Chapter 12
The Mission
Link stood at the base of Hyrule Castle. The purple-orange sunset gave the castle a mystical look. "Look at that," Link stated. He hadn't seen the castle in such order sense the days of the last King. The reign of Zelda had been one of hardship and reconstruction.
Zelda... Link had been in the past for no more then fifteen minutes and already he missed her. It was reassuring to know that she loved him as he loved her, but it was also distracting. Link shrugged it off and got back to his search. If he remembered correctly, this would be the night that he would be coming back through the space warp that had sent him to Termina. He needed to get to the forest and rip himself out of his past.
If only I had Epona with me, Link thought. Serves me right for not thinking ahead. He shrugged of this distraction, too, and rushed to the Kokiri forest.
Night fell as Link rushed into the forest. The stagnant air hung like a dark curtain all about him, and something felt deathly wrong. Shrugging of yet another feeling, Link jumped off the bridge that blocked him from the forest floor and sprinted madly for the tree trunk he knew to be the one he needed. Before he got there, though, he heard hoofprints from his left. "That must be me," Link stated with a wide smirk. "Am I early, late or both?" he asked himself, trying to make a joke about the situation he was in.
Pikachu ran. Hard. Very hard. If his gut was telling him the truth, then Pichu wouldn't exactly be in a cooperative mood. He had heard how Pichu had tried to sub for him in a trainer duel and lost royally.
Pichu never dealt with losses well.
A bolt of thunder struck in the distance. "Piko piko," Pikachu stated.
The rodent dashed toward the bolt to find an angry Pichu standing there angrily spitting lightning all over the ground. "Pika..." Pikachu menacingly warned.
"Pichu!" Pichu shouted. Then, it threw a bolt of energy at Pikachu. Almost laughing, Pikachu blasted his smaller counterpart with several watts of electricity. When he was satisfied that Pichu wouldn't be able to try anything again, Pikachu plodded over to his downed comrade. Ash jumped out from behind a barrel as he approached. "Pikachu!" Ash shouted. "Where have you been?" Pikachu sighed, picked up Pichu and walked away. "Hey, Pikachu, come back!" Ash commanded.
"Piko," Pikachu responded, dismissively. He continued toward the Game World Arena.
Link was afraid. Or rather, afraid was an understatement. He was standing there in the woods and had come face to face with a gigantic vision of himself. He knew the image to be similar to the one he had seen in a mirror during his adventures with Princes Zelda to smite the evil warlord Gannondorf, but if this were truly him, he would have no business in this time. Fearing for his life, Link snapped back into reality and began a blind charge.
Link was amazed at his smaller counterpart's speed, but he took the assault in stride, blocking the blow with the Hylian shield on his back and proceeding to lay him on the floor with it. He rubbed the back of his head as a new stream of memories from his past poured into his head, and he remembered how much that blow had hurt. As the younger Link began to rise from the floor, his larger counterpart dropped the thought and waited for his kid self to attack again. He knew this fight like the back of his hand, having just received the memories he was even now creating for himself, and he knew that he would not submit until beaten. And while he regretted the pain, he knew of the task that lay ahead.
And so, young link charged in again only to have his sword deflected by the larger Master Sword and receive a stunning smack to the side of his head from its blunt side.
Pikachu stood over his little friend's form protectively as the swarm of bird-like creatures came at him. There had to be hundreds of the members of the Pidgy strain coming at him! "Piko..." he said distantly, losing heart at the sheer amount of vicious scavengers coming his way.
Zap! The first bolt of electricity flew, but it wasn't from Pikachu's electrical cheeks. Another closely followed that one, and then another, and still another. Looking back over his shoulder, Pikachu saw Pichu up already and fighting hard with every amount of energy in its tiny form. He smiled and congratulated the smaller rodent for his bravery and endurance...
... And was promptly clipped upside the head by a set of talons. Now in a rage to match that of his younger counterpart, Pikachu turned sharply and caught the Pidgiotto in its hind parts with a powerful electric attack, bringing it down for good. He joined his friend in the continued stream of electric attacks as the great flock of birds headed ever toward them.
A bright, sunny day was coming to an end in Hyrule field. The fleeting sunlight bathed the land in all of its beautiful shades and painted a picture of awe inspiring beauty in the sky. The flowers were in bloom and the tops of beautiful trees swayed in the wind. Several people walked the road between Kakariko village and Hyrule castle, their cloaks waving in the cool summers breeze that came in from Lake Hylia. However, all of this beauty was secondary to one very important factor: The sound of metal ringing against metal sounded in the distance.
Almost too quickly for the average passerby to see, the Links rushed through a crowd, weaving in and out of civilian bystanders to strike, parry and block. The roads cleared rather quickly as people scrambled all about to escape the fighting, and, spurred on by their fear, all of them reached their destinations well before the sun set.
The battle continued at a breakneck pace for hours and it was truly a spectacle for anything to see. The creatures of the planes stopped wandering about their normal business to stare at the pair locked in combat, thinking of nothing but the want to sit and see the wonder being worked before them.
As the golden orb in the sky fled behind the horizon, Link lifted the younger him upon his shield and flipped him through the air and onto his back. Never deterred despite his obvious fatigue, young Link rose from the ground and charged blindly in a rage that would not die; tiny embers of passionate battle lust burned in his minute eyes. How Link truly missed that feeling!
And then, something that neither fighter had expected to happen happened. The animals on the plane scattered to find cover as their thoughts sifted away from the battle at hand. The land that was just a few seconds ago so full of the miracle of life emptied and stood as still as death, for death itself stood on the battlefield.
Both of the Hylian warriors sensed the thing at the same time. The ceased their battle at exactly the same time, and both of them looked over their right shoulders. Burning eyes looked out of stripped skulls at the fighting pair. This was the largest number of skeletons either fighter had ever seen, and they looked almost despairingly to them. Before Link could explain the situation and play the song that would take both fighters back to his present, the young Hero of Time dashed off into their midst unleashing a series of attacks with deadly accuracy and blocking incoming blows with professional style. That skill had only improved with time, and his older counterpart was quick to join him in a dance of metal that shamed even the great young warrior's work.
The pair of Pokemon seemed hopelessly outnumbered, and they were now back to back firing into the group of Pidgy-kin that had come close enough to advance on foot. It seemed to them as if they had been fighting for days, although it had only been a few minutes in reality. There would be no escape from this battle: the only possible ends to it lay in victory or death.
Knowing fully the consequences of a loss and not quite as enraged as his smaller counterpart to begin with, Pikachu calmed and formulated a plan in his head. He began whispering soothing words to his smaller friend through gasps of air and deadly bursts of thunder and, in only a short minute, he had the smaller Pokemon listening intently.
After a good thirty seconds of Poke' talk, the two stopped blasting their enemies. They turned and locked hands, and Pikachu began instructing his smaller friend in the art of the powerful attack they were about to perform. Not missing their chance, the whole flock of Pidgy-kin began advancing at double their earlier pace.
A sharp exchange of Poke'Words was shot between the two friends and their attention turned to their duties. A twig snapped not five feet behind Pikachu, who figured that now was the best shot they were going to get at this. "PI!" he shouted, signaling his young friend to begin the attack.
The pair began shouting loudly and an electric storm began forming in the air almost instantly. Pikachu gave a few more words to coach his smaller friend and, as if one, the energy bolts shot from the sky. The explosion that followed literally flattened hundreds of yards of bushes and sent the bird-like Pokemon flying through the air for much greater distances.
But, something had gone wrong. Somehow, Pichu had slipped up, and he took the brunt of the force of his own attack rather then forcing it to wash over him as Pikachu had done. He flew for hundreds of yards and smacked full force into a tree, falling limp to the ground. Pikachu cried out in alarm and, calling on the aid of the electric powers inherent to his race, dashed to his fallen friend in a matter of seconds.
Pichu wasn't moving, and Pikachu couldn't tell if he was breathing or not.
Tears welled up in his Poke'mon eyes as he dashed through the forest that had once stood in the area and headed back to the arena.
The two Links battled ferociously, felling skeleton after skeleton on Hyrule field and still they came. An unending wave of fiery eyes swept over the planes as the fighters, now emoting their extreme exhaustion in every movement, were overcome by looks of despair that grew on both of their faces when they saw yet another hoard emerge from over a tall hill in the distance.
And then the painful memories started again. He didn't have to look at himself to see what was happening; he plainly felt every blow that he took in the images of his childhood. True to the visions Link was having, the younger form of himself took a bone fist to the gut, and he left an opening that the skeletons were quick to take. He collapsed to the floor with no less then fifteen blows that came at him in rapid succession.
Knowing he would be in more trouble then even he could handle by this point, Link spun and threw his boomerang to the skeletons hovering over his own fallen form, already bending down to begin their meal. Several of them shattered, and still more found their end under the fury of a bomb that Link threw into their midst. The whole lot of them paused for a moment as this new weapon entered the battle, and Link used the extension on time to play a song he knew would save them.
Link moved his fingers to the position to play an A and blew loudly. He held it for a short value and moved to an F, which was equally short. His last note was four times as long as the first two and it rang out an octave above his previous one. He repeated the series once more and took the ocarina away from his lips, smiling as rays of sunlight began to almost instantly bathe the land in its color once again. The remaining skeletons either burrowed underground or were fried in the intensity of the sun's rays, becoming no more then a fine blue mist. He moved to his downed counterpart, sheathed the young one's sword and hung his shield on his back. Then, flipping the youngling over his shoulder, Link played another tune that ripped a hole in the fabric of time. He stepped through and found himself staring into Zelda's loving eyes. They quickly turned to concern when they saw the bruised and bloodied form of Link's past, and the princess was quick to place him in the medical quarters of the tournament grounds.
Well, that's it for now. I'll post Chap. 13 when my first review comes in!
