Chapter 4: Separation and Reunion

The three of us were running for half an hour before we caught up to the Battleship Halberd, and as we went I explained my situation to Snake the same way I explained it to Link a while ago. After attempting to chase the Halberd for quite some time, we eventually made it to a hillside that looked rather barren. In fact, the only thing that we could see in the distance was dust and an abandoned castle to our right. Again the sky was dark red due to the Halberd flying over this war-torn wasteland.

"Hmm, that Halberd is still in our sights, but it seems like we'll never catch up if we keep going at the rate we've been going," Snake hypothesized. Link seemed to brush off Snake's statement, or at least that was what I thought had happened seeing as he randomly decided to rush ahead of us. It was obvious that there was no way that we were going to stop him, so Snake and I followed him, biting our tongues to keep from commenting. We kept going until we got to the edge of a short cliff that was pretty close to the castle, almost the distance of two football fields.

"This is nice. We've been chasing that ship for hours and we haven't been attacked once since we started pursuing it," I groaned. I must have jinxed us, since at the very moment I said that, a low rumbling sound came from behind us. We turned around to see the giant, ugly face of the Koopa King, Bowser.

"Wow, that's just perfect. This day just keeps getting better and better!" I said with an obvious ring of sarcasm. Bowser replied with his version of an evil laugh, and then he said, "What luck! I managed to run into two fine fighters and…a little girl?" It was evident that like the other residents of this world, Bowser had no clue about my identity.

"My name is Brooke. That's all you need to know. And I already know that you're Bowser, King of the Koopas. Don't ask me how I know that."

"I don't care. Your company tells me enough."

"Huh?" I asked with a weird look.

"Enough!" Bowser roared. "I've come for your cohorts. Step aside, pest, or suffer the consequences!"

I could almost hear the battle music playing.

"You'll have to fight us first!" Snake and I both declared as we got into battle stances. Link immediately followed example with his battle stance. He whipped out his bow and readied an arrow aimed at Bowser. Snake brought up his fists, and I brandished the Master Sword (Link refused to take back his sword from me until I obtained some kind of weapon of my own, so I was still using his sword). We were ready to kick his ass. Bowser merely growled at us and showed off his own battle stance as he readied his claws.

"Do you really expect to win when there are three of us and only one of you?" Snake questioned. Bowser simply laughed at that, and then he waved one of his hands. At that gesture he summoned a small army of Goombas, Koopas, and Hammer Bros as well as a false version of himself – you know, a form of Bowser with a purple aura and yellow eyes. Snake was somewhat taken aback at the sudden increase in the numbers on the enemy side. He groaned and muttered, "Me and my big mouth."

"Thanks, Snake," I replied sarcastically. "Let's just take out the troops so that we can deal with both Bowser and his evil…er cousin!" I needed some better lines.

Link didn't hesitate for one second as he made the initiative. He fired his arrows at the front of the enemy line, which took out a few Goombas right away. I charged at the closest Hammer Bros I could hit, swinging the sword as I charged. Two Hammer Bros got hit, but the other one managed to block it. Snake remained at a distance as he fired his missiles at a group of Koopas and Goombas. The missiles eliminated them and sent more enemies flying back from the minor explosions. More Hammer Bros appeared and threw their hammers at Snake, but Link sent them flying back with the Gale Boomerang, knocking them out.

I continued slashing at Goombas and Koopas until I made my way back towards False Bowser, and I gave him the 'bring it on' stance. False Bowser roared at me, and we engaged in a one-on-one fight. Seeing this, Link jumped over the enemy formation and attacked them from the other side in order to prevent the troops from ambushing me while I was preoccupied with a stronger enemy combatant. He threw bomb after bomb into groups of Koopas and Hammer Bros until a few remained. Snake considered it safe to enter the fray, so he charged head-on into Goombas and kicked them hard, and he followed up by throwing more Goombas into the Koopas and off the cliff. Link kicked the remaining Hammer Bros into the rest of the Goombas, while Snake blasted away the last of the Koopas. Noticing that no more troops remained, Link and Snake proceeded to help me fight False Bowser.

The fight started out pretty rough, to say the least. I couldn't get very close to False Bowser because of his fire attacks. After that he rammed into me, causing me to lose my balance and fall on my face. I quickly got up and returned fire…er…blade. As he attempted to swipe his claws at me, I rolling-dodged around him, and I stabbed his tail into the ground. I bet that hurt! I thought in amusement as soon as False Bowser roared in pain. I pulled out the sword, stepped on his tail, and climbed up his shell, proceeding to sit on his head. False Bowser tried to shake me off while I repeatedly pummeled him with the hilt. After a minute of that he threw me off, but I landed firmly on my feet, ready to strike again. Snake, however, kept me back, allowing Link to throw several bombs at False Bowser. False Bowser caught some of them, but they all exploded on contact, and he dissolved into Shadow Bugs and disappeared.

"Yes, we did it! Oh yeah, we're that awesome!" I jubilated.

"So awesome that we let the real Bowser escape…" Snake sighed. I forgot that the real Bowser was here and that he snuck away while we were busy fending off his troops. Suddenly a stray object hit me and sent me careening several yards towards the castle walls. I didn't hit the wall, but I struck the ground next to it, and since it was sand it cushioned my fall.

"What the hell?! Who did that?!" I yelled in sheer frustration. Link and Snake saw me go flying, and they noticed that Bowser had attacked from above. His troops were merely a distraction so that he could surprise attack us, and it sure worked. Link jumped from the cliff and ran as fast as he possibly could towards me. Snake stayed back and attempted to deal with Bowser as he floated in his flying clown mobile or whatever it was called. Snake tried to throw grenades at Bowser, but Bowser easily dodged them all in his weird aircraft.

"Ha! None for you, Snake!" Bowser yelled. "Now you'll have to watch as I unleash one of my strongest weapons, and I think I'll aim it at…you!" At his words he pulled out a giant gun-like thing known as the Dark Cannon, but he didn't aim it at Snake; instead he pointed the huge cannon at me! At that moment Link had arrived at my side and stood firmly between my impending doom and myself. He must have known that this was going to occur; otherwise he would have directly confronted Bowser along with Snake. Just as Bowser was charging up a powerful blast from the Dark Cannon, I heard another voice speak, one that wasn't quite familiar.

"I'm here for you!" the normally silent Link cried to me. Did he just speak? I thought, rather confused and surprised. I guessed at first that I was just hearing things, but then I confirmed the reality of his words by the fact that his head was turned to the side, allowing me to see his lips moving along with the sound of his words. I suddenly felt more motivated by that, so I smiled. He returned a smile and then turned to face Bowser again. At that point Bowser had fully charged the Dark Cannon and fired. Snake could only look on as a black and yellow arrow shot out and sped towards Link and me, but Link firmly stood his ground. He readied his shield in front of him to deflect the arrow, and it looked like it would work—that is, until another stray attack hit Link's right arm from the side, completely knocking the shield out of his hand and sending it flying fifteen feet away, and unfortunately it left him wide open. The arrow was thirty feet away from hitting him when this happened.

"LINK! NO!" I yelled, staring wide-eyed in horror, but it felt in vain. I tried to do something, but it was too late. After he saw his shield get knocked away, Link only had time to look back at the arrow in utter horror, and it hit him square in the center of his chest. It went through him and sent him flying back towards the castle wall in a blinding white light. I could hear a cry of agony from him ringing in my ears before the light dissipated. When I could see again, all that was left in my view was Link's fallen trophy.

"Damn, I missed!" Bowser snarled in annoyance. "But no matter; it worked out for me anyways. I may have missed the sniveling pest of a young lady, but I managed to strike the all-powerful Hylian!" He laughed and proceeded to strike again, but Snake was smarter than that as he shot a missile at the Dark Cannon and destroyed it in his face. Bowser's blackened face scrunched up in anger and looked back at Snake.

"None for you, Bowser," Snake calmly mocked. Bowser was quick to ignore the mockery as he flew towards Link's trophy and me, but I didn't notice him, nor did I care at the moment. I crawled over to Link to make some kind of attempt to reverse everything that just happened in the past few seconds.

"Link! Come on, get up! Say something!" I cried. I continued to make any attempt I could at reviving the fallen Link, and that's when a lump formed in my throat. Clearly I was upset about this, because my swollen throat was an indicator of such an emotion. Tears began to involuntarily fall down my cheeks when I had a realization: I could revive Link by touching the base of his trophy! So I did…but nothing happened. Damn! Why didn't that work? I thought, incredibly frustrated, almost angered. Then I noticed that something wasn't right with his trophy: the base was a dull gray color, rather than the typical bronze color of other trophies.

Before I had time to fully register this information, Bowser swooped in over me, carrying some kind of grappling claw. It was similar to Link's Clawshot, but it looked more Koopa-like. He fired it, and a giant Koopa claw shot forward, picked up Link's trophy, and retracted back towards Bowser.

"Gotcha!" Bowser exclaimed as he ripped the claw off the trophy and placed the trophy next to him in his aircraft.

"Bowser! Let go of Link right now, you stupid turtle!" I yelled angrily at him.

"Hmm, let me think about that…no! HA!" Bowser answered. With that he took off into the red sky with the now captured Link, his evil laugh echoing as he flew into the distance. I tried to pursue the aircraft, but something else caught my eye: Snake had arrived at my side, and he was trying to direct my attention towards something behind me. I turned around and saw something that wasn't exactly anything I wanted to see at that moment.

The Ancient Minister appeared with a Subspace Bomb attached to him. He dropped the bomb near us as two R.O.B.s appeared and activated the bomb and its timer. Oh shit… was all I could think as I backed away slowly, and then I saw Link's shield lying near the bomb. I dashed to pick up the Hylian Shield as I saw the Ancient Minister fly away, leaving us to a horrible fate. I quickly turned about face and ran with Link's sword and shield, hoping to get as far away from the inevitable explosion as I could. Snake caught up to me, also trying to get away.

"I have an idea!" Snake yelled to me. He activated Cypher, his mini helicopter-thing, and grabbed onto me by my waist. I was slightly startled by that, but I regained my senses and took hold of one of the handles attached to Cypher as Snake took hold of the other handle. With the Master Sword looped in my belt and the Hylian Shield on my arm, I held onto Snake as he held me, so that neither of us would lose our grip and fall. Soon we were flying higher and higher in the direction of Bowser's aircraft. Way behind us down below, the Subspace Bomb exploded and created a giant sphere of subspace that absorbed the castle and all that was near it, including the two R.. Without even a second glance behind us we continued to follow Bowser, and only one thought was in my mind at that moment: Don't worry, Link. I promise I'll save you no matter what tries to get in my way. You can be sure of that.

You can also be sure that I'm going to make sure Snake gets some faster transportation.

Snake and I had been flying for what seemed like hours, although it was only forty-five minutes. My arm was starting to get tired from holding onto Cypher for so long, but I wasn't about to let go, not now. I didn't want to fall to my death, and I had a mission to complete before I could even begin to give up. With Snake's help I had to save Link.

Scenes of the encounter with Bowser and the Ancient Minister continuously played in my head – the battle against Bowser's minions and his fake self, the attack on Link, his lifeless trophy form, the Ancient Minister dropping a Subspace Bomb to detonate – all of it was giving me a headache, and I could think of nothing else, except perhaps of Link's voice, the only thought that was giving me any sort of comfort at the moment.

His voice was nice; it had a ring of determination to it, but it wasn't like any other determined voice I heard. His voice was rather…perfect. Link's voice echoing in my ears seemed like the equivalent of a siren singing to a man's ear, but without the drastically negative effect. His voice was also rather mysterious. It seemed like it had some kind of power I didn't understand. For example, when he stood between Bowser and me, he spoke to me, and the feeling of dread I had beforehand was completely flooded away and replaced by a feeling of optimism. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining; but I do like his voice. Did I mention that it was incredibly sexy? I was about to think more on that, until…

"Uh-oh…" Snake muttered. Cypher was beginning to lose power and run down.

"Not good…" I added. We slowly descended as Cypher powered down, but as soon as it completely shut off, we fell even faster. Fortunately we were falling sideways as well as down, and the ground was not too far below us. We finally hit the ground and skidded on our feet as much as possible before we tumbled and rolled to a stop. We must have skidded a good three hundred feet before we came to a complete stop.

"Ah, we made it down in one peace, Snake," I began with a sigh of relief. "…er…Snake?" He didn't respond right away, so I looked behind me and saw him on his face, holding an inactive Cypher.

"Please put your tray tables up and your seats in the up position. Keep your seat belts fastened until the plane comes to a complete stop. Thank you!" Snake responded, apparently sounding very drunk and dizzy. He then shook his head and regained his senses. I giggled.

"Nice one, Snake!" I told him. He merely gave me a look that seemed to lack any expression, with the exception of a subtle smirk that he could barely hold back. I guessed that he was trying not to laugh. Looking away he put away the now temporarily useless Cypher, stood up, and said, "Until I can get this thing recharged, we'll have to travel by foot." Aww man, more walking, I thought before I took in my new surroundings.

We had ended up far away from the abandoned castle and its desert wasteland. This new area seemed more lush and pretty. I could see plenty of trees and green grass, and we were standing near the edge of a lake. The sky was a pretty blue, which meant that the Halberd as well as Bowser and his aircraft were far away from us.

"NO! We lost them!" I yelled, gritting my teeth and clenching my fists in anger. Snake was rather taken aback by my sudden outburst of frustration, and he tried to console me.

"Calm down, er…Brooke. We'll find the Halberd, take Bowser down, and rescue Link. Trust me on this." I merely glared and quickly gave up after peering into his rather dedicated eyes.

"You're right, Snake, I'm sorry," I replied. With a sigh I relaxed my hands and recontrolled my temper. "But how are we going to find them? We don't even know where they went, and we have no leads on their destination." Snake stroked his chin and pondered this point.

"I don't know. But since we don't have a lead, we'll just have to wait until something comes up. In the meantime, you could try and find your friends." He suggested.

"Snake, you're a genius!" I replied as I snapped my fingers. "I'll just do this!" I brushed my hair aside and touched my neck and the tattoo on it, and the visions began again.

This time it started with Jim crawling through an air vent as he followed Zero Suit Samus, and I heard him say, "Is this a good idea, Samus?" He also had the tattoo on his left hand. As I saw him bonk his head on the air vent wall, the scene changed. Kitty and Renee were with Peach and Zelda as they all hid from Subspace enemies. They obviously weren't having fun. Peach suddenly turned into a trophy, and Kitty was grabbed from behind, and as they got dragged away from Renee and Zelda, the scene changed again. I could see Candace again, and she was sitting against a tree, catching her breath. Next to her a few yards away she could see a downed Wolfen, smoking from the damage it must have taken. It was lying near the edge of a lake, and so was-

"Candace!" I cried as my view reverted back to Snake. "She's nearby! Come on, Snake!" I dashed off in the direction of the lake, and Snake immediately followed. I made my way through the trees until I got to the clearing surrounding the lake. To my right I saw smoke rising from the Wolfen, so I ran towards that direction. As soon as I got close, Candace slowly came into my sights.

I grinned in anticipation. "Hey! Candace!" I called as I waved my arms like a psycho and ran to her.

Candace glanced in four other directions before she saw me. Her eyes widened in disbelief. "Brooke? YO, BROOKE!" She called back exuberantly and with a smile. I finally reached her and knelt next to her.

"Are you okay, Candace? You're not hurt or anything, are you?" I questioned.

"No…I'm just…really…exhausted…" She breathed heavily. It took a few seconds for her to finally catch her breath, and then she added, "I landed on top of the Wolfen when we got here, and boy was he not happy. He flipped me off his jet and to the ground where he then decided to fire his lasers at me, so I ran as fast and as far away from him as I could, but he still kept chasing me. He wouldn't leave me alone!"

"I'm guessing he as in Wolf, right?" Snake asked us. Just as he said that, we all heard a noise coming from the Wolfen. A blurred figure whipped out some kind of gun and shot lasers at Candace. She yelped and crawled behind the tree. The figure then charged at us and further tried to attack Candace—until I blocked his kick with the Hylian Shield. Yep, it was Wolf all right. He backed off slightly, but he kept his offensive stance.

"Wolf! What the hell are you doing trying to attack my friend, Candace?!" I yelled at him.

"Why do you care?" he questioned back. "That girl hit my jet, and she kept attacking it. So I tried to get her off, but she wouldn't let go until I flipped. I got pretty mad, so I fired my lasers to get rid of her, but she wouldn't keep still. Now I'm gonna make her pay!" That was a bad thing for him to say. I was about to unleash the Master Sword on him when Snake tapped my shoulder.

"Hey Brooke, let me handle this guy. You stay back and watch her." He pointed a finger at Candace. I figured that Candace needed my company at the moment, so I permitted and replied to him, "Okay then, you can have him." I walked over to Candace to tend to her while Snake nodded and stepped towards Wolf.

"Well, if it isn't Solid Snake! How have you been?" Wolf mocked and laughed.

"I've been better, and you're about to be worse in like, three seconds." He sneered.

"Is that so? Why don't you prove it and fight me. What's the matter, scared?" Snake didn't take too kindly to that insult, so he brought up his fists, glared at Wolf, and answered, "Bring it!" Oh fun, and epic battle is about to ensue, and Candace and I get to sit back and watch it! I mused.

"Ha! We're gonna have fun with this thing!" Wolf mused and readied his claws. Yep, Snake and Wolf were about to engage in a pretty awesome one-on-one battle.