Chapter 5: Great Sea Gossip

Rapidly, Niko's pondering heart began to hammer in his chest as he and Link roamed through the cave, trapped in the small, unstable mine cart that held them ransom throughout the whole ride. And as if things couldn't get worse, both the victims turned to face the feisty pirates which were hot on their tail. Almost instantly, the moblins began professionally creating cages.

"Ok what if with these guys and cages?!" exclaimed the panicking Niko...

Whoa Whoa! We can't skip the story to another future chapter can we? Here is the real intro of this chapter.

It was an incredibly, amazingly windy day. The strong, powerful, invisible force of weather greatly amazed the humble people of Hyrule leaving an enormous, dumbfounded look on their faces. All except for one grouchy, tall and muscular figure that roamed the woods.

Byrne.

This silent warrior strolled through the dangerously dark woods in search of the grand Tower of Spirits. For several long painful treacherous hours of walking, he had been searching for his elusive destination. After a perfect, satisfying challenge with the strange and mysterious, yet awkward Lokomo of the Sand Realm Rael, Byrne was confident this time that he could best Anjean or accomplish what sick and twisted form of challenge that could drive into that mischievous, mysterious mind of hers.

Battering the loose branches that dared to land a leaf in his face, Byrne turned his thoughts back on his frustration of getting nowhere in the complicated forest.

"Where is this Tower of Spirits?! I have traveled all morning just too waste valuable time at that death barrier containing that irritating excuse for a mast..."

Bump

Byrne's almost in-destructive body came in full contact against the stronger, shining wall at the back of the Tower of Spirits. Ugh... Finally. Quickly recovering from the sudden struck of dumb luck, Byrne snapped out of his daze and loomed around the Tower to find the entrance to the precious beacon of the large and proud continent of New Hyrule.

Slowly entering the gigantic entrance, Byrne kept his guard up in case of another cruel onslaught by Anjean. He already suffered several harsh, mean-spirited and merciless payloads from her; this time was definitely going to be a change of story. Unexpectedly, Anjean wasn't there.

Anjean wasn't there.

Where is she?!

In a mix of fear and anticipation, Byrne slowly crept around the main silent floor of the unusually mute, tower. I will attack you as much as I please so you better keep your guard up whenever. Uncomfortably and Uncontrollably, Anjean's words thundered in his head. Ever since the day of their 5th battle, Anjean stayed true to her words. She seemed to have been taking Byrne's training more serious than Byrne himself. Swiftly but anxiously, Byrne found himself rapidly rotating with his fists clutched in his hands to further advance his guard. However, this did not reduce his timid thoughts of another dramatic, dreadful, defeat. Byrne all of a sudden started losing much needed focus and concentration.

Locked in his thoughts, Byrne quickly caught a glance of a short figure before him, and at an instant stopped spinning.

It was Anjean!

Byrne quickly entered a battle stance, quickly replacing the fear in his eyes with confidence, determination and overall seriousness. Both glanced at each other until suddenly, a smirk crept across Anjean's face. "Ah Byrne. Just the man I wanted to see." greeted the wise Anjean.

This time while Byrne kept his impressive battle stance, his eyes widened with confusion. Anjean's smirk widened at the sight at Byrne's amusing expression on his face.

"I have prepared a... challenge for you while you were training with Rael". A Challenge? Byrne wondrously thought to himself. "You see, I decided to prepare you an obstacle course during your casual training with Rael".

"I'm listening." replied Byrne through his sweaty bandanna.

"Today I've arranged for you to travel through the sections of this temple. Each one has an Ancient Gold Piece I've hidden. And furthermore..." continued the intelligent and powerful old soul, "...I requested our phantoms to attack you. Avoid getting hit at all costs". And with that, Byrne smiled through his bandanna.

"Don't worry your old head of master. I won't let them lay a finger on me." assured the ever ready yet, stubborn and arrogant student.

As the powerful wind quickly began to fade away, Old man Niko thoroughly continued to scrub his filthy clothes clean of their disgusting yet weak stains. Finally, after all that struggling to get rid of the yucky stains he succeeded his goal. Throughout the 4 years, Niko's age had finally caught up to him, he now required a walking stick to help him accelerate around with his now slow functioning feet and his new found hunched back. But this was not enough to keep the old geezer from retaining his youthful physical strength and behavior. Proudly Niko entered his warm, lovely cottage and eyed the young boy before him.

It had been over 4 years since Link said his first word, and he still loved playing with his precious toy train.

"Hello little Link" smiled Niko. "Still loving that toy train I see".

"Um, hello Niko" replied the young innocent 4 year old. He then asked in a sweet voice, "Do you think I'll ever ride a real train?"

"Possibly, now remember we still got to find your parents young man. We checked with everyone in Papuchia Village". Niko then realized something rather 'important'. "Oh come on! I forgot to get a stamp for my empty stamp collection. Oh my word! Spirits dang it!" Link then questioned Niko's sudden stroke of misery.

"Niko, what's wrong. An empty stamp collection?"

"Oh um, it's really nothing Link. Ok want to hear a story of the great seas?!" Niko enthusiastically assured.

"Oh boy yes Niko, Arrrg!" cheered the wonderful and polite youth as he raised his fist in the air with anticipation.

"Ok, there we were on the great sea. Me and the crew were working as usual...

Link, A.K.A the Hero of Winds was fishing in the center of the great sea, while every other swabbie stuck to their guns and swabbed the deck. No matter how much he tried, Link found no luck in catching any fresh fish but only succeeded in nauseating himself even further.

Suddenly he felt a huge, amazingly powerful tug of force on the fishing rod.

"Whoa! Um guys I got a big one!" cried Link as he fought viciously against the ferocious but unstable tug on the fishing rod.

Everybody watched in awe as they caught sight of the huge fish fighting against the strong, powerful hook. Zuko decided to lend a hand to the struggling hero. "Never fear good Link. The master is here!" with that said, Zuko took the fishing rod and began effortlessly reeling in the feisty catch. However, his supposed skills were put to the test as the horrendously hyper sea bait began bounced around the ship, and somehow ended up on head!

"Oh but that's not even the best part, this is!" Niko burst of laughter before he continued the amusing hilarious memory.

Hearing the irritating commotion, their mighty yet young-aged captain arrived to see what the needless fussing and yelling was about. "Alright, Alright! What is with you slackers? What is going on here?" Unexpectedly, the fish began attacking Tetra, until of course she stabbed it right in the head. "Who is responsible for this mess?!"

Tetra then spotted the broken fishing rod in the hands of Zuko. Angered at her swabbie slacking off and causing this infernal situation, Tetra gritted her teeth while the whimpering Zuko pondered his unholy punishment. "Zuko... as punishment for this tom foolery, you are going to scrub the whole deck for a whole month." This was too much for the 'master' to handle. What terrors of disgusting diseases are in store for him?

Niko couldn't hold it in anymore, he dropped his cane and landed on the floor laughing his aged head off. "You should of seen the facial expressions every time he was done scrubbing the ship!" Link approached the cackling senior on the floor, suddenly Niko stopped laughing as he realized how awkward the situation had become. "Ok so basically, Swabbie got Zuko into trouble and that was about it".

"But shouldn't the Hero of Winds have token responsibility for his actions? Shouldn't he of told Tetra what happened and apologized?" asked Link in a very innocent voice.

"And have a whole month of scrubbing the WHOLE ship? I don't blame him. Tetra and Swabbie usually would have a battle riot and arguments. Though I felt kind of sorry for ol Swabbie, I'll tell you that, the arguments and the sword fights were usually entertaining for the rest of the crew... and there were some arguments that weren't so good."

"Could you tell me another story Niko?" Link was eager to know about the Great Seas. "Could you tell me more about Tingle?!

Annoyed, Niko frowned and that bitter memory of the so called 'Fairy' weirdo. "Fine, we first met the 'fairy' Tingle when we were close to finding the magnificent island we call; you guessed it, New Hyrule. He apparently knew the Hero of Winds and had supposedly helped him on his journey to save the original Hyrule from Ganondorf." This left Link dumbfounded by the fact that there was actually a different Hyrule before the very land he lives in.

"There was a different Hyrule?"

Brightly, Niko smiled widely. "Of course, so we met ol Tingle at Mercury Island where he was doing his 'Tingle-tastic' dance to bring joy to (more like torture) the kids." This time Link was confused. He loves the Tingle in the book, what could possibly be wrong with this Tingle?

"Why torture? Tingle seems like a great person in the book Tingle Tales."

Again annoyed, Niko sighed calmly and continued. "Yes but the real Tingle would never shut up. If you think he's a good guy in the book well... more power to you but I don't think much of the fairy guy. Anyway, Tingle annoyed the whole crew. Especially the Hero of Winds and to say the least, I don't blame him. Also, we were attacked by pirates and Link came up with a 'brilliant idea'.

"What was the plan Niko?"

"Instead of using his Tingle Turner thingy or Tingle Bottle whatever's, he gave Tingle the wild instruction to distract the pirates for us to attack them. I found this ironic in a way, Swabbie knew Tingle was annoying as heck so he had him annoy the enemy pirates". This made Link sadden at the fact that Niko was mocking his favourite book character. "But..." continued Niko seeing that he made Link upset, "He did have a good sense of humour, he was a big help and he basically led us to, you guessed it, New Hyrule". Now the sadness in Link's face turned to joy at the fact that Tingle helped the pirates find Hyrule.

"And if you think that was shocking, after we found New Hyrule, the hero of winds performed his most bravest and shocking deed?"

"What was it what was it?!" Link chanted, eager to hear what the Hero of Winds did.

"Do you really want to know what he did?" teased the old man.

"Come on Niko, tell me what he did!" stressed out the poor eager youth.

"I don't think I should tell you." Niko smiled mischievously and deviously.

"TELL me Niko!"

"He, he... married ol captain Tetra!" with that, Niko burst into to laughter, however managed to keep his balance this time.

"And what's so brave about that Niko?" questioned the confused and disappointed boy.

"Well don't get me wrong she was very beautiful. However, I wouldn't have considered her the nicest or calmest person I ever met. She really was a feisty pirate, and made me clean *shudders* stuff like Gonzo's underwear. I still have nightmares."

"Do you know anything else about the other princes and princesses of New Hyrule Niko?" asked the curious child.

"Well there was our crazy king Augustus, who named BOTH of his twins Zelda. It was really confusing!" Link was momentously stunned by this fact. "Exactly, he was that crazy. But it was really easy to tell which one was which due to slightly different appearances and their completely different personalities. One reminded me of the Hero of Winds, and the other one DEFINITELY reminded me of Tetra!"

Finally Link overcame his shocked state and restored his pandering sanity. "Why would someone name both their children the same name?"

"I don't know I'll give him this, he's nowhere near as crazy, or annoying or psychotic as Tingle!"

Meanwhile Back at the tower, Byrne was ready to prove his point that he was a immortal, powerful strong, mighty, amazing and invincible fighting machine. But Anjean would be the rightful judge of that. "Are you ready Byrne?"

"Ready as I'll ever be." Pale purple-headed prissy punk!

Soon Byrne dashed into the first room as fast as the speed of sound. He swiftly dodged the phantoms attacks and countered them marvellously and flawlessly. Wasting no time, Byrne kept his focus on getting to the end of the room as fast and as swiftly as he could. He finally reached the first treasure and quickly moved on to the next room. Throughout all the rooms, Byrne swatted and pummelled Phantoms that dare tried to attack him, leaped over and avoided huge obstacles of lava pits, dodged spades, electricity among other traps and claimed the beautiful, shining Ancient Golden Pieces.

Finally Byrne reached his last destination. "This was a piece of cake." remarked Byrne as a prideful smile formed behind his bandanna, and laid his eyes on his last golden piece which was about 20 feet away. Byrne sprinted to his intended target, smiling wildly. He was about to win this ridiculous ta...

BANG!

Byrne was sent flying like a rocket, away from the precious golden treasure. Feeling a sharp pain racing through the side of his head, Byrne slowly raised from his dazed form only to see his sneaky, wise master Anjean holding his Golden target with a mocking smirk and wink. Byrne's eyes flared up with a combination of utter disbelief, and utter frustration.

Anjean grinned at her angry foe. "I told you to always keep your guard up didn't I, dear Byrne"

Well, that's that. And of course a little Toon Zelink/Telink never hurts, right? Plus I was confused when I found out that Zelda was the 5th descendant of Tetra which was very confusing, so I made that story about the king naming both his twins Zelda up. Anyways, so far this is now my favourite chapter of the story I've worked. Please review me, I need the attention! Also, tune in for the next chapter.