The Hyrulian Valhalla Saga
By Queenie Z
Whip It! Whip It Good!
Competition ran deep in the blood of the Heroes, not just with each other but also with themselves. Tests of skill were a favorite past time amongst them, but one can only play the same game or battle the same copy of a monster or boss for so many centuries before one needs to shake things up a bit. And this was exactly what Engie decided to do one day when he had absolutely nothing better to do.
The task was simple: using the odd snake-shaped whip he had come to love over his journey whilst alive, he would attempt to steal one personal artifact off of each of the other Links' persons without any of them noticing. Of course, he'd give everything back - he was a Legendary Hero, not a thief - but it was a challenge in both stealth and coordination that seemed quite exhilarating to Engie. At the time.
He grinned to himself, tossing the bomb bag he had swiped off of his predecessor, the Hero of Winds, mere moments earlier. What was he doing with that thing, anyway? Ah, well, he thought, it didn't matter - he had almost taken something from each of the other Heroes, including Mini's quiver, a sandwich bag that belonged to Green, Brown's recorder, Duo's seed satchel, some book about goats that Twilight had been reading, a bottle of Lon Lon Milk that Time was drinking, and the entirety of Light's pouch and everything inside of it. Now he only had Sky left to steal from - an easy enough task, he figured. Despite being the eldest and most respected (for the most part), taking something from that dopey guy should have been a cinch.
"Should have been" being the key phrase, for the moment that Engie flicked his whip towards Sky's beloved sailcloth that was hanging off of his shoulder, the elder Hero spun around and caught the end of the whip without even flinching. Engie yelped in surprise and froze - he'd been caught red-handed!
Sky smirked, tugging on the other's weapon. "I figured you'd take the bait," he said. "You really think you can go around stealing our stuff without us all noticing?"
Engie tugged back, trying to keep Sky from taking his whip. "Grr… I was so careful, too!"
Sky "tsk"ed. "You forget that you're not the only one who knows how use one of these." He reached into his own pouch and pulled out his own whip. "If you want to take our things, I'll return the favor ten-fold!"
Suddenly, Engie felt a sharp pain on his hands. He screamed, dropping the whip when Sky's smacked him. Sky tossed it aside and grabbed the rope of his weapon, chuckling with a hint of uncharacteristic sadism that made Engie shiver in his boots.
"Let's see… those are your engineer's clothes, right? That hat must be pretty important to you - I think I'll just take that!"
With a crack, Engie's red engineer's cap was gone and tossed aside by Sky.
"That belt looks really nice, too!"
Crack! There went Engie's belt. "S-Sky!" He cried, "I-I was gonna give everything back! I swear — "
He was interrupted when the whip hooked onto the band of his pants. With a tug from Sky, the boy was knocked to his bottom. He watched in horror as his navy engineer's pants were yanked over his boots and right off of his legs, leaving him in his briefs. He screeched and covered himself as Sky simply laughed.
"So, Engie," he said, "how does it feel to get a taste of your own medicine? Hmm?"
"I… I'm sorry! I won't do it again! I swear!"
"That's better." Sky tossed his pants back to him. "And because you're such a good sport, I'll even let you keep your pants on while you give everyone's things back."
Engie stumbled to put them back on. "Geez, Sky… you're terrifying sometimes. I thought you were supposed to be one of the nicest!"
The elder Link shrugged. "You guys are my responsibility," he said, "I have to keep you all in line somehow."
"Well, I guess I did kind of deserve it…"
"Hey, just be glad it wasn't Time. He would have made you do push-ups with Twilight or something."
"Yeah," said Engie, fastening the last button on his pants, "good point."