fleets: So yeah, Gale has a sailor mouth. Before the end of this story, I'll make sure he cleans up his dirty mouth a little.

disclaimer: I don't own Halo, Gulliver's Travels (Laputa reference), Devil in the White City, Barnes and Nobles, Loaded Dervish, Legend of Zelda, and anything else I might have mentioned that belong to respective owners. All I own is the modern versions (Gale, Petrov, Sterling, modern Skull Kid, Gramps)

Chapter 4: Fire Fairies

"Oooh, so your name is Link?"

"Where did you come from?"

Gale had tried avoid the first floor pizzeria as long as possible until Grandpa Loze had called him down and demanded he help run the place. He didn't want to admit it, but he was just a little jealous that almost all the girls' attention had diverted from him to Link who was handling the register. The pizzeria had become popular by the neighborhood girls by Sunday noon when word had spread that there was a new, good-looking guy working there. When he went down the stairs, he noticed a group of high school sophomores trying to get Link to talk with ogling smiles.

Link smiled politely, but he seemed confused by all the attention he was getting. He'd suddenly become someone very quiet and shy.

Country boy, Gale thought miserably. He rolled his eyes when the girls practically squealed when "the man of few words" asked them if they actually wanted to buy something, instead of sitting and gawking.

"Gale! I have a delivery order for the Thompson's house!"

The girls became quiet and they turned their heads in the direction Loze had called the albino. Gale noticed, with an unamused expression, the girls begin talking to each other in hushed undertones. Deep down, he was satisfied that his presence had managed to split the group into Link admirers and Gale admirers. Much better.

Gale walked over and grabbed the box of pizza from the counter. A quick glance passed between him and Link while Loze hummed merrily in the background; it was a mutual "stay away from me" look.

"Are you taking the car?" Loze asked.

Gale waved his dervish in one hand. "Nah. The Thompson's don't live too far." He pushed the door open with his foot. "Oh, I might not be back until dinner. Link can handle the rest of the deliveries today."

"Gale!"

"He's hardly busy now anyway. He's just standing by the counter doing nothing." Ignoring his grandpa's protests Gale strutted out, only stopping to wink mischievously at the group of girls staring at him. Their talking suddenly became more animated.

XXXXXXX

"Have a nice day," Gale muttered in a bored tone after he had delivered the pizza. He tugged on the grey hood of his sweatshirt so that they covered his black baseball cap better, and adjusted his sunglasses over his eyes. Today was sunny: the kind of weather Gale despised because of his need to take extra precautions against UV rays.

Usually he would have gone back to the pizzeria to mope around in his room, but today he really didn't feel like going back to the place where that Petrov kid was. He got on his nerves like a mosquito. Yesterday gramps had made his life horrible by making him show Link the policies of the pizzeria, and Link had kept calling him Vaati until Gale had had enough and had stormed out. Link had gotten somewhat better about calling him Gale instead of Vaati, but he still made some minor slipups every now and then. The weirdo had stopped telling him about the coming world apocalypse, but Gale suspected the blond still wasn't done plotting his insane plans. Gale hoped gramps wouldn't be able to get Link into school, or he'd have to spend more hours with him than he would like. At least on Monday, Gale wouldn't have to worry about the strange teen until he returned home from school.

Gale checked his watch. It was ten to five already. Having nothing better to do, he decided to skate around for a little to take his mind off of things. He sped around the roads, skidding along side the cars as they passed him. He flicked off a few drivers who had become annoyed by him purposely carving side to side on the road, and then turned off to some side streets when he reached the main roads. From there, he weaved back and forth onto different streets as he gradually neared the closest mall.

Pump, carve, slide, manual… pump, carve, pump, carve, ollie…

He stopped in front of Barnes and Nobles. He walked casually inside and wandered around the isles for a little while, picking up books and putting them back down without interest. Gale continued to circle around the bookstore looking for something to do when he noticed a strange pattern. Wait a second…

He took a good long look at the place he had stopped. He noticed that every time he had circled around the bookstore, he had always managed to wander over to this particular section. It was the Nonfiction section.

Gale shrugged. It seemed like his unconscious mind wanted some nonfiction reading. He used to think nonfiction novels were boring as hell, but he'd come to recognize how wrong he'd been after reading a few. For instance, he'd loved Devil in the White City by Erik Larson. It had been a true story about a psychopath who had set up a hotel and had lured his victims to their demise; the hotel including special architecture such as a special soundproof bedroom fitted with gas lines to asphyxiate victims, and secret chutes to the basement. It was all very disturbing, but Gale had been slightly fascinated that someone could be so… evil. He was repulsed by it and curious about it at the same time.

The red-eyed teen let his hand do all the thinking as he stood before the neat rows of brand new books. He picked one out randomly and noticed it was a book on medieval history.

Oh yeah. I wonder if Vaati is mentioned at all.

Suddenly interested, he ruffled through the index to find something about the "sorcerer." Link must have gotten his crazy ideas after reading something about this mysterious Vaati.

Nothing.

Gale was suddenly very frustrated. He hated Vaati already because he now associated Vaati with the lunatic who now lived in his home, but he wanted to learn more about him. Well, to say nothing was over exaggerating because the book had mentioned him, but it was close to nothing. All it spoke about were roughly three lines about how there was once a wind sorcerer named Vaati who had tried to take over the region of Hyrule, and then it went on to focus more on the great warlock Ganondorf. Ganondorf had received at least four pages worth of information and speculation, and Vaati had received a mere two sentences.

For some reason this made Gale very upset.

To make things even more ambiguous, Hyrule was the legendary city no one had ever found. There were three hidden cities of myth that explorers spoke of by the early sixteenth century: 'Laputa,' or the flying city of the ancients – The Palace of Winds; 'Atlantis,' or the lost city – Zora's Domain; and finally 'Avalon,' or the land of paradise – Hyrule.

Petrov thought he, Gale Engst of Ariko New Jersey, was some reincarnation of a wind mage who had tried to take over a city of myth. The more he thought about Link, the more tired he became. Annoyed, Gale put the book back and started wandering around the bookstore once more.

XXXXXXXXXX

Gale walked out of Barnes and Nobles at around 6pm. Now that it was entering the cooler months, the sky was relatively dark and the streetlamps had already turned on. He was ashamed to say he had even gone to the children's section to look up books on mythology to find anything about the sorcerer Link kept referring to. He'd found several stories based on the lore of Hyrule, but they were mainly about some princess, an evil king, and a hero to save them all. Occasionally there would be a story about a one-eyed monster, but it seemed as though the people who came up with the stories of Hyrule weren't very creative. There was always a princess in distress and a hero to save the world from the forces of evil. So cliché.

As he rounded the corner of a quiet residential street, he heard a giggly voice shout.

"Hey! Hey white guy!"

Gale squinted as he tried to see who was calling him. The wheels of his longboard rattled on the pavement as he cruised along on the sidewalk.

"Hey! White guy, over here!"

"Jeezus!"

All of a sudden, a boy who looked to be around ten jumped out in front of Gale's path and waved his arms out. It seemed as though he had appeared out of nowhere, jumping out from the dark into sight under a streetlight. Gale jerked his weight back and spun his board's nose sharply to the side to avoid a collision. "Watch where you're going kid," he spat.

The boy flicked his baseball cap to the side and gave the grumbling teen a lopsided grin. From under his oversized hoodie, he produced a worn, old, ocarina.

"Do you want to hear a song?"

Gale blinked. Then, he shook his head and pushed the boy away from him. "Kid, go home. And do me a favor and stay out of my way."

"Just one song?"

"I said no, dammit." This is the second time this week I ran into weirdos while out riding. Gale gave two short pumps with his foot and jumped onto his longboard again. The boy watched the teen quickly skate away from him. After a while, he shrugged and moved off to find someone else who might be more willing to listen to his song.

XXXXXXXX

Link watched Gale angrily gun down aliens on his videogame 'Halo 3.' He preferred not to bother the albino if he could, but he was also curious as to why Gale seemed so ferociously upset. The blond could tell Gale wasn't in a good mood from the way he viciously sliced down opponents with an energy sword: Gale only ever used energy swords when he was angry about something, as Link had quickly learned. "What's eating you?"

Gale said nothing and continued to mash buttons on his controller, though Link could tell he had heard him from the way the corners of his mouth were twitching in annoyance. When Link tried again, Gale threw down his controller and snapped. "Nothing, all right?! Just fucking go away!"

"Did something happen?"

Gale muttered more profanities before he gave in. "Just some kid I ran into today. Reminded me of you, you crazy bastard."

Link eyed him suspiciously. He was suddenly a lot more interested in what Gale had to say. "Reminded me how?"

Gale stood up and turned the console's power off. He sighed. "Well, I almost ran him over with my longboard, and then he kept asking me if I wanted to hear a song." Link suddenly grabbed Gale's arm.

"Say that again."

"Dude, Petrov, let go of my arm."

"Vaati, say that again."

Gale shook his wrist away from Link and scowled. "What, he wanted me to listen to a song. He had an ocarina or whatever. And my name is NOT Vaati for the billionth fucking time."

Link had a blank look on his face as though he'd been slapped. Finally, he said in a hoarse whisper, "That was Skull Kid."

XXXXXXXXX

Zelda Sterling yawned as she drove back home in her silver Suzuki SX4. She wore a pink polo shirt, a creamy white skirt, and black leggings to compensate for the cold weather. Her yellow blonde hair was set in place with a pink headband with girlish bows on the side. Zelda was very pretty, and she had even modeled for some ads for money, but she sometimes hated it. Every pretty girl knows that while guys may secretly wish to be with her, she intimidates them away. Most of the ones who approach her were either sleaze balls or perverts. And being a sixteen year old at college automatically made any significant other a pedophile.

She wasn't your average sixteen year old: Zelda had skipped two years of high school to enroll in Ariko's community college as a full-time student, studying energy manipulation. The basis of the field rested on the hypothesis that certain objects held properties that could influence the collection of energy in an area in a way that defied normal laws of physics. Energy manipulation was one of the newer fields of science, and some experts still scoffed at it, claiming it was as ridiculous as magic. People had begun to study it after an archeologist discovered a piece of arrowhead that occasionally burst to flames, froze the water in the air around it to ice, or radiated a bright golden light. Not being able to explain the phenomenon using conventional science, people had turned to a new field.

Zelda watched the needle on the speedometer inch above the speed limit. She was eager to return home; she didn't know why she had to spend Sunday night at the lab when she could've been doing something else. All she had accomplished was to read through publications and discuss them with other peers in her group, and coming to a disappointing conclusion that there was almost nothing definite in the field of energy manipulation. Why was she even pursuing this joke of a field anyway?

She didn't really know, except that it somehow felt right. For reasons she and her fellow researchers couldn't explain, the idea that a currently unknown force that didn't follow the rules of classical physics existed sounded right. Crazy, perhaps, but right. After all, people had once called the idea of airplanes impossible and absurd.

As Zelda drove along the quiet streets, she noticed a boy sitting by the curb looking bored with his chin on his hands. Normally she would have paid no attention to him, but it was dark and he seemed to be alone. Where were his parents? He looked no older than ten.

She drove her car up to him and dropped the side windows. Noticing the car stop, the boy suddenly grinned happily and skipped over waving.

"Are you ok?" She asked as the boy bounded up to the car. "It's getting late. Why aren't you home with your parents?"

"I got none," the boy shrugged. Zelda looked at him in surprise and she didn't know what to say. The boy was wearing a black hoodie with a skull design on the back, and it covered his gloved hands from being a few sizes too large. His reddish spiky hair stuck out from under his red baseball cap he wore backwards on his head.

Just as Zelda was considering driving the boy to the police to let them know about the boy, he shook a blue ocarina excitedly in his hand. "Do you want to hear a song?"

"Um… do you have a home you've been living in? It's getting dark, and it's not safe for someone young like you to be wandering around the streets by yourself."

The boy pouted. "I can take care of myself perfectly!" He frowned. "No one wants to listen to my song."

Zelda sighed. Perhaps she could learn more about the boy if she did what he wanted her to do. "All right. One song, and then we're figuring out what to do with you."

"All right!" The boy began to skip ahead away from the streetlamp. He turned around, signaling the girl to get out of her car to follow him. "You have to listen to my song outside," he called.

At first, Zelda hesitated. The boy looked innocent enough, but what if his plan all along was to get her out of her car? What if he was working with a robber or kidnapper or…

No! He's only a boy.

She opened the door tentatively and stepped out. Locking the door, she walked cautiously after the mysterious boy. He grinned happily when he saw her step out and pointed at the curb. "Sit," he commanded. His yellow hazel eyes glinted like a cat's.

Puzzled and slightly worried about just sitting on the side of the road away from the streetlights, Zelda slowly sat down. The boy giggled approvingly and took a crooked bow. Then, he took a deep breath and began to blow slowly into the ocarina.

The song was surprisingly elegant, and Zelda felt the tension in her shoulders begin to relax. The hollow wooden notes echoed hauntingly in the deserted street. The music involuntarily made her drop her guard, and for a moment she became lost in the melody. Just as she was about to close her eyes, she noticed a few dots of glowing orange flicker around them. Fireflies, at this time of year?

She reached out a hand, trying to touch one that had wandered close. Then…

"Ah!" Zelda pulled her hand back quickly when the dot expanded and grew fiery burning wings. Behind her, the boy giggled between the ocarina and the music changed to pick up its pace. In time with the music, the hovering winged orb twirled around and flittered near Zelda's hand.

The girl was bewildered and a little frightened by the strange flying things. She turned back to the boy, who only snickered. She felt the temperature rise slightly around her hand and noticed an orb flitting near them. "What are these things?" She whispered. She reached out again, and this time, the orb moved to hover just above her palm. Zelda felt the warmth course from her hand to her body, and she stared at the delicate thing flapping its six wings slowly. It looked just like a fairy from fairy tales and children's stories. More of them danced around her and the boy in time to the music.

When the boy stopped playing several minutes later, the fire fairies darted around until they finally faded away. When they disappeared, Zelda felt chilled all of a sudden and she wished for their return. A thousand thoughts filled her head, but they were quickly interrupted by a sharp snicker.

"Heehee, did you like it?"

Zelda stared at the boy, wide eyed. "Who are you?"

"They call me Skull Kid," he replied proudly. "Wasn't that cool? I learned how to do it a few days ago."

This boy, the ocarina, the fire fairies…

They can rescue the field of energy manipulation! Zelda thought excitedly. She desperately wanted to know more about Skull Kid (What a sinister name…) but she didn't want to sit out in the night alone in such an empty street. She glanced back at her car parked some ways away with the hazard lights blinking. The girl had no idea how to handle the situation. Would it be kidnapping if she took the boy back to her house until she figured out what to do? She was sure father wouldn't mind especially since Skull Kid allegedly had no guardian. She needed to ask him about that; it didn't make sense why he was wandering around on his own. Maybe he was a runaway kid? Were his parents abusive? Is that why he ran away?

"You didn't think that was cool, did you."

"Hm?" Zelda had forgotten Skull Kid had asked her a question. He looked disappointed and had dug his hands in the depths of his sweatshirt.

"Fine. Bye lady."

"Wait!" Zelda grabbed his wrist before he disappeared. Skull Kid blinked, surprised by her reaction. She quickly let go when she realized her own selfish motivations had been part of the reason why she didn't want him to leave. But those fire fairies – she needed to know more about them, study them, find out what they were. "Uh…"

Skull Kid perked up. "Did you like it?"

"It was amazing." Zelda tried to stay calm as she looked into that Cheshire cat grin. She wondered if she weren't Alice who had accidentally fallen into the rabbit hole tonight. Zelda bit her lip, wondering. It's not kidnapping if I'm trying to help a lost boy, right?

She made up her mind. "Do you mind if you come home with me? It's not safe for you to be by yourself at this hour, and we have an extra room where you can stay until you find somewhere else to go."

"But I don't need any help."

"I'd also like to listen to more of your music." Zelda hated herself from using deceit. For the sake of science, she told herself, and for the boy's safety.

"Really?! You liked it that much?" Skull Kid skipped happily. "All right! I'll come with you, lady." He dashed over to the parked car and pointed at the door, telling her to unlock it. There was a soft click as Zelda unlocked the car, and she watched the strange hazel-eyed boy bounce into the seats, laughing.

Zelda liked kids because they were innocent and pure. Something about this one, however, made her hesitate. Though childish, there was something about him that wasn't so innocent or pure. She hoped it was just her imagination running rampant; it was late and she was tired after all.

Zelda wondered if she knew what she was getting herself into.

Shadow Blues: If only he knew how similar he was :P

Midna Hytwilian: Gale needs to learn how to chillax. I thought you didn't hit girls too, Gale! (smacks him)

Reily96: YES. THEIR FRIES. I'm a fan of confused and angry Gale D (so yeah, you'll most likely see him angry/confused). lol our characters are contageous. But hey, I'm a TS fan so I ain't complaining (though I don't know what your relationships with your current friends will end up like O.o)

Astral S. Kepeire: Only because they found out what an asshat he really was ;). He's actually quite a gentleman... until he sees the next new girl that walks by, which means he's turning in a new direction every few minutes v_v;. Most girls aren't ok with that lol.

Cool! Link is happy you like him :)

marium: Aw thank you, and I'm relieved to hear you don't think I think like Gale (who is a total jerk btw).

drydrydesert: Wow. That... is one of the most flattering comments I've ever received. Thank you! :D

Peka The Corsair: No, Vaati can't live happily as of now. It's too much fun (ignores red eyes glaring). I thought that if anyone were to catch that, it would be you since you had all those latin words on your profile. I was looking around for latin words relating to light and fire, and then bird. Then I smashed it all together so it's birdlight fire. A bird of light and fire. It'll be explained better later, when one of the characters names it. I could have just called it a phoenix, but I didn't think it would have been as cool. :D

DarkLinkvsRaineSagefan101: Yay for hugs! Thanks. Oooh, one of these days I might use Iblis as a character name (but in an anagram. Dang, I use so many anagrams). I googled it, and yeah, they do look similar! It sounds like their characters will be slightly different though :)

Death-Note-Zelda-Kitty: Uh oh, be careful about getting caught! :O Gale is not happy, no haha. More on the life of Gale and Link together in the next chapter (at least, I think... )

Bishieluver01: Gale: Don't you dare (censored for inappropriate and vulgar language unsuitable for T rating) do that to my board!

fleets: I think someone needs to wash his mouth with soap. Anyways, Link is still a mystery isn't he? Where did he get that car, if he even has one? XD

Yup, I'll be doing one of Zelda some time, now that she made her appearance. I ended up doing Dugal earlier because I became temporarily obsessed with him.