Chapter 1: The Next Quest
Epona's hooves trudged slowly across the bridge towards Ordon Village. On her back, Link took in the setting sun of twilight, feeling a certain sadness that once felt strange to him at this hour. It wasn't the sadness of his world intersecting with another as he was once told by his mentor, Rusl, but sadness of the memories he shared with Midna.
Midna had been Link's companion through all the trials he had been through to restore light to the land of Hyrule. Through their travels, Link found himself, once or twice, seeing Midna as more than just a companion. These had only been fleeting fancies, however, and he hadn't much time to think about them.
It was when the two of them parted ways that Link realized just how much she had meant to him. Her departure left him feeling as though a piece of him had left with her through the mirror to the Twilight Realm.
Link sighed quietly at the sight of the setting sun in the distance, mulling over the thoughts of what could have been. These thoughts spurred him to take a quick detour to think.
"Come on, Epona. We're not going home just yet, girl," Link said to his horse. He steered her to the waters of Ordon Spring where the faeries lived.
Epona approached the edge of the water to take a drink as Link climbed off of her back. He stood next to her, patting her side as he watched the faeries dance and flit about above the water. He stood there for several minutes, watching them, remembering. Seeing them reminded him of the black specks of darkness that drifted about during his travels in the Twilight Realm. He put his hand in his pocket and rotated the shard of darkness that Midna had slipped in there before she left, as a memento of their time together.
Link lightly shook his head to clear it of his thoughts of Midna. "I can't keep dwelling on this, girl," he said to Epona. Though she was only a horse, she seemed like the only thing he could talk to at the moment. "After all, now that the mirror's shattered I'm never going to see her again." Epona lifted her head from her drink and let out a small nicker. Hearing this was all Link needed to decide to head home. After all, there were people who were waiting for him.
The kids of the village: Beth, Colin, Malo and Talo would be overjoyed to see him back home, safe and sound.
Rusl was about to have another child, and Link didn't want to miss it's arrival for anything.
Fado? He would be completely lost without Link helping him to herd the goats. That guy lost more goats than he corralled whenever Link wasn't around.
And Ilia. Link's thoughts almost stopped when she entered his mind. Though he couldn't deny his feelings for Midna, Ilia was someone who had always been there. She was the one who Link had journeyed across the land to find. And when she had forgotten him, restoring her memory had become his foremost motive. He had cared for her during that adventure more than he ever realized. A new thought occurred to Link: Midna was unattainable, but Ilia wasn't.
With a newfound lightheartedness, Link grabbed Epona's reins to guide her back to the town. "Come on, let's go home," he said to his equine companion. They were barely at the exit from the spring when Link suddenly became aware of a strange sound.
As though from a great distance, Link heard the sounds of war cries and clashing steel as though a Great War was nearby. His lighthearted mood quickly turned to panic. Had more monsters followed him? Was there going to be another raid on the village?
Steeling himself, Link drew his sword and shield, ready for whatever was to come. He was not prepared to see the waters of Ordon spring illuminate with a brilliant golden light, however. Seeing this, Link approached the waters as Epona nervously backed away from the spring. The golden light began to darken as Link cautiously approached the center of the spring. Looking down, the water suddenly changed to show a reflection on it's surface. Not a reflection of the sky and trees, as would have been ordinary, but what Link saw was a burning village in an unfamiliar countryside. Peasants from the village were chased out by giant, brutish beasts that rode on the backs of fierce wolf-like creatures.
Link saw these beasts and immediately drew a connection to the twilight beasts that had tried to impede his progress before. Upon getting a better look at them, he saw that they were different than what he had originally fought. Their proportions were closer to that of a hylian's but their faces were cruel and vicious. Their faces were black as the night and had vicious looking scars that disfigured them. To add to their disfigured appearances, they had the most grotesque body modifications Link had seen. Their faces were covered with piercings and tattoos of a white hand.
Link watched this scene, not sure if it was real. If this was actually happening somewhere, who could stop it?
"Hero of the twilight…"
A voice called from nowhere, snapping Link's attention to looking for the source, but to no luck.
"Accept our quest…"
The words confused Link. No sooner did he finish one quest did he have to start another? What kind of deal was that? On top of it all, Link had no idea where to begin. His thoughts were interrupted when suddenly a beastly hand reached out of the water at his feet and grabbed his ankle.
Link gave a startled shout as he was suddenly dragged downward as though a hole had suddenly appeared beneath him. He tried to find a grip, hopelessly dragging his fingertips into the dirt to stop himself from being pulled in. Links attempts at stopping himself failed as his head went underwater.
After less than a second, the water was replaced with air that was thick with the smell of smoke and blood.
"Well, well. Look what we got here: some elf-scum trying to use some trick to hide like a coward," a rough voice said.
Link struggled to get his bearings. When he finally oriented himself, he found that he was greeted by the same foul creatures he saw in the water.
"Ooh, he has some shiny toys. I want it," said the other creature.
"Take what you want, but the shield's mine," the first one said.
"Oh no you don't! I want the shield!"
The second creature shoved the first. The first one shoved back, "You wouldn't even know how to use it, you rat-for-brains lout!"
Using the distraction Link recovered from the ground to a combat ready position, holding his sword and shield ready. The two creatures wasted no time getting their weapons ready and charging Link like a pair of wild animals.
Link's combat lessons flashed in his mind. His hand casually waited on hilt of his sword until the last possible fraction of a second. Just as the first creature's sword came bearing down on his face, in one fluid motion Link spun out of the way and slashed at the monster, taking off both it's head, and a part of it's arm.
Using the momentum he gained from dodging the first blow, he raised his shield to block the blow of the second creature. Though successful, the blow was powerful enough to nearly make Link buckle under it. Link realized these creatures were much stronger than they seemed. But he had faced opponents many times the size of these creatures, and he would not be bested by them.
He forcefully kicked the monster in it's stomach, making it fall on it's back. Remembering his first lesson, he jumped high into the air and brought the point of his sword down hard into the creature's neck, severing it's head as he had done to the first, and driving his sword into the ground.
Link pulled his sword from the ground, gave it a few twirls, and sheathed the sword, "There, fewer monsters to worry about now." Link said to himself.
Bbbbbaaaarrrr!
Startled by the new sound, Link whipped his head towards the direction of the sound to see another creature like the ones he just fought on a nearby hill. Unlike the others, this one was mounted on the back of a large beast that looked like a wolf, only it's shoulders were much higher and it was much larger. There was only one, so Link assumed it to be a scout. He quickly drew his bow and notched an arrow.
In less than a second, he aimed the arrow so that when it was released, it flew right into the creature's face, silencing it. His reaction was too late. No sooner did the scout die did an entire pack of riders head towards him over the hill. He knew that without a mount of his own, he wouldn't stand a chance against this number of enemies. He quickly sheathed his weapons.
"Oh no! I gotta get outta here," he said, turning to run in the other direction. As he sprinted away, he looked for a quick escape. Directly ahead of him, a short distance away, he saw a cliffside which led to a deep ravine in the mountain.
Without thinking, he ran faster to build momentum for a jump. Once he did jump, he threw his spinner under his feet, activating it when he landed. The disk beneath him came alive and took off in a burst of speed.
Link rode for almost fifty feet before the spinner began to lose momentum. "No! Not now! Damn this thing," Link cursed this contraption. It had only been useful to him for a brief time during his previous adventure. Any other time he needed to get anywhere, he just rode Epona or teleported. "Where are Epona and Midna when I need them?"
He looked over his shoulder and saw the wolf riders coming closer and closer to him. Looking ahead, he saw the ravine coming closer and closer. All he needed was a little more momentum. Just enough to carry him to the edge. The spinner slowed down, threatening to stop just short of the cliff. Link tensed up as the cliff edged closer.
Link couldn't take it any more. He reached one foot to the ground and pushed off hard, giving the spinner the extra push it needed to go over the edge of the ravine. He only barely got his balance on the spinner as it proceeded to plummet down the steep edges. Link only briefly looked back to see the furious faces of his pursuers, who had been cheated out of their prey. Link refocused his attention to what was ahead as he hooted and hollered like a madman for this escape.
As Link approached the bottom, he grew worried that he may be going too fast to slow down. His fears were well founded, as when he reached to bottom of the ravine, the spinner's edge struck the flat ground and sent Link flying. He rolled to a hard stop as he slammed his entire body on a nearby rock. Before he stopped, the shard of twilight had flown from his pocket and landed on the top of the rock that stopped him.
Consciousness left him as the shard of twilight teetered at the top of the rock. With only a small twitch forward, it fell from it's perch and landed on top of Link's left hand. The triforce in his hand briefly glowed as his body absorbed the dark stone.
After absorbing the stone, Link's body underwent a change some would call horrifying. Darkness enveloped his body and twisted and contorted his features to beastly proportions. When it was all done, the darkness burst, leaving behind not a hylian in a green tunic, but a black and white wolf with a shackle around one of it's legs and intricate patterns of fur on it's head.
Hours past as the wolf-turned hylian laid there, unconscious at the rocky bottom of the ravine. The sun disappeared over the horizon as footsteps approached Link's unconscious form. What came from the nearby shadows was a hooded figure. It looked from side to side, as though searching for something. It's eyes were soon drawn to the form of the unconscious animal. It turned to the path behind it.
"My lord, over here," the hooded figure beckoned in an unknown language, "I've found something."
The hooded figure was joined by another. This one was taller than the first, carrying an air of importance about it. It seemed to radiate the feeling of power from it's entire being as though blessed by Din herself. It examined the wolf with objectivity, sensing something unusual about it.
"This is no ordinary wolf…" the second figure muttered, sensing a power with the beast.
"Is it the being you foresaw, Lord Elrond," inquired the first. The one called Elrond carefully observed the wolf before him before answering.
"Perhaps so...What I saw in my vision was that an agent of darkness was to serve the cause of the light. This wolf though: it certainly does have an unusual feel about it. One that is similar to darkness, but somehow different. How, I am not sure."
"Then, what should we do with it?"
"As we have no leads besides this, we take it to Rivendell."
A/N greetings everybody it's deadpool here to bring you a hot and spicy shiny and brand spanking new fan fic! im excited you should be to! be excited or die!
Dude, Wade, what the hell are you doing here?
bitch slapping these drips before the main show! hey who wants to hear me play the 1812 overture with my armpit!?
Wade, you see the chimichanga? You see it? Go get it.
CHIMICHANGAS! I LOVE MY CHIMICHANGAAAAAAAS!
Now that the jackass parade is over, why don't we say what we came here to say? This is our new fanfic that just came out of left field from our Devil May Cry X Black Lagoon project, and please read and review (you're feedback is important) and flamers: you will be thrown into the evil fires that forged you. Unless you have a good point to make. Good points don't include your personal disdain for either series. Have fun.
en taro adun!
