Chapter 36

Change of Plans

Turning a corner, Hibiscus and Veli came face to face with the two guards that they had ran from before. What could be seen of their faces from behind their helmets' visors was bright red, and their breaths came out in huffs that sounded almost mechanical as the air hit the metal that jutted out in front of their mouths.

"There you are!" one of the guards said, sounding quite happy that they had finally found them.

"You two are coming with us!" said the other, sounding less pleased and more irritated that they had had to run around probably the entire temple looking for them.

"Oops..." Hibiscus muttered. She grabbed the back of Veli's shirt and then pulled him along with her as she took a few, short steps back around the corner.

There were a couple of surprised utterances of "Hey!" from the guards as they lost sight of each other, and then Hibiscus was turning to find Colonel Angie and the other Hylian soldiers waiting.

She pointed over her shoulder with her thumb. "Trouble."

"On it," Angie said, cracking her knuckles. Then, with an abrupt hand gesture, she and her men sprung forward.

There was another series of exclamations from the guards, though these held less of the irritation that the earlier ones had, and more of a genuine shock at the sudden appearance of yet more Hylians.

"Where did you come from?" shouted one of the guards, just before the unmistakable sound of metal against stone rang out.

Hibiscus peered around the corner, along with Veli and the Gerudo councilors, just in time to see one of the guards crumple to the floor next to the wall, a new dent in his helmet. The other guard was standing with his spear at the ready, the deadly point leveled right at Angie's waist. She made to charge forward, only to jump to the side at the last minute. The spear followed her movements jerkily. If this were some sort of strange dance, Angie was clearly the expert, while the spear and its holder was more like the awkward child just learning to stand without help.

As Angie continued her waltz with the spear, one of her men leaped forward and grabbed at the weapon, just behind the point. He jerked it to the side just as yet another Hylian soldier ran right for the guard himself, grabbing him by the head and then slamming him face first into the wall. The guard soon joined his partner on the floor, collapsing into an unceremonious heap against the other's legs.

"Well done," Angie called out. "Now then, Hibiscus, Veli, if you please." She gestured towards the now empty hallway. "Lead on."

Stunned by how quickly that fight had begun and ended, Hibiscus merely nodded dumbly. As if they had never been interrupted by the guards at all, they were soon proceeding down the hall. After that, it didn't take long for Hibiscus to realize why Colonel Angie was a such a high rank at such a young age. She couldn't be any older than late thirties, and yet the woman was efficient and organized. Even with just three soldiers at her command, she still managed to take out two more patrols that they ran into with just a few, well timed hand signals.

Even the council seemed impressed, though Hibiscus doubted that they would admit to it. For most of the time they had wandered down hallway after hallway, Suha and the other Gerudo councilors had kept to themselves in the back of the group, holding private, whispered conversations and seemed to be happy to ignore the presence of the Hylians in front of them.

"How much further?" Angie asked, rubbing her palms on her uniform jacket as two of her men dragged the last of the unconscious bodies into a nearby, abandoned room. The last of the latest patrol they had bumped into.

"Nah far," Veli said.

As he began to walk again, Hibiscus grabbed at his bag and began to rummage through it.

"Hey hey, what're ya doin'?" the boy asked in annoyance, shrugging his shoulders in an attempt to shake her off.

Hibiscus didn't answer, merely letting out an "ahha" when she found the map. Unfolding it, she kept Veli's feet at the top of her vision so she could follow without slowing down. The hallways and stairs and rooms jumped out at her, and it didn't take her long to trace the route they had taken.

"Why are we going back to the cloning room?" she whispered at Veli impatiently.

"Nah. Goin' to the tunnels."

"What? Again? Why?"

"Nah one else seems t'know about them. Safe there."

"How do you know?" Hibiscus asked, just as her map was requisitioned by Angie without so much as a please or thank you. As if sensing the shift in navigator, the entire group stopped. "This place is pretty empty all the sudden. What if they're all hiding there now, huh?"

Veli shrugged, and Hibiscus felt a vein twitching somewhere in her forehead at the casual dismissal. Turning her back on him, to show him what it felt like - although she had the nagging suspicion he didn't care - she watched the Hylians as they poured over the map. None of them said a word, and Hibiscus wondered if they were somehow communicating telepathically. The council edged a bit closer as well, peering over the heads of the soldiers to see the layout of the place they were stuck in.

"What's this room here?" Angie asked.

Veli and Hibiscus peered at where the colonel's finger was pointing.

"That looks like the queen's throne room," Hibiscus said.

"Queen?" Angie asked hopefully, handing the map back to Hibiscus.

"Not Zelda, unfortunately. She claims to be the Queen of Hell."

Angie raised an eyebrow. "Bit dramatic for a queen."

"She's also a spoiled little kid."

"Wonderful."

The Gerudo had been practically glued together during the Hylian's conversation, but now, after a few frantic whispers, Suha strode forward. "The council votes for a detour, to visit this queen."

Angie smirked. "Funny. I was about to vote for the same thing."

Hibiscus gaped at the adults as they all began to march the other way. "Are you serious!? She's incredibly powerful!"

"It's ok, we'll stop at the armory on the way," Angie called back, waving the back of her hand at her. "You kids find a safe place to wait for us."

Hibiscus scowled as the group rounded the corner and disappeared. "What armory?" She unfurled the map again and glared at it. She knew Veli was peering over her shoulder, as his awful stench grew painfully close.

She saw no rooms labeled as an armory, but then again these people were military and were probably well practiced in picking out a weapons room from less useful places. She glanced over her shoulder at Veli, who shrugged.

"What ya wanna do?"

"Well... we could take our chances and hide and hope no one finds us. Or we could stick with the well trained soldiers."

Veli and Hibiscus looked at each other for a moment before both raced off to catch up with Angie and the others.

Majora and Byrne were still sitting together in the woman's small house. Byrne was slightly disappointed to hear that simply shooting Majora's clone probably wouldn't do much good.

"She has all my knowledge of magic and I could easily block a bullet," Majora said.

"How can she share your memories? Are you connected to her somehow?"

"No no no. There's different types of clones... Oh, I suppose I can give you a brief overview. The first type is known as first level clones." Majora leaned forward. "I call them dumb clones," she whispered conspiratorially before sitting upright again. "They're really just shells. These are the clones that are running around in your world by now. They look like the person they came from, but have none of their memories until they're connected with the original. After that, their genetic programming kicks in, and they completely take over the original's memories and use them to the advantage of the tribe. But if the connection is lost, they're programmed to shut down."

"...Genetic programming?"

"Oh ask my brother about it," Majora said with a huff. "I don't fully comprehend it myself. But... it's sort of like instinct. We do things without even thinking sometimes, because it's engrained in our genetics. Genetic programming. You see?"

"I guess."

"Dumb clones are the ones being used in your world right now."

"If you say so," Byrne said with a frown. Had she said that already? He really couldn't remember the beginning of the conversation. How had they even gotten started talking about this? With a jolt he didn't show on the outside, he found he couldn't even remember how he had gotten to where he was now, never mind where he had come from.

"Then there's second level clones," Majora continued on, apparently oblivious to his internal panic. "Ones who aren't shells, and have no genetic programming. They are the exact same person as the original, with no alterations to anything in their mind. But, they don't have any memories that the original had."

Byrne's hands folded into fists involuntarily. "Then what's the point?"

"There isn't one really. There used to be many of them, running around on the surface of our world. Now they're all dead, of course, and there's only one inside the temple. It was more of an experiment really, one that's still ongoing."

"What's the experiment?"

Majora grimaced. "Something my brother is working on. Another one of his silly science things. It's hardly important. Finally, there's third level clones. Which is what mine is. Same person, and has all my memories. She's the only one of her kind, too." Her orange eyes suddenly lit up with unshed laughter. "Or, at least, you would think so, wouldn't you?"

Byrne sighed. Even if he couldn't physically remember meeting this woman, he could tell she wasn't going to explain herself. "This all seems too complicated."

"Then just focus on this: getting me into the temple. Get me to my clone, and I'll deal with her myself, and stop her from destroying any other worlds."

"Why do you need help getting in? You're powerful, aren't you?"

"I'd like to avoid a fight with my own people, if I can help it. If I use my magic to get in, they'll sense me right away and try to stop me. If I wanted to stop my clone by killing every single member of my tribe, I wouldn't have bothered opening the door for you at all."

Byrne mulled this over. He studied her face, a nagging feeling in the pit of his stomach. Something was odd about this woman hermit, but he couldn't put his finger on it. Her tattooed face was solemn, exactly the kind of expression one would expect to find on someone contemplating breaking into their old home and killing someone. But then their eyes met, and he finally identified what was off about her. The eyes didn't match the face. The laughter that appeared in them before was still there, despite her grave expression. It was almost as if her face was a mask, and it was only by looking through the eye holes that he saw the real person.

"So? Do we have a deal?"

Byrne startled. A deal? For what? He struggled to push past the fog that blocked him from his memories. Killing a clone. Saving Hyrule. Yeah... that sounded good. He studied her face and saw a serious, solemn expression on her features. He stopped examining her before their eyes met. He didn't want to seem like a creep, after all. She seemed sincere. Her face was certainly wearing the proper emotions for something like this. So why did he have the nagging feeling that something was wrong?

He chewed on the inside of his lip before finally shrugging. What reason did he have to doubt the woman? As far as he could remember, this was the first person he had ever talked to in his life. "Ok."

"Excellent. Now, we need to hurry! Time is of the essence!"

Link and Zelda sat next to each other at a large wooden table. All around them sat Gorons - whose chairs creaked under their weight - Link was quite frankly amazed they hadn't broken yet; and Zoras - who nearly slipped out of their own chairs several times due to having just come out of the water. Suffice it to say that the room contained an interesting smell of seaweed mixed with damp earth.

"Alright, goro, everyone pay attention," began to the large Goron chief. "We have new friends, so I think some introductions are in order. I, as most of you know, am Big Brother Goro, goro."

Link frowned, and his eyes flicked to the side as he worked out the introduction. Beside him, Zelda pinched at the bridge of her nose in irritation. He could tell she was already giving up on trying to figure out what the Goron's name was and was simply going to stick with 'Chief'.

"Then we have King Zora, goro, king of the Zora."

The Zora that they had met in the prison earlier stood and give a small nod towards them. Link kept his face blank of the surprise that ran through him. The last Zora king he had met, which, to be fair, had been a very long time ago, had been so large he could barely move. For some reason he had decided this was just what all Zora kings looked like. This guy, however, was just as fit as his warriors. Just as young, too, now that he got a better look at him under some proper lighting. He did a good job at hiding it, but Link could still see a hint of uncertainty in the Zora's eyes.

"He couldn't have been king for very long," Link mused to himself. "Must be a recent thing."

"And then there's everyone else," the Goron continued, waving his hand dismissively and pulling Link out of his thoughts. "Everyone else, this is Link and Zelda of High Rule. They have volunteered to join our fight to bring justice to the evil tribe that stole our sun and destroyed our homes.

"So, goro, now that we have more allies, I think it's time we add to our plan of attack."

All the other Gorons and Zora nodded.

"Good," the large Goron said.

He stood then and leaned over the table. On its surface sat a large map of the mountainous area. Tiny stick figures, some painted blue to represent a Zora, and others with one or two extra sticks wrapped around them to represent larger stomachs - or a Goron - covered the map. Link studied their placements, but couldn't see any reason behind them. If there was a strategy behind this plan, he had yet to find it.

As soon as the Goron chief held out his hand, two new figures were placed onto his palm. As he carefully stood them on the table, Link noticed that one had a yellow string wrapped sloppily around its head to stand in for blond hair, and the other had a rather grumpy face drawn onto its oval, paper face. This was the only figure that they had taken the time to add a face to, and Link had to rub at the corners of his mouth to erase the amused smile that was trying to form there.

"Bet you can't guess which one's you," Link whispered to Zelda, who merely rolled her eyes at him.

"I think..." the large Goron began slowly. "I think they should go here."

Everyone else in the room craned forward as the two new stick figures were placed onto the map. Link shrugged in acceptance when he saw his blond haired figurine was with the Gorons that were storming the temple's main entrance. So far, to him, it looked like a plan bound to fail, but at least he was in on the action.

Zelda, however, frowned, matching her stick figure's expression almost perfectly. "Wait, why am I all the way across the valley?"

"Because..." the chief said, blinking down at her. "Quite frankly, you scare us."

Link tried very hard to muffle his snort of amusement when everyone else nodded in agreement with their chief.

"This is not how you plan a battle!" Zelda snapped. "You don't put people you don't like on the edge of the map!"

"If it makes you feel better, goro, I nearly had you off the map altogether, but Zora said that that wouldn't be... uh... utilizing all our resources properly. Right?" The Goron glanced at King Zora, who nodded eagerly.

Link hit his head against the table's edge when he fell from his chair, doubled over in silent shakes of laughter.

"Grow up, Link," Zelda ordered, giving the man a sharp kick in his back. "Listen, I can throw fire. You understand what that means? Fire. You could have a line of explosive powder all around here," Zelda said, snatching a pen from the side of the table and tracing it along the main entrance. "And I could easily blow it up for you at the right time."

"What good would that do, goro?"

"What good!? It'll distract their army and probably take a bunch of them out at the same time!"

"Hold on," Link stood up abruptly, his voice taking on a deathly serious tone. "I'm in that line of gunpowder you just traced!"

"Sacrifices have to be made, Link."

"But-"

King Zora quickly interrupted. "Yo, if we have the entrance filled with fire, how do we get in?"

"Come on, people," Zelda said, slamming her hands onto the table and startling all in the room except for Link, who was now sitting in his chair again with a sulky expression. "You have Zoras and an entire system of underground rivers. I can see two right here on this map that will lead right into this area here." She peered closer at where her finger was pointing, as if just now noticing it. "What is this, a garden?"

"Yes, but there's fountain walls there," Zora protested. "We'll never get through."

Link watched as Zelda's expression faltered. "Walls, huh?" she mused. "How thick are they?"

"Very thick, goro. Our Zora brothers tried hammering at it, but..."

Link dropped his elbow onto the edge of the table and then let his head follow suit to rest upon his palm. "This is a real stumper."

Zelda stiffened and then let out an annoyed sigh. "I'm going to assume that you have some insane, stupid idea that I will probably regret hearing."

He winked at her, watched with some amount of amusement as her face became even more irritated, and then voiced his idea. "What about underwater explosives?"

"I knew it."

The Gorons, however, looked at each other with excited glances. "We might be able to throw some things together..."

Zelda shook her head in disbelief. "Fine. Go for it then. If that works and doesn't get you all killed, the fountain is no problem. Here."

Zelda grabbed the Zora figures, who were positioned on the mountain ridges and throwing spears into the valley uselessly, and tossed them into the temple's garden. "There, now we're in, and we have a distraction to keep most of the guards off of the Zora's tails."

"...We don't have tails."

"Whatever."

Gorons and Zoras alike all leaned forward again, nudging Zelda out of the way as they studied this new plan.

Big Brother Goro slowly raised his hand.

"Yes?" Zelda asked, pinching at the bridge of her nose.

"Does Link really have to die in this plan? I kind of like him."

Link threw his hand up into the air. "Thank you."

"Oh fine." Zelda grabbed Link's figurine by its string hair and tossed him into the mess of Zora figures. "There. Better?"

Realizing that he would soon be directly inside the temple where his daughter was, Link nodded. "Much."

Link and Zelda just get more and more fun to write together. Welp, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and thanks for reading, folks!