Author's Notes: I officially hate AOL 7.0. It will only save this file RIGHT as an .rtx, which can't be uploaded on this site. So there won't be any bold, italics or underlines from hereon in. ::kicks the stupid, stupid computer that hates her so much::

No, actually, I don't ever shut up, thank you so much. ^^; But I'm in another fix with the course of this story. Now I have an idea that I personally think will make it much more interesting and intense... But I don't know if it'd work for the readers. I'd have to jack up the rating to an R, and it would probably upset some people. I asked my brother about this before anything, and his input was: "I'm really into the story, and I don't think there's much you could do to make me lose interest." He liked the idea when I told him, anyway. If you feel the same, I'll hug you. But if not... *sigh* Let me put it this way: I write Pokemon fiction, too. If you can read my stories "Three Words", "Untitled" and "And Nothing Else Matters", and can take all of them seriously and not be ... Overly disturbed by them, you may like my idea. ^_-

And I also want to note that in this chapter, Ganondorf uses an attack, but it isn't named off as the other attacks have been. The move is Dark Dive, just to let you know.

Chapter Five
Marth's POV

The strange structure had little light shining in, even though it was daylight. The floors and walls were all constructed with black steel, and we were trying our best not to make any noise as we crept down the short corridor. I had a deep, sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, telling me to turn back. But I was listening to my heart over my mind; it was something that I had a history of doing.

As we progressed down the corridor, we started passing small cells along the West wall, barred with complicated locks. I had been expecting something like that. If we found him in that place, how were we supposed to get him out?

A shrill creaking filled the narrow passage, startling me and causing me to jump. I looked to Link in front of me, who, judging by the expression on his face which read nothing more than an, "oops," caused the noise. We both turned toward the door and stood perfectly still in the shadows, hoping that no one heard. After about three minutes of pure silence through the building, he stepped in front of me.

"I think it'd be best if I stayed here and stood guard. You go and find him, Marth," he muttered to me, to which I nodded once as an affirmative.

With that, I continued down the path, passing more and more of the dark cells. The building wasn't very big, and the passage was coming to an end. I examined each small, cube-shaped room carved into the wall, provided that the only light I had was that which shone through the few, small windows that lined the top of the East wall. When I got near the end of the corridor, something caught my eye in the cell next to the last. I stopped and adjusted my eyes, seeing a figure in the corner. I felt my heart jump into my throat when I realized that it was him.

He was leaning against the back wall near the end of the cell, holding his head between his knees. He didn't notice me. I felt my breath begin to quaver as I stepped toward the barred entrance. I leaned onto the metal floor and rested my eyes on my partner and best friend; the person that I thought I would never see again. "Roy..."

He slowly lifted his head, perhaps unsure if he had heard anything. His attention turned to the bars, and he finally took notice of me. His face bore red slashes, one of which looked like it had been bleeding in the past few hours. I could see his eyes light up when he recognized me, and he crawled up to the bars to face me. "I can't believe it's you," he sighed through a smile. I smiled in return and grabbed onto his hands, feeling the skin on his fingers, just to know that I could. But his grin soon faded, and his eyes grew dim. "You shouldn't be here," he whispered in a monotone. "If they find you, who knows what they'll do. You have to get out of here."

I shook my head in response, slightly taken aback by his reaction to me. "Link and I heard what Ganondorf said to you; your life is on the line, here. We're going to get you out, I promise."

"No, Marth. Get out of here, I don't want anything to happen to you. I won't let you risk it."

I could feel tears swelling into my eyes, but I tried to fight them back. After everything we had been through, why didn't he understand that I wasn't just going to leave him? I hung my head down and still didn't agree.

"Please don't do this; get out while you can, Marth, please..."

"No!" I finally found myself countering, also allowing a few tears through as I lifted my head again. He stopped persisting and faced me, allowing me to talk. "You're always trying to play the hero, Roy. You're always doing what's best for everyone else. Well, now it's time that you let us help you," I blinked out a few more tears, trying to maintain a steady breathing pattern as I spoke. "I'm not going to sit around and let you get killed. You mean a lot to me, and you do to Link as well. Please, just trust us and let us help you. I don't know what may or may not happen to us in the process... But it'll be worth it."

I looked into his eyes and I could see that he was overwhelmed. By what, I wasn't entirely sure. But I seemed to get my message across, because he gripped onto my hands and let out a quavering sigh. "Thank you."

I felt as though I was still crying, although I was trying to force myself not to. He began to rub my hands gently with his own. I felt an uneasy sensation traveling up my arms as he did so. I knew that there was nothing behind it; he was probably doing it because my hands were shaking. But I still couldn't help getting that shuddering feeling... I looked back into his eyes, only to find that he was already doing the same.

"Marth! Someone's coming!" Link's panicked voice called as quietly as possible down the passage, accompanied by the sound of his feet hitting the steel floor. I turned to see that he was coming toward us.

I turned back to Roy and saw a bit of fear in his face. It was then that I realized that if someone was coming, they were probably coming for him. Ganondorf did say, however, that he was going to execute him at dawn. There was still time. I squeezed his hands one more time before I rose to my feet. "I'll be back, Roy. I promise."

I ran down the corridor and met up with Link, although I wasn't sure how we were going to get out if he was heading toward the end of the path. Link turned to the East wall and readied his hookshot. "Hold onto me."

We were in a bit of a rush, so I didn't want to question him; I grabbed onto my partner and he aimed his hookshot for one of the windows. Before I could think about it, we were launched into the air, and we barely fit through the small window, sliding through one at a time.

Link put his tool away, but still held onto the window, trying to look in without making himself noticed. I did the same; seeing what happened could have been quite useful for our mission. We had apparently gotten out just in time, because I heard footsteps on the metal soon after we got out. Ganondorf passed right by us, not noticing a thing. I guessed that Link was right: He wasn't overly perceptive.

He reached Roy's cell and entered some sort of combination into the lock, then lifted the device and slid it to the right. At least I got an idea on how to open it.

"It's been arranged," the dark-skinned man muttered as he stepped into the cell. "The ambush will be launched on your allies in two days, after you've been dealt with. We've estimated when they'll be out of their base, so maybe your help wasn't required after all."

I was close enough to see that the fear that Roy had in his eyes remained, but it was now mixed with anger. However, he didn't speak a word; he just watched as Ganondorf walked around him. He suddenly turned and grabbed Roy's chin, holding his face to his own. "I guess you think you're doing something noble for their honor..." he pulled the boy right up to him. "I think you're just ignorant," he then released Roy in a flash of sparks, sending him back onto the ground with a crash and a sharp and painful groan.

I closed my eyes and tried to hold back the urge to rush in there and stop him. I could hardly stand to see him do that to my partner while he was too weak to fight back, but I knew that there was nothing I could do. If I tried, it may have cost my life, as well as Link's. I watched as Ganondorf shut the cell door and left Roy laying on the ground. Immediately after, I felt Link tap me on the shoulder to get my attention. "Come on, we better get out of here now before he comes back out."

Agreeing, I jumped down from my spot hanging from the window, with Link following. We headed back into the woods and kept running until we were far enough away from the building. Once we stopped and began to catch our breath, Link turned to me. "We have to warn the others."

"How are we going to do that if we can't even find our way out of here?"

"Well," he panted, "we know how to get to the main base from Master Hand's, right? We're going to have to use that as our basis."

"But we left, Mario won't let us back in," I reminded him.

"This is important. We can give the message to whoever is on guard. We can probably find our way back to Falco and the others from there."

"That can work," I sighed, returning my breath to a normal pace. But one more questioning thought crossed my mind. "But... How are we going to get Roy out? We only have two days to find everyone, and they're going to kill him at dawn!"

The Hylian closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. With his head lowered, he brushed a lock of hair away from his eyes. "I don't know," he muttered quietly.

"We have to do something..." I knelt down to rest my legs and put my mind to work. It didn't take me long to come up with a simple answer. "Link, you'll have to go back yourself. I'm going to get him out of here on my own, you get going back to the base."

He looked up at me, probably slightly surprised that I, for once, came up with a plan before him. "I guess that's the only way we can do this in time. But are you sure you want to do this alone?"

I looked up at my partner, showing my emotions through my face and my words alike. "When I found him in there, I could see into him from his eyes. He had nothing left to hold onto, and this is his last chance. I'm not leaving him there."

__ __ __

The field seemed frozen at Master Hand's fort in the dead of the night. By the forest, the sky didn't seem nearly as clear as I had remembered it from that night at the base. I had found a safe spot for shelter near the edge of the woods, but out there I felt like an open target. I needed to use all of the evasive skills that I had to avoid any sort of detection. I had removed my armor before coming as well, since I could move better without it.

Before Link left for the base, he lent me his hookshot, since the window was the only other way I could get into the cells. I'd never used the device before, but Link's quick run-down on how to aim and launch it seemed to be enough for what I needed. I unhooked the tool from my belt and aimed the best that I could to the window that we had gone through earlier in the day, since it would be loose. I noticed that my aim wasn't too far off as I sent myself straight into the sliding glass. I managed to hold onto the handle of the hookshot so I wouldn't land on the metal interior too loudly.

I climbed down as carefully as possible, latched the tool back to my belt, and immediately began to seek out Roy's cell. The window wasn't too far away from it, so it didn't take me long to find him. It was too dark to see him, but I figured that he probably heard the noise I made coming in. "Roy," I whispered as I approached the bars.

"Marth, you came back," I heard as an answer.

I got close enough to the lock to make out the shape. "I'm going to get you out this time... As long as I can pull this off," I sighed. I wasted no time and tried to remember exactly how Ganondorf unlocked it. I was able to recall the sort of combination he put in, so I knew where the motion-sensitive part was. I unsheathed Falchion and positioned it right so that the tip of the blade worked it's way into the mechanism, in a hope to physically override it.

After so many attempts that I was certain the lock would never be used normally again, it eventually moved when I pressed it up. Before I could begin to think I had done it, the lock wouldn't move to the right. I looked to Roy with a shade of worry across my face. I couldn't have done all of that only to find that I couldn't save him. I searched my brain as well as I could to remember Ganondorf's exact moves on the machine, and I attempted one final movement in the direction of his last action. I exhaled deeply when it moved to the right.

I slowly pulled the door open, trying to keep quiet as well as I could. After returning Falchion, I grabbed onto Roy's wrist and pulled him out and back to the window as quickly as I could manage. "Just hold on," I whispered to him as I pulled the hookshot out again. There wasn't nearly as much light inside the building as the moon provided outside, so I wasn't as lucky with my aim. I didn't have time to get it aligned perfectly, so I took my chances and shot it with my right hand, keeping a tight grip on Roy with my left.

The trip was much smoother when I had gone with Link: I slid through the window after he did, and we both managed to hold onto the windowsill. Roy and I ended up shooting through at the same time, which was quite painful, but not as much as the fall to the ground.

He was still holding onto my waist when we were on the ground; he didn't let go until he had fully recovered from the fall. I pulled myself to my feet and brought him with me, leading him into the forest and toward the shelter I had found. There was still very little light through the clouds, but I managed to navigate through the trees and bring us to safety.

I left myself fall to the ground under the brush that covered us. "We did it," I uttered.

Roy panted until his breath finally slowed. He looked toward me. "I can't believe it..." he just stared at me for a few seconds, until breaking into a smile and reaching over to me. I met him in an embrace and almost felt like crying, or maybe even laughing. The boy wrapped his arms around me and buried his face into my cape strewn over my shoulder. I was suddenly taken over by that feeling again.

I found myself gripping my hands into his tunic and breathing heavily. I managed to stop myself and pulled away from him; it was going too far, and I couldn't let myself deny it again. "Roy..." I sighed, lowering my head.

"What is it?" he whispered, putting one hand on my own.

I exhaled, trying to calm myself, but it didn't work. I couldn't escape the moment, or what I wanted it to be. I answered his action by holding onto his hand, with no intentions of letting it go. I attempted to say something to him, but nothing came out other than, "I..."

His cerulean eyes penetrated my lost stare. It was amazing that no matter what scars he had on the rest of his face, his eyes remained untouched. He didn't look angry, or even confused, which sort of puzzled me. I closed my eyes as he gently gripped my hand as well. I hoped that he would do something like that, but I also doubted it entirely. I looked back to him, and he was still fixed on my face. There was nothing to say; nothing that could be spoken would say the things that I wanted to tell him. I did the only thing I could think of that felt right. I leaned in to kiss him.

His lips were gentle, as he invited my actions. I kissed him softly all around his mouth. Soon enough, he returned my affections and began kissing me as well. I held him close to me as I leaned my back down against the thick brush. Once our lips parted, I invited him to lean his head down on my chest. I knew that he was exhausted after what he had been through, and he probably hadn't slept in days. As he rested himself with me, I ran my hand through his auburn hair, cherishing the thought that he was there with me.

"Marth?" he whispered.

"Hm?" I mumbled through my breath as I exhaled.

He slid his hand across my stomach down to my side, tightening his grip around me. "Thank you."