If a day can go wrong, it
will go wrong. If something can go wrong with that wrong, it will go wrong. Rule
number one about Murphy’s Law is that Murphy was an optimist. This was a
perfect day, and thus probably the must susceptible to Murphy’s Law.
No one could ask for a
more perfect day. The sun was shining, the flowers were in bloom, the birds
were singing, even the walls of the castle looked cheery. In the center of the
courtyard was Princess Zelda Harkinian, picking the blossoms from the quite
ground and taking in their sweet sent occasionally.
If it can go wrong, it
will go wrong.
The fountain close to
Zelda suddenly exploded, sending the princess flying several feet through the
air. “Ahhh!” A portal of vastly infinite energy opened, and energized arrows
rained out. Heads turned throughout the castle to the source of the noise, most
importantly- one man who only moments before was kneeling on the ramparts.
Link Chance.
“Zelda!” he called out. He
raced to the edge of the rampart, seeing a flood of moblins waltz out, raced
back to fetch his sword and shield. Whenever his beloved princess was in
trouble, it was assured he’d take the fastest route to her, in this case- over
the wall, off the flag staff, onto the turf. With a thump, his feet on the
ground, he immediately took out the nearest moblin with a shot from his Magical
Sword. “Zelda, are you all right?” he called over his shoulder.
“I’m fine,” Zelda’s answer
was clipped. She ducked to avoid the streaming blue energy arrows. Link dashed
over to place himself between Zelda and the moblins. Zelda picked herself up
and raced to Link’s side. “But Ganon’s coming. I must get the Triforce fight
Ganon. You hold them here.” She then pried Link’s shield off his arm and ran to
the donjon’s base doorway, using the shield to deflect arrows aimed her way.
“HEY!” Link called out.
Energy arrows, coming close to their target (namely: him) drew his attention
back to the fight. “Thanks heaps!” Without shield, Link found himself having to
perform increasingly difficult acrobatic stunts just to avoid being hit. He
managed to get off two shots before he took refuge behind a statue.
On a high seat, carried by
four stalfos, Ganon sat, looming in his evil. A quick flick of the wrist, and
he deflected the sword bolts Link had sent in his direction with the wand he
held. “Eliminate that heroic pest!” Ganon commanded. “I want Zelda. My new wand
of power will allow me to send her to my EVIL JAR!”
Several moblins
immediately stepped forward and cocked their bows. The energy bolts shot out
from those bows rained over the courtyard...
... and practically
distroyed the statue Link had been behind. He stared at the remains, his eyes
about the size of dinner plates.
“Hang on, Link!” Zelda’s
voice rang out. “I’ve got the Triforce.” She raced down the stairs, minus
shield, Link noted. The Triforce of Wisdom trailed behind on its chain, held in
Zelda’s hand. “And it’s time to fight magic with magic.” A barely visible
crystalline ball appeared in Zelda’s hand. She tossed the ball at Ganon. Though
it fell short, the two moblins standing in front of Ganon promptly vanished.
Ganon chuckled. “Very
good, Princess. But not good enough.” The wand in his hand was aimed right at
the princess. “Time to send you to my Evil Jar!” A bluish-green fireball leapt
from the wand’s tip, speeding to capture Zelda.
“No!” Zelda shouted. Her
hand came up, and a delicate looking shield of whipping green energy spun out.
The bluish-green fireball bounced right off, sending Zelda falling backwards,
and the fireball flying in the other direction.
“Blast!” Ganon’s eyes shot
open. “She deflected my power zap!”
All eyes watched the
fireball as it bounced around the walls of North Castle. One bounce sent it
hurtling back down to the ground...
“Oh, no...” Link said more
to himself than anyone else.
... aimed right at Link.
Link tried jumping out of
the way, and as the fireball hit the spot he had been occupying only half a
second before, it looked as if he escaped... but suddenly he stopped in mid
jump, screaming out in pain. “Waaaaaaaah! Ahhh!” The pain was so intense, he
dropped his sword, as his own body lost solidity and shrunk into nothing.
“Link! No!” Zelda cried
out. That this should happen on her account... because of her even...
devastated her.
For long moments, everyone
stared at the empty spot.
“Well,” Ganon broke the
silence, “not quite what I planned, but it will do.” He continued when Zelda
spun to face him. “You will give me the Triforce, Princess.”
“Come and get it, Pigface!”
Zelda brought her hand up, and the same crystalline ball she had used earlier
appeared. Her demeanor told anyone interested that she would not hesitate to
use it.
“Oh, I could, but why work
so hard?” Ganon gestured, and the stalfos carrying his litter turned and walked
back to the portal still blazing behind him. “You will give me the Triforce,
Princess...”
“Oh, no.”
“... or you will never see
your precious Link again!” The warp snapped shut, leaving only a burnt spot to
mark where it had been.
There was devastating
silence. Zelda turned to where Link was zapped out of existence, and there was
his sword, as if it was the only proof he had been real. She knelt before it,
weeping. Only now did it occur to her that he might have been spared if she
hadn’t done what she had done. “Link. Oh, Link. Oh, I’m so sorry. Oh... oh...”
“Sheesh. You’d think I was
destroyed or something.”
Zelda looked up. “Link?”
She turned around, and sure enough, Link was standing right behind her. “Link!”
Relieved that she hadn’t made the biggest blunder of her life, Zelda jumped up
and dashed over to give Link the biggest of all hugs. But to her shock, she
passed right through Link. “Huh?”
Link was looking at her
with a lopsided grin.
Zelda reached out, and her
hands passed right through Link. “Wha...? I can see you... but... I can’t feel
you.”
“A drag, I know.” Link
held up a hand to further explanation. “I’ve seemed to gotten a bit ghostly
after that zap of Ganon’s.”
Zelda snapped her fingers.
“The zap, of course! All that bouncing around it did must have weakened it
before it hit you. Oh, it got your body, but not your spirit!”
“Goodness!” a high-pitched
voice proclaimed. “What a mess. I guess Ganon was here. Where’s Link, Princess?”
“Why, right here. Can’t
you see him?” Zelda gestured to where Link was standing.
The little faerie looked
around. “No. Is he hiding?”
“I’m right here,” Link
said to Spryte.
Spryte spun around to the
direction of Link’s voice. “Oh! Huh?” She faced Zelda. “Where did he go? I
heard him, but I don’t see him.”
“That’s strange,” Zelda’s
hand came up to her thinking pose. “I wonder if I’m the only one who can see
him.”
“That’d be your lucky day,
Princess,” Link came over to place his hands on Zelda’s shoulders and give her
a kiss.
“That’s not what I’d call
it.” Zelda maneuvered her way out of Link’s path. Caught in the air, he
continued on past her until he finally came down with an audible thump. Zelda
flinched, watching Link hit the ground. “We’ve got to get your body back from
Ganon.”
“Don’t tell me you only
love me for my body! Huh?” Link’s attention turned from Zelda to his sword
which he was finding impossible to pick up. He kept trying, but each pass sent
his hands through the sword.
“Love you? Ha!” Zelda had
the most insulted look on her face. “It’s just that without your body, you’re
even more useless than usual.”
“Hmmm. Maybe he’ll be
blessed.” Spryte said from where she had perched herself on top of the Triforce
of Wisdom.
“Now that would be a
blessing.” Zelda pointed back to the donjon. “Take the Triforce back to the
vault, will you, Spryte?” Spryte complied and hefted the Triforce’s chain over
her shoulder, heading back to the Triforce’s vault combination Link’s room.
“I can’t pick up my sword,
and Ganon’s got my body. What am I going to do?”
Zelda calmly walked over
and retrieved Link’s sword. “Only thing we can do.” Zelda spun the
sword, gun slinger style, and inserted the sword through her belt. “Get it
back.”
“My heroic princess,” Link
approached her. “Kiss me.”
“Oh, shut up.” Zelda held
up a hand, absolutely repulsed by Link’s suggestion. “Let’s go.” Link plodded
behind her, defeated look and all.
The Labyrinths of Death
Mountain was dark and lonely. Standing in the largest hall was the infamous
Evil Jar. The occupants of the Evil Jar were huddled around one spot in the
wreathing pink gas. A circle of moblins with the malevolent Ganon at one end
had in its center a green clad man. One moblin was shaking him furiously. “It
no use. He not wake up.”
“Hmmm...” The pig furrowed
what passed as his eyebrows. “Still it matters little. Awake or asleep- until
the Triforce is mine, the Princess will never see her pest hero again!”
Link and Zelda slowly
advanced through the underworld. Seeing one’s shadow, but not the other’s, was
a little unusual. The torches danced Zelda’s shadow off the walls as they
picked and chose their path carefully.
Zelda stepped cautiously
over the threshold of a doorway. The moment she was through, it slammed shut
right in Link’s face. Panicked, Zelda rushed for the door handle, yanking back
with all her might. “Uh... Oh, the door won’t open.” Zelda leaned to the door,
hoping she might be able to hear Link through it. “Link. Link, can you hear me?
Link!”
The spirit in question
simply walked through the wall behind her. “You don’t have to shout.”
“Oh!” Zelda spun around,
whipping Link’s sword at whatever danger laid there. Link had to step back to
avoid the blade’s point. She stopped when she realized who the voice’s owner
was. “Oh! Don’t do that!”
Link closed one eye and
imitated what Zelda had done with his sword. “You swing that sword like a girl!”
“I am a girl,”
Zelda growled.
“Yes, I’ve noticed,” Link’s
eyes fell down to indicate what he meant, pausing at right about chest level.
“Oooohhhh! Even when you’re
a ghost, you’re disgusting!” Zelda marched off angrily.
Link had to double time
just to keep up. “Well excuuuuuuuuuuuuuuse me, Princess! Just trying to keep my
spirits up. A heh heh.” They walked farther along. When a group of skeletons
jumped out of hiding. “Uh oh, look out. Stalfos. Stay back, Princess I’ll
handle these boneheads.” Link raced ahead at full steam.
“No you won’t, dummy. You’re
a ghost.”
Link ground his heels into
the floor, coming to a stop as the stalfos passed right through him. “Oops, I
forgot.”
As the ground was eaten up
under approaching stalfo feet, Zelda bounded off the floor, landing neatly at
the top of a nearby staircase. “Yoohoo, looking for me?” she teased them.
Raising Link’s sword in one hand, a powerful bold of energy leapt from the
blade, knocking Zelda off her feet. The bolt sailed over the stalfos’ heads, right
at Link.
Link twisted his entire
spirit body to avoid getting hit. Regaining his balance, Link looked at Zelda
with pure panic on his face. “No! No! You’ve gotta aim!” Link dashed up to
Zelda when she came blasted a stalfo who had raced up the stairs. She had again
knocked herself off her feet, again. “You’re doing it wrong. Two hands for a
beginner.” He demonstrated the technique while Zelda shoved another stalfo off
her person.
“Hey, I zapped one, didn’t
I?” Zelda only had enough time to jump up out of the way of the stalfo’s blow.
“You were lucky. Look out!”
Link could only stand there in the darkened corridor as Zelda twisted away from
the stalfos. The stalfos tumbled over each other, giving Zelda the time she
needed to aim and shoot them. He was pleased to see that this time she did use
two hands. “One’s going to grab you!” he warned.
The warning came too late,
and Zelda was left struggling to get out of the stalfo’s grasp. “Uh! Uh, oh!
Oh!” She glanced up. “Don’t give me that look, Link! Just do something, will
you?” What she expected an intangible ghost to do...
“Link?” The stalfo looked
around. “Where? Where is he?”
“Right here!” Link said
from behind the stalfo.
“Ahhhhh!” the stalfo
shrieked and covered his ears, dropping Zelda and running away from the source
of Link’s voice. The stalfo ran for the stairs, but a bolt from Zelda’s two
handed aim vanquished him.
“Ha! Takes care of them,”
Zelda stuck the sword back in her belt.
Link walked up with one
hand behind his back and the other wagging a finger in the air... very
imitative of what her father was want to do. “Pretty shabby swordplay,
Princess.”
“Huh?” Zelda stared. “Well,
you aren’t much help.”
Link frowned. “Well,
excuuuuuuuuuuuuuuse me, Princess! I happen to be a ghost at the moment!” In a
lower tone that always warned Zelda of what’s coming up next, “However I did
save you again back there. How ‘bout a kiss?”
Then a thought occurred to her. “Ah!
Why sure.”
Link acquired a pleased
look to his face. “Ah!” He stood still, awaiting the kiss to be planted on him.
Zelda advanced, lips ready for kissing. She passed right through Link. “Ah,
shoot! It doesn’t work!” Link exclaimed.
“What a shame,” Zelda said
before passing back through his body. “Ganon’s lair is just ahead. Lets go get
your body!”
“So you can kiss me?” Link
asked hopefully as he ran behind the princess.
“Ha! No way! You missed
your chance!”
“Oh well, there’ll be other
chances.” After a short pause, “Say, I wonder why you’re the only one who can
see me.”
“Just my bad luck, I
guess.”
“Well, excuuuuuuuuuuuuuuse
me, Princess!”
“So, the foolish princess
is attempting a rescue, is she?” Ganon’s voice asked from inside the Evil Jar.
This time, it was a ring
of stalfos gathered around Ganon and Link’s body. “Yes, and Link is with her.”
“What?” Ganon shook his
head. “Impossible. Link is right there!”
The stalfo raised his
hands in pleadance. “I heard his voice, evilness. And Zelda seemed to be able
to see him, though I could not.”
Ganon snapped his fingers,
vanishing from the pink interior, and appearing in front of the jar, in front
of the Triforce of Power. “Blast!” he exclaimed. “That must be the explanation.
I captured only Link’s body, his spirit stayed behind!” He thought for a few
moments. “But one thing puzzles me: why would Zelda be able to see him? Why...
she could only do that if... No, no, im-impossible.”
“What is it, evilness?”
the stalfo asked from inside the Evil Jar.
Ganon looked up to where
the stalfo floated inside the pink gasses of the Evil Jar. “Why- Zelda could
only be able to see Link if... if she was in love with him! Zelda in
love with Link? Oh, how disgusting.”
On a balcony above the
Evil Jar, Link faced Zelda. “Sooooooo!”
Couldn’t have picked
Lana, huh? “Now don’t get the wrong idea,
buster!”
An extraordinarily pleased
and conceded look donned on Link’s face. “You love me, huh.” It really wasn’t a
question.
“Oh, I do not!”
“Yes you do, yes you do!
That’s why you can see me!” He was rather childish sounding.
“No... I mean...” Zelda
paused. “Maybe just a little...”
Link jumped up onto the
balcony. His voiced boomed over the interior of the chamber. “Zelda loves me!
Zelda loves me!”
Zelda reached up to pull
Link down by his legs, but of course it didn’t work as her arms just passed
right through his legs, though she did try several times. “Shut up, you idiot!
They’ll hear you!” I hope Lana doesn’t get wind of this!
“Zelda loves me! Zelda loves
me!”
Ganon’s attention had been
drawn to the balcony upon Link’s proclamation. “They’re here!” He snapped back
around to face the Evil Jar, raising his hands to summon his army. “Come here,
my servants! Now!” His laughter crackled through the chamber as his men rushed
forward.
“Now you’ve done it,”
Zelda scolded Link. “Here they come.”
“No problem, Princess,”
Link reassured Zelda. “They can’t see me, remember?”
“Yes, but the can
see me!”
“Just hold them a while.”
Link leapt over the side of the balcony, leaving the princess of Hyrule alone.
“Thanks heaps!” she
unknowingly echoed what Link had said earlier.
Link forced himself to
fall through one of Ganon’s two tapestries, slowing his fall to a controllable
rate. The tapestry even felt evil, but it was quickly forgotten as Link passed
through the coming onslaught of moblins. Quickly he was gone, even from Zelda’s
view.
Having been left in a most
undesirable position, Zelda leapt from the balcony, using a torch stand to
swing herself to a better position. The torch stand fell over, lighting the
tapestries on fire. “Get her, get her!” Ganon chortled.
From inside the Evil Jar,
Link looked out. “It’s going to be a hot time tonight!” He pushed himself off
the base of the Evil Jar, floating up and disappearing into the pink interior.
The farther in he went, the stranger the gasses appeared, flowing from pink to
purple, to finally blue. Floating above him in a swirling mass of pink turned blue,
was one spot of brown and green.
Outside the Evil Jar,
Zelda was trying her best to hold off the moblins. Even two handed, she found
most of her shots just passing right by the monsters. “This is harder than I
thought.” One moblin was hit squarely in the chest, vanishing back to the Evil
Jar. “Ha! That’s better!”
Out of the swirling mists,
one stalfo advanced, reaching for the green that sat atop Link’s head. “Ohhhhh,
nice hat.”
Link’s eyes opened. “Ha! I’m
back!”
“Ahhhhhhhh!” the stalfo
shrieked. Before he could retreat back to the mists, his rib cage armor was
grabbed by hands, all too happy to have itself controlled by the proper spirit.
“Give me a bomb, bonehead.”
Link demanded. “Now!” The stalfo shivered violently and very noisily in Link’s hands.
One hand came up, holding a bomb. Link stared at it momentarily, almost in
unbelief of how easy that had been.
Zelda continued shooting
at the advancing moblins, but she found herself in increasing danger. Her back
was now to the burning tapestries. Two moblins rushed in from the sides,
grabbing Princess Zelda. “Ahhhh! Uh! Ah, uh!”
“Ha! I have you now!”
Ganon said (though technically speaking, it was the moblins that had her).
“No you don’t, Pigface!”
Link bellowed.
Ganon spun, hearing Link
from somewhere behind him. “Huh?” He had turned just in time to see a pink
explosion decimate the top of the Evil Jar. Glass shards flew everywhere.
Burning pink flow gushed
out of the remains of the Evil Jar with Link ridding skier style atop, quickly
over taking Ganon and the moblins. “Yahoo!”
“I’ll get you, Link!”
Ganon yelled as the pink flow took him farther away. “I’ll get youuuuuuuuuuu!”
Link leapt off the pink
flow, landing in front of Zelda and the four moblins still around her.
“Link!” Zelda cheered,
happy to see him back in his body. She drop kicked his sword back to him, which
Link caught with ease.
“Ha!” Almost as if to
insult, Link two handed his sword and blasted the two moblins closest to him.
While the moblins holding onto Zelda were looking at where their comrades had
stood only seconds before, they were blasted by two more two handed blasts. “Take
that!”
“Ahh!” Struggling up to
the point that the moblins vanished, Zelda fell forward.
“Boy I’m good,” Link said
as he stepped forward to help Zelda up. “No wonder you love me.”
“Don’t get a swelled head,”
Zelda chided. “I just like you a little, that’s all.”
The remains of the Evil
Jar started a low humming. Blue energy bolts shot out everywhere from the
broken top. It’s vibrating and energy bolts shook the entire underworld,
causing the structures to fall. Link shoved Zelda just as a piece of the
ceiling came down where they were at moments before. “We’ll argue about it
later! C’mon!” He pulled Zelda behind him out of the crumbling chamber.
Link helped Zelda out of
the hole in the courtyard created by the falling underworld structures. He
looked at her rather frankly. “Well, love me or not, I did save you back there.
Kiss me.”
“Well... okay,” Zelda
sighed. “A quick little kiss, but remember: this doesn’t mean anything.”
“’Course not.”
They leaned in close to each
other, lips ready to contact...
“Waaaaaah!”
...when the edge of the
hole Link was perched on crumbled beneath him, sending him back in. “Link!”
Zelda called out in surprise. She looked in, down at him. “Are you all right?”
Link pulled himself up to
his shoulders back out of the hole. “Ohhhhhhh, this always happens,” he
complained.
Zelda laughed.