The Hyrulian Valhalla Saga: Stories 89 - 91

Unidentified Flying Heroes

Despite his relatively short stature, Twilight was in fact quite strong; thus, having Mini sit on his shoulders while balancing himself on his spinner was no problem at all for him.  Holding the smaller Hero's knees tightly to keep him from falling off, he glanced up at him with a wry smile.

"You sure you're ready for this?" he asked, half-teasingly, "It might be too fast for a little guy like you!"

Mini huffed indignantly.  "Shut up, Twilight; I'm still older than you, remember?"  He flashed his own grin.  "Besides, the faster, the better - that's what I always say!"  He then turned to his left.  "Hey, Duo!  You got those pegasus seeds ready yet?"

"Uh-huh!"  Duo held up his seed satchel for the other two to see, though the look on his face indicated he was slightly worried about the whole idea.  "…Though, I'm not even sure if this is going to work…"

"Hey, it worked on the train, didn't it?" asked Mini.  He kicked his feet against Twilight's shoulder impatiently.  "Now hurry up and use one already!"

Twilight winced.  "Ow!  Watch it!"

Duo pulled out a single pegasus seed, looked at it nervously, then crouched down beside the spinner.  "All right, then, here goes…"

When the seed made contact with the spinner, it immediately shot off across the field, causing Mini and Twilight to shriek in surprise.  As they zoomed off together towards the horizon, however, Duo could hear their screams turn into laughter and whooping.  He stared for a moment, then smiled slightly and scratched his cheek.

"Well," he mused, "at least they're enjoying themselves, right?"

—-

"Dammit!" cursed Blue as he threw his bow to the ground indignantly, "How come you guys keep getting bulls-eyes and not me!?"

"Gee, I dunno," said Vio, rolling his eyes as he twirled an arrow around in his hand, "maybe because we're actually aiming?"

Green snickered.  "Yeah, Blue, maybe if you stopped freaking out for a second you'd have a steady hand!"  He nocked another arrow in his bow, drew it, and aimed it at a nearby target.  He nearly dropped his weapon, however, when Red's shrill voice interrupted him.

"Guys!  Look!" cried Red.  He pointed towards the distance, where something was very rapidly approaching them.

Blue squinted his eyes to get a better look.  "Is that… Mini and Twilight?"

The others had no time to answer, however; as the spinner and its two riders came to a small hill, it rocketed into the air, quickly gaining altitude and soaring over the Heroes of the Four Sword's heads.  After instinctively ducking to avoid them, the four glanced up, watching in awe as Twilight, Mini, and the spinner flew away, their raucous laughter fading the further they went.

Vio uncovered his head.  "Well," he said, "that's not something you see every day."

"Wow!" Red pointed again towards the horizon and began jumping up and down like a small, excited child, "Did you see that!?  That was so cool!!  We've gotta try that sometime, you guys…!"

Blue grinned.  "For once, I agree with Red."

"Maybe Twilight will let us have a turn on that thing!" Green stuffed his bow back in his pouch and motioned for the others to follow him.  "Come on!"

The others put away their own bows, and the four Links ran off in the direction where, hopefully, Mini and Twilight would soon land.

---

Can You Hear Me Now?

"So there I was," said Brown, munching ungracefully on a roasted drumstick as he sat with his legs crossed on the picnic blanket, "little ten-year-old me, who barely even knew how money worked, getting asked by an old man to play his 'money-making game'."  He swallowed his food, then immediately took another bite.  "I mean, come on, how sleazy do you have to be?"

Time frowned, sticking his fork in his egg salad indignantly.  "Yeah, that's pretty sleazy all right."  He scoffed.  "Introducing a child to gambling like that… what's the world of the living coming to?"

"Maybe," added Light, who had just finished his apple and was leaning forward to address the other two, "that guy was a descendent of that thief who ran the treasure chest game in my time."

"Eh?  You mean that con-artist who made fake Master Swords?" asked Time.

"Good grief!" said Brown huffily, waving his drumstick around as he continued, "You mean people were getting away with that way back then, too?  Yeah, good idea, guys, scamming kids out of their hard-earned rupees - you know, the money they need to save the world and — "

Suddenly, Light shot up, sitting straight as an arrow as he seemed to be startled by something the other two couldn't perceive.  Almost immediately after, however, he relaxed a little, smiling bashfully.

"Ah, Zelda!  I-I thought you said you wouldn't startle me like that again!" he chuckled.  "…Oh, me?  I'm just having lunch with Brown and Time… yeah, they're doing well, I'll tell them you said hello…"

Brown froze, his face contorted into a shocked and slightly scared expression as he watched Light hold out his finger to them, stand, and walk off, continuing his conversation with no one in particular a few yards away.  Once he was out of earshot, the younger Hero turned back to Time.

"Wh-What," he stammered, "what the heck was that about!?"

Time snickered at Brown's reaction.  "What, you didn't know Light was telepathic?"

"Tele-what-now?"

Time took another bite of his egg salad.  "He can send and receive messages with his mind," he clarified.  "It's how he and his Zelda talk whenever they can't meet in person."

"Hold on," Brown said, his eyes widening slightly in amazement, "you mean he's psychic?"

"A lot of us are," the elder Link said, "though not always in that particular way.  Sky and I used to have precognitive dreams when we were alive, though it was usually triggered by an evil presence of some sort.  It's not that unusual, really."

"That's really cool…" said Brown.  His amazement turned into jealousy, however, as he pouted angrily.  "So, how come you guys get awesome psychic powers and I don't, huh?"

Time shrugged.  "You have Hylian blood just like the rest of us; otherwise you wouldn't be able to use magic so well.  So, who knows?  Maybe you already do."

"Oh, good point!"  At this Brown grinned.  "Hey, Time, I'm gonna see if I can read your mind!"

Cracking an amused smile of his own, Time nodded.  "All right, Brown; what am I thinking right now?"

The newest Hero shut his eyes in intense concentration for a moment before opening them again.  "Aha!  You're thinking about how I can't possibly be reading your mind right now, aren't you?"

"How did you know?"

"What!?  I guessed right!?"

"Nah, I'm just messing with you," said Time with a smirk as he took one last bite of his food, "I was actually thinking about how good this egg salad was."

Brown's expression immediately darkened.  "Twilight was right," he muttered in disappointment, "you really are mean."

---

Lean Mean Killing Machine

Red turned the helmet over in his hands, looking upon it with a wonder akin to that of a child with a shiny new toy.  It was definitely unlike the ones typical of knights from his own era - three protrusions stuck out from it, the topmost of which was fashioned into a small wolf's head, and as a result the entire helmet was quite heavy.  "This is so cool," he said, turning his bright eyes to the others, "I bet you'd have to be really, really strong to wear it around!"

"Careful with that!" scolded Green as his persona carelessly handled the helmet, "Time's gonna get onto all of us if you break it!"

The Hero of Time laughed.  "If it broke that easily, it wouldn't be very useful as armor, would it?"  Though he would typically wear either the traditional Hero's green or a set of more comfortable clothes, this afternoon he had decided to suit up in the old armor he had worn as a knight captain - for nostalgia's sake, he had told his smaller successors before allowing Red to look at the suit's headgear.  He placed a hand on the dulled gold tassets that guarded his hip.  "He's fine, Green."

After side-eyeing Red for putting the helmet on and giggling as he struggled to keep his balance under its weight, Blue returned his attention to his senior.  "I guess it looks pretty cool," he said, "but you didn't actually wear that thing into battle, did you?"

"What?" asked Time, raising an eyebrow, "Of course I did!"  He grinned slightly as he looked towards the horizon.  "It protected me while my men and I bravely stormed the plains and mountains of Hyrule, ridding our beautiful nation of the evils that would threaten it."  He ran his hand through his matted bangs, now slightly longer in his older form.  "Ah, yes, those were the days…"

"Not to disrupt your trip down memory lane, Time," said Vio as dispassionately as ever, "but wouldn't something that clunky only slow you down in the long run?"

Green blinked in realization.  "Yeah, Vio's right; it doesn't look like you could run very fast while wearing that."

Time frowned, flustered that the glory he was basking in had been so suddenly and rudely cut short.  "Well, yes, it does slow me down a little," he said, "but the defense benefits far outweigh the drawbacks!"  He made a proud fist.  "Plus, I was captain; I had to stand out as a beacon of courage for my men!"

Blue snickered.  "Yeah, bet it raised morale a lot, watching the great Captain Link waddle around like an idiot!"

The elder Hero shot a glare at Blue - however, that glare soon turned into a dark smirk, and he turned to face away from the younger Links.  "You know, Blue," he said with an intimidating edge, his hand ever so slowly reaching for the hilt of the sword strapped to his back, "you don't need to be able to move quickly when you know how to kill a man in a single blow…!"  With that, Time drew his weapon and spun around with a ferocious cry.

Screeching in terror, Blue covered his head and cowered.  Then, when he finally glanced back up, he saw Time's blade hovering mere inches from his face.  He fearfully fell to his bottom, his heart and breath racing as the others began to laugh at him, which in turned caused Blue to turn a bright shade of crimson and growl at his alternates.

"Sh-Shut up!!" he cried, "That wasn't funny…!"

Sheathing his sword, Time ruffled the boy's hair.  "Then maybe you ought to think twice before disrespecting your elders!"

Swatting Time's hand away, Blue reached up and yanked his hat over his face.  Though he was the rashest part of their collective personality, even he noted to himself that perhaps getting on the bad side of the man who had created and perfected the hidden skills was a bit of a bad idea.