Twins of Fate

Chapter 9

a/n: I am not dead. The reason for the lack of updates was because I was dissapointed by so few reviews. But After re-reading the fic a while ago, I decided to give the Story one more chance. I hope you enjoy the chapter. ;)

XXX

"Oh my goddesses, we're on Death Mountain?"

As if it wasn't bad enough that Lucina and Linkle weren't around, judging only by the name of the place, Red already knew they were in deep trouble.

Red could see that their new location had rocky terrain and several volcanoes erupting all around them. It was clear that they had ended up in a rather complicated and dangerous place. Suddenly, Red heard a blast and quickly pulled Zelda away as a huge fireball landed where the princess had been standing just moments before. Zelda hugged Red, clearly terrified from the near-death experience.

"Err... Maybe we should find somewhere to take shelter," commented Princess Zelda. Red nodded, agreeing with the princess.

Red looked around and quickly found a cave not far from where they were. He led the princess over to it, and once inside, they were safe from the fireballs raining down from the volcanoes. Red placed his hand on his shoulder, which was still bothering him after he dislocated it in their fall.

"Red, does your shoulder still hurt?" Zelda asked in concern.

Red frowned and carefully avoided eye contact with the princess. His pain was his burden alone. Zelda couldn't help but frown back. Zelda knew Red was stubborn and preferred to do everything his own way, but he still needed help every now and then. Zelda remembered her grandmother had once mentioned that Impa could be stubborn sometimes, too.

"Stop being stubborn, Red! Just remove your shirt and let me heal you!"

Red sighed grumpily, but he ultimately complied, sitting down and removing his shirt. Zelda blushed; Red had a nice physique. When she walked behind him to heal his shoulder, she blinked. There were a lot of scars all over his back. Her hands glowed as she started to use her healing magic.

"So many scars... what happened to him?" Zelda wondered; the scars seemed very old. How did he get them?

XXX

Several hours passed. Zelda had fallen asleep, but she quickly woke up when she heard a commotion. When she was fully awake, she saw Red glaring at a tied up trio consisting of a female Goron, a female Lynel, and a witch. The witch looked at the Sheikah with angry eyes.

"I already told you, you freak! We didn't come here to harm you or that stupid blond girl!" the witch shouted, very angry.

"Er... Irene, if you keep shouting at him, he's not going to believe you-goro," the goron girl said. She shivered when the witch gave her a death glare.

"Shut up, Garnet!"

"Sir Red-Eyed Man, sorry if we disturbed you," said the feline centaur creature. "We just escaped from a terrible monster that appeared in these lands a couple days ago, and we were just looking for shelter. We had no idea you two were already here."

"You're giving them too much information, Leona!" shouted the witch.

Red shot the witch an angry glare to make her shut up. Honestly, Red thought the witch named Irene had anger issues. The other two creatures seemed to be more tolerable.

Zelda was shocked by this information. From what she had learned, Gorons and Lynels were mortal enemies and were always fighting each other, either for territory, or to see which tribe deserved to be known as the true lords of Death Mountain. If two children from enemy races were escaping together without fighting each other, that had to mean that the monster who'd captured them was trouble.

Before Zelda could ask more, they felt a strong stomp reverberate through the ground. The witch, the Goron, and the Lynel paled and quivered in fear as they saw a giant scaled talon at the cave's entrance. Red was sweating in fear as he placed his finger on his lips to signal the others to be silent. They sighed in relief when the monster turned and walked away. Red looked at the trio before him and untied them, but he kept an eye on the witch since he didn't trust her. Zelda introduced herself and Red to them. Garnet, Irene, and Leona did the same as they started to explain the events that happened in their homeland.

"A few days ago, a monster appeared here-goro," said Garnet. "But it wasn't like any monster we'd ever seen before."

"It's a terrible creature- a dragon I've never seen before. It's red with five heads, but each head has a different color: red, black, white, blue, and green," said Leona.

"And that freak can breathe different blasts from each of its heads. How come there's a dragon with different elemental attacks?!"

Zelda was puzzled. She'd studied dragons, but she'd never heard of a dragon like the one they described. And it was impossible for a dragon to have five heads and different elemental attacks. She looked at Red, and from his expression, she knew Red had somehow recognized the dragon.

"Red, do you have any idea what kind of dragon this is?" Zelda asked.

Red nodded. He started to sign but sadly no one in the cave knew what he was saying; Irene asked Zelda what he'd just said, but Zelda could only smile nervously and admit that she didn't know either. Red groaned in frustration; the language barrier between him and Zelda really made him want to bash his head against the wall. He wished Linkle and Lucina were there to translate what he was saying.

"Can't he talk?" Leona asked the princess.

Zelda wasn't sure how to answer. Linkle had mentioned that Red used to talk when they were kids, but after a kidnapping, he'd stopped talking for good. And while she was healing him the night before, she'd noticed that his vocal chords were fine. So, technically, he could talk, but he just didn't want to.

"I may have a solution," Irene said, brandishing her wand. "I could cast a spell that would let you two share thoughts. Then, you can translate whatever your red-eyed companion is trying to say. What do you think?"

Zelda wasn't very sure about this. Sharing thoughts could be handy to them since none of them knew sign language, but she felt very uncomfortable with this because she didn't like the thought of either of them hearing thoughts that they didn't want to share. She looked to Red for an answer.

"What do you say? Should we do it?"

Red didn't like the plan for the same reasons as the princess, but he needed them to know what he had to say because from what he could tell, he was the only one with information about this dragon. So, he nodded.

"Okay, hold hands and close your eyes while I cast the spell," Irene said as she lifted her magic wand out in front of her, holding it between Red and Zelda.

Zelda and Red held hands and closed their eyes. Irene glowed as she started to cast the spell.

"Owt slaudividni gnirahs sthguoht!" Irene yelled as she waved her wand at them.

Boom!

Garnet, Leona, and Irene started coughing as a large puff of smoke billowed into the air, caused by Irene's magic. Irene hated when that happened.

"Did it work-goro?" Garnet asked.

When the smoke cleared, the trio's eyes widened in shock. The Goron and Lynel looked at the witch in horror.

"Was that supposed to happen?!" shouted Leona.

The witch gave her wand a furious glare.

"Stupid wand!" she shouted. "I said sharing thoughts, not sharing a body!"

Instead of Zelda and Red, they could only see an adult male Sheikah with blond hair wearing a ninja outfit. They looked at themselves in horror.

"You made us fuse?!" shouted the blond Sheikah, horrified and angry.

Irene yelped when the fusion grabbed her by the collar of her robes and glared at her with murderous eyes. She had a feeling that the fusion could rip her soul away from her body with just that look.

"I'm sorry!" she cried. "I don't know what happened! Usually, my magic does what I want."

But Leona and Garnet had blank expressions on their faces that didn't go unnoticed by the fusion. It was clear that this kind of trouble had happened before, but the fusion didn't bother to ask for details because they were already furious enough as it was.

"Change us back," the fusion demanded coldly.

"Er.. Zelda...Red... Zelred... Relda?" The fusion quirked an eyebrow at the names they were just called by Leona. "I think you should stay like this for a little while. I mean, none of us can understand what Red tries to say, but as a fusion, you can voice whatever Red needs to say."

The fusion groaned as they facepalmed. Leona had a point, but Red and Zelda inside of the fusion were still upset over what had happened to them, especially Red. Red decided he would murder the witch as soon they unfused.

"Fine, but while we're in this form, call us Sheik."

"Sheik?" Garnet asked.

"This form makes us look like a disguise one of Zelda's ancestors had to use while escaping from the Evil King, and the disguise was called Sheik; Sheik is better than mixing our names."

They had to agree about that one.

"So, what does Red know about the dragon?" Irene asked.

Sheik closed their eyes and started to find the information about the dragon. Sheik told them the dragon was Tiamat- the queen of the evil dragons. Tiamat ruled over the dragons and each of her heads had a different elemental attack to represent the powers of the different races of dragonkind: red for fire, white for ice, blue for lightning, green for poison, and black for acid. It was a very powerful dragon, but it was only a fictional dragon on Earth; this particular version was found in a popular tabletop role-playing game called Dungeons and Dragons. Sheik suspected that, since Tiamat was a female, that meant they were dealing with a female classmate. The trio couldn't believe the ugly dragon was just a human who'd been transformed by the Dark Lord.

Sheik suggested that they lay low for now and spy on the dragon to find its weaknesses. Irene didn't like the idea, but Leona and Garnet did, since they wanted to save their people. Irene groaned in frustration, but she decided to follow her friends anyway.

XXX

After a long hike up Death Mountain trail, the group finally arrived at the area where the dragon was holding the Lynels and the Gorons hostage. Sheik, Leona, Garnet, and Irene were above them. They could see the dragon forcing the races to give it their rupees. Irene noticed that the dragon only wanted red rupees and hated the green, blue, and especially gold rupees.

"That's odd," muttered Leona. "Dragons are usually greedy and want to hoard all the treasure they can find, but this dragon seems to have an obsession with the color red and nothing else."

Sheik had also noticed this odd behavior. It seemed odd, especially the disinterest in gold. Then, Sheik noticed a Goron making a statue under the dragon's supervision. Sheik wished he had some binoculars so they could get a better look.

The group was so focused on watching the dragon that they didn't notice that the ground beneath their feet was starting to crack. They all yelped when a section of the cliff collapsed loudly enough to earn the attention of everyone else in the cavern, including the dragon.

"Garnet!" yelled a bigger male Goron.

"Papa!" Garnet cried.

The dragon growled as it stood up, all five of its heads roaring. Sheik shouted for everyone else to run. When the dragon attacked with his five heads, Sheik formed a magic shield. Sheik was surprised; Zelda had never been able to create a shield this big before. Could it have something to do with her fusing with Red? The Gorons and the Lynels took the opportunity to escape.

"DLEIHS!" shouted Irene, forming another magic shield to block the dragon's attack.

Sheik narrowed their eyes as they lifted Red's twin pistols. He used his ice pistol to freeze the black and green heads. Sheik shot his fire pistol against the black head, while Leona threw Garnet, curled into her ball form, at the green head. Zelda, inside of Sheik, was surprised; she hadn't known Lynels could be that strong.

"Okay, two heads down, and three more to go," Sheik said. "We can do-"

Sheik stopped when he saw something on the dragon's chest. It was a pendant. Red, inside of him, recognized the pendant. Sheik glanced at the statue the Goron had been working on. The statue had Red's face. Then, Sheik heard a voice inside of his mind- a voice that Zelda did not recognize.

"I love your eyes; they remind me of two beautiful red gems..."

Sheik's eyes widened in horror as they froze in place. Red knew who the dragon was.

Irene noticed something odd was happening to Sheik. She saw Sheik place his hands on his temples. Their face showed pure panic.

"Red? Red? RED?! What's wrong?!" Sheik shouted. Irene knew it was Zelda in control. "Red!"

"Guys! My shield can't take much more!" shouted Irene. The others could see cracks forming in the magic shield caused by the dragon's lightning, fire, and ice attacks.

Sheik was panicking, unsure what to do. His fighting abilities came entirely from Red, and Red had chosen the worst possible time to shut himself out. Could it be that, whoever the dragon was, it was someone important to Red? When Irene's shield was about to be destroyed, Sheik raised his hand as the Triforce glowed on the back of it.

"Time Freeze!"

Irene, Leona and Garnet gasped in surprise as everything around them became impossibly still. The world's color had a faded, washed out quality. Several things were frozen mid-air, including some rocks Leona spotted frozen nearby. Irene was beyond shocked.

"This is... time magic?"

"We have to go!" shouted Sheik. "We aren't balanced. Red shut himself out, and Zelda can't keep time frozen for long!"

XXX

The dragon blinked in confusion as he saw the intruders had vanished in the blink of an eye. They had teleported away, including... the red-eyed figure. Their eyes... Their eyes were the same as that person's. The object of his obsession.

"REEEEED!" the dragon roared.

XXX

Not very far from there, Irene, Garnet, and Leona breathed a collective sigh of relief over their successful retreat from the dragon. The female Goron and Lynel were happy that their clans had escaped, but now their main concern was Sheik. Irene demanded to know how Sheik knew time magic. Sheik answered that it was Zelda's power. Every three generations, a princess within the bloodline of the goddess Hylia was born with time magic. Sheik mentioned that Zelda couldn't use her magic for time travel without the Ocarina of Time, and the relic had been lost for several centuries.

"Zelda, what happened to Red?" Leona asked, knowing Zelda was in control of Sheik.

"Zelda doesn't know," Sheik said, very confused. "He shut himself out so suddenly. Zelda thinks he knew who the dragon was and that the dragon was a very important person to him."

Since this was a very serious matter, Irene suggested that Sheik try meditating and let Zelda fix the problems inside of their mind. Fusion was a very delicate matter; if the two souls and minds weren't balanced, everything could be lost. They needed Zelda and Red to be balanced in order for Sheik to function properly. Irene told Sheik that Zelda was their only hope to get Red to snap out of it. Sheik nodded, agreeing with her.

Sheik took a deep breath as he crossed his leg, getting into a meditative position. He controlled his breathing and closed his eyes. Suddenly, Zelda found herself in a dark void. Zelda knew she was deep in Sheik's mind.

"Red, like it or not, I'm coming to get you," said the eleven-year-old princess.

End of the Chapter

Next chapter: Zelda learns about Red's past and the reason why he doesn't talk.

A/N; And here is the new chapter after so long. I hope you guys enjoyed it. Please, do not forget to leave your reviews. They make me happy and write more and more

And I wanna thank to Flock o' Seagulls for helping me beta -editing it.