Warning: This includes minor violence (hitting). No language, but there is abuse going on. I guess this chapter's closer to a T rating. But the rest of the fic will be K+ or under.

"Get up, you worthless piece of trash!" However short he was, the wind mage was still taller than the shadow boy cringing on the ground. He glared down at the teenager, wind blasting around them in fury with a hand raised to strike if the boy didn't get up soon enough. "I said get up, stupid!"

Shadow Link lay on the floor of the throne room in a quickly ebbing tide of crimson that clashed with the violet stones. His hands pressed against his face to protect himself from the surely-oncoming blows. Master Vaati was not happy. Master Vaati was going to beat him again. But he had barely done anything wrong. Now Master Vaati wanted him to stand up so he could beat him even more. But he couldn't bring himself to, physically or mentally.

"Shadow!" The five-foot wind villain leaned down and shouted the poor boy's name directly into his already pounding ears. "Get up! Get up! Get up!" With every command a strike was administered.

"Master Vaati!" Shadow finally managed to cry out; weakly stretching out his arms across the floor he attempted to claw away from the man's fury. "P-Please!" He had no strength to cry, no strength to move, no shadow powers at his command. Master Vaati had taken them away, taken his whole essence.

"STAND OR SUFFER EVEN MORE!" Vaati's voice took up the entire room, the blazing hurricane around them giving volume to his words.

I have…to try…Shadow thought in his near-death state. Wheezing and dripping red, he pushed part of his body up onto his hands, letting his legs remain on the floor. Slowly he struggled and barely made it, but Shadow Link managed to stand.

Lord Vaati approached him. Shadow was a few inches taller but so much less powerful. The mage didn't seem affected by his servant's state at all. "Good. Now, get out of my sight. Clean yourself up and I expect you back here in a few minutes." His tone was icy dangerous, full of even more malice and spite than what had been experienced before. "Do not disobey me again." His beady red eyes stared into Shadow's broken blue, and with a wave of his hand Shadow had been teleported into his sleeping quarters.

As soon as he landed, he collapsed to the floor, still bleeding. His face and torso stung from the beating he had just suffered. The boy groaned as he clawed his way across the stone floor, heading for the nearest support, a chair. Slowly he propped himself up, finally got onto the seat, and sat there for a few minutes to rest. He clutched his stomach and took deep breaths, recovering from the fury of the wind man.

He missed the other Links.

They would've never treated him like this. Even Ganon wouldn't have treated him like this. Ganon would've simply ignored him after telling him what to do, and if he would've supposedly disobeyed probably would've only hit him once.

Lord Vaati was cruel and proud, almost imagining himself to be higher than the Gerudo. Shadow always snickered at the thought- one day, Vaati would be smote for thinking such things.

But right now, he couldn't focus on that. He had to clean himself up. Standing up with immense pain, he hobbled towards the exit of the room to find some sort of rag to staunch the wound.

The Dark World wasn't just a dark place because of its name, or because of the blackness that consumed the whole universe, with the absence of any true forms of light. It was named for the cruelty and oppression the shadow creatures that lived there endured, ruled over by evils like Vaati and Ganon. But one day, Shadow vowed he would escape. One day, Shadow Link vowed he would see Green and Red and Blue and Zelda again.

And, one day, he would find Vio.

Aww! You go, Shadow! :3