Enjoy!

Chapter 7

Epona led the route with Zelda and her horse beside him. They left the castle after finding some fruity bread and fruit on the side and Zelda telling a commander, that she found inside cooking to check on the food stock later on in the day and prepare for a goodbye ceremony for the late General. It wasn't like he was doing anything else that day. The wind blew his hair as he looked for any signs of trouble. The patrol route was going rather well. The soldiers started up a competition of who could kill the most monsters if any got in the way. Unfortunately for their game, there wasn't many out. Which made Link a little suspicious on where the monsters were, but he didn't think too hard on it. It was possible that the area was still rather empty due to lack of people living in it. It was one of the only reasons why there wasn't a patrol route prepared before, besides lack of people to patrol the route. They went up along the top of Hyrule field along the rock wall all the way to the canyons that the river formed in the earth and kept a good pace. He told Patrol Eight that they were to take the patrol a little slower than what they were doing to make sure that they could see any and all suspicious activity, especially from a distance so they could prepare themselves for it. The sun was high in the sky and quickly coming back down when he had finished showing out the patrol route he had made and were leaving Lake Hylia behind.

"What do you think of the route?" He asked Zelda and she nodded.

"If patrolled regularly, we can make sure we keep control of this area. If Dean or Vaati have anything planned within the desert, this patrol will see it first and be able to warn the rest of us without engagement."

He smiled though he was starting to really feel the effects of not sleeping. "That's what I had in mind. And if they have nothing planned, this would be a good place to set up a camp for people instead of everyone being in Castle town. The lake has a natural defense to it with its high walls and its incredibly hard to get into without knowing a good path down."

"When did you find that path anyway?"

"I um…" he felt himself go red in embarrassment as he thought back to a few months ago. "I may have rolled down it after falling off Epona because I fell sleep."

"You shouldn't be riding if you are that tired, you could have seriously hurt yourself." She scolded him.

"I could have, but I didn't and it hasn't happened since." He said proudly, "Plus I found a nice path for the patrol to take. The only problem to my whole idea if we move people down there is if it does get invaded, where would they go?"

"That is a good question, we can exactly use a cannon to send children up…" She pondered.

"What about a lift system?" a voice suddenly came from behind and Link looked over and realized it was Jerom.

"A lift system?"

"Yes, like the elevator you described when you were discussing the other world to everyone in that meeting a while back. The one where you push a button and it moves up and down."

"It would have to be some project to do that, considering we don't have electricity and it would have to be really large to hold a mass amount of people at a time."

"But it is doable." Zelda stated. "I've seen a couple of plans for a lift system, and with Electra's help I'm sure we could make plans for it."

"I don't know how well Electra will be able to help with that." Link told her. "Electra has a variety of knowledge, but I don't think she's highly trained in mechanical physics."

"If she doesn't, I'm sure Shad might be able to help, or even a Goron that knows about architecture and mechanical physics… that's a long name."

"Yea, I guess it is, Don taught me it." he said a little sadly. He missed the times he had with the man. His thoughts were about to spin into a never ending spiral of depression but stopped as someone appeared ahead of them. Epona neighed and went up on her back legs causing him to almost fall off. He got control again and his patrol stopped. Link took a second look again and recognized the light purple hair of the person even though they were still pretty far away coming closer. He clenched his jaw as the figure didn't seem to have a care in the world that it was literally twelve verses one. Not that Link could say much as he had worse odds, but still. He wished he still had the Twili Shard, maybe then he could see if the man could live without a throat. It would be an interesting experiment.

A sly smile formed on the figure's face as he grew near and Link jumped off his horse. "Stay on your horses and prepare to leave."

"But General Link-" one of the squad members started but he just glared up at them.

"This is not negotiable. When I give the signal, take Zelda back to Castle Town."

"Y-yes, sir."

"Like you could keep me busy long enough for them to leave with," the man with purple hair started as his red eyes seemed to light up as he looked passed Link. "My Zelda."

"You should have stayed in that snow grave." Link growled.

"It was rather bothersome, but if that was your best attempt, I can't image what you plan to do this time, considering the lack of that Canadian human and her natural element."

"But you are in mine." Link said drawing his sword. "And you aren't taking Zelda."

"Like you could stop me."

"I bet I could."

Vaati sent spells at him which he easily deflected back with his blade. His blade was Evil's bane meaning evil magic couldn't affect it. It may not be enough to defeat Vaati, but it was enough to keep his spells from touching him as well as keep Vaati busy. Link doubted the sorcerer was immune from his own magic as well as his sword was. Eventually, Vaati was nailed by one of the attacks Link sent back causing a small explosion. The smoke cleared and Vaati was getting up from a kneeling position looking pretty pissed off. A sneer formed as the sly grin was long gone.

"Filthy creature…" the sorcerer growled. "I'm getting real tired of you getting in the way."

"This is literally the second time that we have met." Link replied getting ready for whatever Vaati was planning.

The attack stopped as everything seemed to freeze for a single moment as something pulsed through the air and it send shivers up his spine that reminded him of the monster gates as the pulse seemed to hit him from three different origin points, but at the same time were all at the same origin. Vaati didn't look as furious as he was a second ago and looked almost concerned before disappearing. Link dropped his guard and took in several breaths. He was happy that the attacked was stopped as he didn't know how well he was going to hold up. He needed sleep.

He turned up to Zelda who looked troubled. "You felt that too?"

"Yes…" She answered as she looked back where they had come from.

Link followed and felt like the pulse had come from in that general direction. There were three distinct markers that he thought he felt, but the closest was back towards Lake Hylia. Did Kalysta unleash another monster gate? And if there was for sure three spots, was there three monster gates all in different locations? That would speed up the merge without a doubt in his mind. That would be three more holes between the two dimensions which from the little bit of reading he had done in the two weeks he had in Electra's world was not a good thing. He took the chance to reflect on where the other two pulse signatures had come from and thought the next closest one would be in Faron Woods while the other was too far away to pin point. It seemed to come from everywhere but nowhere at once. Like the third disturbance had its own disturbance.

He got back on Epona not worrying about where Vaati had run off to. He probably had his own problems by the looks of it. Hopefully the next time he saw him, the sorcerer would be dead someplace. They took off back to Lake Hylia. They raced along the top of the lake when a dragon flew overhead and landed down below looking ready to attack. He looked down and stopped Epona but he couldn't see what it was engaging. He took a look around the area and realized there wasn't anything left from the disturbance other than the memory of it happening. His fears of a monster gate quickly disappeared as he looked back down at the dragon.

"What is this thing doing out here?" He asked Zelda who shook her head. He had no idea where it had come from or why and it didn't seem Zelda had an answer. The only thing he could think of was it also felt the disturbance. "What is it?"

"It's a creature known as Aquamentus." She answered him as she scanned the dragon. "It's gem is its weakness."

He nodded and got off Epona. The dragon was surprisingly large and was easy to drop down too. He got a running start and took a quick note of a man below that the dragon was engaging before barely landing on the dragon's nose. He readjusted himself as he took out his sword and a new noise came to his ears. He looked up and saw a second dragon, white with blue eyes, as it majestically roared above him. The dragon he landed on growled as it tried to shake him off and walked backwards into the water probably to change its target of attack. Link jumped off the nose of the dragon onto land before it could get to far in the water. He didn't feel like swimming today. He went to attack Aquamentus when the man behind him told the white dragon to attack. To Link's surprise, the dragon did just that and a white beam left its fangs and the gem cracked before it shattered without trouble. Link looked up in awe at the sight of the dragon's beauty. How could a man control such a beast? His attention was drawn from the white dragon to the enemy one as it moaned and collapsed in the water, exploding into nothingness. Link looked at his sword before putting it away. He didn't need it anymore, at least he hoped.

He turned to the man. The male looked about his age though much tall with brown hair and the same color of blue eyes as they looked down at him not looking all that amused. Not that Link blamed him, he wouldn't be amused either if a dragon came from nowhere to try and eat him. The man had human ears, not Hylian and a very outlandish, white vest coat that fanned out behind him like it was a cloak blowing in the wind with what looked to be blood all over it. His pants and long sleeve shirt were black with some sort of card around his neck. Link wondered why the man had random belts attached to his legs and arms for no reason. "I'm surprised, not too many people have monsters working against other monsters."

"My dragon does what I command." The man replied as he looked him over. "Who the hell are you?"