown laughed softly “Its… still growing.”

Solace nodded, as she walked up to the door, but was stopped by Faust. “Wait!” Faust darted to the door and opened it. Through the door was a glimpse of Revival City, which freaked Solace out.


“Wait?! We’re IN Revival city?!” Solace shouted

“No.” Brown sighed. “That’s just one of Faust’s special abilities. Its no diffrent than our portal abilites.” Brown explained. “He has a strange way of creating portals.”

Solace nodded as she walked through the door and into the city.

As she walked out of the floating magical door, large damaged buildings surrounded her. As she stared at the buildings, the door behind her closed and disappeared, which startled Rachel at first, but she got used to it rather quickly.

Rachel couldn’t help but stare at the various marks that the buildings had- from burn and magical damages to large slashes that nearly sliced buildings in two. She began to wander through the city, exiting the forest of wounded buildings and entered the new and unfamiliar district of Revival City.