First of all, I'd like to thank everyone who has reviewed; it means a lot to me. I know I haven't updated for a while, but my brother just got back from Iraq, so I've been pretty busy. He only took twelve shots during the entire war, to make sure his gun sill worked. Is that sad or what? Enough with the Undertaker, let's get on with the ass-kicking'.

Ghosts of the Past

Officer O'Hara had heard the shots coming from the nearby University. A matter of minutes after he had reported it in, the whole building was immediately surrounded by cops. There was a news helicopter circling overhead, feeding the news live.

O'Hara walked over to where a detective and a doctor were talking to the terrorists using a radio.

"Look," the detective said into the radio. "You have to give us more time, we can't work that fast." The doctor had a blank look on his face.

"You had better learn how to move fast. I will not change my demands. They will be met, or I'm going to give a hostage another hole to shit out of." A Mexican voice said.

"We might be able to go faster if you released a hostage. We need a show of good faith. They won't release the prisoners unless they know that you're going to hold onto your part of the deal." The detective knew that they wouldn't release the prisoners unless there were guns pointed at their faces. Damn politicians, they only do what's best for their own candy asses, and not many of them give a yellow shit about their people.

"We will release a hostage." The voice said. "They will either be unconscience, or they'll have a hole in their head. I will NOT release a hostage until my demands are met. Alpha out." Alpha was the name that he had given the cops to call him by.

The doctor's face turned from blank to a scowl.

"They know what they're doing. They will not hesitate to execute a hostage. We must buy more time. I will talk to him next time." The doctor said. He glanced up at the building, and shook his head.

Link approached the door to his criminal justice class, and looked through the window. The leader had just hung up the phone. Probably discussing his demands. Link saw him turn and spit onto the floor. He began to curse, and looked towards Link. Link froze, hoping the leader hadn't seen him.

"Where is that big oaf? I wouldn't be surprised if he shot himself in the foot." The leader said towards Link's position.

"Yeah, he probably did. Remember when he shot the instructor in the camp in Al Kut? That was great. He just shrugged it off like he had killed a snake or something."

That was a new voice. Link ducked under the window as the owner of the voice stepped from beside the door and walked over to Drake. The man was black, African American by his appearance. He had mentioned Al Kut. That was a town just south of Baghdad in Iraq. There was a terrorist training camp there? You learn something new everyday.

"Where's your friend, huh? He should have been back by now." The black man said.

"I don't know about that, Link can drop some heavy loads. He stunk up the bathroom so bad one time that we had to put gas masks on and spray the toilets with air freshener."

"Really?" The black man said.

"No." Drake replied. Link was beginning to wonder why Drake was being stupid and risking his life. Drake looked scared shitless before, and now he had confidence? He was truly an idiot.

"Hey, look over there, the Hero of Whatever-the-hell-you-said might be over there. I heard he was a blonde. Is that true?" Drake asked seriously. As the terrorist stupidly walked towards the position Drake had recommended, Link saw Drake glance at him pleadingly.

He realized that Drake was trying to make a diversion, so Link began formulating a plan.

He made a dropping motion with his hand, and then turned an invisible doorknob. He waited for a response from Drake, and he nodded.

"I've checked the entire area in this room. If he were here, we would have found him by now. Just leave this room to me. If you talk to them too much, they might get something out of you and squeal to the feds." The leader said.

"Fine, whatever. Have fun." The black man said sarcastically.

"Fuck you." The black man turned around and winked at the Mexican.

"I'm just lying in wait." The black man said with his hands on his hips for emphasis.

He began to walk towards the door Link was hiding behind, and Link stood still by the door.

When the black man walked through the door, Link was hidden behind it. The black man stood by the open door for a few seconds, and looked back inside.

"Alpha, where do you want me to go?" He asked with a puzzled expression.

"To hell." Link said, grabbing the black man by the throat and crushing his trachea in the same motion. He grabbed the AK from the suffocating terrorist's hands and turned on a shocked Alpha. He let a quick three-round burst wipe the shock off of the man's face, as the now headless body fell to the floor.

A few of the students screamed, and Link put his fingers to his lips, signaling for silence.

"I was just about to put the plan into action." Drake said, lowering his face to pout.

"Well, I saw an opening I couldn't resist. Sorry." Drake opened his mouth to say something, but closed it when a phone rang. What the fuck? Link thought. He approached the phone, and looked at it for a moment before picking it up.

"Is this Alpha?" A deep voice said. Link waited for a moment.

"Alpha's dead."

The doctor froze upon hearing those words. Dead? He glanced at O'Hara.

O'Hara had been recording all the conversations between the doctor and the terrorists. The officer was just as shocked as Doctor Harris was.

"What do you mean dead? Who is this?" The doctor asked.

"I mean dead. Wasted. Screwed. Whacked. Put down. As for my name, tell Washington it's the Ghost."

The doctor was even more confused by now, and he hung up the phone with his mind going insane. Before he had a chance to sort out his thoughts, an uniformed officer ran up to him.

"Doctor Harris, we have a reply from the NSA, they said that these people don't exist." The uniform explained, handing a piece of paper to Harris.

"Are they sure? Did they run a search via satellite?"

"They did everything, sir. These guys don't exist in any UN or NATO prison."

Harris now realized what the terrorists were doing. They were buying time. But for what? Or whom? That posed an interesting question.

"Get the Pentagon on the phone." Harris told the cop. He nodded and scurried off to find a secure phone.

Link hung up the phone and turned to face the students seated before him, their eyes wide and some bleary from tears.

"Aria, I need you to make up a cover story if another one comes in. Understood?"

"Yes." Came the small reply. Link walked over to her, and put a comforting hand on her shoulder. He looked into her eyes, and saw confusion.

"I need you to be strong for me. They won't hurt you. They'll be occupied with the brains splattered on the wall. You've been in combat situations before, why are you so scared?"

She looked into his eyes, and then shook her head. "I can't tell you now. Just…. Go save everybody. Be the Hero that you are."

He nodded and turned towards the class. "No matter what happens, everyone stay seated here and don't say a word."

Link picked up the AK from the floor, and loaded another magazine in it. After chambering a round, he walked out of the room, the weapon slung across his back. He shut the door softly, and crept down the hall towards the main office.

When he approached a corner, he stopped and lowly peered around it. After making sure that no one was there, he proceeded down the corridor.

He reached another corner, and this time when he peered around it, he saw the main office. There was no receptionist behind the window, so Link had to assume that the staff were being held inside. He crept towards the office quietly, watchful for any movement from inside.

He let his back rest against a door, and listened for any sounds. He heard muffled yelling from inside. Link's fear of being seen or heard resided at that moment. They were all too busy contemplating who had fired the shots they heard to listen for intruders.

He opened the door, and found himself in a short corridor. There were two doorways down the right wall, and one on the left. At the end of the hallway, Link could see what appeared to be a teacher's lounge.

He chose to check the doorway on the left first. When he crept through the doorway, he noticed a mirror on the wall. This mirror allowed him to see the entire room from under the desktop he was hiding behind.

The room was fairly large, and there was a large receptionist desk that made an L shape around most of the room. There was a large box-like object on a table by the desk, and there were all sorts of different lights and buttons and switches on it. Link identified it as the intercom system.

He found nothing else of interest here, and there were no other doors, so he walked back through the doorway into the corridor. The first room on the right was an office, with tons of papers stacked on the many tables. A few computers were set up on the desks, their screen savers on the maze setting.

There was nothing of importance here either, so he headed down the hallway. He could smell cigarette smoke, but he couldn't see it. He continued into the teacher's lounge, which had a circular table in the middle and pop machines on the side. There was only one place the terrorists could be: Through the door in the teacher's lounge.

Link slowly put his hand on the knob of the door. The smell of the cigarette grew stronger, and Link knew this was the place. He suddenly got an idea, and withdrew his hand from the doorknob. He could hear talking inside, in hushed whispers.

Link decided to use psychology against them.

"Hey, it's Alpha, don't mind the gunshots, I just executed a prisoner. There was a sign in the room that said Spread The Knowledge, so I spread it. His brains are all over the floor in there." Link said in his best Mexican accent. They seemed to buy it, as the room erupted into a chorus of laughs. Link could hear a few gasps also. The terrorists had hostages in the office. Fuck.

"You need anything, Saratoga? Mountain Dew? Marlboro? I got everything right here." Another Spanish voice said.

"Sure, give me a Dew." Link replied.

"Okay, wait a sec."

Link heard something open, and then close. The door opened, and the Spanish guy tossed Link the Dew before he realized that his leader was not standing before him.

"Thanks." Link smiled, and put two rounds straight into the man's chest. The other occupants of the room, all black or Hispanic, scrambled for their weapons, which were on the other side of the room. The room was small, with a desk, two chairs, and a phone. Link had no clue as to what the room was used for.

Link took all but one of the terrorists out with well-placed shots from his AK. He turned to a Mexican huddling on the floor, shaking with fear. He was muttering some sort of prayer to himself in Spanish. Link had no pity on the man, and pulled the trigger. There was a click, but the receiver didn't fly back. The gun was empty.

"Oh, jeez." Link said, staring at the gun before dropping it on the floor. The Mexican looked up in surprise, and stared at Link with wide, teary eyes.

"P-p-p-l-l-e-e-a-a-a-s-e d-o-n'-t h-u-r-r-t me." The man said slowly.

Link gave the man a devilish smirk.

"Don't worry, this shouldn't hurt too much." Link said as he cracked his knuckles. The man's eyes grew surprisingly wider, and he started to crawl away. Link simply knocked the man unconscience with a swift kick to the head. This meant the cops could question him later. It also meant that Link could kill all the rest of the bad guys.

A few moments later, the phone next to Link started to ring.

"Hello?"

"Sorry our conversation was so short, I had things to take care of." Doctor Harris recognized the voice as the one from before.

"What do you want? Do your previous demands still stand?"

Link realized that the Doctor didn't think of him as a friend, but rather an enemy. The doctor believed that Link had taken out the leader, and was now in charge of the terrorists.

"I don't think we're getting off on the right foot. I'm Link. I'm a citizen of Hyrule. I need your help. You need mine. Get it?"

"Yeah, however, there's no way I can trust that you're who you say you are. If you really are who you say you are, I need you to sit tight and let the big boys handle this." He waited for a reply.

Link could understand why the cop was telling him not to do anything. One of the worst scenarios in a hostage situation was when the hostages fought back. Ninety-nine percent of the time, the terrorists got a hold on the situation again, and executed a whole bunch of them. Then the media would discover the casualties, and immediately blame the police for the deaths. The hostages needed to just sit back, and let the SWAT team do their job. It makes the job a whole lot easier for the police.

"Look, you're not going to believe this, but I've trained with the Delta boys over at Fort Bragg, and I've commanded a team of Navy SEALS, I am a big boy." With that, Link hung up the phone, and walked to the entrance to the office.

He was in a long hallway, with classrooms going all the way down. There were terrorists in every classroom in the entire building. It would take him all day and a few casualties to clear them all. He decided to take a different approach.

First, he walked towards the windows, and looked at the cops, searching for where the person in charge would be. After spotting Officer O'Hara and the doctor talking, Link recognized him as the cop at the cabin. He was a good driver. O'Hara had kept on Link's tail the entire way back to the interstate during the chase.

Link noticed a flash of light from atop one of the neighboring buildings, and focused his eyes there. There was a trick that Link had learned before defeating Ganon, he could focus his eyes in and out, like binoculars, up to two hundred meters. It was extremely useful, and allowed him to take very long shots with a rifle without a scope.

It was exactly as Link thought, there was a sniper on the roof. His mouth was moving, probably telling the people in charge that he had spotted someone at the windows. Link stayed at the windows, peering down at O'Hara until he looked up. Link smiled and waved in his direction. O'Hara had seen this, and looked extremely confused. Link pointed down with his finger, and walked away from the window.

He needed to find some way to get down to ground level without alerting the terrorists. Suddenly, the humming noise that had been at the back of his mind got louder, and a helicopter flew in front of the building for a few seconds, and Link ducked to hide from it. He didn't need his face all over the news.

When the chopper flew above the building, Link stood up again and walked silently down the hall. He needed to help Grady. If Link was going to do anything about the situation, he would need some help.

When he approached the room Grady was supposed to be in, the window on the door had bloodstains on it. This doesn't look pretty. Link thought as he looked into the room. The students looked like shit, scared and confused. There were two terrorists in the room, both of African descent.

Grady was in the second row, glaring at the terrorists, who were stupidly conversing with each other at the corner of the room.

Grady noticed Link looking through the window, and moved his eyes in the direction of the terrorists. This told Link that the terrorists were in the corner. Link held up two fingers questioningly. Grady responded by tapping three times on the side of his head. This meant that there were three terrorists. Link made an L with his hand, asking for the location of the third terrorist.

"Hey, you, keep still!" A Mexican voice yelled from door. Grady immediately snapped his attention to the front of the room like everyone else, keeping an eye on Link.

Link made a few motions with his hands, and Grady nodded.

"Hey, keep still! I won't hesitate to shoot you, man!" The Mexican voice yelled a second time. Grady stood up from his chair, and glared at the Mexican.

"Why don't you come over here and make me, huh punk? Put the gun down, be a man, and fight me!" Grady yelled back.

"Alright, I will!" The Mexican dropped the gun, and pulled his shirt up behind his back, revealing a long knife hidden in his pants.

At that moment, Link opened the door, and slammed it into the Mexican. He went sprawling across the floor, landing in a heap. Link kicked his face, knocking him unconscience. He grabbed the knife from the Mexican's unconscience body, and threw it straight into another terrorist's neck from across the room. Meanwhile, Grady had grabbed a pen off of someone's desk and done the same with it, the fine point of the pen piercing the throat of the third and final terrorist.

Link walked over to the Mexican's AK and checked to make sure it was loaded. Upon finding that it was, he slung it across his shoulder.

"That was nice, man." Grady commented, checking the bodies of the terrorists to make sure they were dead.

"Went straight for the throat, cut off his oxygen supply, and pierce the spinal cord. They'll fall flat on their face and suffocate like a fish out of water." Link said.

"Damn. I see you aren't one bit rusted from six years away from the service." Grady said, shouldering his own AK.

"What do you think I really do on the weekends that I have to 'work'?" Link asked, walking back to the door. The students were starting to get up, but Grady ushered them back down.

"We need you to stay here. Don't move unless a police officer comes and tells you to move. Understand?" He received nods from most of the class.

"Good."

The two walked down the hall, towards the window Link had seen the helicopter fly by in.

"Here's my plan." Link whispered, being careful not to let his voice echo in the halls.

"Okay, a helicopter will come by here every once in a while, trying to get snapshots of the terrorists. It comes close enough to jump on."

"Jump on? Are you nuts? I'm not jumping on a helicopter that's-," Grady glanced out of the window towards the ground, "-over sixty feet in the air!" Grady hissed.

"Well, we can't use any of the other routes. They have everything else guarded."

"I can't believe we're going to do this." Grady said, putting his head in his hands.

"We have to. A whole school full of young adults, some of them very attractive and single, need our help." Link said hoping to convince him to jump to the helicopter.

It seemed to be successful, because Grady's expression grew dreamy, and his lips curled up into a smile. "I'll do it." He said, looking determined.

"That's great." Link said, patting him on the back.

"Now we just have to get this sniper to notice us…."

"What?!" Grady said, looking horrified. Link chuckled.

The Undertaker hopes that you are enjoying his Fanfic. You will have to put up with slow updates for the next few weeks. Pheasant season just opened up, and my friends and I go hunting just about every weekend. I'll try to update at least once a week. As the great Red Green says, Keep your stick on the ice!