Chapter 15

Link sat back in his council seat as his other allies and Zelda joined the rest of the council table of old Hylian commanders and generals, not that there were many of them to begin with. Only four war council members and Jerom sat at the table that sat eighteen making the room that much larger. Much larger than he wished it to be. Once everyone was seated, there were still three seats not filled and it disheartened him. After the Twili invasion and everything had recovered, the table was filled, and now there were nine Hyrule citizens if he included Dark Link, two humans that decided to stay in his world, and four outsiders that wanted to go home. If they couldn't plan the right tactics, they were all seriously screwed if they weren't already. As the discussion between the council went on, he listened intently, but his feelings of them getting Hyrule through the mess, mostly alive, were dwindling as the council members started to argue. A frown found itself on his face as he grew annoyed. How were they going to keep as many citizens alive if the top strategists couldn't even agree amongst themselves? It had been like this for the past several meetings and if he had the energy, he would be telling them to agree with something, but as he was now, he had no intention in getting into the argument. He looked across the table to see the same feelings on Zelda's face. This meeting was a waste of time.

"We should place troops up north where that serpent came from!" Commander Kent shouted.

"Then what about the rest of the gates?! We need troops to start pushing out the monsters!" The old General Carses retorted. "We need our farms and trade routes to the other towns back!"

"We don't have the man power to deal with all sides! Staying inside of the gates is the best option!" The slightly younger General Topher went off and Link got ready to give them a piece of his mind when someone beat him to it.

"You three can all have what you want!" Ryou shouted silencing the room. The white-haired man stood up and wiped the map clean of all the units. Link watched him starting to place on units in anger. "We can have a small group in Castle Town to protect the walls by creating a signal system like that found on the Great Wall of China. From there, we can have smaller groups go out to deal with expanding the space of this safe haven, that way the only passage ways are flying over the cliffs or through the ravines which is way easier to protect than the walls of Castle Town. Finally, you can have a special unit scout for activity and either report or remove the issue before it can attack. Faron Woods may have had quite a bit of activity while the northern region had a Fiery, a biblical serpent, that is supposed to be a holy creature. So, taking that into account of whatever summoned it can change the heart of mythical creatures, defending the north in order to expand is more of a priority over the Faron Woods which from I heard from all your constant childish blabber has been rather quiet. Once the north is safe, you then can proceed to either just defend, or send units to your sanctuary at Lake Hylia where you can start moving this over-crowded city before disease starts to take hold."

Ryou finished placing the pieces of the army on the map to his instructions and looked up from the table. Link stared at him in amazement. He wasn't expecting that the soft-hearted, quiet teen to be so insightful in strategy. He would have said thanks or even a compliment for shutting up the argument, but his brain just couldn't find the words.

Ryou sat back down looking at his thumbs going back to being quiet. "Sorry… I don't usually snap."

"No, please, you were helping me think." Seto replied looking surprised and Link took note of it. Obviously, this was new to even the all-knowing one. Wow, he was really sarcastic when he was tired. Now he just needed to make sure his thoughts didn't reach his tongue. Probably easier said than done at this stage of exhaustion. "You don't often take command."

Ryou didn't say anything as he continued to look down at his lap in embarrassment and a sneer formed as if a bad thought went by.

"You alright, Bakura?" Yugi asked from across the table and Ryou shook his head.

"No, I'm not bloody alright. Regan and Nile are separated, one of them will be unstable as soon as one of them leaves the River's Puzzle to the other. I was a prat to think that the first trip, which was to the bloody future because of some wanking scrubbers; wasn't going to repeat itself in some sort of manner. Which it did because of some slag and now we are in another dimension! We are currently being hunted down by at least one Muppet in this world when we already had our git platters full back home with several different clotpoles with several different goals in mind for our pretty little heads!" He took a breather as Link blinked he didn't understand half of what Ryou had said, but he got the point of the rant. He looked around the table to see if anyone else had understood the teen to see Jason, who had his jaw slightly dropped and Seto, who had an impressed look. Whatever he had said, it was full of insults that were way beyond his understanding, nasty unfavorable insults at a wide variety of people. "All this chaos to my orderly plans makes me go …something…"

"Go crazy?" Dark Link suggested reminding Link that he was in the room and Ryou nodded. It was impressive that the Shadow had managed to stay quiet this long.

"Yes! That! I'm going to lose my mind!"

"Please don't do that…" Atem told him exhaustedly. "We really like not-crazy-Bakura."

"Fine, if not going crazy helps me get back to my gormless world, then I won't. But seriously, there is enough twits running around to put Hollywood's celebrity media to shame." He sighed turned back to his lap. Link narrowed his eyes in confusion, what was crazy-Bakura and why did he feel like that was also someone he didn't want to met? Ryou interrupted his thoughts as he started speaking again. "Maybe if we help your situation quickly, I might be able to have a nice vacation from home. But, I'm not great for fighting. I can do it; I just really don't like it. But if you want me to find this sword to kill Vaati then I can."

"And a really good tactician by the looks of it." Link told him to reassure the teen. He reminded him of Collin in that sense, wanting to help, but also wanting to use violence as a last resort. "How did you learn all that?"

"Table top strategy games…" he replied before looking at the map again. "You guys are going to need an elevator like structure for the sanctuary, right?"

Zelda and he nodded. That was the idea, but, neither of them had gotten around to figure out how to accomplish it. Not that they had much time to think about it. It was going to have to be huge, and be able to take a beating if things got bad.

"Kaiba will be able to have the designs down before heading to bed."

Link was about to say that they could figure out something when the brunet answered first.

"Excuse me?" The tall man started giving a glare. Link figured he wasn't going to take being ordered around well. "Last I checked, I don't get told to do anything."

"It will give you something to do for a short time, unless of course you want to risk the chance of Regan or you getting sick if a plague breaks out."

The man growled.

"The longer it takes to make that elevator, correctly, the higher chance that that will happen."

"Fine! I'll design the stupid elevator!" Seto snapped to Link's surprise. He thought there was going to have to be more of an argument between the two of them that he personally didn't want to sit around for, but at the same time it amused him to see someone go head to head with Seto. The man turned to Zelda. "I suggest having someone ready to get supplies in the morning, because the list will be ready by then."

Zelda nodded and Link took a breather. At least that was one thing off his plate to worry about. Any supplies that Seto might create could probably easily be gathered by the Gorons on Death Mountain. They were masters of building structures like he had seen in the other world. At least he hoped. He was hoping for a lot tonight.

"We are probably going to need more knights in better training as well if this is all the pegs you have. Yugi and I can strategize for the best possible victory, but as for training wise, Atem, Nile, Kaiba, if you decide you want to, and possibly Regan will be able to help with that, though Regan is also a formable strategist... It would be best to keep both girls off any radar."

"Why's that?" Dark Link asked. Link was also thinking the same thing, a strong fighter such as her would be better training knights than behind closed doors when they were already at least seven people that could do the very task Ryou was suggesting she join. He only guessed that Nile was just as good as Regan if they did share the same knowledge, especially if they could go head to head with Dark Link.

"They have a habit of making unwelcomed friends. If one of those friends comes knocking, it would be best not to have them in plain sight."

"You're talking about Dark Matter, right?" Jason asked and Link turned to him. Who was Dark Matter and what was with his name? Seemed like a fourteen-year-old from Electra's world made it up. Ryou nodded, confirming Jason's suspicions. "I wouldn't be surprised if he can travel through dimensions if we made it here just wonderfully. Not to mention this Vaati character seems like a problem."

"He doesn't care about human girls." Electra stated. She seemed uninterested in the whole thing. Then again, nothing they knew beat Dean and what he has done and what he was capable of doing. "I apparently have the same problem, but Vaati point blankly stated he had no interest in humans."

"He might not be interested in humans, but he likes girls, especially if they look like Her Majesty."

Electra had a confused look on her face before it turned to realization. "Regan is similar now that you point it out… their height isn't much different either if you stick her in heels, she's grown quite a bit since the last time I saw her."

"Maybe she shouldn't look for the Minish then." Zelda suggested and Link agreed with her. Vaati was not predictable on any sense of the word and the last thing they needed to do was get one of their unexpected guests, kidnapped by the wizard. "It was bad enough she volunteered, but I don't want her out there if Vaati does take fancy."

"I also agree with Zelda," Seto agreed. "Regan can read Hylian, it would be best for her to stay researching instead of being out there."

"Um, from her adventure earlier, I'm going to say she's going to disagree to this proposal." Delilah imputed. "Like, I barely know her, but she did take off and she'll probably do it again if she gets a lead."

"I will not." a familiar voice echoed the hall and Link turned to it to see Regan without her puzzle coming through the door with two guards behind her apologizing for letting anyone in. Link sighed. How was this battle plan going to work if two guards couldn't even keep an unarmed girl out of a room? "Unless of course it's super dangerous and someone might die, but I won't leave without telling someone."

"So, you mean you won't be telling anyone, ever." Link deciphered and she shrugged. He knew of the actions all too well as he, himself, practiced it more often than he should have. At least it was his purpose to take on things bigger than life, he had goddesses and spirits to help him stay alive, and friends, she didn't have that luxury. "You're going to get yourself killed."

"Hasn't happen yet."

"Famous last words." Dark Link imputed and everyone turned to him at the table with a wide range of reactions. "What, you can't tell me none of you were thinking that."