Liberation: A New World
Summit at Hylashia Fort Arc
Disclaimer: I don't own The Legend of Zelda; this is just a Fan Fiction
Featured Music: "Material Delights" – Yakuza IV OST. Scene 1 (First Half).
"Lost in the Rain" – Lost Judgement OST. Scene 1 (Second Half).
"Pandora's Place" – Yakuza 0 OST. Scene 2.
Scene 1
Raynard gasped, pulling back his bandaged arm across his lips, wiping away at the blood that collected in the lower left of his mouth.
This one's far too strong, he thought, his chestnut-brown eyes briefly scanning over the fallen comrades he once shared bread with, now all laying either face-down or face-up on the rocky ground of the Forgotten Haven, having easily been dispatched with by the threatening presence they encountered.
Raynard stood to his weathered booted feet and spat a glob of pain-filled blood to the dust-coated floor on his lower right, eyes still focused and fixated on his fiercely-powered foe. Notably a woman in the shape of her figure, she stood with an ebony-night cloak donned on her body and a hood to match, easily hiding what identity she may have possessed. Although he wasn't able to one-hundred percent confirm her person, he was fairly certain she came from the organisation in which he was investigating and pursuing.
The Himitsu Shakai.
Raynard pulled back his fists and lowered them along with most of his body. Facing the ground he opened up his mouth and began yelling out, first lowly and then eventually into a louder, stronger reverberation as a huge aura of Aegir billowed at his feet. The very ground itself began to shake lightly at first and, as Raynard's inner strength rapidly climbed, so too did the area rumble much more violently to match. The cloaked woman watched from her perch high up in the dark underground cave they both stood in, an unreadable expressed hidden behind the darkness of her hood.
WHOOSH…
Without any warning, Raynard's chestnut eyes widened as he took off in immediate pursuit, his super-fast form easily landing a debilitating blow across his foe's hooded cheek.
SLAMMM
She sagged back into the air, grunting out as she did. He followed up by flying overhead noisily, his fiery aura of blue-shaded Aegir following him distinctly. Raynard reappeared just above the sagging nameless operative and, fists joined together and raised high above her, slammed both down brutally and painfully.
WHAMM
VWEEEE…
CRASSSSSHHHH
The hooded woman's body collided roughly with the rocky underground of her own organisation's refuge, coughing up dust, smoke and wreckage in her wake.
KRSSSSHHHHH
Raynard savagely beat down his weathered boots into the woman's exposed defences in her lower stomach, opting to give her no quarter for the brutal killing of his own comrades. As he swiftly side-flipped athletically and grappled at her black-shoed legs, spinning her 'round and 'round as he did. He let the woman go, sending her flying and careering rapidly into the wall on his right, bringing down debris and rubble down on her. Raynard narrowed both eyes, fixated and focused on his foe before him, as he rapidly ascended his spiritual strength within his pulled-back right fist.
"Final…!"
VVVV…
The sound of his beautiful-blue Aegir meshing well with aura he matched with it powered the massive-sized projectile in his opened right fist. His eyes finally rewidened and he screamed out his last call to action.
"REPPUKEN!"
WHOOSH…
KERRRRRRASSSSHHHHHH-RUMBLE-RUMBLE
The projectile fired straight from his opened fist, massive and powerfully-vibrating, snaked rapidly across the rocky ground, striking the woman's last known location, easily breaking apart the wall ever further. As yet more wreckage dropped down upon the woman's head, so too did the ground rumble to match. From the smoke and clouds came an expeditiously-accelerating forward kick, knocking the youth savagely and fiercely across his face.
SLAMMM
VWEEEE…
Raynard let out a pained grunt as he was sent rolling and tumbling across the dusty ground around them, forcing a quick athletic recovery from him in response; the ebony-haired Van Garrick reached down, grappled at the ground beneath him and vaulted off of it in a quick bound backward, somersaulting back before swiftly firing himself forward again for yet more aggression of his own.
SLAMMM-SLAM-SLAM
The pair's fists crashed with one another in an initial quick-three strike before the two soon found themselves embroiled in a hate-filled embargo of fury and martial arts. In amidst their superfast slugs came a second strike seeded with slimy intent, an elbow, sending the wide-eyed Raynard flying downward vertically. As he landed, he pulled his body up to vault himself in a swift bound backward as the nameless figure came rushing down to meet him with a crashing vertical punch.
CRASSSSHHH
As the ground spit up rocks and debris all around them, Raynard flew backward through the air in a quick attempt to move himself out of the direct line of fire before swiftly pulling his arm back and readying another projectile.
"REPPUKEN!"
The black-cloaked woman, in hot pursuit, narrowed both eyes behind her hood and jerked herself out of the way to avoid the rapidly-incoming projectile. Still hot on his trail, she managed to move faster than even he could have predicted; Raynard widened both chestnut-brown eyes and snapped them behind him, only to find her slamming vertical dropkick down on him, sending him careering back down to planet earth.
SLAM
VWEEEEE…
CRASSSSH
RUMBLE-RUMBLE…
In response the very ground itself began to tremble violently as Raynard himself attempted to move through the rocky underground of the cavern they all fought in, in a rapid motion. Like an arrow fired from a bow, he came pelting straight up and out of the underground, his destination clear and unambiguous.
WHAMMM…
"Argh…!"
The woman gasped out a pained wide-eyed call of agony as Raynard's Aegir-imbued fists managed to easily pierce her cloaked chest, sending her sagging up into the air vertically a few yards above them both. Raynard narrowed both chestnut-brown eyes through the blood she coughed downward and, as if on cue, her hood fell backward as she dropped down and over the youth's shoulder, her limbs splayed out as she dropped like a stone back toward the ground her blood trailing after her.
KERRRASSSHHH…
Raynard turned his body 'round and allowed himself to follow her trail in a dissimilarly graceful landing. As he turned his hard-eyed frown down on the fallen and seemingly now deceased young woman, he got a good look at her blood-coated mouth and face; permanently wide-eyed, she stared back at him, both arms laying at both of her far sides as she lay on the ground, staining it in her life juices. She merely carried a small ponytail of brown-shaded hair, her bangs at the front matted with sweat and effort.
I don't recognise her, Raynard thought to himself.
Must be a new member.
"A new member that's incredibly strong…"
FWIP
Raynard's eyes widened a fourth time and he snapped his head in the sound's source, only to find a familiar sight indeed. It had been seven years since he'd last seen it but there it was; the mysteriously-abandoned ship, still as dilapidated as ever and still sitting in port. He gave one last sweeping look over his fallen comrades; Hylian commandos that had come out with him to investigate the last remains of the Shakai's last known location and shut his tree-shaded eyes as he bowed forward in respect. He soon re-rose his ebony-haired head and slowly swung his glaring-eyed gaze back in the direction of the noise's source, beginning a march toward it.
When he opened up the similarly ruined door before him, seemingly having been locked since he was last here with his former mentor Scaverin, Raynard got a decent look in at what even further time did to the nameless ship in which he once witnessed an innocent mother being brutally killed. The memory of which, still ever hanging in the back of his mind, made him sigh through his nose, shut his eyes and shake his head.
Don't think about that now, he thought.
Focus on what needs to be done.
He trailed down the collapsing steps of what seemed to be the hold; finding a second door, and one he recognised, he pushed the last remaining memory he had as a child coming through this door and reached down with his Aegir-infused finger. Meddling with the lock, he easily opened it up with intricate use of Aegir-control before swiftly pulling the door open and stepping through.
"Who's there?!"
Surprised that the mezzo-soprano's voice did not in fact belong to a woman, or even a person itself, Raynard re-narrowed his eyes forward only to find what seemed to be what looked like a bird's cage and a similarly surprising sight seated within it; a little guardian fairy, light blue in colour and shade, hovered around inside the cage before him.
"W-Who are you?! Stay back!"
Raynard furrowed his brow down at the little fairy, casting her with a quizzical look of his own. A million questions at once flooded his brain as he drank in the strange sight before him.
What was a guardian fairy doing locked away in a former hideout of the Shakai?
Why was it being protected and guarded with that woman's life?
Why on earth did they choose to hide this guardian fairy here of all places?
"I'm not one of them," he merely answered with in a half-uncaring eyed faced frown, briefly scanning the rest of the small hold he once walked through as a child. "What are you doing here?"
Although it was a tactless way of asking her, he honestly had little qualms of it, especially given her presence in such a dangerous location.
"I-I…," she began again, flying backward as if to hide from his curious-eyed gaze. "I don't know…"
One of Raynard's eyebrows lifted up in genuine curiosity. "You don't know?"
"They found me and put me in this cage… it wasn't that long that I've been kept in this particular place but…"
"How long for exactly?"
"A couple of days I think?"
Raynard's brow furrowed, the cogs and gears in his head working away quickly at an attempt of an explanation.
It's no use, he thought.
"I just don't know enough yet…"
"Are you going to rescue me?"
Raynard blinked briefly out of his deep-seated thoughts and cast her with a firmly-faced frown once more, nodding down at her. "Yes," he answered, re-opening his mouth as he stepped forward and knelt down to reach the bird cage to be on eye level with the little fairy. He rested a single muscled arm across his broad knee as he stared back at her in a hardened-eyed glare. "Raynard."
"O-Oh… um… it's… well… I'm not sure…"
Raynard's brow furrowed but he chose not to question her just yet as he reached forward with his free right hand and opened up the bird cage, letting out the little sea-shaded pixie. She flew back out into the hold, flapping her little wings as she did. The orb of blue and cerulean turned her body 'round to face him, hovering in mid-air as she did.
"Thank you…," she began, pulling a curious-eyed glance his way. "I didn't think anyone would have come for me."
"What did you mean when you said you weren't sure?"
"H-Huh?" The nameless guardian fairy uttered, similarly curious.
Raynard's brow furrowed yet again; a sign of light irritation. "Your name." He reiterated, bringing a red-bodied colour of embarrassment to the listening guardian fairy.
"O-Oh!" She gasped out, shaking her body again, as if an inclination to say 'no'. "I… I'm not sure… I have very little memory of anything before being taken…"
The listening Raynard rolled his chestnut-brown eyes back in response, irritation and exasperation filling his face. "All right…," he began again, re-opening his mouth once more to continue. "Well, we've got a lot of ground to cover," the youth nodded forward and up as they began to march up the stairs together back to the main deck. "Come on."
2
A few years ago…
"Aegir Art… Revivification!"
DROOOOOOM…
The sound of a massive coffin shot up from the ground beneath him; a man cloaked completely in black.
Ahead of him, the cask slowly opened up, almost as if it were a shield itself before finally dropping down its lid and revealing a second figure; another seeming man. He carried long deep-sea blue coloured hair, reaching down to his back, two long and thick strands snaking down either side of his slim chest. Two small pointed ears sat on either side of his head.
A sign of Hylian ancestry.
"There you are…," the initial man, a smiling one uttered out in his deep-throated bass, stepping forward into the moonlight of the field they both now stood in, revealing his features. He carried a shorter style of hair, short-brown in colour and framing his face fairly well. "How are you feeling…?"
The blue-haired man, frowning and seemingly clueless, could only raise up his arms to his cracked-eyesight, finding himself wearing what seemed to be an older variant of the ebony-black cloak his comrade was sporting.
"Tired…," the blue-haired man murmured out, his own voice a baritone. "What era is it…?"
The brown-haired man smirked back and chuckled. "I suppose you would be tired… you've been resting in the afterlife for over a thousand years."
"A thousand years…?" He responded with, holding back a gasp as he swung back his long-haired head to re-narrow both eyes back at his summoner, shock dotting his cracked complexion. "So then…"
"Yes…," the summoner began, smirking. "It is the year 714…"
"Then I am out on schedule…," the walking corpse sighed out in an understanding nod, stepping out of his coffin as he dusted his weathered old cloak off. "Thank you Dalton…"
"Oh no, lord Norogumi… the honour is mine," Dalton smirked on knowingly as he bowed forward in genuine respect and admiration, drawing another hardened frown from the listening man before him. "I may be leading our organisation now… but the work you've done… the Sorcerer himself would be proud."
"Then the Shakai couldn't be in better hands…," Norogumi nodded back at the brown-haired man before him. "How has the operation been going in my absence?"
"We are straight on schedule," he began in response, his smirk falling into a light-eyed smile as the pair of men started to march out toward the darkened field they now walked in. "We have lost a number of operatives five years ago, but…"
Norogumi's brow furrowed, curious. "Who?"
Dalton's own smile deepened into a hardened frown of his own, briefly turning his angry-eyed gaze on the summoned corpse walking on his left. "The Hero of Time."
Norogumi's cracked eyes narrowed, unsure and seemingly unable to recognise the name. "I'm not sure I…"
"A young man sent back in time to prevent his own calamities from happening in this future," Dalton quickly explained, re-facing the front. "He's managed to eliminate numerous members of our organisation already… including Kale, a spy we had managed to place in Kaiohdrahl, Ellen and even Ellys."
"Ellys?"
"Yes…," Dalton answered with a single nod. "We sent her after him just to judge his strength in your last stomping ground…"
"Not Ikana Canyon…?"
"Precisely," Dalton nodded again, briefly turning his eyes in the man's direction before re-facing the front. "Anyway he, and that little group of his, has proven to be a veritable thorn in the Shakai's side for a couple of years now. Right now there's another pursuing us, the last remaining surviving member of the Van Garrick clan."
"Is that so…," Norogumi murmured out, cracked eyes lowering briefly before re-rising into a light-faced smirk. "I'm sure we'll be fine Dalton."
The listening man, curious, could only swing his frown 'round on the summoned corpse. "You have a plan my lord?"
"Let's just say they'll have a newfound respect for the Sorcerer…"