MindTrap
Chapter 4 - Knight in Shining Armour?
Almost unconsciously, Link grabbed for his sword and began to run towards the source of the sound. Inside, he nearly smiled. I can't stop being the hero so easily, can I? For all he knew, it was fate that whoever it was would die in this attack... But as he hadn't felt anything holding him back inside, he couldn't let them go. Not now. Not here. He sprinted onwards, lightning flowing down the blade he carried.
The sounds of fighting became louder. The air was heavy with the feel of
magical charges as Link arrived on the scene. He looked around. Where was
she?
Quickly, he spotted who was fighting what. A pack of white Wolfos had set
on a solitary figure, who was trying to fend them off with a long staff with
a gem set at the end. As he watched, a crimson bolt shot from its tip, much
as from the blades of his sword.
The weapon was not what interested him, though.
Whoever it was, trying to hold her own - she did not appear to be either
of his original suspects. Yet as she let out a furious yell, he still recognised
the voice, and couldn't sit back. Instinctively, he fired an energy blast
of his own into the middle of the wolf pack. Some of them looked around,
and headed towards him. The girl spared him a quick, surprised glance, before
continuing her own fight.
"Try and aim for their tails!" Link yelled across at her, as he threw one
of the wolves aside easily.
"Thanks for the advice..." she called back, a sarcastic yet grateful sound
in her tones. Despite the way she spoke, she picked up on the hint and quickly
drove her remaining adversaries away. Exhausted, she walked slowly over to
Link as he smashed the final wolf into the floor. "I could have handled them
myself, you know..." she grinned.
"No, you couldn't," he remarked, looking her up and down in some confusion.
She resembled Alena and Zelda, true - but only in the same way his shadow-self
in the water temple had resembled the hero he had been. Raven haired, ruby
eyed, she was a complete dark mirror of who he knew. A Sheikah, he guessed.
"You looked like you were in trouble."
"Heh. You didn't give me a chance. Still, thanks, anyway. Whoever you
are..."
She doesn't know who I am... perhaps that's a relief. "Oh. My name's
Oni Link." Inwardly, he jumped, as he realised what he had just said. Usually,
he made a point of going by his original name. Why did I just switch?
Unless that dream's really rubbed off... "Most people call me Link for
short," he corrected himself.
"Fine. Link. Mine's Elianne," she replied, before pausing. "Hang on. I think...
I've heard... no! You're not...!" Elianne looked at him, admiration sparkling
in her eyes. He began to guess what was coming, the shock and fear that almost
always followed the revelation of his identity, but she surprised him. "You're
everything I'd have expected of you, you know... incredible to think I'd
meet you here. To be honest, I wasn't quite sure you existed. But... you
told me yourself, didn't you?"
"I - what? I only told you my name!" And what I said of it shouldn't have
given me away...
"Your name... of course!" Smiling, she finished her speech and gave him cause
for a yet greater surprise.
One of the powers he had frequently cause to call on was the ability to
understand any language put to him. But until hearing the words, any tongue
would mean nothing. He had never heard the phrase that the Sheikah girl spoke
until that moment. Yet in that split second, he could hear two meanings.
Both what sounded like his own name, at least in part - and the title he
had earned. Link-Aderan. Fierce Deity. What... what does that mean...
am I, was I... my family, when I was born, did they call me 'fierce' then
on purpose?
-
"Aww. So sweet. Did you mean to let him in on that little secret?"
"No! His mind let that out itself... Don't blame me that you lost control
of the spell! I'd say get back to the topic, here!"
"I lost control?"
The witches began to worry. If they were losing their grasp on Link's mind
- what would happen?
"Bother this. Let's go for something he knows all about..."
-
Elianne didn't pause to let him consider the impact of her statement. Instead,
she grabbed his arm and tried to pull him away. For once, someone wasn't
frightened by him. "I can only say... it's a good job I've found you. I was
looking for someone to help us, and..."
He blinked. "Why?"
"Come with me... please... Hurry!" She ran onwards through a cave pathway.
Ducking the low ceiling, Link chased after her. "Elianne! What's the rush?"
"Please! You'll see when you get there! My home... it's absolute chaos...
someone's attacking us, it's burning to the ground... we can't stop it. But
you... you can, can't you?"
Absolute chaos. The words struck home in Link's mind.
He knew what Elianne's home would look like when he arrived.
He'd been there. Done that. He'd been the destroyer in the Sheikah village
once.
His fears were justified as he came through the other end of the passageway.
The village he could see in the ruddy morning light was familiar as a place
he had visited in Hyrule. Of course, he thought. That was the gateway,
it must have been like the one in the woods, left open - but I was sure that
it would have brought me out in Death Mountain... Perhaps I don't know everything
I thought I did.
Perhaps I need some help after all.
But not from... them...
Link picked up pace, and dropped Elianne behind him. From here, he knew the
way, and his homing senses were beginning to take over. Not that it mattered
- his memories from ten years ago, when he had been destroyer not protector,
had resurfaced.
She hadn't been wrong with her description. It seemed he had arrived just
in time. People were fleeing into the nearby woodlands and back the way he
had come. A very few remained around, attempting to protect their home. One
of them - Link paused - was Sheik. He's real here, too? That's never Zelda...
His crimson eyes were glimmering with a repressed pain. Another of the
fighters was an old man, a mage. His physical abilities may have been weak,
but he was creating a wall of energy around those buildings that still stood.
Not that it was doing much good. Not against the adversary Link could see
there. The Sheikah may have called themselves the shadow people, but that
was only a name when compared to their foe.
Destroyed... five years, six years ago real time... in the water temple,
in another lifetime... why should he be here now?
So much stronger, too... darkness beyond darkness. Even those powers I
control mean nothing when I'm fighting my own shadow...
Furiously, he sent a blaze of blue-white light over the head of the attacking
Dark Link. "Over here!" he yelled, running in. "Your business is with me!"
Yet even as he ran in, he could see something was different. Even as he had
assumed his own powers... so had his shadow. And he had never had the true
Link's light side to balance that.
Red eyes, glittering with a brilliant fire, met a starry white gaze in return as Link virtually flew towards his opponent. Two swords with savage twisted blades met in a flare of blue and black energy.
You imposter... you shadow... you won't get away again! You thought you had survived, did you, last time? No way! Face me - Oni Link- if you dare!
It was all too familiar for Link to fight someone or something so close to
what he was - his own dark side. This was the third time he had been forced
into such a battle - if 'forced' was the correct term this time around.
But he had no time to worry about that. As Dark Link span his blade around,
Link leapt into the air. For a second, he hung there, balancing on the wind
as if suspended from an invisible wire. Seeing the surprise in the ruby-flame
eyes, he smashed downwards and into his enemy.
It was enough, this time. Yells turning into faint eddies of wind, Dark Link
vanished.
Slowly, Link settled down, taking a slow, deep breath to settle his mind.
It took a while before he felt calm enough to go over to join the group of
admiring Sheikah who watched. Sheik was shouting congratulations, and Elianne
waved and cheered. The elder who was there clapped gently.
"You showed that, that... but I wouldn't have expected anything else
off..."
"You did it! Thank you... I can't believe it... But you're really..."
"It was only my duty to help you," Link sighed, looking aside. "I could not
stand by and let that..." That monster. That shadow of what the past held...
"...destroy everything."
The sage smiled and interrupted. "Hoho. It's nice to dream, child. Perhaps
when you're older."
Link's head snapped round. "What do you mean? I'm no child!"
"You're only eight, Link, sonny... But it's nice to see a kid with such
ambition..."
With that, the old man left. Sheik, Elianne, and the rest of the group drifted away.
Link's heart raced almost loudly enough to rattle his armour. He began to
follow the old Sheikah, but like all his kind, the old man had vanished quickly.
Too quickly even for a Fierce Deity to keep up with.
But he said I was just a kid... how? What does...
The enigmatic comments had him distracted easily. Not looking where he was
going, his foot landed on a loose patch of mud and shale, which was dislodged
under his weight. He skidded, cursing his own stupidity, fell, and landed
on hands and knees by the side of a puddle. In his surprise, he caught himself
calling out.
The voice that escaped him was a young boy's.
Just as the face reflected in the muddy water was. Silently, now, he touched
the red mark by his eye. Not his more familiar warrior's markings, but a
crudely painted copy which smudged slightly as his finger rubbed over it.
With a start, he remembered being that age the first time, before he had
ever had any idea of his true nature. When he believed himself to be a Kokiri
rather than a Hylian, never mind a reborn god...
-
16 years ago - Kokiri Forest
-
Two children play in a secluded grove. A mock battle with Deku Sticks as
swords. But a deadly serious one for all that.
"If we keep practicing your self-defence skills, Link, Mido won't have such
an easy time picking on you, will he?"
"Yeah... he'd better watch out!" Smiling, Link makes a thrust forwards. He
knocks his opponent's stick from her hands. "Oh - sorry, Saria. Sure you
know what you're doing?"
"Uh. No. But it's worth a try." She picks the branch up again, and tries
to attack. "You're a natural at this, you know?"
"Thanks!" Link pauses. "Hang on. I've got an idea. If I'm doing this - better
look the part..." Saria shakes her head as he runs off. In seconds, he's
back.
"What do you look like?" she asks, surprised.
He sucks the berry juice from a finger. "I don't know - I just thought...
it just seemed like the thing to do." The red and blue smears on his face
have a strange appearance - comical, but at the same time apt - and frightening.
Somehow, Saria doesn't want to laugh any more. "Come on. Let's stop this
before anyone sees."
"Why?"
"I don't know, Link. It's just - not right."
-
present day
-
Took me three days to get all that stuff off - Mido thought it was hilarious... Funny, isn't it... I'd forgotten all about that day... How much of me knew, back then, what I was doing?
He sat up and looked at himself. What he saw was a little boy playing at
'Fierce Deity'. The black metal had been replaced by wood-and-cloth pretend
armour, and a wooden sword - not even the Kokiri blade he had used - replaced
the fearsome double-helix weapon he knew. A white tunic remained underneath,
in the style he had been accustomed to wearing in his first childhood.
One last detail still struck him. His eyes... still not how he remembered,
still those of a dreamer.
That has to mean something...
For a moment, he sat in silence, trying to think things through. Nothing
made sense anymore.
Suddenly, a shout broke his train of thought. "Link! What are you up to...
oh, I told you to change out of all that..."
He looked round, to see an unfamiliar woman hurrying towards him. "Who are
you?" he asked, in a sharp, surprised tone.
"Come on, young man. You can drop the 'FD' act with your mum, can't you?"
Link nearly responded, but shut his mouth in time. The best thing, he decided,
would be to play along. Perhaps then he could find out the truth of what
was happening. "Uh - yeah. Okay. Sorry." Silently, he muttered to himself.
"Drop the act? It's no act."
"What was that?"
"...Nothing... Mum."
The words stuck in his throat. Never in his life - any of his lives - had
he had cause to refer to anyone by that term. He had had a father, but never
a mother. And this stranger could have been the mother he had never had.
Dark-haired, with sparkling blue eyes, he guessed she was a Hylian rather
than a Sheikah like the rest of the villagers. Still, he knew not to put
too much trust in appearances, especially with how he appeared himself.
She walked on as he paused. "Link, honey? What's the problem?"
The problem is I'm not your son. The problem is I don't belong here. I'm
not a child. But I can't say that. "It's nothing."
"Looks like a pretty big nothing to me. Well, come along. Don't want to be
late, do you?"
"Late for what?"
"Oh, you can't have forgotten what day it is? It's only your..."
"Get him!" a voice bolted through her speech. Link looked around. Did they
mean him? He quickly spotted the source of the cry. Two people with swords
and ropes were making their way through the scenery quickly.
"Who?"
"Don't you know? The boss must have told you ten times! The white-haired
kid. Yeah, him there!"
There was no other option. He was their target for sure. As he had been only
minutes or hours ago, Link could have coped with the threat easily. But not
as he could see himself to be. These people would have come up to his eye
level even if he had been at full strength. And as a child, he had no
chance.
He turned to sprint away, but the intruders were fast. Before his child's
body could react to the pace of his immortal's instincts, they had him pinned
to the floor.
"Get away from him! That's my son!" his supposed mother yelled.
"This kid? He's been tricking you? Sorry, lady. This ain't your son." A strong
hand gripped Link's chin and forced his head upwards. He tried to break free,
but it was no good. "He's a deceiver, this one. A demon."
"I'm not a..." Link snapped.
His captor half-grinned. "That's what your kind all say." Roughly, he grabbed
him by the shoulders and dragged him away. "You're comin' with me, Oni."
Something was put over his mouth and nose.
Link blacked out.