Hello! I'm back, did you miss me? I just have to thank ahead of time, thank you so much for the reviews posted lately, they really make my day!
You might have already figured it out by this point, but the Four Swords Links are completely based on the Four Swords Manga by Akira Himekawa, and not so much the game(s). I know the manga isn't cannon, but I haven't played the game, and I've read the manga about 3 times. If you have not read it before, I'm sorry there WILL be a lot of spoilers, probably. (And I highly suggest you read it, it is my favorite manga, and my favorite character of all time comes from it. ((Hint: I have two favorite characters of all time, and both are in the manga! :D)) ) I….probably should have told you all that they were based off that, on the same chapter I introduced the Four Sword Links…..but…..whoops? I'm forgetful, and scatterbrained. And clumsy. And…..nevermind.
I do not own 'The Legend of Zelda' franchise. Sorry, but nope.
Knowing that there was absolutely nothing they could possibly do to prevent the inevitable, bracing for impact was the next best thing for the heroes to do. Despite the misleading look the large, and very intimidating Darknut was giving the Links, it silently ordered for his small 'army' of monsters to all attack at once with a tiny wave, to strike at the perfect moment when the boys' defenses were down. They barely had time to study their sudden enemies, let alone how to even go about fighting said monsters. One thing that was immediately apparent to most, if not all of them, was the fact that each and every one of the monsters standing a mere 10 feet ahead, was that they all looked as if they came from different worlds entirely. A couple of the boys recognized an enemy that they had seen and fought before, before all this confusing and elaborate Time Crest crud was shoved in their faces, but the rest of the enemies looked foreign, and not pleasant at all.
As the silent signal was given by the menacing Darknut that Dusk so vividly recognized from his little adventure through the Temple of Time in the past, as one of them served as a mini-boss, the heroes had no time whatsoever to prepare for what was coming.
All too quickly every single one of the various monsters lunged ahead, and attacked. It was a little funny though, how it seemed to Sky that the mindless enemies that attacked simply for the reason that it was told to, now had a functioning brain of its own. And not just a functioning mind, but a clever, and conniving one at that.
Sky clamped his eyes shut, bracing for the immediate impact of many assaulting items. Such as teeth, getting spiked, stabbed by various items, lunged at, fire, getting eaten and having his shield ripped away from him, buffeted with rocks, mini-spears, punched by a rock, cut in half, getting his blood sucked up, electrocuted, burned by earlier mentioned fire, cleaved, getting an over excessive shield dropped on him, and probably not last, and plausibly not least impaled with a sharp bone and tiny spears. Now, all of that coming right at you in a matter of seconds leaves you with no time to react other than simply waiting for it to happen….which is just exactly what everyone did.
What was strange though, was the fact that Sky (and the others) could hear all of the monsters' ruckus as they attacked, and impacts….but nothing happened to the heroes. At all. The attacks kept coming, and still he kept his eyes clamped, and even still nothing hit him.
Playing a difficult game with himself, known as 'Should I keep my eyes shut, or should I open them to see what in Hylia's creation was going on over there?', he finally came to the difficult decision of the latter. Sky figured that by this point stuff would have hit him, and that he obviously had time to react and fight rather than brace…BUT there were huge self-arguments against that reason. That being, maybe he was already dead? Or what if they were tearing apart his companions, and waiting for him to open his eyes? No, monsters weren't NEARLY as smart as that. Also, why was he even having that conversation with himself, wasn't he supposed to be brave, and courageous no matter the situation, and charge in head-first like usual? Probably, but by this point he's thought about that, and it would probably be more stupid than brave. Then again if you think about everything he's done, then he was basically being stupid all the time, so without the brave head-first method, nothing would really get done at all. Now the inner inflictions were getting pretty heated, as you can tell. Well, Hylia's Chosen Hero certainly remembered when that one time one of the bosses he fought against had dis-
"GUYS!" Time screeched at the top of his lungs getting everyone's attention, sounding as concerned as they all were when they first spotted the monsters if not five times more so….okay the monsters spotted them…okay actually they spotted Rallen. "OPEN YOUR FRICKEN EYES ALREADY! SORRY, THAT WAS NOT A NICE WORD TO USE….BUT PLEASE, SOMETHING JUST HELPED US, AND WE SHOULD PROBABLY TAKE ADVANTAGE OF IT, LIKE RIGHT NOW! SORRY FOR YELLING THOugh, that was rude of me." Time continued, his child side taking full force as he physically made the others open their eyes, since apparently they all still had their eyes slammed shut. That was probably the not the smartest idea for any of them to do, but whatever.
Sky finally found the will to pry his eyes open, which took more effort since he had his eyes shut so tight, they kind of got stuck. Opening them, he immediately noticed all of his counterparts rushing forward with various amounts of weapons and item, only for them all to just skid to a stop by a dark transparent wall, inches away from the enemies, with extremely confused expressions.
The only one who hadn't moved, other than Sky of course, was Ravio, who was quivering and gingerly holding the yellow boomerang Paint handed over to him earlier. Apparently Sky was the last one to open his eyes, and Time was first…..And Ravio still hadn't opened his yet.
Time was right though, something had helped them. It was just a large dark shadowy-transparent 'wall' thing blocking all of the enemies, and their attacks. The dark…..'wall' was absorbing all of the hits, but the monsters didn't feel in the mood to stop attacking, so they just kept bombarding the poor wall for some reason.
Maybe they had some pent up anger against the shadowy wall? Or maybe they enjoyed the slight sounds of pain whenever they hit it. Wait…..sounds of pain? Coming from a wall? That just doesn't sound right.
Red poked it, and the surface rippled. Dusk then poked it, since he loved poking things, and it rippled more, this time with a slight uncomfortable giggle from the wall as if that had tickled it. Ezlo decided to join the fun, and nudged it with his beak, and immediately recoiled in disgust at how the wall reacted. Spirit threw a yellow rupee (10) at it, and the wall rippled some more…..but the rupee disappeared into thin air, instead of falling to the ground. Because of that, Paint threw a rock at it, and again the wall rippled with a small sound of pain, but this time the rock landed on the ground instead of disappearing. Weird…. So, Tiny threw a green rupee (1) at it, and that disappeared into thin air too. Then another rock was thrown by Kailon, and it fell to the ground…and now there was a small red spot like blood where the rocks landed, followed up by another sound of pain. And now that he was looking, Sky noticed there was a lot of red marks on the other side of the wall as well.
"As much as I am thankful for this amount of time to prepare to fight, which we aren't actually doing by the way….what in Hylia's creation is that thing?" Scrub questioned. "And I've seen weird before."
The monsters by this point stopped just to watch, and out of the mood of attacking the wall…ok maybe their brains weren't smart, functional, and conniving like Sky first thought. The monsters were just doing whatever they wanted, instead of taking orders from a great evil….so they all just decided to watch, and strike later, when the boys' attention was even more strained. Who knows if the monsters even understood the Hylian tongue in which all of the boys spoke, but as far as the small brains of the enemies (for the Like-Like and Stalfos, a lack of a brain) could tell, it was drama, and something funny was either about to happen, or was happening currently….either one.
Definitely wondering why the monsters didn't just walk around the wall in the first place…..
Well, technically the heroes could have just done the same too…it's just a wall…
"Honestly, I'm not really sure….I have an assumption, but it's highly likely that what I have in mind wouldn't actually happen." Vio commented. "But either way, I agree with Time on this, we should fight, and take advantage of it." The violet Link continued, while nocking an arrow on his bow. He looked upwards, and aimed it to go over the wall. Hopefully it would strike one of the distracted enemies once he let it loose.
Suddenly, and I mean suddenly, the wall began to ripple uncontrollably and deform, and all the Links standing next to it, still attempting to see what else the wall would do, quickly backed up. Vio let loose his arrow on accident, due to being severely frightened, and it got shot far to the left, impaling the metal surface of Wind's Mirror shield somehow, which was luckily drawn in a defensive position. The arrow shot hard, and was wedged pretty deep into Wind's shield.
"I think we made it angry!" Red squeaked, surprised. "Please, Mr. 'Wall', don't leave! You helped us! Please don't g-"
A loud sigh of rage, and a strangled angry grunt sounded from the shadows that had shrunk significantly from the outstretched shape of the wall. Strings of shadows had left that wall shape and were swirling around a Hylian-shaped dark figure. "I'M NOT A WALL, YOU IMBECILES! AND FOR THE HATRED OF EVERTHING, STOP POKING AND THROWING THINGS AT ME!" The shape roared, beginning to form a pool of shadow on the grass, where it the surface began to calm down.
There was a slight pause. "Jeez, I thought helping you guys would make me…..feel….Ugh this is difficult..." The pool of darkness from which the voice was coming from, quieted, saddened by whatever he was talking about. "SHUT UP INNER MIND! ...oh wait, I said that out loud…"
Then, there was a slightly prolonged silence.
"Wait-…..is that Sh-Shadow Link?!" Green gaped loudly.
"…..WHAT?!" Blue screeched, clearly more upset than usual.
"Heh, heh, who else, idiot?" Shadow Link responded snapping out of whatever weird trance he was just in, and back into a normal attitude. Maybe calling them names like usual would make him feel better…and less….weak and stupid. He had just recently dragged himself out of the Dark Mirror, after being sent back there by the four Links. The princess had filled him with hope that he wasn't truly evil, and he was a Link too, while on top of the Tower of Winds after he yanked himself back from the Dark World. And most importantly, she told him that he was/could be a hero too. She had filled him with a feeling of warmth, and determination, he hadn't felt in a long time. Maybe….he actually was something worth paying attention to, just like he knew he should. Maybe, he'd finally get the respect that he deserved that way. He knew it was stupid to hope like that, but he couldn't live with what he was doing anymore…..he once thought that defeating the four Links…..the body he, as a shadow, was attached to, would earn him attention, and that he would be….'happy'. He wasn't so sure about that now. Course, it would still be great to rule Hyrule covered in shadows, with no one able to oppose him…yeah, that was still a valued outcome.
'FOR THE SAKE OF LORD GANNON- even if I don't really like him, and will eventually murder him, so I can be ruler- SHUT UP INNER MIND! I DON'T NEED YER PATHETIC SYMPATHETIC THOUGHTS!' Shadow Link fumed in his head, before deciding to face the Links out of the shadows, and in the daylight. The light bothered him a lot- as in it hurt and burned his skin -, but since Gannon still thinks of him being a loyal little darkness copy that he can trust slightly, he still had a bit of protection against the light. Stupid darkness pig, that gave Shadow Link access to the light world…stupid.
He formed out of the dark pool, and walked right in front of Green, and giving toothy smirk. Shadow acted like he usually did, which was slighter harder now that he knew what Green's –and his in a way- Princess told him how she felt. But after seeing Blue's stupid angry face, it was a hell of a lot easier, and definitely natural. Shadow looked almost exactly like Green (and Red, and Blue, aaaannnnnd Vio) but had paler skin, red-blue (yes, red mixed with blue) irises, a black tunic, and violently magenta hair. His black hat was also extremely distorted, and ended in a transparent wisp, instead of the usual pointed part.
The shadow was a little beat up from getting assaulted by the monsters, and getting rocks thrown at him, and he definitely did not look all that thrilled to be there. "Ah, ah, ah Blue, I wouldn't attack me, if I were you." Shadow quickly spun around and stopped Blue with a ball of shadow magic, who had come up behind him with his hammer raised. "Wasn't I the one who helped you guys? Oh, and 'thanks' for the money by the way. Though…..I would've gone with more than 12 rupees, but I bet ya'll are just too shallow to help a poor fellow out, now aren't ya?"
This comment was received with many snorts…especially from Spirit and Tiny, as they were the ones who lost money in the curiosity ordeal. Aaaand no one told them to throw any of their precious gems at the foreign 'wall'… no, 'person'… no, 'shadow'.
"Well, I take it you all know each other?" Ora gulped, breaking the staring contest that was taking place between the shadow and the Four Sword Heroes. Red looked slightly happy, but also really nervous at the same time. Blue looked pissed. Green looked very confused, and slightly angry. Vio…..actually his expression was unreadable...
"B-But, we killed you…..or at least banished you back to the Dark World. How did you get out?" Vio questioned lightly. "And why are you here in Dusk's Hyrule….?"
"And why did you save us!?" Green continued, louder than his purple counterpart.
"…uhhh, that doesn't matter right now. …?" Shadow shrugged it off.
"AND WHY ARE YOU STILL IN MY VISION?! I'M NOT GONNA BE SO EASILY PERSUADED TO NOT REMEMBER WHAT YOU DID!" The blue clothed, angry Link shouted. "Would you like me to make a list? Hmmmm, maybe a little something having to include OUR FATHER?! Oh, and Hyrule…that too! And the maidens…And-"
"Do me a favor, and shut up, I don't want to be next to you any more than you want me here. But I'll say this, do not attack me. I might not like you, or necessarily be on your side right now, but I'm sure as hell not on their side." The dark reflection retorted sassily. "Look, don't ya'll think you should take care of that audience over there already, instead of pointlessly blabbing your mouths off? Here, I'll even help you get started, since I'm such a 'nice' guy." He finished off with a small cackle.
After he said that, he hacked a little and spit, sending a lob of dark mucus flying. It ended up hitting the vibrantly colored Lizalfos in the eye….that did not go over well with it…..or anyone for that matter.
"AAAAANNNND, WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU DO THAT?!" Myth roared at an equal velocity, and sound as the Lizalfos did….and even at the same time. O-ok then…
"Well whatever, the faster we-WOAH!" Spirit began to comment, but he was suddenly put inside the large and disgusting mouth of the Pancake monster (the Like-Like from Link's Awakening). Great, it looked as if this was what he had to deal with.
Each of the Links, excluding Ravio and Shadow Link for…different reasons, were currently dueling one or two monsters. Each monster that had targeted a hero, had also happened to target one that didn't know how to fight it (AKA a monster from one game, picking a Link from a different game).
Ravio finally opened his eyes, and kept on flinging the boomerang while standing off to the distance, but it only hit one of the various keese….and that's it. Shadow decided that he had 'helped' enough earlier, and stuck to watching the fight while replacing World's shadow. It was strange, the shadow behind World looked like one of the Four Sword heroes and not like World…especially since Green, Red, Blue, and Vio were all taller than the Hero of Hyrule. World actually was really short for his age, which was 16. Let me repeat myself, the whole thing looked strange.
Spirit was still inside of the Like-Like's 'mouth', and he muffled-ly yelled about how he didn't think he could get actually get out, and about how disgusting it was…and the fact that his shield had suddenly disappeared. He somehow got his left arm back into the front of himself, and prepared to stab the sides of his disgusting, warm, and smelly captor. Before he could thrust the sword forward, however, the Like-Like found that it was a good time to spit the Hero of Trains out into the real world.
Luckily for Spirit and Dusk, Spirit got lobbed pretty powerfully, and managed to fly right over Dusk's head, and knock the enemy he was fighting over. It happened to be the Stalfos (Wind Waker). As Spirit smacked into the Stalfos, it got sent flying, it's bones breaking apart….but it was still alive. Well how it was alive in the first place was another question entirely.
"*grunt* Uh, t-thanks dude?" Dusk warily thanked, not sure what actually just happened, but still pretty okay with the outcome regardless.
Spirit picked himself up, and sprinted back at the Pancake monster for round two. While running he yelled back to the Hero of Twilight, and rubbed some slimy mucus off of his now soggy tunic. Right about now, he was wishing he could change back into his engineer clothes…but that would have to wait, sadly. "Er, no p-problem! Hey, can you pass me some bombs? I don't know what happened to mine…" Actually Spirit did know. He had used them all in the Spirit Train's cannon…for no real purpose other than he liked to randomly shoot the terrain. That was a good enough excuse right? (A/N: You can't tell me you didn't randomly shoot at things while riding the train….because we've all done it. I can see it in your eyes… uh, metaphorically speaking, that is.)
As the Stalfos was still trying to reassemble it's head back to it's upper body, that was still trying to attach itself back to the torso, which was trying….you get the picture. The Stalfos was trying to put itself back together, while dancing around spastically. Dusk took this precious time, to toss an extra bomb bag over to Spirit, as well as take a couple bombs out of another bomb bag for himself to use.
Dusk had fought a Stalfos before, but the one he fought was a lot more….intimidating. For the one he was familiar with, all he had to do was throw a bomb at it and it would explode in a puff of smoke like all enemies. Simple right? Especially seeing as this one looked incredibly less dangerous.
Well, he happened to be wrong actually.
As soon as the Stalfos had gotten put back together, it took it's stone mace/club thing and did a sort of spin attack with it. While spinning rapidly, nothing could hit it, and it was rapidly approaching the Hero of Twilight. Midna didn't seem to want to help, so that's a plus. Dusk quickly threw a bomb at the approaching skeleton…he missed.
So he tried again, and success. As the dust cleared, he soon realized that the desired effect didn't really happen like he had expected it too. Again, he expected it to be taken care off, dead as the smoke that poofed out of the disappearing carcasses. (A/N: That got morbid pretty quickly) Instead, it just exploded into a pile of bones again, hopping around spastically to get it's body back together again. Well, maybe another bomb would dispose of it, while it was vulnerable like that?
Nope. The answer the previously assumed question was nope.
The bomb exploded, but the Stalfos didn't even react….still too busy assembling itself again to even pretend it got hit with an explosive.
"Hey, Uh, Wind? How do you fight this thing?" Dusk called over his shoulder to where Wind was tackling the very sad looking Octorok, who looked out of place on land and not in water. Seriously, would it really kill the magic hand named the author to just put a puddle for the 'poor' guy? (yes, actually) Anyway…. "I'm just assuming this thing comes from your time, since you know…"
A medium sized hunk of rock was zipping through the air, on a direct course for the Hero of Winds face, so he thrusted up his shield. Unfortunately for him though was the fact that the small boulder hit the arrow lodged in his shield from Vio earlier, lost all of its momentum instantaneously, and fell to the ground quickly….landing on his foot. "Valoo, that hurt!" Wind exclaimed, shoving the boulder off of his foot, ignoring the question of how that momentum thing even just occurred. "Wait, what'd you mean by assuming it's from my time? Cuz, you're right." He finally got his foot out, and immediately rolled to the side as another rock came hurdling at him. Waiting for the octorok to 'recharge', Wind angrily ripped the lone arrow out of the metal surface of his Mirror Sheild, with a lot of efffort.
"Oh, well you know…it just looks so cartoonistic. And…looking at you for a little bit, you kind of look a bit cartoonistic yourself." Dusk responded keeping the Stalfos at bay with more bombs.
"Excuse me? What's that supposed to mean?" Wind complained in a little shock as he finally disposed of the Octorok by rolling up to it and repeditally slashing at it, since it kind of couldn't go anywhere…stuck on the grass. After it exploded in a different kind of smoke than he was used to, he stared at Dusk bewildered. "I look…..cartoonistic?"
Sky, who was a still standing in the same place as earlier, as he hadn't moved from where he first closed his eyes, called over. He was currently being attacked by all 10 of the Miniblins at the same time…he could easily get rid of all of them with a spin attack, but for some strange reason it seemed as if his sword arm wasn't working correctly. He tried to spin it in a circle, but even though he had no clue where his companion Fi had gone, he kept hearing her monotone voice telling him to 'calibrate' his 'Wii remote'. Whatever that meant. "I…agree with Dusk on that one, Wind. It's kind of true."
"Oh. Then Tetra was right, even though she kind of inadvertently said that about herself too then, regardless of the fact she wouldn't admit to that…"
"NOW'S NOT THE TIME FOR SMALL TALK, GET RID OF THE MONSTERS ALREADY. Do I need to get involved now?" Midna finally contributed.
"I agree, all of these monsters are freaking me out…wait, I'm not scared. Tiny, stop being afraid child." Ezlo commented, causing Tiny to sigh and continued running- bravely- away from the terrifying Darknut, that he, World, Myth and Ora were taking on.
"Oh, yeah! Dusk, just go help Spirit get out of the….Like-Like was it?...again. I got the Stalfos." Wind called, as he sprinted towards the mace-holding skeleton. When he shoved Dusk away, he whipped out a large hammer with large skull on it. It looked to weigh about 3 times more than the Hero of Winds did, but he still was somehow able to hold it. Weird physics. Wind slammed down the blunt hammer that landed with a satisfying 'bang', which of course caught the attention of the hammer-loving Blue. Ironically the Stalfos exploded into millions of pieces after getting hit with what Wind called the 'Skull Hammer', but not even a scratch when it got hit with about 15 bombs. Who needs logic, anyhow?
"Your hammer's so much cooler than mine!" Blue whined, ignoring Green, Red, Vio, and Paint who were being assaulted by at least 12 different Keese directly behind him.
Time was arguing with Scrub about the fact that he wanted to use one of the transformation masks to fight, even though he was extremely unaccustomed to it. Scrub said no, and rightfully so. So, yeah all they actually did to contribute was slash at the remaining Keese, while never breaking eye-contact with eachother.
Sylin, Rallen, and Kailon…..somehow managed to pry off the one-eyed Lizalfos's arm guard off of it's scaly arm, and beat over the head with that. A different, strange, and psychotic way to deal with an enemy, but effective nonetheless. After it was dazed from getting hit from it's own protection, Sylin stabbed its other, non-swollen eye…..and apparently having both of it's eyes severely damaged meant insta-death for the lizard. Shadow's spit also apparently had acidic qualities to it. Who would have thought?
Dusk had managed to rip Spirit out of the Like-Likes mouth, and Spirit dropped a bomb into its mouth. Unfortunately that was only after Dusk had been partially eaten. Meaning both the Like-Like and Dusk got a face-full of bomb explosion.
Sky finally got his little calibration problemo fixed, and discarded all 9 of the Miniblins with a spin attack. Wait, all 9 of them, I thought there was 10? Oh, yes, the last one oddly enough found it's way over to Ravio, and had even stranger, made friends with Ravio's little companions, Sheerow. I guess someone has a new pet. A potentially violent, evil, and death bringing one. Not as bad as keeping a cucco for a pet, but still pretty bad.
Now, the only thing that was left to deal with, was the more-terrifying-than-normal Darknut. Too bad it seemed that this one was on steroids. Not even Dusk could seem to knock the armor completely off like he usually did. Who knew that Darknuts did better with the more enemies it was facing? So now, all of the Links were somehow huddled together in a small clump, with the Darknut looming over them, sword outstretched. It really seemed as if a Redead had just screeched, because none of them moved an inch from there huddled location.
Having a similar repeat of 30 minutes earlier, the boy's braced, since they apparently couldn't move.
"Don't just stand there, idiots, MOVE!" Shadow yelled from where he was posing as World's shadow.
"You don't think we haven't thought of that?!" Rallen retorted.
Right when the sword of the Darknut was raised, and began to swing down. It stopped. Just stopped. Wait….was that Darknut turning…p-pink?
Easy cliffhanger, sorry. Well, I still hope you enjoyed this one, as much as I did!
I bet you figured out that Shadow Link is my favorite character! I love him so much! Also I know that some of you might be upset that I didn't make Shadow as abusive or angry, or 'evil-like' as he was in the beginning of the Four Sword Manga…but again, I love how he was towards the end of the 2nd part of the manga. Also, I didn't want too many characters having an overly rude attitude like Blue, Myth, Rallen, etc. I'm sorry if it feels a bit OC-ish though. BUT don't worry, whenever he gets mad, you will definitely be able to tell that it's Shadow. And chances are high, he'll get angry more frequently than not.
Thanks to INamedMyHatJeffery, khr1410, Derpy2.0, The Mistress of Shadow Dragons, .c, GrandNinjaMasterRen, Cheddarlord, and NihtWriter18 for following! And thank you to The Mistress of Shadow Dragons, .c, Derpy2.0, GrandNinjaMasterRen, and INamedMyHatJeffery for favoriting!
Special thanks to Derpy2.0 for following me!
GrandNinjaMasterRen: Sorry I didn't get to the villians this chapter, this got a bit busy here as you can tell...
Derpy2.0: Do not worry friendo, and fellow MidLink shipper, I will try to produce a steady supply of the dankest of the memes for ya'll. And you were right, my priorities are messed up...I have my priorities, but they might be in the wrong order, distorted, and or warped.
PokemonFan67: Thank you! Maybe scattered writing/minds does have good aspects to it.
Rockster: Heh, heh, heh I think I answered your 'who blocked the attacks' question. Thank you for the happy birthday! Ooo, yeah, the only time i'm not really distracted is when I'm drawing! Oh, and thank you for pointing out my typos, and feel free to continue. I'm horrible at proof reading, and my other proof reader doesn't play Zelda. Anyway, until next time! If you are reading this again, I fixed some of the things you mentioned.
