fleets: HI EVERYONE just please ignore the increasingly lame titles because I am running out of ideas.
Anyways, I am kind of back and I have good news to share! I had two very inspiring weeks and I'm happy to say that I will be giving everyone a quick double update this week! Yay! Chapter 25 will be up by Friday definitely, and if we're lucky I might even be able to post it even sooner. Hurray!

Thanks again for making it all the way to chapter 24!

Chapter 24: Secret of the Curse

The last attack pretty much proved it: Vaati wasn't going to win against Thistle in a straight up fight. The wizzrobe outmatched him in terms of raw power, and if Vaati continued this more magical version of arm wrestling, his world was going to be an unhappier one.

Thistle knew this, of course. The birdlike monster swiveled the eye inside its beak towards him in a subtle motion that could only be described as mocking. Then, its eye flashed and opened its beak wider. Vaati reacted immediately, just like before, and the two explosive attacks collided in the middle, pushing each other like two snakes butting heads. Then, the beams dissipated in a burst of energy, leaving Thistle watching him in amusement and Vaati staring back, slightly exhausted.

I can't keep this up, Vaati thought as he saw Thistle about to repeat the same attack. Before Thistle could strike, one of Vaati's claws shot forward to slam down on the other monster. Thistle was equally quick, however, and a shadowy pincer spring up from the floor, ricocheting Vaati's claw away. To his horror, the Sorcerer of Winds saw the deadly beam flash towards him.

KaBOOM!

The wall behind Vaati exploded, splintering and bending in on itself from the sheer power of the attack. Vaati, meanwhile, had just barely managed to dodge the beam by shrinking back to his Hylian form. He threw up his arms to his face to shield himself from the flying debris, and coughed away the smoke that had settled in the air around them.

He acted quickly. Vaati immediately warped in the general direction Thistle was, appearing just behind him. Throwing his hands out in front of him, he chanted one of his defining spells. "To Stone With You!"

A glimmer of hope fluttered in his chest as he saw the spell hit Thistle squarely in his back. The feathers began to harden to stone, and for a moment he let himself believe that maybe this one spell would be the one to end the wizzrobe. It was a false sense of hope, however, when the feathers that turned to stone eventually crumbled off to the floor, replaced by new ones that were as good as before. Before Vaati could react, a tendril with an eye whipped into view in front of his face through the smoke and fired a small laser at him. Vaati threw his face to the side, but not before the laser cut a thin line across his cheek and took a few strands of hair with it.

As the smoke cleared, Thistle stepped into view, cackling as he smirked at Vaati crouched on the floor with a hand to his bleeding cheek. The wizzrobe had returned back to his silly masked self, no longer in his monster form the same as Vaati. "Gave up on your ultimate form already? It was kind of fun fighting as two mega-monsters trying to squash each other flat, you know? Kehaha!" He appeared as laid back as ever, despite the situation, as he straightened out his suit and pushed up the Wishing Cap a little higher on his forehead.

Vaati said nothing, but he summoned a ring of eyes with batwings that circled around him as a shield. A few eyes glimmered red, ready to attack at any moment.

With a small shrug, Thistle mirrored the other sorcerer's moves, summoning a ring of eye tendrils of his own that writhed around him in a defensive position. Each tendril watched the movements of Vaati's sentry eyes while Thistle made conversation. "I'm kind of glad I get to tell someone everything now. I mean, I told Thyme a lot of things but I don't think she took a lot of what I said seriously. I think she's too fond of me to take most of what I say seriously anyway. Not many people take me seriously, actually, unless they hate me or I do something truly truly outrageous. But you," Thistle waved his arms excitedly, "you will definitely take what I say seriously!"

"Whatever," Vaati growled.

"I consider you as a sort-of-friend, Vaati," Thistle said amicably while at the same time shooting down one of Vaati's sentry eyes. The poor thing squeaked and burned out of existence before it was replaced by another. "Even though you might not remember all of it, we go back quite a long ways. We almost have as much history as you have with Ganondorf himself, or even that Link fellow! You were pretty friendly with them both, I recall, always coming back to life just so you can see them again."

"Uh, yeah, we had so much fun I know," Vaati replied flatly, "Super best friends and all that." He summoned a blade of wind that swirled around his right arm. Tense, he carefully eyed the dozen metal spheres, each about the size of a small orange, that had suddenly appeared around the room.

"And because of that, I'll uphold my side of the promise to let you know the truth about the complete reincarnation spell," Thistle bounced one of the spheres in his palm. "As I said before, I know the secret to retaining all of your memories even after death. I know the reason why you cannot remember a thing every time you die and reincarnate, while I can."

Every muscle in Vaati's body was tense now. Half of him was ready to spring at Thistle to attack, while the other half was ready to take in every word the wizzrobe had to say about breaking his reincarnation curse. A lot of this mess was partly due to his search to find a solution to his curse, the one that resulted in him reincarnating after death with no memories of his previous lives. He'd regained his memories as a sorcerer only because of the stupidity of a time travelling Link during the Avilux incident, but if he died again he would go back to square one, with no memories of the past. He'd just be some poor sod who didn't know why the world seemed to want to screw him over any chance it could.

"The secret to memory retention," Thistle said slowly, the corners of his eyes curling behind his mask, "is that you can't accomplish it no matter how hard you try. You're cursed forever."

The silence was so suffocating it was almost as wince inducing as a screaming crowd. The two adversaries stared at each other, one of them appreciating the reaction and the other searching for the joke that wasn't there. Thistle had stopped tossing the small metal ball in his hand, waiting for Vaati to say something.

"…What?" was all that the wind mage managed to say.

"I know I spout lots of lies and exaggerations, but this isn't one of them," Thistle explained when he noted the expression of skepticism on Vaati's face. He grinned behind the mask when Vaati's features transformed into a mix of both horror and anger.

Vaati's brain was furiously trying to process what Thistle was saying. "You're lying!" he shouted.

Thistle shrugged his shoulders. "It's true. I'm just better than you, Wishing Cap or no, kehaha. It's the very nature of being a creature of the Dark Faction, a monster if you will, that allows me to keep my memories while you do not. If you think about it, we monsters already know a thing or two about reincarnation." When Vaati looked at him uncomprehendingly, Thistle continued. "Where do you think monsters come from, hmmm? Have you ever taken the time to notice that if you kill a minor monster, for instance wizzrobes, and then come back to the place it died a few hours later, it will be back alive where you'd found it? Oh, well of course not," Thistle laughed, "No one really cares enough about weak monsters to notice anything about them, kehaha!"

The wizzrobe let the laughter ring for a while. The weak, irrelevant wizzrobe, a monster the more powerful lords would often send to the front lines as cannon fodder, was now the one having the last laugh. "When we die, it's like someone kicks us out of the world to start over. Except we don't remember anything that happened before, so naturally we keep making the same mistake over and over again. I suppose this looks idiotic to an outsider, and is part of the reason why we have so little respect. But by combining the knowledge of your reincarnation spell with my innate ability as a monster to keep coming back to life, it was like having the two missing halves complete each other to turn into a true reincarnation spell. True immortality! And because of this, the only ones who are able to achieve true reincarnation are the weak, unimportant minions who already possess some ability to come back to life." Thistle's eyes gleamed malevolently, "The ones you have stepped all over are the ones truly worthy of being Lord. I am the one who is better than all of you!"

Vaati listened to the tirade wordlessly. He didn't have anything to say. He'd gotten over the fact that Thistle would be no help regarding the reincarnation curse: he'd kind of expected from the beginning that he couldn't trust Thistle. It had only been a tiny bit of hope that he'd find answers from the wizzrobe, so it hadn't been too hard to get over it.

Not that that kept him from being extremely upset, but whatever.

However, one thought that just wouldn't leave him alone was on how familiar Thistle's words were. The world hadn't been kind to this perso… thing… and now it was out to wreck it to pieces. Hadn't he been the same? And now Thistle had climbed all the way to the top by his own power, just like he had, and that made him a scary individual. The Wishing Cap had unleashed the monster in both of them.

"I'll rule forever. Isn't it ironic, that the one who rules forever turns out to be a mere minion?" Thistle sniffed. Then, he opened his arms wide and the metal spheres moved towards different corners of the room, preparing for something. It made Vaati uneasy. "But you know, when you have forever to do whatever you want, sometimes you get bored and you feel like starting over." Thistle cackled, and his next words caused the sorcerer to stare at him in disbelief. "I made sure no one will get out alive. No one. I'm going to reset everything to zero and blow everything up. I'll start from scratch, take things slow. I don't care because I have the Wishing Cap now. Even if you win this fight, Vaati, you won't be able to stop this half of the island from blowing up magnificently."

Vaati blanched. Blow everything up? This was crazy even by his standards. To lose everything… why would anyone do something like that? Then again, he'd never had forever…

"You'd lose Thyme," Vaati thought about the woman who believed in this insane creature. Even though he didn't usually care about these kinds of things, it bothered him a little that someone besides him was as terrible as he was. Had the wizzrobe and he been that similar from the start, or did the wishing cap turn everyone into forces of destruction?

Briefly, Vaati could have sworn Thistle had hesitated. However, the metal spheres quickly charged towards him now, making him forget he'd ever seen that subtle tilt of the head. The wizzrobe replied with only a word. "Regrettably," he said emotionlessly.

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

Dark and Bates were now crouched behind a corner, peering at the sight in front of them incredulously. "What are they doing?" Dark mentally whispered to the sentry.

Bates rolled his eye. "You are cognizant that conveying thought in simulated subdued auditory levels is highly redundant?"

"Shut up. It feels weird thinking thoughts without whispering thoughts to you while we're hiding. Anyways, are they doing what I think they're doing?"

"Out of context that sounds like you are asking clarification for an inappropriate discussion."

"Holy shit dude you're the one with their mind in the gutter."

"I know not of what you speak."

"Don't play dumb with me! God, you're just like Vaati aren't you."

"Thank you."

While this conversation occurred, a few of the guards were busy moving and setting up what appeared to be tons of explosives. Literally tons. There were dozens of crates filled with explosives with more being rolled in, and even though Dark wasn't a bomb expert he could bet with confidence that there was enough to blow the whole place up to the sky.

"It appears they intend to erase this facility," Bates echoed Dark's thoughts.

Now sure that he wasn't just going crazy, Dark bit his lip nervously. "We have to stop them. Otherwise they might blow this place up with Vaati still in it, and I didn't come all this way just to have him die on me."

"Agreed."

But… what could they do about it? There were too many guards around the bombs for him to take on all at once, and if he was caught again then… well… he was pretty sure Hawk and Kestrel weren't going to take a detour to save him yet again. What could he do?

Bates was already a step ahead. Without explaining to Dark where he was going, he'd flown towards the bombs, circled around them, and then followed some wires up through the ceiling. "Tarry here."

"Hey, where are you going?!" Dark exclaimed mentally, but the sentry had already gone. Grumbling as he hid uneasily in the corner, he switched to shared vision with Bates to see where he had gone. He blinked and sat back, steadying himself from the sudden dizziness of having one of his eyes see his surroundings zip by him.

Bates finally stopped in a wide empty room with a timer in the middle, wires leading down small holes in the ground that led to the bombs on the floor below. To Dark's horror, the timer gave them an hour and a half before it turned this half of the island into debris. Then, the sentry flew around for a few more seconds, taking a moment to observe the elevator nearby in the hallway outside of the room. "They will usher more explosives here with high probability."

Dark didn't know how many more floors there were above them, but this was going to be an ugly chain reaction when the bombs on the lower floor went off: the next floor above it filled with more bombs would also explode, and continue on up until everything was destroyed "Hey, we have to delay this. We have to stop the timer somehow."

Bates flew back to where Dark was waiting. He made sure the guards were unaware of Dark's presence and that there weren't any Shadow Hounds prowling around before he turned back to the teenager. "And are you cognizant of how to do so?"

"Can't we just break it?"

"Not unless you would like to meet a combustible demise."

"Tell Hawk and Kestrel. They might be able to help."

"I have already enlightened them of our complication." Bates replied. There was a brief pause, and then Bates' eye glowed a faint red as he allowed Hawk to speak through him to Dark.

"Dark! We just heard about the massive problem of a shitton of bombs. We're not leaving here without Condor's head, but if we ignore this thing I don't know if we'll get out of here alive."

Despite their awful discovery, Dark felt just a tiny bit of relief from Hawk's response. There was something about these guys that, for better or for worse, you could believe that they'd get done whatever it was they meant to get done. He was glad they were working together this time instead of against each other like before. "Can you disarm it?"

"You're asking the wrong person. I'm pretty sure Kestrel knows how, and if he doesn't then he's the next to go after Condor."

Dark was pretty sure that was a joke. Maybe.

Hawk continued, "Apparently there are also a lot of guards around there. Since you haven't hauled your posterior outside of this subterranean structure yet, why don't you be commodious and distract them for a bit. We will rendezvous at the bomb initiation room."

"Uh, sure. Wait. What." Dark glared at Bates who looked at him innocently. "Did you do anything to edit that message just now?"

"No."

"You did."

"I did not."

"You so did."

"I may have added things."

"WHAT DID HAWK ACTUALLY SAY?" Dark did his best to refrain from punching the wall next to Bates and causing noise.

The sentry flittered away with a twitch of his wings, the equivalent of a shrug. "They… did not want you to be involved any further. They preferred I tell you to abscond immediately to safety…" Bates seemed to sigh. Then, in Hawk's voice he relayed the actual message, unedited, from earlier. "Apparently there are also a lot of guards down there. You've done your part, just get out of there. We'll take care of Condor and the bastard in charge, and you'll get your friend back. Be careful, kid. See you on the other side."

Dark fell silent for a few seconds, a little surprised. Even though he knew that the Talon guys weren't exactly doing this for him, two years ago he'd never have expected to have help from any of them. "Bates, why did you change the message?" he asked softly.

The little sentry gave him a look, then, that was one he wouldn't have given a while back. It was one of trust, maybe something he'd only ever reserved for Vaati himself, before all of this. They'd all changed, hadn't they? "Because I know they cannot do this alone. Lord Vaati cannot do this alone." Bates stared at him sternly. "WE cannot do this alone."

Dark couldn't help but smile. He almost wanted to give Bates a hug. Freaking thing could be so adorable sometimes. "Well hey. I wouldn't have listened to Hawk anyways. You'd think I'd be okay running away while your idiot master is still stuck here?"

"How dare you – "

"Relax. I've got everyone covered in the 'distract guards' part of the plan." Dark swatted the angrily fluttering sentry away. "Just be ready to lead me to the fastest way to the trigger room."

He peered around the corner again, while having Bates watch his back and also route out their escape. There were fewer guards around now, probably because some of them had gone elsewhere to help carry more bombs. The three left were busy moving the bombs in place, meticulously and robotically. Dark's gaze moved towards the small sprinklers on the ceiling, and then his hand moved towards the ancient rod hooked on his hip. He gave a small smirk. He knew just what he was going to do. "Get ready Bates. Things are going to get a little chaotic in the next few seconds."

He snuck farther away from where the guards were and back where he'd come from to set up his distraction. He stood just underneath one of the fire alarms of the facility and then pointed the Fire Rod towards it. Although he wasn't entirely sure how the Fire Rod worked, he figured if there was a button on something, then pressing it would result in… whatever it intended to result in. There was a small red button on the Fire Rod.

Dark took a deep breath.

And pressed it.

A huge jet of flame erupted from the tip of the rod like an angry dragon's roar, and pretty much toasted the poor fire alarm. Dark hadn't anticipated the sheer force of the thing, and it took both hands to aim the jet. Almost immediately the fire alarms began to ring earnestly and the sprinklers turned on, spewing water everywhere.

It was so chaotic that it was difficult for Dark to find Bates to follow him to the exit: the sentry was pretty small after all. The alarm blared in his ear making it difficult to focus, and the water from the sprinklers made the floor slick and slippery. The guards were confused, and shouted at each other, asking what was wrong: probably the most emotion Dark had seen out of them for all his time here.

Dark dashed past the confused guards with his sword drawn and a desperate snarl on his face. As he passed one, he swung as hard as he could, knocking the guard unconscious with the flat side of the sword. He kicked down a cart of boxes on top of the next guard and continued to run after Bates through the slippery hallway. He slipped, falling down onto the floor only to have a bullet whizz above him where his head had once been. He turned around, and saw the third and last guard running towards him with a gun in one hand, and his other wiping away the sprinkler water from his eyes. Before the guard could fire a shot, Dark drew his Claw Shot and aimed for the guard's legs. As soon as the claw caught around the guard's ankles, the teen tugged the chain to send the guard flying onto the floor, causing him to hit his head hard.

With all three guards out cold, Dark ran to the emergency stairway that was just at the end of the hall. He had to keep moving fast as there would be more of them any minute. He was glad he didn't end up having to kill the three guards; even if his own life was in danger, he didn't really want to resort to murder. He wasn't a killer… not like Vaati or Dugal or the rest of those guys.

"This way!"

Bates led him down more hallways, stopping him to hide while guards ran past. Curiously enough, they didn't run into any more of the shadow hounds on their way to the trigger room. Even though it was a relief that they were nowhere around, at the same time their absence made him incredibly nervous. Where were they?

And just as he thought that question, Bates suddenly shouted some barely comprehensible garble out of surprise. Bates' yell alerted Dark to a black and silver blur that shot by his neck, letting him dodge it just in time. Two more came charging from up ahead, right in front of a door which no doubt led to their destination. He swung his sword, catching one of them across its side and sending it sliding across the floor, but he wasn't fast enough for the second one. It pounced on him and pinned him to the floor as it pressed its weight against his shoulders, and Dark realized that he had finally come face to face with the conspicuously missing Shadow Hounds themselves.

They had been guarding the trigger room.

"Of course they'd be here…" Dark muttered to himself. The hound gave a savage growl, presenting Dark with a terrifying view of sharp teeth beneath its metal helm. Its claws fully materialized, no longer the shadowy fog, and they scraped against his arms, puncturing his skin.

Before he could figure out whether these creatures intended to either capture or kill him, a searing laser blasted the hound off of Dark. It whimpered as its sides burned and slunk back into the floor as a shadowy pool.

"Bates!" Dark cried in relief. The little sentry was invisible to the hounds, and he was shooting up the place with a laser that was hot enough to burn through metal. Although they didn't appear frightened, the Shadow Hounds backed away from Dark and his invisible ally cautiously. Dark grabbed the Fire Rod with a determined expression and aimed it at the other two hounds, giving them an opening to reach the door.

Dark slammed the door shut behind him as soon as he'd made it to the trigger room. He leaned against it for a few seconds, catching his breath. "Hey Bates, you don't think they'll be able to go through walls and stuff, do you?" he asked aloud, closing his eyes as he rested against the door. When he didn't receive a reply, he slowly opened his eyes and surveyed the room.

He wasn't alone.

In fact, there was a small gathering in the room around the trigger mechanism in the center, and they were all looking at him in shock.

Hawk and Kestrel were there, both with guns drawn, along with their Bates Beta who had been guiding them to the room. Their guns were pointed towards the man standing on the other side with two Shadow Hounds on either side of him. Well, to say he was a man was… not entirely correct. Although he was nicely dressed in a neat black suit, his face was much like that of the Shadow hounds: metallic, with a single red orb set in the middle that served as an eye.

"Dark?" Hawk seemed at a loss on what to do, and then he angrily turned towards where Bates Beta was. "Why did you bring him here?!"

Hawk argued with Bates Beta, Kestrel kept his gun pointed nervously at the hounds, and the metal-faced creature kept staring at Dark as though calculating what to do. "Bates," Dark asked quietly to the sentry that was with him, "what is that thing?"

"It is Condor."

Dark froze at the name. That was Condor? That thing… it wasn't even human anymore.

Condor continued to stare, and after a few minutes he seemed to come to a decision. The Hounds abruptly became alert from an inaudible command, and they began to slowly circle around the group. Condor's optic light blinked faintly and the shadowy cloud around his feet grew darker and more menacing. "You want to disarm the trigger," he spoke emotionlessly. It was exactly the kind of voice Dark imagined a murderous robot would sound like: Condor was playing his part well, it seemed. Condor announced his next words in the same flat monotone.

"I'll kill you all."

fleets: The reincarnation work-around explained! It took forever to give you guys an answer for it, but here it is finally. I've always wondered if Hylians ever thought it was weird that whenever you killed a really low-level monster like a moblin or a stalfos (or wizzrobes), and then you came back to the same area after a while they reappeared in the same spot. I played with the idea a little and then poof, I had Thistle's explanation.

Thistle made some allusions to Rend in this chapter, and that's about as much as I'm going to include in terms of easter eggs.

If Thistle has become an increasingly unlikeable, annoying character, he says thank you. It's pretty much his job to be despicable on some level because he is the main bad guy of this story (although i will love him 4ever whooo).

And now finally Condor! He's finally back to make everyone's lives impossibly miserable.

Hmm, not much else to say, other than the fact that the next update will be posted this Friday the latest :3 I guess I got a little excited after writing the chapters more and more. It's true when I say the stories just write themselves: sometimes it just develops on its own and begins to tell the story in a way I never imagined it to go, and it's exciting! I'm the author, but even I want to know what happens next because I don't even know what it'll finally be like!
Okay that's enough from me. Sorry I'm just really happy today. See you again on Friday :D

Serpent Tailed Angel: I'm glad the last chapter wasn't too slow for you. I guess I just really love writing about character interactions/psychology more that when it comes to battles it feels a little lame. This chapter kind of felt the same way for me too, but I think the next chapter will be better (at least it was more fun for me to write).

Reily96: I ask myself every day if I actually know what I'm doing with this story. The only way to know is to actually finish it I suppose! 3 more chapters!

DemonLordShiek: Hello! Thank you so much for liking what I'm doing so far! This crazy story I started way back when is almost going to conclude: hopefully we'll all survive this insanity by then haha

DarkSakura2256: Life's good! At least today, it's good! I haven't had too much time to draw or write for fun, but it's sunny outside and I feel productive! Or maybe I just had too much sugar this morning idk. I hope you're enjoying your summer too! And yeees I just love swain in LoL, especially when I can land a combo then he's so powerful :D
Maybe we should have told Vaati to 'aim for the eye' XD

Dragon Leafeon: OPOP: obnoxiously powerful, overpowered lol I think that pretty much describes Thistle in 3 words right now. And I will definitely see through to the end of this! I'm so close I can smell the finish-line cupcake I saved since eight months ago that I promised I would eat when I posted the last chapter! Ew! Anyways thank you so much for your review: it's the knowledge that people are still following this story and enjoying the writing that make me feel obligated (in a good way!) to complete it. :)

SmashQueen: You bring up really good points! Although damaging the cap probably wouldn't do anything (since he already wished to be uber-powerful, taking the cap away wouldn't change anything except prevent any more wishes to be made), snatching it away or convincing Thistle to make really bad wishes are still options, aren't they? :P
I was kind of struggling with this idea, on what would make Thistle's wish trump Vaati's wish, and when it comes to canon I like to believe that the cap has a limit (it was only a copy of the Light Force's power after all, I think?)
But in terms of this story, I'm going with the idea that Vaati was young and stupid, and he was initially obsessed with being greater than Ezlo to obtain his recognition. The first thing he thought of, then, was 'greatest sorcerer.' He also proves to be careless and rash when he misses very obvious details, such as not realizing Zelda had the Light Force even though he knew about its story, so he could have had tunnel-vision about searching for the Light Force instead of simply wishing for it. But yeah, that's just an interpretation for this story and I personally like the other version in terms of canon.

Gah! I've talked a lot! Anyways thank you for reading, and I can't wait to see how this ends either (it's one thing to think about the plot, and another to actually see it play out)!

LoZMadLover: It's the final fight, so this is going to drag on a bit hehe: Vaati is not going to have an easy time ;)
But one thing's for sure! There will only be one victor! Place your bets!
Haha and no problem. I like to think that Gale and Vaati are the same people, except Gale grew up with different memories so some aspects of his personality are a little different (i.e. cursing a lot more when he's angry). So think of it as just one soul that has been re-calibrated to have a combination of both personalities, if that makes any sense?

Iris Martinez: If I get to that picture of Thistle (or any others related to OA) I'll definitely post it on my deviantart account :)