RE-DRAWN
WHEREBOUTS OF THE WIND
1-1
Link sat in the field, reflecting. About 5 minutes had passed since he had his flashback. He didn't look up, he feared that when he'd be surrounded by his alter egos, all impatiently waiting to drive him insane again. When he finally did look up, all he saw was a massive grey horned owl allotted atop the strange post sticking out of the ground.
When he stared into the owls eyes, they flipped upside down along with the rest of the owls head. The small dots above the 'eyes' opened up and revealed a glaring brown set of eyes that bore into link's soul. Link stiffened up and just stared at the owl, or did the owl stare at him? Just when link was about to break his gaze, the owls beak opened up and he heard a voice come from the owls position.
"So you're finally revived, good. I thought I was going to have to take your sword and save Hyrule myself."
Link about jumped out of his skin. He could have sworn he just heard that owl talk. "Excuse me?" Link uncertainly responded, he didn't think owls could talk; it was one of the few things he had yet to encounter on his adventures.
"Don't worry, talking owls are not possible," said the owl, reading his body's language "guiding manifestations of Nayru, such as myself are however very likely to give their advice. My name is Kaporea Gora, and I'm going to help you on your journey, however the Goddess sees most fitting." said the owl, as it was unmistakably the owl talking.
Link rubbed his hands against his eyes, blinking hard as he reopened them. He was still feeling weak from the soul splice upon drawing the sword, but this seemed a little ludicrous, even for a near death experience...
"I can tell when you're not listening, so I'll tell you what you must know and go. Maybe we could actually hold a discussion after you've gotten over your bewilderment."
"Wait a sec! I'm sorry, but I'm still a bit weakened from drawing the Four Sword, I'm still just recovering." Link explained apologetically.
"Expected. The Soul Splice splits the life force in your body into four separate shells, effectively bringing you to one fourth your nor-"
"I KNOW" Link stated, a little louder than intended. "I know" he said, calmer now "I have used this sword before, and I know of the soul splice. Why don't you know that if you're the spirit of wisdom?"
Kaporea flicked his head to the side at an alarmingly fast twitch "Wisdom and Knowledge are NOT the same thing. Knowledge is understanding everything about a specie of black Chu, Wisdom is knowing you should ALWAYS aim to avoid it." the 'owl' said somewhat irked. "Anyway, I thought you should know, Vaati sucked some of the power from the Four Sword during his imprisonment and scattered the pieces across the land. These fragments of sacred energy are called Force Gems." the owl put it's beak under its wing and pulled out a small, green, glowing triangular pyramid. Flicking it expertly with his beak, the Gem landed on Link's Four Sword and slid into the jade pommel of the blade like passing through a magical barrier, causing a slight ripple as it passed through, then solidifying back into an dark green gemstone.
Link looked at the spectacle of magic before him as Kaporea continued his introduction. "Collect these to try to return the Four Swords to its full title as Shadow's Bane. I'll be trying to keep up with you four, but until then, my charge is to lend aid across Hyrule where necessary." as he said this, the enormous owl shuffled its wings and prepared for flight.
"Kaporea! How long was I out?" Link asked nervously, fearing the answer he might here.
The owl turned its head completely around to face him, and with a dark grin playing across his beak as he replied mysteriously "Too long, Hero" and shot off into the sky with speed misleading for his girth.
Link stared as the owl rocketed off into distance, leaving a blue streak behind him. When he sat up, he dusted off his green tunic and found his floppy hat and placed it back on his head and looked around the field again. Nothing had changed, still the same old scenery, except he noticed the bushes he had seen earlier were rustling lightly.
"So did we fuck Zelda yet?" Link grimaced and turned around, rising from one of the bushes was himself.
The new Link looked exactly like the original, except he was wearing a red tunic and his hair was spikier and a bit wilder than Link's hairstyle. Aside from those physical differences, the two looked exactly alike. Their similarities were only skin deep by Link's reasoning though
Red Link drew the Sword from his back and held it in one hand, smiling deviously as he tested its weight again, refamiliarizing himself with the sword granting him manifestation. He suddenly slashed with it in a powerful sweep, and the bushes around him fell forward and formed a green carpet to cross. He walked up to Link and embraced him in an over energetic hug.
"I'm guessing no. So how's my lime loser doing?" Red joked as he roughly released Link from his bear hug. Link stumbled back a few feet and right before gaining balance, he tripped over and into another bush. He flailed his hands wildly and fell backwards into the bush.
"AUUHHGG! DEAR GODESSES!" wailed a voice from underneath our unbalanced hero. Link rolled out of the way just in time as a Four Sword with a sapphire pommel came jutting out off the bush and started harmlessly flapping from side to side. The flat edge of the blade slapped Link across the face, leaving a bright red mark. Speaking of bright red, Red was standing off to the side laughing at the chaos he created till he had to grip his sides to keep the mirth from knocking him over.
"For Farore's sake..." Link muttered with a sigh. He reached through the bushes and gripped the flailing hand. He tried to force the sword from the panicky wielder's hand, but both had equal strength and reached a standoff quickly.
Seeing his hiding spot was endangered, the blue figure jumped out of the bushes screaming wildly and he ran straight into a still laughing Red, bowling both to the ground.
"AH! SON OF A BITCH!" yelled Red angrily in a high pitch as a blue Link tackled him to the ground, knocking both the swords from their grasp. The two started to wrestle on the ground and Blue pulled the shield off his back to protect himself from the flurry of blows being delivered by an extremely agitated Red.
Link, still in the bush, reached out trying to grab a handhold in the green canopy filling his senses and his hand was griped by someone lending him help up. Link pulled himself up, expecting to see Blue, and was a little surprised when a Purple Link gazed down at him. "Why are you in a bush?" asked Purps in his inquisitive yet deep and jovial voice.
"When did you get here?" Link responded. The magenta clone just smiled and turned to the brawl that was ensuing. Red was sitting on top of Blue and was pummeling his shield while angrily yelling curses in an agitated higher pitch. Blue just sat huddled behind his defense, calling for Red to stop in his deep panicky voice. Link decided to end this and went up and tried to pull Red off, who just turned and adjusted his assault towards Link while Blue scurried out from underneath Red. Link held out his arm to block the aggressive assault and shoved Red backwards, knocking him over. Red fell with a hurricane of vulgarities and started to get back up. Purple went to go and calm him down, and Blue walked next to Link cautiously to keep him from diving right back into combat, but also to protect himself from Red. Blue was lousy at close quarters.
"I'm fine" Red spat out, then pulled himself up on Purple's ever present hand. He looked angrily at Blue, spitting off into the bush Blue had hid in and then trudged off to locate his sword, calming down slightly. Link did the same also, (without the rude gestures) though he needed a LOT more willpower to calm himself down. He already felt stressed enough with last nights events.
Just like old times Link thought wearily.
When everyone got their selves together, Link reviewed their party again. Blue was walking around the tree line and peering between the branches. Red link drew his sword and practiced a bit, placing the shield on his back. Purple link sat on a rock, looking around the field curiously. He spat out a piece of grass in his mouth and spoke "Can you tell us how we got here?"
Blue walked back from the far side of the field, "Good question, what went wrong? I thought we sealed Vaati in that rock and locked this sword around him." he said drawing the Four Sword inexpertly from his sheath. The violet doppelganger got up and stepped back from the armed Blue, a look of worry crossing his face. Link turned and briefly explained the situation.
"Zelda and the maidens got kidnapped, Vaati broke loose, and the Four Sword got weakened, so keep an eye out for these Force Gem things, they're supposed to help." he explained shortly "by the way, are we still going by our old names?"
Red's ruby Four Sword landed pommel up in the ground in between Link's legs, causing Link to jump back in surprise. Red walked over laughing. "No, Link, after half a year of arguing, I decided that Iwant to be Link now, and we'll call the blue kid Dennis." he said sarcastically, grabbing his sword from it's spot in the floor. "Same as always, we stay color coded except for you, Mr. Hero."
"Hey, hold on a second" said Blue "One: your leaving something out, the maidens couldn't have screwed up Vaati's seal, there supposed to be experts at sealing greater evils, right? Someone else must have tampered with his seal. and-" At this point, Red interjected "Two: why are we still waiting around? We've gotta go save the maidens, Vaati's gonna get his ass kicked again."
Blue looked angrily at Red for stopping him. Red caught the look and feigned an apology. "Oh I'm sorry, were you going to say something important?"
Blue huffed, "I was gonna say we should team up with the Hylian guard and get some real weapons. We all know how useless I am with this thing." he lifted up the Sapphire Four Sword to emphasis his point, and Red and Link cautiously backed away.
"Nope, we can't go to the guard" said Purple, strapping the Four Sword's sheath exactly the opposite of his companions, with the amethyst hilt pointing towards the ground on the right side. "Zelda and Link were last seen in the Four Swords Sanctuary, and then the next thing the guards see is Vaati flying out of the sanctuary with maidens in tow and a Black Link waltzes passed them. So the first thing they think must be 'look at that, Link released Vaati, now he's escaping!" then we become Hyrule's most wanted, so no."
There was silence in the meadow and all the heroes just stared at Purple in disbelief. The first person to say anything was Link. "How the hell did you know about shadow?" He yelled. Purple waves across the meadow and everyone followed his gaze.
Shadow Link stood in the field, staring at them smiling and unarmed. He looked terrifyingly out of place in the bright and sunny field. There were birds, flowers and green grass sitting around the horrible monstrosity obliviously, adding a tranquil feel all around the thing'sdark purpose. Surprisingly, he waved back to Purps and then let off his horrible wailing laugh that set all the Link's nerves on edge.
Link rushed forward yelling with his sword drawn, and Red ran after him, laughing manically and excited for the thrill of combat. The two rushed down the path in hot pursuit of the evil Shadow, eventually turning a bend and rushing out of sight.
Blue turned to Purple and shrugged his shoulders helplessly. The two started walking after the blood-thirsty duo, Purps out of apathy, Blue out of uselessness. As they started walking, Blue felt a gaze boring into his head, and he turned to see Purps looking curiously at him. Blue started nervously scraping at his head and whimpered a little, only to knock off his floppy blue hat, to which he heard Purps chuckle and keep walking, not as rudely as Red, but it still annoyed Blue to some extent. He bent over to pick up his hat, and saw a green glowing triangle next to it. He stared for awhile curiously, and then looked up to see that Purple had kept walking. Blue pocketed the small object and started to walk after Purps, purposely keeping his distance from the odd-ball out.
With the Shadow slaying duo charging in pursiut, the beast turned down the path leading out of the field. Red and Link continued their charge forward and passed a house with a group of four people running around out back. Quickly outpaced by Shadow, they picked up their pace to try and catch up, but then the two slowed down a little further down the path. Shadow was standing on the far end of a bridge, with a painted bomb sporting a skull and bones design in his hand. He chuckled monstrously and rolled the sizzling bomb down the wooden old bridge. The explosive went off with much more power than it seemed possible, causing the entire structure to shatter and the debris to fall flaming into the water below. The blast knocked the pursuers off their feet, and they sat up and both their jaws dropped at seeing the destruction caused by the small projectile.
"I want one of those!" said Red with his mouth agape. Link glared at Red, and they both got up and turned around to collect Purps and Blue.
Link backtracked along the path with his Red doppelganger, pondering to himself. From his last adventures, Red had always been aggressive and brash, but never this violent towards Blue and Link. Last time around, Red got along decently with himselfs, not the best companion, but still... he seemed more proud this time. Blue hadn't changed much, he was still as jumpy and scared as always, but a bit less helpful now, but Link could have just been early to judge. He wasn't sure. Something just seemed different about all of them. Link just didn't know what or why.
"Hey, what gives? You've just been zoned out for like a minute!" said Red.
Link blinked hard, jumping back into reality. "Sorry, I was just thinking to myself. Were you saying something?"
Red glared. "I was asking what we would do for our weapons. Do you still have my stuff back at your house?"
"You think we could get there with the Hylian army searching for us? That's the first place they'd... look... for us..." Link said, trailing off.
Red waved a hand in front of Links vacant expression, then turned to see the object of interest. The scene in front of him was a strange one. They were right next to the house they had barreled past, and there was an old man out front, with four young girls peering over the low gate that kept them in the back yard. The old man had his cane in hand and was assaulting Purps with it. The elderly person was screaming incoherently, and Purps was blocking with his shield while screaming "He's not me!"
Blue was trying to stay out of the way of the old man, and he started looking for some way to help out his violet counterpart. Blue turned, and he saw Red and Link standing with jaws hung low. "OVER HERE!" screamed Blue, loud enough for the old man to turn his attention from Purps.
Purps took this advantage and shoved the cane upwards with his shield while he reached back with his right hand, grabbing his sword. Wielding it underhanded, he pulled the blade out and spun it upward in an ark, catching the old man's staff and slicing it neatly in two, with one half still in his hand. Continuing his motion, Purps raised his left hand with shield equipped and batted the falling stick out of the way and brought his sword up again, this time stopping it inches from the old man's throat, both with a serious look in both the threatened man and the young swordsman's stare. The girls in the backyard squealed in terror and the 3 Links off to the side rushed forward full of worry, except for Red who was cheering on Purps.
"No!" screamed Link. All eyes shot to him.
Recognition crossed the man's face. "Oh" sighed the old man, his hard gaze softening to a calm and more elderly expression. He lowered his half a cane and pushed the Four Sword off his neck. "I'm sorry Hero" he said, then turned to the Purple Link and said "please forgive me, I was very rude" he bowed deeply to a confused Purple. He then turned to the entire company of one. "I have a lot of explaining to do, please come in and make yourselves feel comfy."
The entire group looked slightly frozen till Purps broke the silence "Forgiven" he declared with a mock seriousness that echoed the deadly conviction he just had. He took a step back and returned the bow, put up his sword and shield and grabbed a dumbfounded Link and dragged him after the old man into the house. Blue turned to Red and shrugged, and Red gave Blue a push to the shoulder roughly and said "Lend a hand next time, will ya?"
Blue staggered back a step, then looked after as Red walked into the house. "With what?" he yelled after Red, then followed into the house behind the rest.
The house's interior was quite scare. The floor was planked with rough wood that was slightly cracking and much worn, and the four chairs Blue saw resting in the corner were obviously for the girls out back, presumably the elder man's grand-daughters. He saw Purps and Link sitting down on the floor in front of the table that the old fellow was sitting at, and Red was casually leaning on the far wall, stretching and yawning loudly. Blue pulled up on of the chairs and leaned back, but jumped a little as the floor creaked when the four girls walked inside, attempting to be sneaky. The old man looked sharply towards them and snapped "Continue practicing, we'll be out in a few minutes!" he saw Red silently mouth the words we? towards the group with an incredulous look on his face, in disbelief that the group would be staying any longer than it took to hear an explanation for the old man's assault. Blue noticed Link giving Red a sharp glare and Purps started giggling, apparently having caught the look himself. Link turned to Purps with a scowl on his face, but shifted his attention back around as the old man cleared his throat loudly, as if he where teaching some kind of class.
He looked down to Purps, who was lying on the floor nonchalantly, and begun "I'm terribly sorry for attacking you, you see, there was a boy who looked just like you, except he was wearing dark clothing. He ran through here about a day ago before you all entered. He simply destroyed everything that was in here, food, beds, didn't matter to the monster. But when I saw the two of you, I thought the beast had returned with reinforcements, but disguised themselves so I would be caught unaware. I must have jumped to quite the wrong conclusion and attacked, please for give me, life's been very hard for this poor old family, a few years ago there was..."
Red scoffed silently to himself and rolled his eyes, luckily the hospitable old fellow didn't catch his look. His thoughts started to wander as he looked around the plain room. There were clearly a few signs of a struggle, scratches across the floors, a few cracks and pieces missing from the wall, even one of the legs of the table the old coot was lecturing behind was gone, propped up by a decent sized rock. He had to hand it to the old man, if what he said was true, he had held of that shadow beast all on his own, unless his grand daughters had helped. He chuckled a little to himself at the thought of those little girls tackling a Black Link to the ground and punching him repeatedly, the image playing neatly through his head. He could tell the old man was starting to bring his speech to a close, so Red tuned back into the one sided conversation.
Once the old man finished all of his lamenting, he said to Link "Listen Hero, I used to be in the Hyrule royal guard, maybe I could lend you a few pointers on working in groups. I'm sure you know most of this already, but I think me and my granddaughters could run you through a few drills very quickly, we might be able to teach you something new! What do you say?"
All eyes were on the Hero, and he looked over to see the girls in the back peering inside hopefully, they looked like they were only 6 years old. Link loomed over at his group and saw Red shaking his head and making slashing motions with hand, his eyes big as dinner plates, unlike his pupils. Blue was glancing around anxiously, clearly not looking forward to using his sword, while Purps was zoned out staring off into space, deep in thought.
"What kind of drills are you talking about?" he inquired hesitantly.
The four girls were lined up opposite of the Four Sword Heroes, and they seemed tired, but were willing to put up with it for a chance to show off to their idol. Purps looked over to Red who was fuming a bit louder than silently, annoyed at their small side task, and Purps had to agree. They had been practicing these formations for about ten minutes now, and they were all tired, but not from the 'training'. The old man had just finished running them through some standard formations. Purps sighed, he wanted to get on the road again, back to the adventure, he chuckled, maybe Red's rubbing off on me...
Purps smiled to himself, it was Red who had him the nickname 'Purps'. He decided it was easier to say then Purple and sounded less girly than Vio or Violet. The two had always gotten along well, usually hanging around each other more than the other two. Purps didn't know why, there was just some level of cooperation the two had that was only achieved with their combined skill, with Purps providing backup for the strong and talented berserker.
"CROSS!"
Purps turned instinctively to the left, starting to slide backwards. They knew this one also, and it felt pointless to keep practicing really. Red, being on the far right, took a step up, and Link filled in his position next to him, Blue was far left, and he ran straight at Purps to roll under him as Purps hurdled him to reach his position at Link's back. They all leaned backwards to tighten the diamond they had made. The old man whistled lowly, clearly impressed but then smiled wryly as he decided to mix things up a bit.
"SPIN!"
"Huh?" said Blue. He saw his partners drawing their swords and he followed along, but very uncertainly. Purps noticed the confusion in blue and leaned over quickly "hold B" he said, only adding to Blue's confusion. The three locked elbows and blue joined in, catching on to their plan. The four of them held out their swords at arms length, away from the cluster, and started to run in a circle. If there had been targets nearby, they would have been hacked away by the group's flurry of steel. After one cycle, they all broke off from their deadly rotation. Continuing his motion, Blue dived forward, rolling just before he slammed into the packed dirt and came sliding to a halt. He was breathing slightly heavier than usual, and smiled. He could see where Red got the thrill of combat from just by practicing.
Link looked over to the old man, who was grinning madly. "Thank you for the refresher course, but we've really got to be going now" he said, to the obvious dismay of the girls, who had been following their training with matched speed and purpose.
The old man smiled, "So sorry, I thought I could lend a hand, and I think I still may be able to. Take some of these, thy might be helpful." he said, handing link four purple pyramids, just big enough to fit in his palm. "These all started showing up about a week ago, we've found them across all of Hyrule, and people have started to trade them in for rupees. You should be able to buy some supplies with them."
Link looked at the object, and he remembered what the owl had said. He pushed the gem into his sword's emerald pommel, amazed as it fazed in with ease as the pommel seemed to bend to allow the strange gem inside the sacred blade. It was like watching someone slowly slide into a still lake of tar. After the gem was completely emerged, the pommel returned to its emerald nature, hard and unyielding as an earth made mineral should be.
The old man was at first baffled by this display of magical power, but then he seemed to become amused. Purps looked to the old man, growing worried about his rising hysteria. What started as light chuckling escalated into a booming laughter that could be felt vibrating through the ground. All looked at him with expressions of confusion, or in Blue's case, fear.
"what the hell was THAT!" yelled Red. The old man was laughing to much to be offended, but when he settled down, he snickered to the group of Heroes
"those gems are... Hahaha, that's about 50 rupees you just put in that sword boy! Hehehehe, who woulda thought, the legendary blade ran on money!" laughed the old man, still in hysterics. Link found the fact less amusing. This would make their travels much harder with their money being used to power their swords. They would need to hunt for their food and he had no idea how they would get their supplies. He noticed from Red's face that he had figured a less than legal method of stocking up.
"Well, it's been nice meeting you sir, but we've really got to get going" said Blue, walking past and taking a Force gem of his own from Link while heading towards the door. The old man stopped him by placing his hand upon Blue's shoulder, turning serious to give his final parting advice. "Heroes, from what I've seen this past week, the guards haven't been normal lately. There's something strange going on, and if the four of you are here, I know it won't be long till everything is fixed, I'll do what I can to help, and spread the word you have arrived to-"
"Don't" Blue interrupted, nudging the old man's hand of his shoulder. "We need to be quite and try hiding throughout our mission. If the guards are after us, Link's shadow causes more chaos, or the lies spread about us kidnapping the maidens are heard by anyone, we'll be welcomed with armed guards, possessed or not, in the next village if they know were coming."
Purps walked by Link, taking his gem as well, and giving his thoughts "If you do want to alert people of our comings, do it quietly and without the guard involved, we don't want to attract too much attention. Corrupt or not, I never trusted them too much."
Red followed in suit with his group, powering his sword with the Force gem and concluding the group's chain of thoughts. "Even if they do try and catch us, we'll just cut em all down, we can handle whatever is thrown at us!"
The ex-guard cringed at Red's statement. "I'm not entirely sure of how possession magic works, but I would work under the assumption that all the guards are still people with families and loved ones, just to be sure. Please, don't resort to violence unless absolutely necessary, I know some of these people, and none of them deserve to die." Link felt sympathy for the man, and gave him a reassuring pat on the back.
"We'll try not to do anything drastic until we Know what were up against" he lied. He didn't want to scare the old fellow by telling him of the cycloptic abomination he had released, but he was still partially telling the truth, as he had no idea what type of fowl magic spawned Shadow, they really only knew about Vaati.
The group left the hut, saying their goodbyes to the waving group of girls and the Hylian ex-guard. Once they were out of earshot, Red said to Link. "We're not really gonna do that pacifism shit with the guards, are we?" he ask incredulously. Blue and Link had been discussing supplies they would need, and Link turned around, walking backwards to face Red.
"I'm not sure since we still haven't actually seen any of the guards. They could be free willed and hunting for us, like Purps suggested," He motioned towards Purps, who smiled and nodded happily "they could be under mental control, but that wouldn't justify slaughtering them all either. I think we'll just have to wait until we see the Hylian war force and decide what's wrong with them ourselves, maybe if we stumbled across a scouting group we could capture and interrogate them."
Red smiled mischievously "I like that idea" he said with an unhealthy amount of glee in his voice. Link turned back around, and halted in his tracks. Purps walked into his back, causing both to stumble forward.
"Hey! What's the hold up?" said Purps, aggravated to be jarred from his thoughts.
"We've got a small problem." he said flatly, looking over the wreckage of the only way across the water filled ridge that Shadow had destroyed.