Dammit, I have too many imaginary home entertainment systems to buy. Do you guys have any idea how much imaginary money that takes? I'll need a second imaginary job at this rate -_-

Published August 17, 2011

The Genius of a Genius Mind

-Faron Woods-

Link cautiously crept forward, his wooden sword held at the ready. This was farther than he had ever been without Rusl and his sharp, metal sword at his side. He was prepared to take on whatever the world threw at him, no matter how big... scary... or powerful... they would be. Suddenly, this didn't seem to be a good idea anymore. His eyes darted side to side, searching for even the slightest movement.

"BLEH!"

A Deku Baba burst from the ground, snapping at him. Link screamed and began smacking it ineffectually with his wooden sword, closing his eyes and swinging wildly.

"Dude, what are you doing?"

Link stopped, realizing that the irate Deku Baba wasn't attacking back. "I'm... attacking you?"

The plant snorted. "Really? I could have sworn you were giving me a massage with how pathetically you were waving that thing around. And you're supposed to be the hero?"

He scowled, keeping his sword up. "Hero? Hero of what? I'm just trying to find a kid. Speaking of which, did he come through here?"

The Baba nodded. "Yeah, and he hit harder than you. Is that thing... made of wood? If you're the hero, we're boned."

"I'm not the hero!" He was tempted to start swinging at it again.

It gave him a look over. "Different from everyone else in your village?"

"...A little."

"Parentless?"

"Sadly, yes."

"Pre-established combat skills?"

"To an extent."

"Going on a quest outside of your village for the first time?"

"Yes..."

"Yup, you're the hero. Could someone just cut me in half with a real sword right now so I don't have to suffer the fate of your incompetence?"

An enormous blade came down on the Deku Baba, splitting it down the middle. On the giving end was a gargantuan man, seemingly green skinned and covered in tribal tattoos. His face was blocked from view by a strange mask that shared colour schemes with his large shield. "Don'tcha love the local pests?"

Link was naturally terrified by the fourteen foot sword wielding jungle man. So he nodded frantically. "Uh-huh, really really annoying, don't kill me."

The warrior laughed jovially. "Silly person, I don't want to kill you." He paused. "Actually, I have a gift for you."

"Why did you say 'actually' there...?"

"Don't think about it too hard." The warrior pulled what looked like a mask from his pouch, a purple, heart shaped mask covered in spikes and sporting two soul piercing yellow eyes. He tossed it to Link who dropped his stick to catch it. "Consider it a gift I've desperately wanted to get rid of for a long time. Catch ya later." He began to walk down the path Link had come from, whistling to himself.

Link looked down at the mask and, finding it scary to look at, put it with the rest of his gear.

"Oh, two more things!" the warrior called. "One: if you see a land fish that swears like a sailor, I wasn't here. Two: if that thing doesn't drive you insane in a week then you're a god in human form. See ya!" He disappeared without giving Link a chance to argue further.

Link went down on a knee and prayed to the goddesses to never let him encounter any more such people again.

-In the Golden Land-

"Oy, Nayru, someone's asking us to never have extended interactions with anyone insane ever again."

"I care because...?"

"You're the nice one."

"Relatively speaking, yes I am. Now go pester Din about it."

"Oy, Din, someone's asking us-"

"I'ma drunk, I don't care!" Din waved her arms, inventing a new weather phenomenon on the spot: tornadoes made of fire, also known as the Middle Finger of God.

-Back with the not-hero-

Having successfully stolen a lantern from a sleeping man who sported an enormous forehead, a seemingly common feature among the forest people, Link continued through the dark woods. A bat landed on his head at one point, prompting him to scream and dive head first onto the ground, crushing the bat and giving the not-hero a splitting headache. In retrospect he wished he hadn't done that.

"HEY! Hey, shit for brains, look over here!"

Link slowly looked over to the dog sized fish that was flopping across the ground with surprising swiftness. "Huh?"

"Forest boy, you speak English?" He slowly nodded. "Good. Tell me if you've seen a giant green bastard with an over compensating sword and a retarded mask he thinks is still in style!"

"Nope," Link answered. The fish swore several times and flopped away, not thanking Link.

"Not even trying to deceive him? You're no fun."

Link jumped to his feet, shakily pulling out the wooden sword. "Who said that?" He got no answer.

"The hell are you screaming about?" the fish shouted back at him. "I don't like people with quirky characteristics. I've dealt with enough of those. They make me want to tear throats out. You won't like me when I want to tear throats out, got it? Good."

With that strange moment out of the way, he was forced to continue searching for Talo. "Talo!" he called, cautiously moving through the foggy forest. "I'm thinking that you didn't plan this out very well!"

"Who the hell is that?"

Two bokoblins came from around a large tree, their axes looking much more dangerous than Link's wooden sword. "Hey, a Hylian," one grunted. "I haven't seen one of you things in ages!"

Link laughed nervously. "H-heh, we're pretty uncommon around here. Hey, have either of you, uh, seen a kid and a monkey running around, if you haven't though that's no problem, yeah, but have you?"

One of the bokoblins nodded. "Oh yeah, we've seen 'em all right. Rik and Vrtr are getting ready to cook them up ahead, aren't they?"

"I think so," the other confirmed, nodding erratically. "Yup, those lazy bastards are gonna try to keep them all to themselves, but we'll show them! They thought they could trick the mighty Hykl and his sidekick Wwvr, well we'll show them!"

"Why do I have to be the sidekick?" Wwvr snapped, glaring.

Hykl rolled his eyes, itching his ear with the blade of his axe. "Because I'm older and I'll be damned before I let my little sister call me inferior!"

"You're way to full of yourself. I should make your face full of my axe instead!"

"Bring it! When I'm through with you, I'll- Hey, where'd the Hylian go?"

Link, meanwhile, was having a very poignant discussion with a bird with an afro. "Hey! You! You're super! Buy something!" the bird squawked.

Link looked down at the bowl of lantern oil and cash box beside it. "How often do you actually get paid for this stuff?"

"All the time! Lots! No one gets away from Trill! I'll claw your throat out! Eat it for dinner! WRAAACK!" The bird began to clean its wing.

"I'm going to move on now."

The path curved up to the side of an enormous tree, one that twisted high into the sky. Link peeked from behind a rock, seeing Talo and the monkey both trapped in a wooden cage. Two bokoblins guarded it ineptly. To save the kid and the simian, he would need some sort of cunning plan. Facing them in combat with what was basically a stick would not yield good results. Suddenly, inspiration struck.

Link returned to Trill, hands innocently folded behind his back. "You know, there are two monsters over there who are planning to rob you."

The bird started screeching and took flight. "I'll show! I'll show them what happens when you try to rob Trill! You die! That happens! You die!"

Just ahead, the bokoblins were involved in an ethical discussion regarding the unfair treatment of miniblins when the blue bird dive bombed one, grabbing it by the eyes and throwing it into a nearby abyss. The other looked at this with mild annoyance. "Hey." Trill latched his beak onto its throat and pulled the oesophagus out with one tug, killing it. He flew back to the shop, munching on the organ.

"That was disturbing." Link freed Talo and the monkey and started to escort the former back to the village.

"Thanks, Link," Talo meekly said. "If you hadn't come, me and that monkey would have probably been eaten!"

"And this is why we never leave the village."

"She's actually a pretty nice gal, that monkey..."

"Did you inspect for the gender or something?"

"I don't want to talk about it... Um... You're not going to mention this to my dad, are you?"

They reached the bridge into the village. "The part where you were almost eaten or how you fondled the monkey?"

"Preferably both..."

"Yyyyeah, I don't think I'll ever mention this day again."

Talo ran off. Just a second later, Rusl approached Link from a different direction. "Hello Link. My son told me Talo disappeared into the woods and had not returned. I came as soon as I heard. But it looks like you've already handled the situation."

Link waved off his concern. "Oh, it was nothing. Just a few plants and bats and monsters and birds with afros that eat flesh... I'm taking the long way to Hyrule."

Rusl laughed, slapping him on the back. "It's a strange world we live in. Believe me, you have not seen anything yet."

"Now I'm afraid."

"HEY!"

Both of them looked to the north, seeing Wwvr and Hykl running at them with their weapons in the air. "You ran away from us!" Hykl roared. "Not cool, man." The duo then noticed that Rusl was drawing his noticeably metal sword. "On the other hand, erm, bye!" They ran away, screaming hysterically.

-One day later-

GOAT IN!

GOAT IN!

GOAT IN!

"STOP YELLING THAT!" Link screamed into the air, paying no attention to the looks Fado gave him.

After another session of rounding up goats Link approached the mayor, but after turning his back for roughly three seconds Epona was gone. "Let me guess: Ilia."

Knowing where his horse had been taken, Link set off for the spring near his house. On the way there he ran into Colin, Rusl's depressed looking son. "...Link," he quietly greeted.

"Hi. Ilia came through here with Epona, right?"

"...Yes."

"Okay, thanks!" He ran off, desperate to reclaim her. He had to go to Hyrule!

After quickly crawling through his regular entry point to where he had an advantage, he quickly spotted Ilia grooming Epona in the water. "You poor thing," she cooed, braiding the completely uncaring horse's mane. "You're in such a terrible condition. What had Link been putting you through? Well Ilia's here now to make you feel nice and clean! And braid your hair."

Epona, knowing Link's preferred method of entry, looked right at him. She brought down one of her hooves three times quickly, then three times slowly, then three more quick strikes. While he didn't know Morse Code, he knew she wanted help. Something like this would require most of his cunning.

The gate to the spring opened up and Colin entered. "Hello Colin," Ilia kindly greeted.

"...Hi."

"What brings you to these parts? Do you want to brush Epona too? Fantastic!"

"...Meh."

It was his best chance. Link slowly crawled into the open, being careful to stay out of Ilia's line of sight, and crept toward Epona. The horse was quiet, waiting for him to get closer.

Seconds before he got to her the gate exploded inwards, wooden beams flying into the nearby cliff. Two masked monsters rode on top of a single bullbo, a large boar not native to the forest, and using their large clubs they bashed Ilia and Colin over the head. Because of the giant wooden bludgeon crashing into their craniums, they both fell unconscious immediately. Epona took off, leaving Link alone against the two bulblins. "This is a bad situation."

One of the bulblins fired an arrow at him, almost skewering through his head. "THIS IS A TERRIBLE SITUTATION!" Link ducked around them and started sprinting for the exit.

"OUTTA MY WAY, BITCH!"

An enormous bullbo crashed head first into the poor boy, launching him across the area and into a nearby rock.

"RAMMED IN THE ASS, HOO-RAH! Now you see what happens when you try to take on the ultimate duo of Big B and Beastly B!"

With that pest taken care of King Bulblin pulled out his horn, blowing into it. This had the effect of summoning a strange black portal over the spring. His job done, he commanded his steed to turn around. His posse picked up Ilia and Colin, leaving Link simply because two hostages were more than enough. They merrily trotted out of the woods.

Link staggered to his feet, completely disoriented and unable to see anything.

"That was the most pathetic display of combat incompetence I've seen in years. You, sir, fail at living. Good day."

If he had been capable of coherent thought at the moment he would have again questioned who said that. He was not, so logically he did not.

He wandered out of the spring, hearing an insane laughter to the north. Normally he would have run south immediately, but the hit to the head had him thinking left was right and shoes were Scottish cheese. Thus he took off north with the belief that it was south. As such, he was greatly confused when he found himself staring at a wall of pure darkness. "That wasn't there earlier..."

A hand shot from the darkness, grabbing him by the face. Before he could protest he was pulled inside.

The Shadow Beast held Link up by the head, ignoring his flailing limbs. It inspected him curiously, taking note of the glowing trio of triangles on the back of his hand. Eventually it decided he was boring and dropped him to the ground, preparing to eat him.

Suddenly, Link became a wolf and passed out. That was interesting to see. It decided to keep him, picking the wolf up by the foot and dragging him across the hard, bumpy ground. His teeth left a long series of lines that would not present a good taste upon awakening.