(edited 6.30.20)

A/N - Sorry about the brevity of this chapter, folks, it just felt like a good ending point.


Confrontation

As consciousness slowly washed over Link in the dark, wet prison, a throbbing pain welled in his head. He forced his eyes open, and he found himself in one of the cages he had leapt over not too long ago. One of the torches up near the entryway was lit. A stubby man in a red and white striped shirt and wearing a blue bandana on his head paced back and forth up near the ladder. Hanging on his belt was a key ring with a few keys. Around them, the ship's timbers creaked mournfully.

"Hey," Link called out weakly. The short pirate looked down at the prisoner. "Where are we?"

The pirate smirked. "Almost back to Hyrule, chasing down a navy ship that we found a few miles off the coast of the Forbidden Fortress. We're almost upon it now."

"Can you come down here and bring me some water? I'm parched," Link asked, hoping the man would be stupid enough to get close enough for Link to grab him and steal the keys.

"Oh shut up. You don't fool me; I ain't falling' for that trick... again," the pirate said. Link cursed mentally. For the moment, he gave up and retreated back to a rickety stool in the corner of the small prison.

Link sighed, his mind brooding to figure out how to escape. His eyes flicked from side to side and up and down as he scanned the cage for any signs of weakness.

Just then, a voice could be heard bellowing from up on the main deck. "All hands on deck! All hands on deck!"

The pirate who was guarding Link's cage looked at him and smirked before hurrying up the ladder and leaving the Hyrulean alone. There were some more shouts, and Link realized what was happening. He stood up, and ran to the wall of his cage. He shook the iron bars violently and growled.

BOOM. The familiar and deafening sound of cannon fire ensued. A cannonball suddenly crashed through the hull of Volvagia some thirty paces from his cage, ripping through another iron cage in its way. Suddenly, he had an idea. He retrieved Auru's dagger from his boot and moved toward the door of his prison. Before he reached it, however, another cannonball burst through the hull of the ship and screamed through the previously still air, annihilating the door of Link's cage and causing him to leap back and stumble to the floor.

Springing back to his feet, he restored the dagger to his boot and capitalized on his opportunity, making his way out of the cage and up to where the ladder led out of the hold. When he reached the raised platform where he had previously stepped on the small pedestal, he saw that his sword, bow and quiver were leaned up against the wall near the stationary torch.

Once he had armed himself again, he climbed up the ladder and was greeted by the sounds of battle up on the open air portion of the pirate ship. He emerged from the cabin drawing his hanger but realized that most of the commotion was coming from the deck of HRNS Divine Beast. Instantly, he leapt into the action. Some few meters in front of him was a pirate bearing down on a now-unarmed navy man. Link immediately loosed his blade upon the sea rat's unguarded back, felling the man with a swift blow. Link met eyes with the man he had saved, and they shared a nod. The next instant, however, the man recoiled violently under the impact of a lead ball and fell to the deck moaning.

Link whirled around as another pirate tossed a smoking flintlock pistol to the wooden floor and advanced on him while drawing a broad cutlass. The two engaged, but Link easily gained the upper hand and shortly, he found a gap in the man's defenses and buried his sword up to the hilt in his stomach. Dropping the pirate, Link took a moment to get a better idea of how Auru's men were faring in this battle. To his surprise, they were actually holding their own. He sheathed his hanger, and shrugged his bow off his shoulders. After laying an arrow to the string, he picked out a target. A pirate was swinging from Volvagia's quarter deck toward HRNS Divine Beast. Link didn't let him get there though, and the pirate was struck by the Hyrulean's missile midway between the two ships, and plummeted into the sea with a pitiful scream.

Then Link himself made the transition from Volvagia to Divine Beast via a boarding plank which had been laid across the gap and onto HNRS Divine Beast's gunwales. As the young sailor reached the navy ship, a red-haired man in a green stocking cap was driven backward into him while engaged in fierce swordplay with a member of Zant's vile crew. Link practically caught the man, then moved out of the way and drew his sword. Another pirate came at him sword drawn, and the Hyrulean met him, their blades ringing out a perilous song. The pirate didn't stand a chance against Link, whose superior reflexes and speed penetrated the man's defenses rather quickly.

Once Link had dispatched his enemy, he took another quick look around. Mido appeared to be struggling with his opponent, so Link bent down and procured a flintlock pistol from the lifeless buccaneer at his feet. It only took him a moment to get a clean shot off at Mido's assailant, and the pirate went down squealing with a lead ball in his chest. The other navy man looked at Link gratefully. Link nodded to him then took stock of their situation. He noticed with sudden anxiety that the battle seemed to be tipping in favor of the pirates. As he glanced around, two Royal Navy men fell, one run through with a blade, and the other shot down. He saw Auru engaged with one of Zant's miscreants and watched briefly as the navy captain triumphed over him.

"Where is the map?!" Link suddenly thought aloud.

"You don't have it?!" Mido asked incredulously.

"Well I did but they took it from me when I was thrown in the brig," Link said, turning around and looking for Zant or the other mysterious man from the previous night. Or was it the previous day? He had no idea because of the Forsaken Fortress' curse.

"Look out!" Mido shouted, leaping behind Link and engaging a sea rat who had attempted to strike him from behind. Link also turned around then, and saw a pirate from across HRNS Divine Beast's deck sighting down the stubby barrel of a flintlock. Before he could even think to react, the firearm reported and Mido was struck in the temple. The navy man was dead instantly, without the slightest chance to defend himself. As Mido crumpled limply to the deck and Link stared with a building fury, the pirate whom Mido had been dueling advanced on Link, and the one who had shot Mido also advanced from across the open deck. Link watched him stab a navy man in the back as he came, and then he turned his attention to the first pirate. This man was small, and Link easily overpowered him. In a flash, the miscreant was dead, and Link prepared to fight the next enemy. Then the man who had killed Mido was upon him, and Link was ready. The pirate attempted a downward cut, but Link stepped in and caught the man's wrist. Twisting it violently, Link buried his own blade in the pirate's chest. The man screamed as Link threw him to the ground.

"This is the second time I have destroyed your ship!" the voice was raised above the din of battle. Link followed the sound to its owner. Zant. The blonde sailor noticed that in one hand Zant carried his sword, but the other hand was now a hook.

With a roar, Link dashed toward the evil pirate captain and engaged him. The two combatants fought up and down the deck, trading blows on one another's blade. Link was fast, but Zant was strong. After a couple minutes, commotion around them was abating, and Link realized that he and Zant were pretty much the last ones fighting.

"Your friends have all surrendered," the pirate taunted with a smug grin.

"They will rise up again when I kill you!" Link yelled as he went on an offensive flurry of moves. He drove the vile captain back, almost to the wall of the cabin, but then Zant stopped stepping back. He stood his ground and matched Link blow for blow. For a moment, they were at a standstill, and they simply stood circling each other with their swords crossed between them, each waiting for the other to make a move. Link glanced into the circle of onlookers, and saw that all the remaining navymen were either held at blade point or bound with ropes. Then his eyes drifted over Mido's body, and saw how the other young man's eyes stared lifelessly into the sky as his blood coursed down his cheek. Rage welled up in him once again. With a shout, he went on the attack again, but Zant was stronger. Link strained to move faster than the evil man but no matter what he did or how fast he moved, it seemed as though Zant was waiting; parrying his advances almost contemptuously. Suddenly, the pirate made a series of movements that caught Link completely off guard. In a flash, the captain had disarmed Link, and he was kneeling before him, the tip of Zant's blade at his throat.

"Goood, gooooood." This voice came from behind Link, and he recognized the voice as the mysterious man from before. Link's heart pounded in his ears with his exertion as the man stalked quietly around to where he was in front of Link, tapping a rolled up parchment in his hands. The map! If the legends were even half-true, this man could not be allowed to get his filthy hands on the contents of the Temple of Power.

"Now that this map is finally mine, I will overtake Hyrule soon enough," the man's deep voice emanated from beneath the hood. There was a unified chorus of objection from the Royal Navy men on deck, and Link had finally had enough.

"NO!" he shouted as he pulled Auru's dagger from his boot once again. In a swift movement, he swiped Zant's blade away, stepped up and hammered the dagger up under the pirate's jaw down to the knife's hilt. Zant's sickly yellow eyes suddenly dimmed as the knife entered his skull, and his hook came up and rested on the hilt of Auru's dagger until he crumpled back onto the deck. Link then stood defiantly in the midst of the pirates, dagger in hand, staring blazingly into the darkness of the mysterious man's hood.

The man simply laughed, however, and removed his hood. Link almost took a step back at the sight of the man's face. His skin was a dark, grayish green and his short hair was like fire, blazing orange as it wrapped down around his chin in a cropped but pointed beard. His irises glowed yellow.

He raised a hand and dropped it. "Kill them all, except this one. I have something special in mind for him."

"Noooo!" Link bellowed but it was no use. The pirates suddenly and brutally slaughtered the remaining defenseless navy men. Link roared a battle cry and charged the evil man, dagger drawn, but before he reached him, he was tackled by pirates. He stabbed three of them in quick succession and broke free, making a break for the edge of the ship. He was brought down again, however, and he fell right in front of the dead Mido. He looked at the young man's face and spontaneously snatched off his green stocking cap.

As he was dragged back to Volvagia, he looked with stinging grief and shame over the corpses of HRNS Divine Beast's crew. His eyes stopped on Auru, who he noticed was still alive. The old captain was sitting with his back against the main mast, his lifeblood draining out of multiple grievous wounds. Their eyes met. "I'm sorry," Link mouthed. Auru nodded and saluted him. Link attempted to do the same as tears stung his eyes and clouded his vision, but a pirate held his hand down tightly. Then Auru died.

Link's fury boiled over again, and he suddenly let out a thundering roar and shook himself violently. Catching his retainers by surprise, he freed his right arm. Immediately, he stole the cutlass out of the pirate's scabbard and ran him through. The other man attempted to subdue him by hauling down on his other arm, but the Hyrulean whirled on him and struck with such force on his neck that his head rolled off his shoulders and blood fountained. Gaining momentum, Link sprinted headlong into the group of pirates following the fire-haired man onto Volvagia, and flailed the blade out wildly, cutting deep wounds in many and killing others of them before he was once again subdued. This time though, they began to beat him with the pommels of their swords and with their boots and fists. Soon, Link had blacked out beneath the raining blows with nothing in his mind but red hot anger and grief.

\-][- /...to be continued...\ -][-/