Chapter 4: Plans Set in Motion

Another day, another afternoon, Dark ran up the stairs of Loze's Pizzeria to quickly escape to his room from the old man's scolding. It was the Tuesday before Thanksgiving break, so he barely had any homework to do: for once, all of his teachers had told the students that they should just enjoy the break. He was about to go pester Vaati to help finish the chores so Loze would shut up about it, but was stopped by an unusual sight.

The sorcerer was playing Four Swords Adventures in the living room.

"Huh? I thought you hated that game." Dark barged in, while Vaati gave a noncommittal grunt and lazily went back to focusing on the game.

"I did. I still do, in fact," Vaati pressed a few buttons on the controller and moved the four Links through the level. Dark was surprised Vaati wasn't making them jump off of cliffs… yet.

"Dark Cloud? Isn't that one of the last stages? You passed me – I'm only on Pyramid."

"Mmhmm. Just one more level and I'll have to play through the Palace of Winds, I suppose." Vaati yawned, bored. "As for passing you, I've already passed you a while ago. I've just been playing this same stage many times."

"What, are you stuck or something?" Dark doubted it. It looked like the sorcerer was finding the game way too easy. Vaati scoffed.

"Feh, this game is child's play. That's just another thing I hate about this game – it demonstrates to everyone just how incompetent I was when really, I'd like to think I gave Link more trouble."

"Then why are you stuck on this stage?"

"I am not stuck," Vaati replied flatly. He leaned back when the game's music shifted and the four Links arrived in front of a shining mirror set in the middle of an insignia of a large eye. A little black colored Link hopped out of the mirror, and the objective scrolled on the top of the screen.

It read: Defeat Shadow Link!

Dark watched Shadow Link easily defeated by the four Links Vaati controlled. Then, four more Shadow Links hopped out of the mirror.

"You give out a lot of force gems when you die," Vaati explained nonchalantly as he swatted down the multiple darker Links. He paused between attacking to collect the big green gems that Shadow Link dropped.

"Uh, me? That's not me."

"Yes, you. Well, not technically you but it's more fun to pretend it is." Vaati defeated two out of the four, and the screen paused for the arrival of Princess Zelda. He frowned. "Ugh, I hate how she shows up to stop the mirror from spitting you out like Made-in-China factory dolls. She spoils everything." The sorcerer sighed. "Oh well. It would have been annoying if Shadow Link continued to multiply like rabbits. He gave me enough trouble with his mischief as it were."

Dark gave a long look at the many Shadow Links running around on the screen. "Did this actually happen?"

"Kind of. There were a lot more than six, I believe. I don't think the game developers thought it would have been reasonable to have over twenty Shadow Links swarming everywhere."

Dark became uncomfortable under Vaati's long gaze. "What?"

Vaati shrugged, and then went back to beating the Shadow Links. "Eh, just remembering how Shadow Link – who looks a lot like you, by the way – used to think it was funny to light bombs all over the palace."

Dark absentmindedly glanced up at his Detona cap that had a picture of a bomb on it. "Oh." Then, "And was this your idea? To have a bunch of infinite Links?"

"Sort of," Vaati destroyed all but one of the Shadow Links, and then whistled a tune as he moved his Links and lined them up neatly along the edge to let them start diving off the cloud. "It wasn't one of my better plans. Stupid Shadow Links proved to be only slightly less irritating than the real Links." He set the controller next to him as the words 'Game Over' dropped onto the screen. Vaati smiled. "There, that's my favorite part of the game. Everyone dies. El Oh El."

"Actually, you look bored out of your mind." Dark noted the sarcasm within the grin.

Vaati huffed, but didn't say anything. It was true he was bored, and it was because he couldn't get his mind off of the trip to the temple. He wished he could pry out its location from Dugal so he could warp there himself, but the man wouldn't tell him anything except implying it was in California. He began to think he understood why Dr. Willits from the Avilux company had once described Dugal as "slimy."

Dark made to grab the controller that was sitting next to Vaati. "Here, I can't stand you wasting your time just watching a bunch of Links die over and over again."

"I wonder why…"

Dark ignored him. "So move over will you? I'm going to finish this fast."

Vaati protested and tried to take the controller away, but was shoved away by Dark. He gave up, and resorted to glaring at the screen. Dark quickly cleared the level and Vaati watched critically the entire time. He was quiet up until he saw that the boss of the Palace of Winds was –

"There you are."

"That is not me!" Vaati stood up from his seat when he saw the floating purple eye with bat wings. Dark waved his hand at him to sit back down.

"Yeah, you're a lot more talkative in real life," he wrenched his controller away from the sorcerer who was trying to pry it away from him. Dark grinned. "I mean, no gloating? I would have imagined you would have gloated. A lot." He started throwing the bomb flowers that were growing around the stage into the boss Vaati's tornado. "Ahaha, man you're so dumb. Don't you know what bombs will do to you?"

The sorcerer watched the screen coldly for a few more seconds, and then he brought up a single finger. With one snap, the game system turned into a grey, solid stone cube and the television screen blinked black. It told them there was no input signal.

"Hey! What was that?!"

"That's how the game ends, obviously," Vaati said scornfully.

Fighting ensued. Various sounds of yelling and thudding and objects hitting other objects could be heard a floor below where the wiry old Grandpa Loze was working. Pinching the bridge of his nose, Loze excused himself a little embarrassedly from the few customers who were eating pizza. He winced when he heard a loud crash along with cursing, and tried to play ignorant of the few customers who were laughing. Loze stomped up the stairs and pushed his sleeves up towards his shoulders.

"Will you boys be quiet?!" He yelled through the open door of the living room where the scuffle was going on. His face grew red at the scene before him.

Dark had managed to ram his black cap over Vaati's eyes and had him locked in a guillotine choke. Vaati, on the other hand, had picked out Dark's Grappling Hook with magic where it wrapped around Dark's neck. They were both blue in the face from trying to get the other to submit first.

"You two drop it! Or else I'm kicking both of you out into the streets!" Loze roared. Vaati and Dark grudgingly obeyed, while the old man stomped over to the Grappling Hook. He picked it up between his fingers as though it were a dead snake. He turned sternly to Vaati who had been in possession of Dark's homemade hook, while Dark shuffled away as though he'd never seen it. "What in Farore's name is this, m'boy?"

"Something Dark had," Vaati muttered.

"But you were choking him with it?" Loze dangled the nasty looking hook tied at the end of the rope in front of the pale teen's face. "I'm not having any murders in this household, am I clear?"

"Didn't you see him? He was choking me too!" Vaati exclaimed, and then he mentally slapped himself. I just said that? Yes, I just said that. The world's most powerful sorcerer is resorting to finger pointing to defend himself against one, irritating old geezer. Vaati stiffened. How embarrassing. It wasn't easy to grow out of Gale, it seemed.

Loze sighed. "I'm going to confiscate this. I can't imagine what you'd need it for." Dark's eyes widened momentarily after hearing one of his items was going to be taken away, but he kept his silence. He figured he could always make another one. "If you keep this up I'm going to change my mind about giving you permission to go on that scholarship program in California this winter."

"Hey now, my future's riding on that," Vaati retorted while smiling smugly to himself. When he had initially given very convincing paperwork that Loze had to sign as his guardian, Gramps hadn't believed that the lazy teen would have actually received a scholarship invitation from an IT company in California. However, after the sorcerer had shown Loze his current school grades – straight A's across the board – the old man could only agree with Vaati that his improvements in the past two years had been nothing short of stellar. The company sounded legitimate enough from the website when Loze had checked to make sure Vaati wasn't pulling his leg, and before long the sorcerer had managed to get Gramps to sign papers he wasn't even going to submit.

The company was fake, after all. And he definitely wasn't going on some scholarship program.

Using Vaati's advice, he and Dugal had come up with a scholarship story to feed Loze to make him less suspicious about his trip to California during winter recess. Dugal had handled making permission forms, waivers, and brochures to mail from an associate on the West Coast to make the whole thing as realistic as possible, and he'd also slapped together a website that Loze could look at if he needed more convincing.

It had worked: Loze grumbled about it, but didn't bother asking more questions – he grumbled about most things anyway and if he could get rid of grouchy pale-face for free, then why the heck not?

Loze muttered under his breath as he made his way back downstairs with Dark's Grappling Hook. Vaati was about to walk back to his room, grinning, when a deliberate scoff stopped him in his tracks.

"First time I heard something about that."

Vaati glanced over his shoulder where Dark was eyeing him sorely. The wind mage's lips curled into a devious smile. "Oh, I didn't tell you?"

Dark scowled. "No."

"No need to look so upset, Dark. It doesn't have anything to do with you." Vaati flipped his longer hair in an infuriating fashion and continued on his merry way. He strode into his room and shut the door in the other teen's face, closing the door with a click.

"Well congratulations on your scholarship," Dark told the door, straining the last word. He added, "And you better fix that game, you 'tard!"

He heard Vaati laughing behind the door, and with a disgusted look Dark turned around to retreat into his own room. He stopped, however, when something caught the corner of his eye. Dark slowly walked back a few steps to take a better look at the painting that was hanging in the wall just across Vaati's room. The painting itself, some 'modern' piece that was just a bunch of splattered colors, wasn't what had stopped Dark in his tracks. It was the clear protective plastic over it that had caught his interest.

Dark turned his neck this way and that, trying to find the right angle. He could have sworn he had seen something peculiar within the blurry reflection the plastic cover gave. Dark froze when he saw it. No, not it.

Them.

"!" His breath hitched, but he remained as still as possible to give the impression that he was merely appreciating the painting on the wall. Still, that wasn't an easy task considering there were three spooky looking eyes hovering above the door to Vaati's room, all of them staring at his back intently. It was a little too blurry to make out details from the poor reflection of the plastic, but Dark knew that he wasn't imagining those red and yellow colored eyes flying in front of Vaati's door. He dared to turn around and look at where the vague reflection had revealed the sentry eyes.

There was nothing he could see with his bare eyes. But when he looked back at the reflection in the shiny plastic…

They were there again.

There's an old saying that mirrors reveal the truth… Dark thought. He casually walked towards the bathroom. A few minutes later, he returned with a small mirror in his hands. With his back to Vaati's door, he cautiously held up the mirror so that it would reflect the space just above the doorframe.

Three maroon eyes with bat-like wings flapped around the entrance of Vaati's room. They appeared to be guarding a heavy lock with a large red eye in the middle that was set within the door.

Dark quickly shoved the mirror into the pocket of his jeans and he went back to quietly facing the painting on the wall.

No doubt those things had been placed by Vaati to make sure no one but him could get into his room. Dark wondered just how long ago those sentries had been installed, but he guessed that they'd been placed ever since that day Vaati had returned late from lunch with the queerest expression on his face; as though he'd been stoned. Before that, the sorcerer had never bothered with keeping his door shut.

What does he have to hide, and what would happen if I tried to open the door with those invisible things guarding it? Dark pondered. He rubbed his chin. If Vaati was hiding something from someone, then he doubted it was Loze the sorcerer was worried about. Gramps rarely had any interest in what the boys were doing; as long as they weren't disrupting his pizza business, he left them alone. Did that mean that it was Dark he was worried about? Or maybe there was something… someone… else?

The door swung open, making Dark jump. A condescending voice soon followed. "Hmm? Still standing there Dark?" Vaati asked in mock surprise. His eyes narrowed in a way that suggested he knew what Dark had been up to.

The black-haired teen stood his ground, even though he was slightly spooked. "Just looking at this painting," he replied, while his mind thought: Wow Vaati, sometimes I wish we never helped you get your memories back. I don't remember Gale being so… sketchy.

Vaati smirked, and then went downstairs to grab something to drink. He returned with a glass of soda and then waved his hand tauntingly as he returned to his room. Once the door closed shut, Dark hurried to his own room and fell into his desk seat. He took a long, drawn breath.

They're not just guards – they're like cameras too. He can see what's going on outside. Dark rested his chin on his hands. He closed his eyes, going over everything he knew regarding Vaati's recent behavior.

Vaati had met someone, and Dark was sure it wasn't just some new girl.

Vaati was keeping contact with this person with his cell phone.

Ever since Vaati had met this person, he had resorted to keeping his room securely locked, going so far as to post sentries and placing magical wards. He was worried about someone learning… something… about him. It was either Dark, or, in a freakier line of thought, someone else he was cautious about.

Dark's icy blue eyes flew open, making up his mind. It was obvious that he couldn't break into Vaati's room while the wily sorcerer was still around, but he had a shot if Vaati went far away. As in, California far away during winter recess.

He could do it. Finding ways through locked places was just the sort of thing Dark was good at. This one was going to be trickier because it involved magical sentries that were invisible to the naked eye, but still. He was good at solving puzzles, too.

If you're not going to tell me what's going on, thought Dark, I'll just find out my own way.

XXXXXXXXX

The impatient honking of the cars drifted through the modest fourth floor apartment in the middle of the bustling, legendary New York City. A blond haired young man with a boyish face, roughly in his early or mid thirties, walked over to the window and closed the shades to make an effort to reduce the noise. His companion looked up irritably from where he'd been squinting at his laptop as he sat cross-legged on the floor. He was slightly younger than the blond.

The blond glanced up, and then wordlessly flipped on the lights. The other man nodded and went back to scrutinizing the faintly glowing screen of his computer. It appeared to be connected to a small black box that whirred determinedly. The man's eyes moved quickly over the data that continually fed onto the screen, and occasionally he would sigh and tiredly type in commands.

The blond walked over to a tall mirror that was hanging on the wall and he reached into his prim black suit, pulling out a semi-automatic. He twirled it expertly and aimed it several times at his reflection in the mirror while the arrhythmic taps from the keyboard sounded behind him.

After some time, the man in front of the computer pulled his tinted glasses off of his nose. He scratched his head with his right hand, and drummed his fingers with his left. "Rrrr, this is so frustrating." The blond tilted his head slightly to acknowledge he'd heard his partner, and he smiled a little as he brought his gun up and then put it back into his jacket. "I know they're going to start soon, but they're being really sneaky and I can't find out more than the general time they're going to make their move!" His black hair shook with impatience.

"Well that's still something we have to go by," the blond reassured. "Besides, we can't do anything until they do something first. We'll have plenty of time until you weasel out more information, and by then we'll have a water-tight plan."

The man in front of the computer placed his sunglasses on his face again, even though there was no need for them. "Mmm," he muttered, staring at the screen again. "It's not easy to sneak into their systems this time. Though I guess I should've expected it since we're going against, well, them."

"Ha. I'm sure you'll find something. You always complain about the job…"

XXXXXXXXX

"Knock knock."

"Who's there?"

"Thyme…"

"Thyme who?"

"Thistle, this isn't a knock knock joke! Will you please open the door for me?"

"You're as funny as a murder scene, Thyme. That hardly made me giggle."

"Door? Open? Now?"

"Oh all right." Click. "What's the occasion?"

"A note for you. I figured you weren't checking the mail since you were working on your Squirtles and Charmanders."

"You know me too well. I haven't checked the mail at all."

"Don't say that proudly. You could have missed this important one."

"Yes but I knew you would check for me eventually. See how everything works out in the end?"

"… You know me too well."

"Kehehe, that I do. So what's so important about this note?"

"It's regarding government affairs."

"Ohhh, so it's one of those notes."

"Yes, one of those notes, whatever you mean by that."

"Is that your eye twitching, or are you rolling your eyes? Ah well. Let me read this."

"Anything interesting?"

"Hum, hum, it's brief but extremely interesting."

"Uh huh."

"Hmm."

"Er…"

"Hmm? Did you want to go to the bathroom or are you fidgeting for other reasons? You have my permission to use the restroom."

"I ought to slap you."

"Tsk tsk. No need for violence. Hmmm, this is interesting."

"Rrrgh! Stop teasing me and tell me what's so interesting!

"Mm? Oh, so you wanted to know? You should have simply told me so."

"You are the worst."

"It appears they are going to make their move soon."

"Oh… Wow. That's sooner than I thought. What do you want to do?"

"Do? Why, I am going to do nothing. Ah, but this is so exciting! Do you know what this message means?"

"Er…"

"The fortune has started! The Two Magicians, The Emperor, and The Devil are sure to start scrambling now. I wonder which card I represent; the fortune I read was mine after all. At the same time, none of the cards may have been me and only represented an event that would involve me…"

"You really believe that card reading you did?"

"Believe in reading fortunes with cards? No, I don't. Believe in preordained outcomes and inescapable fates? Yes, I do."

"What's the difference?"

"The difference is that the latter suggests I know more about things than I pretend I do, dear Thyme. Just like the way I pretend to be more foolish than I appear to be…"

fleets: Vaati and Dark's LoZ game adventures continue... maybe? XD Poor gamecube is dead atm.
Whoo, a lot of things in this chapter, yet at the same time... not. Lots of info with lots of vagueness. Vaati's door (what's he so worried about, hmm?), Dark's plans, those two men in NYC (guess who?! XD), and Thistle (is he ever straightforward? haha). The fun's going to start soooon (er... I think. At least I hope it'll be fun for you haha).

Midna Hytwilian: Thistle's one of my favorite characters - he's silly, but he's not stupid hehe. If he had a favorite pokemon it would have to be a devious type. Maybe something like haunter XD

Vaati the wind mage1: Lots of things going on here. People are planning things left and right; it's bound to be chaotic :3

henslight: Well this version assumes the events of BC didn't happen (though I do include easter eggs from time to time) - so he hasn't really learned anything XD
Job shadowing is when people follow someone in a certain profession they are interested in pursuing in the future. They can then figure out if that's the job they really want (and they also have the opportunity to make a good impression on potential employers).

Shadow R-B: I'm tempted to assign pokemon to the characters in this story XD. I can see Dugal with Honchcrow, Vaati with Crobat, Dark with Absol, Thistle with Haunter, Thyme with Venomoth... ok, I'm thinking way too hard about this lol. I got TWEWY for Christmas and a Final Fantasy game, along with a snowboard tune-up kit :3 Nice! That's so cool you got a laptop :D
Thanks, and hope your New Years was good too! :)

Sapphiet: I think you're right about Vaati snapping first, though Dugal would probably have an annoyed expression the entire trip. (nods) Lots of sneakiness going on - it's going to get a little crazy!

msfcatlover: He definitely left out some things, but Dugal's left out some things as well (they've got a long ways to go for decent teamwork haha). Vaati has a habit of underestimating people - in this case, Dark knows more than Vaati thinks hehe.

Lord Siravant: Ah the Joker! You're right, he is like the Joker in that respect :D