| Sovereign Threads: The Spring Fanfiction Project |
April 7, 2004Legend of Zelda vs Adventure: Chapter 1 His sword clanged against the dragon’s armored scales as he struck it, his armor shaking with the impact. The blow was too weak to pierce the scales of the great Red Dragon, however, which leaped forward and tried to bite at the head of its prey, only to be blocked by its opponent’s glinting sword. Its claws reached out to swipe but the nimble hero moved aside just as the dragon’s foot-long nails scraped against his chest plate. Brandishing his sword, the brave, unicolor hero shouted his battle cry and charged forward, intent on defeating the dragon once and for all. In a world composed of a few bright colors, one square stood above the rest. His name was Hero, and his quest was to defeat the Evil Magician, a vile sorcerer bent on destroying the World. With his arcane arts, he had stolen the Enchanted Chalice from the Castle. It was Hero’s sworn duty to bring back the Enchanted Chalice, thwarting the Evil Magician’s horrific plans and restoring peace to the Kingdom. And the greatest of the dragons, the Red Dragon, was standing in his way, and would not budge until it was defeated in single combat by a worthy warrior. Behind the dueling pair was the object in question: the Enchanted Chalice, golden and glistening with a pale silvery sheen from its enchantments, whatever they may be. Such matters were far beyond the scope of our noble Hero, whose mind was not quite as sharp as the sword he wielded. The Enchanted Chalice stood on a great stone pedestal at the back of the room, its light glinting in the eyes of both combatants, driving them in their battle for glory. The Red Dragon made its next move, twirling in place in an attempt to hit Hero with its tail, which was covered with deadly poisonous spikes. Hero jumped as the tail swung at him and, executing a flawless back flip despite the fifty pounds of armor he sported, he landed on the dragon’s back and positioned his sword over the base of its spine, ready to make the kill and receive his just reward – the Chalice. He jabbed downward. And the world shook. Before the blow could be executed, Hero was flung off the Red Dragon as it skidded into the west wall. The room rocked violently, the stone floor cracking from the force of the quaking earth beneath them. The Enchanted Chalice rolled off its pedestal, clinking loudly as it rolled across the floor from left to right, stopping as it was wedged between two disjointed pieces of the stone floor. Hero stumbled toward the Chalice, his movement slowed by the ground rapidly breaking up under his feet. One particularly jarring blow sent him tumbling to the ground, rolling haphazardly and landing within a foot of the Enchanted Chalice. His brow covered in sweat and the metal of his armor screeching in protest as he moved, he reached his hand out to grasp the Chalice. Just as his fingers made contact, sliding across the glinting metal, a giant, thunderous noise shook the ground. The room cracked almost in two, bending and twisting. The Red Dragon, its balance hopelessly lost, rolled into Hero, sending him careening into the wall and knocking him unconscious. The ground beneath the Enchanted Chalice crackled and gave, finally, sending the Chalice down into an unknown abyss. Down and down it fell, lost forever; that is, until it landed gently on a quiet, undisturbed patch of grass, the wind whistling through the great trees above it. ******************** Meanwhile, a young man named Link lay comfortably in a grassy meadow, the darkness around him making him drowsy. He looked up at the stars and, holding up his hand, attempted to connect the far-away, shimmering dots in its likeness. He twisted himself into all sorts of odd positions, bending his fingers until they matched the obscure outline made by a dozen different, far away stars. He grinned and, being careful not to move his hand, sat up, looking up happily into the sky. “Aha!” Link cried. “I’ve found it! I shall name this constellation ‘Hand’!” He smiled to himself and started humming his favorite tune, a simple but sweet melody that had always reminded Link of adventure – something he had never experienced firsthand but heard it whispered of in his dreams. And, unlike other boys his age who yearned for a real adventure, Link was happy for adventure to stay in his dreams. He was truly content; he wanted nothing more out of life then to spend his days in this carefree way in the peaceful realm of Hyrule. What could possibly tempt him away? No creatures would harm him with his natural agility, and there was no greater evil in his world than poison ivy. Yes, nothing could possibly go wrong. It was as he was contemplating this that the stars started moving. Link scrunched up his face in annoyance and attempted to align his hand once again with the stars. The stars, however, would have none of it; they were shrinking together at an impossible pace, seeming to collide with each other as they did so. That was absurd, of course; Link supposed it must be some phenomena that those with fourth-grade educations were not meant to comprehend. Perhaps, he thought, it had something to do with the elusive topic of division. Shrugging his shoulders, he lay back down, rested his head on the soft ground, and closed his eyes, intending to go to sleep and forget he had seen anything out of the ordinary. However, Link was a curious boy, and could not keep his eyes closed to the world for long with such temptation just an eyelid away. What he saw when he opened one eye to a small slit caused him to jump up in alarm. He jumped up and stumbled backward, blinking. “The sky!” he said to himself in amazement. “The sky is…” He trailed off, unable to think of words to describe the events revealing themselves before him. Melting may have been accurate, as some of the stars appeared to be dripping out of their positions in the heavens. Others, however, were being stuck together ruthlessly, scrunched and squeezed to make way for – what? The ground beneath Link’s feet shook, and he was, for the first time in his life, terrified. This was something unavoidable, something he could not use his talents to escape or ignore. He ran up the gently sloping hill, which, in an instant, cracked up into a chasm that Link was just barely able to avoid falling into. He looked back behind him, in some way expecting to see himself lying in the grass, trembling from his nightmare, for this simply could not be real. Link had looked back a moment too long and, before he could jump away, the piece of ground he was standing on gave way, falling into the pit. He managed to grab onto the jutting wall of the chasm and held on with straining fingers. That was when the chasm itself fell into some deeper void, taking Link with it. He could not find the breath to scream. ******************** Hero awoke in the darkest, dankest, most putrid place he had ever laid pixels on. He was underground – something about the moldy dungeon smell made him sure of it – and his head ached. He didn’t know where he was, except that he was certain that no place so disgusting and multi-textured could ever exist in his Kingdom. That left him with no other options to speak of; he had never been outside the Kingdom and was unaware that any other place even existed. Something else was in the room. He saw its shadow pass over the wall. It was too large for a bat and too small to be one of the dragons. When it stepped out of the shadows – out of the darkest shadows, at least – he made out its tall, lanky, robe-covered form and blinked in surprise. It was the Evil Magician. He had never seen the villain personally, but what other creature would walk around dressed like that? There was no other option. It made perfect sense! Surely it was the Evil Magician that caused the earthquake, only to lure him down to his…err…netherworld! He had never pictured the evil wizard to be the type to live in a dungeon; with all that power, one would think he would spruce it up a bit, at least, and have a throne-like chair sitting in the middle of the room to cackle at his minions from. Oh, well - so much for stereotypes. Hero stood up to face his arch nemesis. He would be remembered forever by his people for destroying the greatest sorcerer the Kingdom had ever seen. Grinning behind his helmet at the thought, Hero reached to his side to draw out his sword from its sheath with the slow, deliberate movements appropriate for such a tense moment. The sword was gone, and the wizard was readying his first spell. Hero gulped. Then he ran. He was already at full speed when the blast of power left the dark wizard’s hands. Unfortunately for our Hero, he was running in a straight line instead of even attempting to dodge, and the spell, being ethereal and not clad in an armored suit, could move faster. It hit him soundly in the back, slamming him into the stone wall. Hero got his first taste of the mold covering the dungeon walls – it would not be his last. The slightly-less-brave-than-previously-thought Hero realized then that running would be pointless. His only chance was to take the Evil Magician down in hand-to-hand combat but even that was dependent upon getting close enough to him. Still, he had to try, for Glory and his Kingdom. Hero stood tall once more, ready to face his opponent. He bellowed his best battle cry and charged, even as the wizard was readying another black spell. It’s long, bony fingers moved in deft patterns as another crackling ball of energy formed. Hero ran faster, determined to reach the wizard on the other side of the room before the next spell was cast. He was only ten feet away when the wizard spewed his magical energy forth to meet his opponent. It barreled in Hero’s direction, the tendrils of dark energy reaching out to grasp him before the full blast hit. Just a foot before the wave hit, Hero dived to the ground, avoiding certain death by less than two inches of air. He was up again nearly as fast as he dived and, this time confident that he would reach the magician before the next spell, curled his right hand into a fist in anticipation. Just as Hero’s running punch was about to connect with whatever grotesque features were covered by the hood of its cloak, it disappeared. If he had known any naughty words, they would have been racing from his mouth in a torrent of profanity. He was so engrossed in thinking up a word that sounded sufficiently nasty to describe the situation that he didn’t even notice the wizard reappearing behind him moments later. He most certainly did notice when its third spell nailed him in his metal-covered posterior, however. He was knocked to the ground and did not feel particularly inclined to get up, for the pain in his arse was great. The Evil Magician hovered over to him, his cloak blowing in a theatrical response to a nonexistent breeze. As Hero made a painful attempt to get up, the metal of his armor screeching against the floor like nails on a chalkboard, the Evil Magician readied one last, great blast to finish off the defenseless Hero. ******************** Link’s return to consciousness was surprisingly painless. If it weren’t for the lack of light due to the giant trees overshadowing the forest floor, it would have been like any other morning for Link after sleeping in the grass all night – sore back but bright sky and rejuvenated spirit. If he could figure out where he was, he wouldn’t even mind the sore back. Chapter 2 Link stood up, feeling a little dizziness at first that subsided after a few moments. He looked around and above him but could see nothing but trees and the path he had landed on; it was lit by nothing more than the few scraps of light that were able to sneak through the giant firs. He looked to both sides of the path; it was straight as far as he could see – which wasn’t far – and both ways led into darkness. “Well, I can’t just stay here,” Link said to himself, “but what if I go the wrong way? Where am I, anyway?” Link’s dilemma was abruptly put out of his mind when a figure began walking toward him from the southwest end of the path. As it came closer, he tensed and clenched his fists, ready for a fight, although what good his fists would be against the evils of such a dark forest, he didn’t know. As the figure drew closer, however, Link relaxed his guard; it was a short, stumpy old woman in a brown cloak. The moment she caught sight of him her eyes lit up in joy and she ran towards him on her gnarled bare feet. She stopped in front of him and fell to her knees, her hooked nose grazing his boots. “Please, good sir, ye must help! Ye are the only one who can help, for there is no one else in this whole forest!” she cried, sobbing and tugging on his tunic. Link backed away to reacquire some of his personal space and then, seeing her distress, crouched down and spoke to her. “What troubles you, ma’am?” The tired, haggard woman continued to sob. “Have you been attacked? You do not look injured. Are you in pain?” he asked. “No, good sir,” she replied. The hag took several long moments to quench her tears before continuing. “I have been traveling for some time now. I was being pursued by the henchmen of the evil Ganon when the earthquake hit last night – surely you felt it. They were catching up to me as the ground split all around us, and every last one of ‘em fell into the cracks o’ the earth. It was like the whole world was crumbling apart! Then the ground under meself was brought down and I thought for sure I was deader ‘n a doornail!” She shivered as she recalled the previous night and then went on. “But then I woke up here, in this forestI I looked all around me for the fiends that were following me but they were nowhere to be seen. I think they lost me trail in the confusion, if they’re even alive anymore,” she added softly. She shook her head and got to her feet. “No, I’ll be all right. It is Zelda ye must help!” “Who’s Zelda?” Link asked. “Was she traveling with you?” “No, no, no. She’s the princess, ye know. Ye must save her from Ganon!” “Save her from Ganon? Me? I’m just fifteen!” he said. She narrowed her eyes and appraised him with her keen eyes. “Ye have the look of a fighter to ye, boy. Ye’ll do fine. No one else ‘round here to get to do the job, at any rate, so it’ll have to be ye.” Link thought for a moment, and then shrugged. “Oh, well, sure, all right. I guess I don’t have anything else to do today.” “Bless ye, from the bottom of my old heart! And I’m sure the princess will be thankful, too, if ye get my meaning,” she grinned, winking at him. As a matter of fact Link, a clueless lad, did not get her meaning, but he smiled and pretended that he did. “Me name is Impa, by the way. Say hello to Zelda for me! And don’t forget to find a sword – you’ll need it!” With that, she got up and ran back the way she came. “I guess I’ll just go this way, then,” Link said, walking in the other direction. --- Link had been wandering through the forest for hours when he decided to stop in order to rest. “This is going nowhere,” he groaned. “and I’m hungry.” His stomach growled in sympathy. He plunked himself down at the base of a tree and leaned back on its trunk. A few moments later something hard landed on his head and rolled to the ground. “Ow!” Link said, rubbing his head. He looked down to the ground and immediately saw what had hit him. It was a…thingy. He reached down and picked it up, looking it over to try to figure out what it was. It was gleaming and looked kind of like a cup – except it was flat and had a lot of pointy edges, so it couldn’t be much good for holding beverages. “Maybe it’s lucky,” Link said to himself as he tucked it into his belt. Link stood back up and started on his way again, ignoring the numbness in his legs. “Or maybe I can hit Ganon over the head with it, seeing as I can’t find a sword. Getting out of this forest would be even better.” After five minutes walking, sunlight began to stream along the path. ******************** The “Evil Magician” readied his final blow against Hero as the young knight struggled to get to his feet. The energy coalesced around him; as he was about to let loose the attack, however, he found himself separated from his target by a large – well, a large something. He backed up slowly, confused. It was the last mistake he ever made, for the creature then descended upon him, its jaws gaping wide open. The sorcerer’s whole body was in the creature’s mouth in an instant, and he happily chomped away. As the sounds of snapping bones and squishing innards filled his ears, Hero rose, trying not to attract the dragon’s attention. Without his sword, even a green dragon would be impossible to defend against. He was surprised that the Evil Magician could be taken down so easily, even by such a mighty beast as a dragon. Wasn’t he supposed to be the most powerful being in the Kingdom? Ah, well. There was no use dwelling on it at that point. Unfortunately for Hero, heavy plate armor is not very useful for sneaking away from dragons with excellent hearing. Even over its own chewing, the green dragon heard the screeching metallic steps of the armored suit. It turned toward Hero and, dropping the half-eaten corpse from its jowls, sprung toward him. Hero screamed inside his own head and made haste toward the room’s exit, the green dragon in hot pursuit of him. Both moved at about the same pace and Hero, even in his panic, was becoming optimistic that he would be able to elude the dragon without coming to blows if he kept running. It was then that he saw the next door; it was small, too small for the dragon to follow. Hero wondered, then, how the dragon had entered in the first place, as it appeared to be trapped inside. Hero threw open the creaking wooden door and dived into the room. The dragon, close on his heels, howled in annoyance. It swung its tail against the solid stone of the dungeon’s wall, making it shudder but not yield. It then tried to poke its head through the entrance, and Hero laughed when it ended up getting stuck in the doorway. It tried to tug its head out several times while Hero watched, but to no avail. It sniffed and finally fell to the floor, whimpering. Hero could not find the heart to feel sorry for it. Eventually, Hero left. He wandered through the empty dungeon halls for nearly an hour before he came upon a large metal door unlike any of the other doors he had entered. Thrumming with anticipation, he grabbed the iron handle and pulled with all his might. It did not budge and inch. Undaunted, Hero looked around him, seeing nothing but a blue candle burning brightly beside the door. He picked up the burning candle and, to his surprise, the door swung open, revealing a staircase that led above, to the outer world. Hero halted. What should he do, now that he had escaped? He clenched his fists. His mission had always been to find the Enchanted Chalice, and these new, odd occurrences did nothing to change that. He would find the Chalice and no one would stand in his way. Hero ascended the stairs, toward the darkness. Chapter 3 When Link was finally out of the forest he spotted a small cave carved into a hill to the north. From within, he could hear a person humming a tune, occasionally adding in a whistle. “Wonder if the guy has food?” he said, smiling to himself at the prospect. Walking into the cave, he saw an old man in a tattered outfit. He was indeed humming to himself as he polished something that looked a bit like a sword. Becoming aware of a visitor, the old man turned to face Link. “Welcome, young adventurer!” “Hi,” Link replied. “You wouldn’t happen to have a sword I could borrow, do you? Some food would be nice, too,” he added. “I do not know of this ‘food’ you speak of, boy; I don’t listen to your crazy rock and roll music,” the old man responded, “but I do have a sword. As close to one has you’re going to find in these parts, anyway.” Link frowned. “What do you mean?” “Well…” The old man showed Link the sword. It reminded him of the cup-like object he had found earlier – all pointy edges and completely flat. “Where did you get it?” Link asked. “It doesn’t look like any sword I’ve ever seen -- looks pretty lame.” “Y’see, I was polishing my prized wooden sword –“ “Polishing a wooden sword? Is that even possible?” “Hmph. I was polishing my prized wooden sword last night when the earthquake struck. The ground cracked up, and I fell down, hit my head on this here block where I was polishing the sword, and lost consciousness. When I woke up, my prized wooden sword was gone, and this one had appeared on the floor – which was, strangely enough, not cracked at all by the earthquake. Was it a dream?” “No,” Link replied. “Something similar happened to me. What’s going on around here?” The old man just shrugged. “I guess if this weird-looking sword is all you’ve got then I’ll have to take it. It looks more like an arrow than a sword, though,” Link added skeptically. “Oh, it should work just fine, young fellow,” the old man said. “It’s sharp and pointy enough, and – well, anyway, it’s all I’ve got, so don’t complain. You kids are always complaining – why, in my day, I’d be happy to get a sword for free, even if it did look less threatening than a mouse pointer!” “A mouse pointer, what’s that?” “Hmm,” the old man said, “I don’t think I know myself. It must have slipped my mind.” “Whatever, old man,” he rolled his eyes. “Just give me the sword, or whatever it is.” Link reached for the sword. Before he could do more than brush it with his fingertips, however, it was grabbed away from him and dragged into the air. Link blinked, perplexed, and looked up at the creature. It looked as strange as the sword. It seemed to be made up entirely of large squares pasted together and was completely flat. It was also entirely black. Link, however, did not give a damn. “Give that back!” he shouted up to it. Link had the feeling that, if it could make facial expressions, the creature would be taunting him with them. “Come on, I need it to rescue the princess!” The creature – known as the Black Bat in its own realm – squeaked and flew out of the cave. “What was that?” Link asked the old man. The old man just shrugged. “Don’t ask me. Not my problem any more, whippersnapper,” he said, continuing his whistling from where he left off. Link clenched his fist in determination. “The sword will be mine,” he said, stomping out of the cave. “How hard can it be to catch a stupid bat, anyway? Especially one as dumb-looking as that one.” Poor Link; if he only knew. ******************** Tombstones – tombstones everywhere; an endless mountain of them. Screen upon screen of gray blocks stretched before his eyes. The path before him was nearly as dark as the path behind, to the dungeons. All that lit the way was the burning blue candle he had picked up from the dungeons. Yes, Hero was perturbed, for nowhere in his world had he ever seen such a place as this. It was evident to Link after fifteen minutes of trying to catch the Black Bat that the task would be more difficult than he had initially thought. The Bat was about as fast as he was and when he chased it neither gained any ground. Despite how hard he pushed himself, it seemed to Link that the Bat always flew at a speed intended to keep the sword far out of reach yet still close enough to see it in the Bat’s grasp. After three hours of the chase Link was out for blood. The Black Bat stopped, finally, by a tree. Link, hungry and exhausted, was running entirely on adrenaline. He stopped for a moment, panting, watching the Black Bat flap its pixilated wings at him in mockery. Link twitched in anger and ran at the Bat with all the speed his exhausted limbs could muster. He lunged furiously at the Bat, propelling himself several feet into the air with his achingly tired legs. Just as he was about to catch the creature – his hands were but a few inches away from its equivalent of a neck – the Bat moved a few pixels out of reach. Its synthesized squeal of amusement as Link rammed his head into the tree trunk was almost as painful as the impact itself. Link slid down the tree trunk slowly, landing on the ground and remaining there for a few moments. Eventually, he pushed himself back up on shaking limbs. “This means war, you irritating little fiend!” he growled to himself, spitting out a mouthful of blood onto the grass. He got back up, watching the Bat as it continued to flap in its place, teasing Link with the sword it was holding. Link’s lip curled into a snarl. He attacked. He jumped several feet into the air and, twisting, landed behind the Bat, facing toward it. Surprised, the Bat was only barely able to dodge the roundhouse aimed at its head. Link then punched at it, and that it was unable to evade due to the momentum from its prior movement; it was hit in its bat-chest, its wings flapping in confusion as it flailed backward. Its grip on the sword was loosened. Link saw his chance and barreled toward it again, readying a right hook. Unfortunately for Link, the Bat was realizing it could not win this fight – as it had no offensive power – and quickly gained altitude again before Link’s punch could come anywhere close to connecting. The Black Bat was once again in control of the situation and, its little bat-brain having realized that tormenting the little boy with the long ears was not a safe option, it beat a hasty retreat with its new shiny toy. The past twenty-four hours had been strange for the Bat, indeed; just as it was busy carrying around the yellow dragon and trying to find a bridge, it had been knocked unconscious by – well, it couldn’t imagine what, as it was unconscious the moment it was hit. It woke up to find itself hanging off something called a tree, or so the other bats had told it. The other bats, however, would not accept the Black Bat into their fold, for he was too strange-looking. It didn’t matter, for it seemed to the Bat that they had no purpose in life; they did not share his lust for pretty shiny things like he was now carrying and spent all day hanging off “trees”. The Bat flew off to the large, eerie looking mountains ahead, believing the boy would not follow it there. Link was determined to prove it wrong. “Bat…*huff*…will…*puff*…die!” he growled, chasing after it. ******************** After several hours of wandering through screen after screen of graveyard, Hero was glad to see the looming, uninviting mountains ahead. He only stopped once to watch as a boy in green tights ran up the mountain in a futile chase of the Black Bat. Even from such a distance, Hero could see the Enchanted Chalice gleaming from the boy’s belt. How easy it would be to retrieve it! Determined, Hero sprinted onward to retrieve the Chalice and complete his destiny. Chapter 4 Link ached everywhere but, after a long chase, he had the Bat cornered. The creature had flown into the wide open doors of a dungeon carved into the great mountain and there wasn't any other way to escape than the way it came in. Satisfied that he had the Bat right where he wanted it, Link began his methodical search. Hero, his armor clanking as he made his way up the mountain, found the entrance that Link had entered. Metal joints creaked as he walked through the doors. He had that boy now; there was no escape possible. He would have the Chalice – nothing else mattered. Link entered the final chamber of the dungeon. There were fresh cracks in the rock that composed the floor of the chamber, caused by the earthquake. In the center there was a giant, gaping hole. Link approached it and looked down; he could see no end to the darkness below and, disturbed by the sight, took a few steps back. It was then that he saw the Bat on the other side of the room, sword in its claws as it tried to disguise itself in the shadows. “I see you there, Bat!” Link said. “Get over here and fight, you coward!” He didn’t know why he was shouting at a bat but he had the impression that, despite being just a bat, it could understand what he said. Indeed, it must have been able to, for it flew cautiously across the gulf to settle at a position about twenty feet from Link. He was trying to think of how to outsmart it and grab the sword when a blocky shadow descended upon him, perceptible even in the shadowy, half-lit cavern. What he saw surprised him; he nearly laughed out loud when he saw it. “What the heck is that thing supposed to be?” he smirked. It was a large, flat, black square, with no other discernable features other than it was carrying a lit blue candle. “Get out of here, little guy, I’m busy.” Hero sneered at his dismissal. Who did this boy think he was? Hadn’t he ever seen a brave knight before? And what did he mean by calling him “little”? The brat certainly wasn’t showing the proper respect, and Hero was in no mood to allow the upstart any quarter. He would take the Enchanted Chalice from the boy’s cold, dead hands if necessary. Hero strode gallantly over to the boy, hoping to intimidate him with his presence. The pointy-eared young man (was he even human, or another creatures created by the Evil Magician?) was still far from showing any deference, however. Link became increasingly bemused as the black block moved toward him, the blue candle somehow levitating beside it. “A black square – how original,” Link grinned. “If you’re the best minion this “Ganon” guy can cook up then I’ve been wasting my time chasing that bat for a sword.” Hero had certainly had enough by that point. He was beyond reasoning with the boy, so there was only one option available, and Hero took it. He threw back his armored fist and decked the young man as hard as he could. Link couldn’t have been more shocked at the action. He was forced a few feet to the side by the force of the blow and tumbled to the ground, blood filling his mouth. He blinked and stared at the square as it approached him again. How does a square throw a punch, exactly? Link wondered. Link knew he had to get up before the square got to him again so he did, unsure of his footing and still not recovered from the previous hit. The square got in close and bent back one of its corners, snapping it in Link’s direction. Link dodged the move easily and aimed his own punch, hitting the square square in the – err, hitting it somewhere. Hero cursed. The boy was fast and had dodged his famous right hook with ease, countering with a fast punch. The boy might be blind, though, the way he hit – who aims for a knight’s shoulder plate? Hero was confident that he could win easily if the boy kept aiming hits like that, despite the brat being faster. It was then that the Black Bat made its move. It all happened faster than it could ever be described. The Black Bat decided on a whim that his shiny sword was not as desirable as the blazing blue candle held by Hero and swooped down from where it was observing the battle to retrieve it, the sound of its flapping wings the overriding noise in the echoing chamber. The heads of the two combatants swerved to observe the Bat in tandem but Hero could not move fast enough to avoid having the candle taken from him – nor would he have, if he could, for the Bat could only hold one thing at once, and Hero was glad to exchange a candle for a weapon. The Bat swooped away just as fast as it had entered the fray in the first place, seemingly oblivious to the way in which it had caused the tides to turn. Hero just smiled under his helmet. Link stumbled backward as the sword was swung through the air to slice through the location he had been standing in a few moments before. “Damn it!” he cried, “What is going on around here?” The blade of the arrow-like sword tore through air once more, this time within a few inches of Link’s left side. “Okay buddy, that’s it,” Link growled, rolling up his sleeves theatrically. “Now you’re going to get it!” The Black Bat, however, interrupted their combat again – this time, with its shrieks of agony. Something went horribly wrong when it picked up the candle. For the first few moments, the candle was as easy to handle as any other object the Bat had picked up (and certainly more manageable than a dragon) – but then the situation became dire. Maybe it was because the candle had more than one color, or maybe it was due to a difference in pixel count. The world will never know; whatever it was, the strange anomaly caused the Bat to lose its grip of the candle and tip the flame into its own body. Its body was immediately enveloped in flames. The blue candle wax scorched its leathery wings as the flames burned it quickly to death. It flapped around in terror and when it could flap no longer, it fell. The flaming ball of death dived directly toward Link, intentionally or not. “Woah!” Link cried, diving to the side just as the bat passed. Although the fireball had failed to roast his insides, his left side was still on fire from the flames that had transmitted to him as the Bat’s corpse barreled past him. “Ouch, hot, hot!” he gasped, hopping around like an idiot until he remembered to stop, drop, and roll. Unfortunately, while he was leaping about, the Chalice had fallen from its already precarious position tucked into his belt and clattered to the ground. The noise was immediately picked up by Hero, who saw his precious treasure roll for a bit and then stop a few meters away from where his upstart opponent was rolling on the ground. Hero walked toward his treasure. He would take the Enchanted Chalice and then, for good measure, run his sword through the brat who had so foolishly dropped it. That was his plan, and he saw no reason for it not to work. He would be victorious, finally. Link stopped rolling, examining the burn on his side. It hadn’t even touched his flesh, just charred his clothing a little. Relieved, he got to his hands and knees, only to see the square thing he had been fighting making its way over to the object that had dropped from his belt. Link had forgotten he had it at all. He moved to grab it, intending to throw it at his enemy’s head to knock him out. The combatants were both after the same treasure, the key to the triumph of each. Hero got there first. He grabbed the Chalice. It was his final mistake. In this strange land, he had forgotten one of the fundamental laws of his universe by which he was governed: only one item could be held at a time. At the same time he curled his fingers around the Enchanted Chalice, he dropped his sword. Link, surprised by his opponent’s idiocy but willing to take advantage of it, clasped his hand around the sword instead. Hero did not realize what was going on around him. He had the Chalice, the key to his victory, and that was all that mattered. He held it in his hands and stared at it, glorying in its beauty. Link still couldn’t believe his luck. He raised the sword and stabbed it into his opponent again and again, not knowing exactly which part of a square held its vital organs. Because it took Link about seven stabs until he pierced Hero’s neck, one in particular placed in a “sensitive” spot, his opponent’s last thoughts were not of victory but of agony. When it was done, and his enemy lay dead, and the twitching of his corners had ceased, Link took a look around the place. “I wonder if Zelda is anywhere around here?” He considered for a moment. Then his stomach growled. “Nah. I’ll worry about her later. I’m starving.” Link remembered the Bat, and walked over to its corpse. It didn’t look that appetizing but it would have to do. “At least it’s already cooked,” he shrugged. Link picked up the corpse and took a nice big bite. “Mmm, delicious!” ~*Fin*~ Next Day Back |