Generations

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Chapter 1: New Beginnings

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Hyrule: 2000 years later

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...Two warriors watch each other's moves intently. The young swordsman leaps into battle, silver blade flashing in the light... but his opponent is not to be taken down so easily. She darts out of the reach of his sword, and fires a blast of the purest magic into his face... It's all over, as he plummets helplessly from the edge of the cliff...

"Game over! And you said I couldn't do it..."
"You bet? Best of three," Link Hunter grinned, shaking the games console's controller. "You're going down..."
"Oh, yeah?" his sister laughed back.
"Yeah, Zelda! You're asking for it! You were just lucky, that's all. Just lucky." He glared in mock anger.
"That wasn't luck, Link. That was skill. Admit it." But by this point, neither player was in any fit state to continue. Zelda began to giggle. "Aw, you should have seen the expression on your face! You looked like..."
He threw up his hands. "I don't want to know. Just... don't start. Otherwise..."
"Otherwise what?"
"Stop it!" Link burst out, laughing out loud. "Otherwise - this!" He picked up a cushion off the couch, and threw it at her. Cracking up, she chucked it back.
"Shame there's no 'Cushion Attack' in that game, right..."
"Nah. You need to use the other characters for that," Link grinned, dodging his sister's bombardment. "Try playing as that thing that looks like a marshmallow on legs..."
"No way! You're only saying that 'cause I was beating you to a pulp..."
"Oh, yeah?"
"Yeah!"
The sibling rivalry continued as the video game lay unplayed and unregarded.

"You - what are you two up to now?" a voice interrupted. Link and Zelda whipped round and tried to look innocent.
"Uh - Mum?" they chorused.
"Don't you have homework to do?" A round of groans met their mother's comment. "You know what your teachers are saying about you, Link."
He went red. "Yeah..." he sighed. "Don't tell me. Mr. Carter's been sending angry letters about me again, right?"
"I wouldn't say angry. More concerned."
"You don't hear him in class," Link muttered. "He doesn't even get my name right. And he's had me in his class for six years."
"That's as may be. But you're in danger of failing your History exams this year."
"They're not for ages! Come on, we're only two months into the school year..." he complained, half-seriously. "And besides, it's not like they count for anything."
"You could be held back a grade..."
"They can't do that. Already started the work for next year. And besides, it's only History - they can't hold me back over one class!"
His mother sighed. "I guess not. But you worry me sometimes." She reached down and switched the console off. "So..."
Grumbling almost inaudibly, Link left. Zelda shortly followed her brother away. "You're lucky," he remarked to her. "You don't have to put up with this lot yet."
"You've forgotten what last year was like already? You were all over the place... how did you cope?" she half-laughed.
"I didn't. That's why I'm flunking History."

-

The traveller sped along the near-silent road. Gravel spluttered under the wheels of his motorcycle, and a long snowy braid flicked up behind him from under his helmet. He preferred being alone, sometimes - his normal condition, in many ways. There, at least, he could escape the chaos of the modern world.
Chaos. He laughed. That would have in some ways been better than the hyper-organisation he faced so often, where all so often he was asked for proof of an identity that could never be proved and that he spent most of his existence hiding. After all, in a forgotten language, that was exactly what his name meant - if anyone had known it. Yet - in this day and age - so much had been forgotten. The old struggles for survival, when Hyrule and Termina, all the worlds, had been in constant conflict between light and dark - those were all but a myth.
Perhaps peace has finally come, he thought. If not peace, then balance. As if to back up his thoughts, he banked the cycle around a tight corner -
Losing control.

His head began to spin. No... why... why now? Other senses than those traditionally expected began to scream. The rider came crashing off the cycle, which skidded away almost unharmed into the mud. Although the impact hurt, it was nothing to him. What was causing the agony was deep inside, trapped in his heart.
Unsteadily, he got to his feet. He sighed, and pulled the black and silver helmet off for a moment.

Rubbing at his shining-white eyes, he tried to calm the lightning-bolt fury inside his mind.
One thought occupied him more than the others.
You total fool, Oni'kara...
How could you let this happen?

Not the motorcycle accident.
That was only to be expected when he had felt something go wrong with reality.

-

Link held his head in his hands and groaned. There was something wrong with reality, he decided. There had to be something wrong with anything that could only be explained using such nonsense as 'dee-ex by dee-why equals ex cubed'. Mathematics was never his strong point. He wouldn't have studied it, given half a choice. But at least doing it kept him away from the lurking History homework that his mother had warned him about. He'd liked the subject once, but that was back in the days when it seemed to mean something. When it was still history and not politics. Now, anything was better than learning about the ideological nonsense that had lead to Hyrule's Revolution of 1546.
Even the legitimate excuse of struggling with algebra ran out eventually. Muttering to himself, he fished the textbooks from a lost homework graveyard and began to flip through the pages. There were bookmarks in here somewhere, he knew.

The phone rang. From his bedroom, Link could hear Zelda sprinting down the stairs to get it.
"Oh... hi, dad..." She paused. "It's for you, Link..."
He groaned. "Fine. Coming." Reluctantly, he wandered down, letting out a sigh as he took the handset off Zelda. "Yeah? What is it?"
"No 'hey?' " his father's voice asked, trying to sound light-hearted.
"I'm busy here," Link stated in a monotone.
A sigh. "Link... forget it."
"Fine. "
"Wait - "
"What?" he snapped.
"I know you're still angry at me... " his father started, realising as he did that they were the wrong words to use. Telling somebody they were angry would only make matters worse.
"No, I'm not." I'm furious. "Bye." There was steel in his voice.
"Link!" The only answer on the other end of the line was a single click and a humming tone.

Zelda looked round in shock. "What was that about?" she asked, surprised. Her brother only shrugged and marched upstairs.

Even History essays sounded better than explaining what had happened. Flicking the computer's 'on' switch, he quietly cursed under his breath. You didn't need to go and disturb me like that, dad. I know what you were going to say. Same old story. I've heard it about a million times. Not going to be back. Blah. Poking holes in the universe is too damn important. Blah, blah...

-

Robert Hunter sighed as he hung the phone up. "Stop doing this to me, Link," he muttered, thinking of the acid in his son's tones. "I couldn't help it." Shaking his head, he turned back towards the banks of computer systems and expensive equipment that lined the laboratory. If he hadn't been cut off so sharply, the reason for his call would have become clear - he wasn't coming home tonight. That in itself wasn't unusual, and he suspected Link would have worked out the reason on his own. The experiment had reached a critical phase. If the dark-matter fusion they had pioneered here - or predicted, anyway - worked, it could mean a breakthrough in theory.
On the other hand, they could equally get nowhere. The latter option seemed to be the more likely at the moment. The dials and meters refused resolutely to move. Resigned, Dr. Hunter picked up a cup of coffee so cold it defied the laws of thermodynamics, took a quick mouthful, and settled down to watch and wonder what was going wrong. He picked up a dog-eared notebook, and tried to find where the problems lay. No... no... that's okay... that worked... wait. He paused, seeing a glaring error on the page. "I'm out by a factor of ten. If I..." he muttered, and carefully adjusted a dial. The new setting would either blow the equipment, or produce a perfect result. But it was the only chance to make this work.

Slowly, he counted down under his breath.
On 'three', the console exploded. He leapt under a desk and swore. Slowly, the smoke cleared. Coughing, he looked around. That wasn't supposed to happen.

What he saw came as even more of a shock. Ruined machinery was the first thing that caught his attention - but his mind had no time to dwell on it.
Rather, the focus was on what looked like a tear, lightning-edged, in the air in front of him.
And something coming through.

-

The motorcycle picked up speed again. Its rider had very little need of that sort of transportation, it was true - but it sometimes helped. It was only one part of his careful camouflage. Anyone watching the figure speeding away would have hardly seen past the illusion he projected, that of a young man just on the edge of his teenage years, though still white-haired. Long ago, Oni had realised that most humans would only regard him with fear if they saw him as he really was. It was a fact that had become more and more obvious over the centuries, more and more painful. In this technological society, an armoured warrior was hardly welcome.
Sometimes, the worlds had no love for their guardian. Though sometimes he resented the role he was forced to play, a little deception was often the only way he could blend in. A little subtle shape-shifting magic, too. A natural eight foot height was usually replaced by just over six where there was a risk of being seen.

Not that, when it came down to it, what he looked like really mattered. Only what he was there for - protecting the physical worlds. This time, however, he was sure he had gone wrong. Still quietly cursing his over-confidence, Oni'kara gave the throttle an angry yank and sped onwards.
Next stop - Kakariko City. There's something happening there. Felt like - someone's opened a gateway? Why didn't I think... ha. Two thousand years, and I'm getting careless. Then again, no-one believes in magic any more - I wasn't to expect this!
Unless it's not magic...

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Link's head began to swim. The computer screen seemed to spin in front of his eyes, blurring his essay into a mess of words. It was already, but this is stupid... stuff this. I'll have to come up with an excuse in the morning ...Morning? Oh, man. I've got to get some sleep.

He virtually collapsed into bed, falling into unconsciousness within seconds.
Of a sort, anyway.

...The sky flickers with lightning. A great shadow bears down over him, taking the form of a monster. He steps back in alarm, as the shadow begins to laugh... and speak, in a low rumble, almost animal... "We meet again!"... It slashes forward with a giant sword, aiming for the point where he stands... There is no way to escape...
Except one...

"Wha?!" He bolted awake. What was that about? Link wondered. Haven't had a creepy dream like that since I was ten... He glanced at his clock. The alarm was going to go off in a minute anyway. And anyway, there wasn't a chance he was going to be able to sleep after something like that. He wandered, eyes half-shut, towards the bathroom.

"Watch it!" his sister snapped as he walked straight into her.
"Huh? Sorry, Zel... I'm not together yet..."
"I figured that out. What were you yelling about?"
Link started to turn red. "Nothing."
"Yeah. Loud nothing."
He paused. "Nightmare," he mumbled.
She looked straight at him. "You too?"

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A/N: Here we go again... well, couldn't stay away, could I?
Shorter chapters and more of them may be likely this time round. (MS Word has been having fits. I can't get the word counter to work... good job my HTML editor is still OK.) Well, until I get going anyway.