A/N: Wee-hee! Onwards to Chapter 3!

Three Renegades: Chapter 3: The Test Subject's Story

"What about him...?" Peach asked, glancing curiously at the mysterious blonde, who only leaned on the window and stared into the outside world, ignoring the wind blowing through his locks.

Mario's smile faded as he glanced at the blonde himself. "Ah... That's Link. No one quite knows who he is or what his past is, but then again, neither does he."

"What happened?"

"We don't know that much, but we do know he was one of those unfortunate kids who got taken into the Gulan Labs."

"Oh..." Peach sighed in pity.

"Before they started working on him, they erased all his memory for some reason. Imagine how that would feel..."

Eyes of blue, empty of all feeling except fear and confusion, glanced around these unfamiliar surroundings, full of beeping things and little lights on the walls and people with long white coats speaking quietly to each other. The blonde child shivered, clutching a blanket around his cold, naked body by instinct with white knuckles, but none of them seemed to care about him at the moment. He felt a sort of emptiness, something that was called... alone.

At last, a man with dark skin stood above him, kneeling down to his height with a soft look on his old face. Several others holding flat things they scribbled on stood around the two, suddenly quiet and attentive.

"Hello," the man in front of him spoke, to which he slightly recoiled in fear, hiding his face in the blanket.

"Don't be afraid, I'm a friend."

The boy hesitantly uncovered his face. "...F-friend...?"

"Yes, that's right. My name is Ganon. Do you know your name?"

"...No..."

"Do you know anything about who you are?"

"...No..." He became uncomfortable as the people wrote on their flat pieces of wood.

"Well, from what I know, your name is Link. Does that sound about right?"

Little Link shrugged his shoulders.

"Well, I'll call you that from now on, is that alright?"

Link hesitated, then nodded.

"Good. I'm sure you and I will be good friends."

"...What's a 'friend?'"

The people exchanged glances then jotted down some more, worrying him even more.

"A friend is a person you like and who likes you back," Ganon explained patiently. "Do you think we could be friends?"

"...Okay."

"So... he knows nothing of his past, right...?"

Mario nodded. "Nothing except what the Gulan put him through. They pumped him full of enhancers for both the body and mind, and as a side effect, he ended up looking like that." He obviously meant the non-human features of the young man.

"Ah..." Peach nodded in understanding.

"We're not sure what the Gulan were doing, but I guess they were trying to breed an ultimate killing engine out of him."

"And it really seems that way the way he combats."

"Oh, yeah. I'd call that a success. But for some reason, the Gulan threw him out like garbage and called him a failure. Not the best decision, I'd say."

"So he came here?"

"More wandered here by mistake. He came a couple weeks after Eliwood's assassination, so we were all a little on edge."

"FREEZE!" A young Renegade agent shouted at the young ten-year-old standing on the dusty path leading into the hidden Blue Heart Renegade HQ's entrance. Several other agents stood around the path with weapons at ready, just in case. The child did not respond to this, only standing there and clutching a ragged cloak which seemed to come straight out of a dumpster.

"State your business!"

The boy did not respond.

"I said state your business!"

Still no response. The agent would've kept going, but the First Lieutenant gave him a signal to cease and lowered his guard, eyes glued to the youth standing alone there as if not sure what to do.

"He just... stood there, even in the danger he was in. He was completely calm, and... there was just something about him that made us all stop."

Mario slipped his gun away and approached the child, his crunching footsteps the only sound. He knelt down to his height, but the strange, pointed-eared boy did not look up in response.

"Hey."

No response.

"Are you with the Gulan?"

"...I don't know."

"Who are you?"

"...I don't know."

Mario paused, slightly confused. "Um... you armed?"

"No."

"No bombs on you or anything like that?"

"Nothing."

Mario looked him over. "Boy, you look ragged. Where did you come from?"

The child didn't answer, but removed a hand-made glove off his left hand and flashed his palm. Mario glanced upon the symbol, then cringed in realization.

"Oh, you're one of those...I'm sorry..." He paused. "...So, uh, you need a place to crash?"

"...I guess..."

"Well, you can stay here if you want."

"But sir!" an agent called out, but was ignored as Mario placed a hand on the boy's shoulder.

"I know what the Gulan did to you, but we'll treat you far better than that. You have my word as the First Lieutenant of the Blue Heart Renegade."

There was a pause, then the child lifted his gaze and stared into this new man's eyes as if judging him. Mario did not look away, he couldn't, not with those orbs that pulled him in.

"... I'll never forget those eyes... They were deep, but cold and empty, like the Gulan sapped the life out of him... You ever read Eliwood's reports on the Labs?"

Peach shook her head.

"He got all the info he could, from his own eyes and the interviews of different test subjects... And what he reported was horrific... Reading it, I didn't think any of it was real... But after looking into Link's eyes... seeing all that pain and torture within..." His brows furrowed as he had no need to go on.

"And you just took him in?"

"We didn't know about his past until he told us a bit about it, but even then, he had no more connections with the Gulan, so we took him in as an agent trainee. And damn, was he something else. He breezed through the entire training course in the span of a month. Most trainees take a year to do so, and they're usually twice his age."

"And the way he combats is amazing..."

Mario grinned. "Ah, you were treated to that, eh? Yeah, his style's a bit bloody, but very smooth and unpredictable, very effective."

"None of the deaths he causes seem to affect him..."

"It might be another effect of all those friggen enhancers on the feeling part of his brain, which would explain why he's so distant with everyone... But then again, maybe he does feel it and just doesn't show it. No one quite knows how Link's head works."

"Mmm..." Peach thought for a moment, then changed the subject. "So what do Marth and Roy have to do with him?"

Mario smiled softly. "They're the only thing close to friends he's got."

"Boys..." First Lieutenant Mario entered the Lowell household, where in the living room (cleared out and used as a training room), Marth and Roy had set their weapons and training aside briefly to listen to what their father's old friend had to say. "This is Link."

He placed a shoulder on the boy who stood in front of him, a youth probably between Marth and Roy's ages. A hooded jacket covered most of his features, and he stared at the ground in a shy manner. The Lowell Brothers stared curiously at this stranger, Roy bending low to peer into his covered face in honest curiosity.

"No need to be shy," Mario encouraged, but Link made no movement. "...Now boys... I want you to be as friendly as possible. He's... been through a lot."

Marth nodded. "He can stay here, in the extra bedroom, if he wants..." He swore he could see a small nod from Link.

Mario smiled. "Good. He's a Renegade trainee too, so you might benefit from training each other." He ushered Link a little closer towards the two boys. "I'll let you introduce yourselves to each other." He patted their shoulders, then quietly left the children alone.

And there was silence exchanged for quite a while as they were waiting for someone else to speak first. Knowing neither Roy nor Link were going to talk, Marth spoke up.

"So..." He looked at Link to find something to talk about. "Um, isn't it a bit hot for a jacket...?"

Link paused in thought, knowing what the blue-haired child was implying. He raised his head a bit. "...You promise not to panic...?"

Marth and Roy looked at each other, then nodded. seeing this, Link gripped his hood and drew it back, revealing his face. The two stared at his young, pale face, skin as smooth as porcelain and eyes seeing unreal. Pointy ears stuck out behind his golden locks, suggesting something inhumane.

Marth would've assured him that it was not a problem, but those blonde bangs and face seemed awfully familiar. And then it dawned on him. "...Link? Is that really you?"

The elfish boy blinked. "What?"

"Roy, doesn't he look like the Link we knew...?"

Roy tilted his head this way and that, scrutinizing him carefully, then he smiled brightly and nodded. "Oh, yeah! Back in school, before he moved away!"

Link glanced helplessly between the brothers. "W-what do you mean?"

"We used to be best friends!" Marth exclaimed. "But we never heard from you again after you moved! What happened?"

Terribly bewildered, the child bellowed, "I DON'T KNOW!"

And that instantly stopped the questions as he shut himself off from the two, leaving the room to search for his bedroom. The room was quiet as the brothers stood slightly confused and a little hurt.

"Marth... why doesn't he remember...?"

"It was tough for them to get along at first, since it turns out they were friends before Link was taken away by the Gulan, and it's not like he could remember them."

"How sad..."

"Yeah, but I explained it to them, and they understood and took him in for what he was now. and so they grew up together and entered the agent force, and a few years later, here we are."

"Wow... I can see why they only had to send these three here..."

"Yep. The best trio of agents you could get. Too bad they had to be traumatized before they could become the best."

Peach let that statement roll around in her mind a bit as she glanced up at front, Roy dizzy from his headbanging session, Marth laughing, and Link shaking his head and staring out the window again as if searching for something. What it was exactly no one would ever know.

Something told her that the farther this trio went past the Gulan lines, the closer they'd get to stopping this force of evil...

A/N: Alright, I've got one more chapter I'm gonna finish writing, and that's where I'm stuck. Once that's up, I'll be desperately asking for help. I have ideas for a later scene and the ending, but I have no idea what to put in between. When that time comes, please help! In the meantime, review!