I own everythi…. Nothing. Hmm. This computer is piiiin-blue. Uh Oh. I can't lie! Nintendo owns Super Smash Brothers. Now, before we get to the meat of this chapter, I would like to say a few words concerning last chapter. Yes, it should have been Chapter 6: The Gathering Storm. But, it was in reality Chapter 6.5, because I had written another chapter 6. The first part was the same, but the second part, completely different. It was done because I had wanted to add Captain Albert Wesker and Rebecca Chambers (Resident Evil) to the dark side, and add Claire Redfield and Leon Kennedy (Ditto) to the light side. It was actually a masterpiece, but before I could upload it, a virus destroyed my laptops system. So, in memory of that lost chapter, I made The Gathering Storm the sixth Chapter, and replaced the original part 15 with the original part 13 (Or what I could remember of it), and then renamed the original part 16 part 14, but kept the chapter number as 7. If that makes no sense, don't worry. It's not important. Just thought I owed an explanation. Anyway, I'm calling this chapter 8. As to the original chapter 6, I have a backup of the file somewhere, and I might add it on when I find it. Or perhaps not.

One more thing. I'm calling Captain Falcon Douglas, because its easier to type. If you don't like it, mention it in your reviews, and in the next chapter, I'll call him Captain Falcon, but only if I get enough petitions. And yes, I do realize this is a cheap way to get more reviews! For those of you who have reviewed, thanks, and keep it up! For those of you who read but don't review, I do allow unsigned reviews, so there is no excuse!

Chapter 8: Mercy is for the Weak

Part 15: Majora's Wrath

                     "So, Marth. How does it feel?"

                     "Its rather odd. I do wish to find some way to break it in." Soon after the heroes had parted company, the boys had gone to get Marth a prosthetic leg. This errand done, they were now on their way to Dreamland to find Kirby. As Douglas put it, 'If we have Kirby on our side, then those villains will avoid us like the plague. After all, even villains won't stick around after a pink balloon has swallowed them. They have their pride!'

                     "You're going to get that chance soon enough, boys. That's Pop Star up ahead!"

                     *                   *                   *

                     The first thing Douglas realized when he got off the Falcon Flyer was the eerie lack of noise. The planet was completely silent. Not a bird sang, not a cricket chirped. Nothing. "Damn! It's as if someone pressed a mute button, or something!"

                     "Yeah. Scary, isn't it?" Mario and Mario followed him out. Marth was getting used to walking again. "Almost as if someone had come and killed eve…ry…one… Oh no. They couldn't have. They wouldn't! Who would help them? Kirby said King Dedede was a nice guy now. He wouldn't help them, I'm sure" Mario remembered Luigi and Link. "I'm almost sure" he corrected himself.

                     "I've been here before, so I can find my way around."

                     "When were you here, Marth?"

                     "My honeymoon. This was where Zelda wanted our honeymoon. She was so beautiful. She still is beautiful. And now, now she's in the hands of the man who above all else hates her. If we had known, we would have spent more time looking for him then we did…"

"Worried Keller will rape your wife?" Mario guessed. That was what he worried about, with Peach in Luigi's hands.

                     "No. Keller might be horrendously evil, but he still is Hylian, and no Hylian can get his mind around the concept of rape. Sexual abuse, maybe. Innuendoes, certainly. But actual rape, no. It's as inconceivable to them as the concept of mercy for a defeated enemy is. That's what I'm worried about. If Keller has Zelda and my daughter and Roy, for that matter, he would be treating them like defeated enemies."

                     "What? Like, free room and board, not torturing them, treating them with respect? That type of thing?"

                     "No. Those are new human inventions. Hylians are more like cats. They play with their captured enemies before they kill them." Marth tried to shake away the images that came. Images of Keller standing over him with thumbscrews, releasing him into a field of bomb flowers and firing arrows at him, slicing off his leg in order to watch him hop through the maze he had set up. While the last was above and beyond normal Hylian behavior, grounded in hatred as it was, he could also remember that those thumb screws had been taken from Hyrule castle, and those bomb flowers had been planted for just that purpose generations before. "There is a Hylian saying; 'Mercy is for the weak. Because they would harm you if they could, so too must you harm then when you can.' Its not their fault, it's a cultural thing, but even Zelda could be brutal. Every time I turned around, she would be ordering the executions of prisoners. And when I stopped the executions from taking place, I would find that assassins had come and wiped out entire cellblocks, hired by either her, or by the nobles. And these are the good Hylians. What a bad Hylian would do doesn't bear thinking of. I'm not worried about rape, I'm worried about them being killed."

                     "That's horrible! And I thought they were such a nice species!"

                     "Hey, C.F., they are nice! I married one, didn't I? They're just not very merciful."

                     "Look, this is all very interesting, but we have to find Kirby! And Douglas, before you grab the high moral ground, just remember what race created the nuclear bomb? Or the disintegrator?"

                     "Um…"

                     "Just chew on that. Now lets go find Kirby!"

*                   *                   *

                     When they reached the capital of Dreamland, a scene of devastation met their eyes. Whole city streets had been turned to dust. Bodies lay everywhere. Some were blue armored warriors wearing purple capes; others were strange star-shaped red things. The majority, though, consisted of bizarre monsters, that seemed little more than blobs of darkness now, and creatures that Marth identified as Dinofos. There were Moblins here too, and many other members of the foot soldiers of darkness. There was nothing living to be seen. They fanned out to look for survivors.

"Hey! Guys! I think I found someone." Mario had pulled up some of the rubble blocking the entrance to the castle. Under it, he had found someone. It was King Dedede. And more importantly, he was still alive.

                     "Ungh. Are my people safe? Did we… win?" King Dedede's voice was weak, as if it was coming from a great distance away. Mario saw how his body had been crushed. Marth and Douglas ran up.

                     "Your majesty, your people are fine. Your soldiers fought bravely. Dreamland is free." They could see that he was on his way out, and they wanted his last moments to be happy ones.

                     "Thank you… for trying to… shield me. I" His voice was getting weaker, as if he was forcing it to speak, "remember it now… the great villain… the cloaked… nightmare. He… had appeared… as if by magic… in the center of the city… with his army… and then this… human… wearing a… horrific… mask" and here he shook his head as if to clear it, "appeared with those lizard monsters… killing, and taking… I led the Metaknights in defense…  of the city… but it was to no avail…"

                     Marth leaned over. "What do you mean, taking? Taking where?"

                     "Please… I… do… not have much… time… Kirby was by the… east wall… with his friends… please… go to him… heal him… and his… friends… they will… help you…. Ask Kirby to… forgive me… I… beg you…" King Dedede's eyes began to glaze. "I… go… to… my… people… please… avenge… us… I'm… sorr…" He spoke no more. After a little while, Douglas leaned forward and closed his eyes.

                     "Goddamn them all. Every last villain." They bowed their heads. After a minute of silence, they went to find Kirby. Or at least, Mario and Marth went to find Kirby. Douglas had gone to find his medi-kit. Kirby was indeed by the east wall, leaning against the wall with a giant hamster, and something that resembled a blue ball of putty.

                     "Hello… Marth, Mario. Sorry we are meeting again under such dark circumstances." Looking closer, they could see that the wall Kirby was leaning on was stained red. The hamsters fur was, in some places, a pinkish color, and the ball of putty seemed flattened.

                     "Hello Kirby. Why don't you introduce to your friends?" Kirby rose up. Or at least tried to rise. He collapsed on to the dirt.

                     "I guess I've been hurt more than I thought. Can you two please go get the Maxim tomatoes that rolled under that board of wood? Thanks." Marth walked over, found a few, and then returned. "Ah. Now, please give me one, pass two to Gooey, he's the blue thing, and give the rest to Rick. He's the hamster. Thanks." All ready the 3 seemed well. Gooey had returned to his standard shape of a blue sphere. Rick's fur was white and brown once more. Kirby himself was much better. "Right. Now lets go meet King Dedede. He'll be glad to hear that we have won. I see no enemy forces around here anymore!"

                     Mario looked at Marth. "Yesss, I'm sure he would be, if it wasn't for the fact that he's dead. Seemed very apologetic about something, wanted you to forgive him some crime or other. Also, I'm afraid that the reason you see no enemies around is the fact that they won. King Dedede said something about taking, too. Do you know what he meant?"

                     "We lost? And the survivors were taken to the Cloaked Nightmares home dimension? Oh no! Then…Angeline!"

                     "Who?"

                     "Never mind. But… who was that masked man? He was very strange. Almost as if the mask had been wearing him. And what were those lizard things?" And are you sure we lost? Is everyone really dead or taken? How did Dedede die? While the last three weren't asked, they hovered on the air.

                     "Everything that happened here was caused by servants of Ganondorf. That's all we have time for right now. We had better get back to the Falcon Flyer before some monsters show up." They were spared having to walk back when the Falcon Flyer did a speed landing in front of them. Douglas leaped out.

                     "Come on! Let's go, people!" In the direction he had come from, a huge tentacle waved in the air. Black magic shot out from it, blasting the wall to pieces. Majora was free.

                     "Gooey scared! Run away now!" The ball of putty bounced on to the ship, followed by Rick. Another burst of magic slammed right beside the remaining people. They all jumped and ran into the ship, which then went to full speed in a matter of seconds, zooming off the planet.

                     Majora watched them leave. While it knew it should have stopped them, it had been ages since it had been at full power. It knew that if it wanted to remain in the council of four, it would have to take on a humanoid form. But right now, it was going to enjoy itself.

Part 16: In space, no one can hear you scream

                     Saria had not been having a good week. Since she had left the forest, she had learned of a terrible betrayal, had her species suddenly changed on her and then been magically aged until she was 14, and those two were done by a person she had considered an older brother. And then, a couple of hours before they had saved Ness, Samus and Malon had sat her down and done their best to condense entire reams of schooling into a small talk. Ordinarily, they could have done it gradually, but this wasn't ordinary at all. Saria had, quite literally, skipped her developing years, and unlike what happened to Link in the Temple of Time, there was no magical force filling her mind with the things she should know about so as to keep herself from becoming embarrassed by her own body, or at least not to any great extent. Besides, Link had aged normally. Saria had been pushed. And now, here she was, wearing uncomfortable underwear (Malon had called it lingerie, but Saria was the type of person who would call a spade a shovel), in an unfamiliar body, and with strange thoughts running around her head. And a lot of them revolved around Ness…

                     Ness was looking at her with a puzzled, and slightly embarrassed expression. He leaned over to her. "I'm honored, but I'm afraid that there's something you don't know about me. I'm psychic. That means that I can read minds. So if you're thinking things like how handsome I am, I can pick them up as easy as if you said them." Saria blushed, for the first time in her life. Then she concentrated.

                     Guess what, Ness? I'm psychic too. But the difference is, I don't poke into other peoples minds. Saria experienced a slight sense of satisfaction at him jumping.

                     "Well, its hard not to read someone's mind when that person keeps thinking about me. But now that I have your attention, perhaps you can help me out. At the Super Smash tournament, I made a friend named Link. Well I made friends with one of the Links. The one from another dimension, the one my age. The one from this dimension had little time for someone shaped like a potato… I'm sorry, did I say something wrong?" Saria was blinking back tears. "What? Did I break some religious thing?"

                     "Um, Ness? We don't talk about Link any more. I'm sure that your friend is fine, but our Link is… no longer amongst us." Malon didn't want to tell Ness too much. Samus was sure that Y. Link was fine, she had told Malon she thought that, he was even engaged to his Zelda, it seemed like Y. Link hadn't been bound so strictly by the formality that had been his older self's downfall. But telling Ness about Link could ruin him. She forgot that lying to a psychic is near impossible.

                     And what do you mean by that Malon? The thought came in from out side of her brain. She could feel a rummaging. Let's see. Ah ha! Recent memory. Let me see. 'Learning that the Heroic Link and the Archfiend Lord Keller are one and the same has driven a stake through my heart. Link was my friend, and to learn that he had the capacity for such hatred, and so much evil, in him chills my heart. I can't put the two together. Link, who had saved Hyrule from Ganondorf, and helped me so much, the same man as Keller, who conquered Hyrule for Ganon, and ordered my father's and mine deaths? No. I can't think that! Just because its Link's body and I don't think its that anymore, really, doesn't mean its Link's soul. Yes, that's it! Link is dead, and Ganon replaced his soul with something else! Din, Farore, Nayru, may Link be resting peacefully, and may he have achieved his true reward. No. That doesn't work. I can't lie to myself. He must have truly loved Zelda. I can only hope that that love remains strong enough to keep him from killing her. Oh Goddesses help Hyrule, and may you bring your true hero back to the path of righteousness. And my beloved Roy, may he come back to me, and may my father have reached Arcadia.' Oh my god. How?HHo  She could feel shock and horror coming from the presence.

                     "Ness? Is something wrong? Only you've gone pale." Samus was watching Ness. If she had turned her X-ray visor on, than she would have seen his heart start to thump exceedingly fast.

                     "Dear god. It's terrible! How can Link have become this Keller? Are you sure?"

                     "Oh yes. He told us himself. And that's not all. Saria, tell Ness what Keller did to you."

                     Saria shuddered. The pain had been terrible. She didn't want to remember. "I was a Kokiri. They are a race of child spirits, who never age after they reach 10. I had been 10 for hundreds of years. While we were escaping from Keller, I tried to turn him back to the light. He… took it as an insult, and while we were waiting for Samus to save us, he appeared out of nowhere, and cast an evil spell on me, turning me into a normal Hylian. Stupidly, I laughed at him, telling him I didn't feel any different. Then he cast a second spell, aging me 4 years in 10 seconds. Do you know what its like? Being in a single form for so long, and then having it taken from you? Going from immortal to mortal? And his expression… I could feel it… not one of hatred, not the one he wore when he looked at Marth, but a terrible peace. He didn't even care what he had done, provided I was out of the way. I shudder to think what he's done to the other Kokiri."

                     "Oh my. Then Link, he has become a monster…" Ness was feeling odd. He wanted to, well, to tell Saria it would be all right, to hold her. He didn't know why, but seeing her upset hurt him. "Don't worry, Saria. Keller can't reach us here. We're in outer space!"

                     "Ooh. Wrong on both counts." Ness turned around slowly. Behind him loomed a dark figure, robed completely in black. The only parts of the being visible beneath the robes and armor were two flaming eyes. "I'm not a monster. If anyone is a monster, its Zelda. I gave up my life for her, saved her, traveled through time and around time for her, and she tossed me aside for that bastard Marth. I like to think of myself as someone who is seeing clearly for the first time." He turned towards the window. "As to how I reached you, well, look outside. Out there is eternal night, and the night is my domain." He snapped back around. "Now, I should kill you, but Emperor Ganon seems to think that you will surrender if we inform you of the horrible calamities that will happen to your people if you don't."

                     "What do you mean, horrible calamities? You won't do anything horrible, because Ganon doesn't want to rule a universe of the dead." Samus sounded very smug. "You don't frighten us, Link."

                     Keller froze. Samus realized what she had just said. "Did I say Link? I said Link." Keller threw back his cloak, revealing his deadly blades. His eyes narrowed to dangerous slits. Saria moved to interfere before Keller killed them all.

                     "Um, Mighty Lord Keller, perhaps you would care to elaborate on 'horrible calamities'? What have you done personally to move towards this goal of encouraging our surrender?" Keller turned towards her.

                     "What have I done? Lets see…" He snapped his fingers, and a black book appeared. Saria and Malon gasped. "Hmm? Oh. Tell me, do either of you know what the word Keller means?"

                     "Yes.  In the Gerudo tongue, it means prosecutor, in the ancient Hylian tongue, it means vampire..."

                     "Yes. And as a prosecutor, I should have records, should I not? And these are the true records. They can not lie. Takes a great deal of magic to summon them, but I have a lot of magic. Now… what have I done? Turned Talon into a cockroach, and stepped on him, though oddly enough he survived and escaped to my dungeons. Should have made him a ladybug. Awakened Death Mountain, so not even the Gorons can stay there without being burned horribly. Turned the Gerudo and those Hylians loyal to me loose on the Hylians that are not. The complete extinction of the Shiekah. Polluting the rivers of Hyrule so that the Zora race can no longer move freely. And as for the Kokiri, killing all but 10, and destroying the Great Deku Tree, probably saw them off." Ness realized what was wrong. Here was someone saying he had done all these horrible things, but he had no emotion about it. Not even satisfaction. Keller was a man of ice. The book disappeared. His voice lowered in pitch, so that none of them could hear it. "As well as some other atrocities, under the moonlight."

                     "How did you kill the Great Deku Tree?" Malon asked. "I thought he was invincible."

                     "Oh, he was. Took a great deal of effort, but finally I hit upon it. What weapon destroys magic? I thought long and hard, but I could only think of one powerful enough for the job. What was I to do but play my trump card?"

                     "Oh no. Link! You didn't! Not to the Great Deku Tree! Link, how could you do it to the one who raised you?" Keller seemed more amused than angered by this outburst. The only sign that he was unhappy were his hands moving to his daggers.

                     "What did he do? What weapon could have destroyed something that's invincible?" Ness asked.

                     "He used… Oh, I can't say it. He used the Senmounto Dern. The great destroyer."

                     "Or to call it by its proper name, Yrenato Senfoun. SoulBlighter." As the words left Keller's mouth, a chill ran down their spines. "That blasted tree split open like a ripe melon." He swished his cloak around him, revealing that behind his left dagger, he kept another weapon. The scabbard was silver, but what was visible of the blade within seemed to absorb light, managing the near impossible task of being darker than the robes around it. Saria and Malon did the triangle symbol over their left breasts. "The blade that destroyed Hylia, that placed the curse of the ancients upon the king of Ikana. And now, the destroyer of the Kokiri Forest."

                     "Then it's true what they say about evil magic. Those who use it lose their ability to create or see beauty, or to do any good, becoming mere weapons in the hands of their master Ganon. I pity you, Link, for you have lost your soul. Only a soulless being can use SoulBlighter and live." There was only the slightest trace of the fright and sadness she must be feeling. Malon's face, on the other hand, was a picture of terror. Ness and Samus made mental notes to ask about this SoulBlighter if they survived.

                     "Saria, if I've lost the ability to create beauty, then how do you explain the beauty of your current body?" Keller mocked her. "I think that's a very nice piece of work for someone who can't see beauty. If you want, I can create more right now!"

                     "No, you can't. And you didn't create this body. I would have developed it eventually anyway, without the second spell you cast."

                     "Is that a challenge?"

                     "What if it is?"

                     "Then my response will be…" A wave of black fire shot out from his hand, burning off Saria's clothes. Ness's throat dried. He knew it was wrong to look, but he couldn't help himself. He had never seen someone so beautiful…

                     "Ahhh!" Saria squealed. Ness was jolted out of his examinations and he hastily looked away. But Keller on the other hand, moved in closer, cupping one of her round, full breasts in each gauntlet.

                     "Well, Saria? Do you agree? Personally, I can't imagine what I once saw in these things. But a lot of things have happened since I was attracted to women. My death, for a start. Now, all I have left is hatred, a hunger for revenge, and for some reason, a bizarre craving for the blood of virgins. Well, any blood will do, really, but virgin blood is the sweetest. But I'm not sure you qualify. After all, it's been what? A week since you were put in this body?" He removed his mask, and opened his mouth, smiling at her. Samus and Malon suddenly screamed. Putting his own consciousness behind their eyes, Ness saw what they were screaming about. Keller had fangs where other people had teeth. His canines were long and sharp. Something nagged at Ness's mind. Keller had said yes when Saria had mentioned vampires. And now he said he was dead. Keller lowered his eyes down until they were level with Saria's. "Trust in me Saria. I will not harm you. Do not fight. Just let me drink of your blood…" He squeezed Saria's breasts. There was no resistance. "Good…" Samus and Malon were frozen. Their minds were asleep. Ness knew it was up to him. Keller was paying too much attention to his meal.

                     "PK Fire!" Keller suddenly caught on fire. He dropped Saria, snarling. He turned towards Ness.

                     "So, you want to fight the prince of evil? Then let's make things interesting." A black cloud surrounded Keller. When it cleared, he was gone. In his place was a monster. His pointed ears were no longer cat-like. Instead, they resembled nothing so much as those of a bat.  His skin was pasty white. His eyes glowed yellow. Huge claws came from the tips pf his dexterous fingers, each looking sharp enough to pierce the walls of the ship. "Then, die! And when you are dead, know that you will join me in darkness!" He ran forward and grabbed Ness by the neck, holding him off the ground.

                     "No!" Ness struggled, but to no avail. He could feel his will draining from him. "One of you, help me."

                     "Please. Your friends can't help." He lowered Ness so that their eyes met. He was about to begin his catechism when a bright light filled the space ship. "Nooo!" Keller shriveled up and disappeared. "I'll return! It won't work twice!" Ness turned to his savior to see Saria standing there, her hands glowing, without any thought of modesty.

                     "Did he hurt you? Are you all right?" She looked around. "What are you staring at?" She followed Ness's gaze. "Oh." She blushed and covered herself.

                     "Am I all right? I'm better now." He passed her his jacket. "Here. Put this on." Since he was taller than she was, it covered most of her important parts. "Now go find more clothes. I'll wake them up." She smiled and left. As he moved to return Samus and Malon to reality, he kept thinking about her smile. He would have to protect her from Keller.

To recap, Dreamland is depopulated, King Dedede dies, Saria starts to fall in love with Ness, and then Keller tries to drink Saria's blood… Now, some of you may not like this, but the theme is not just Action/Adventure. It's also an Angst genre story. And I think I might end up putting this in R. also, yes I do have a Ness/Saria romance in the cards, plus a Malon/Roy romance, a Marth/Zelda romance (They are married, so it'd be kind of silly not to have a little one), and a CF/Samus romance. Don't worry, though. No lemons!

To tell you the truth, I dislike the 2-genre system. I think that a 4-genre system would work better. For instance, in a 4-genre system, this would be Action/Adventure; Angst; Horror and Romance.

                     And if one day, you log on and look for this story and its not there, I decided to make it R. Actually, I'll put it to a vote. In your review, say whether I should just go on as I have and keep it a PG-13, or whether I should go full throttle and make it an R. If it's an R, I could allow myself almost complete freedom in this story, but if it changes, some people would be unable to read it. Cough

                     Please Review. Flames, fantastics, I don't care. Just remember to vote!