The Hylian Domain News Box

[Bcdefg123]

Sorry about that.

It's only seven years on Earth though. The other characters really haven't changed much, except for a suprising development with the Domain itself... but you'll have to wait around for a while to find out what it is!

Edit: I happened to notice that the Gerudo thief Amina had a similar name as a member, PokemonTrainer Amina. So after poring over lists of names for at least a half hour, the thief's name is now Echo. This, as you may have guessed, is only an alias, as was Amina, but this is a bit more obvious. The chapter was edited accordingly.

Edit again: HDL is up on Fanfiction.net:
HDL 1
HDL 2
HDL Interlude + HDL 3

If you're feeling nice, you can go over there and give a review.

This post has been edited by Bcdefg123 on Jun 26 2009, 09:25 AM

[Altik_0]

No worries.

Regardless, time changes things. It'll be interesting to see the story develop.

[Bcdefg123]

A SOAP chapter and an HDL 3 chapter see release on the same day. There's another curious coincidence between the two that I can't explain right now because it would spoil a certain aspect of HDL 3, but I'll explain it soon. If I remember, that is...

The Hylian Domain Legacy 3 Chapter 2: The Brother Who Couldn’t Be King
“Altik look-alikes… three of them!” Bcdefg123 said. “Why do you want me dead? And why do all three of you look so similar?” The look-alikes didn’t look like they were in any mood to talk. They flung themselves into battle instead. Bcdefg123 parried the first one’s attack with his sword, but the second grazed his other shoulder with his sword.
“Agh, get away, you!” He swung his stolen sword at the enemy who hurt him, and somehow the blow connected perfectly. He was dead, or at the very least, gravely injured.
“Who’s next?” Bcdefg123 said. The third Altik look-alike, the one with the blood on his swords already, answered the challenge. He used his two swords together in a way the others didn’t. It reminded Bcdefg123 of Altik himself, and his skill. “Really tough, aren’t you?” Bcdefg123 was focused purely on defense. Suddenly, he was aware of the other look-alike charging at him from the back.
“Got him!” said Zelda, who jammed a sharp piece of broken glass into the weaker look alike. He too collapsed on the ground. The remaining enemy who was engaged with Bcdefg123 backed off and retreated.
“Come back here!” Bcdefg123 ran to catch the escaping enemy, but stopped when he heard the sounds of slow clapping coming from elsewhere in the room.
“Good job! I think I’m really starting to like you,” said a voice from above Bcdefg123. He looked up but saw nothing.
“Where are you?” Bcdefg123 said. To his surprise, somebody jumped down in front of him. “No, wait… WHO are you? Are you with them?”
“I’m not, strictly speaking.” The person stood up.
“I’ve seen you before!” Zelda said.
“Not in person, I’d expect,” the young woman said. “The name’s Echo. Yes, that Echo,” she added, anticipating Zelda’s next question.
“Who the heck… Echo?” Bcdefg123 said.
“The legendary Gerudo thief,” she said, flinging back her medium-length red hair. “That’s me.” Bcdefg123 estimated that she couldn’t have been older than 20, at least by Earth standards, and as far as Bcdefg123 knew, those standards applied to Gerudos as well.
“So, why are you here? To fight?” Bcdefg123 tightly gripped the sword in his left hand.
Echo laughed. “Of course not! I just wanted to congratulate you, that’s all. I was watching the whole thing. I especially liked the bit with you and the piece of glass,” she said to Zelda.
“Thanks…” Zelda said in a way that plainly questioned Echo’s sincerity.
“In fact…” she said, throwing something to Zelda, “Take it.”
“This is…” Zelda said, sliding a small dagger out of a leather sheath.
“So you go around giving out weapons?” Bcdefg123 said.
“Well, my employer seemed mighty interested in you…” Echo said, turning to leave. “I just thought you might need that later, is all.”
“Your employer?” Zelda asked.
“Who’s that?” Bcdefg123 added.
“Please, I can’t reveal information like that… unless, you have 50 rupees,” Echo smiled deviously.
Bcdefg123 only had two or three lying around in his pocket, so he settled on insulting Echo’s sense of honor instead.
“Jeez. I was only joking. Well, ta ta.” And with that, Echo activated a smoke bomb and disappeared.
“What happened here?!” the King said after he entered the room.
“…We got attacked,” Zelda said.
“What?! In the castle?!”
-----
“Really…” the King said, after everything was explained. “Well, what possessed them to attack the castle then?”
“They wanted me dead for some reason. I don’t know why, and I don’t know how they found me, and I really don’t know where they got the guts to attack here.”
“Fine, fine…” King Regis said. “Keep the sword, too.”
“Why?” Bcdefg123 looked at it for the first time. It was the fabled Master Sword of Hyrule, and Bcdefg123 was shocked to have realized it. “The Master Sword?”
“Well yes… as I’m sure you know, the Master Sword used to belong to whichever Link was around back in the old days. There is no Link any more. I’d actually feel more comfortable knowing somebody was using it, and judging by the fact that you’re still alive, you know how to use it well.”
“Uh, that’s not entirely…” Bcdefg123 started to say.
“The second thing is that the sword’s power to repel evil is missing.”
“Huh? Missing? Where is it, then?”
“If we knew, then the sword would obviously have that power. It’s something that I’m hoping will also be solved by giving it to somebody instead of just letting it sit here. The last thing is that the sword, with its power to repel evil intact or not, needs its wielder to have a piece of the Triforce to be at full strength. The Triforce has not been seen in Hyrule for over fifty years.”
“What? Why?” Bcdefg123 remembered that the thing that got the Domain back to Earth the first time they had arrived in Hyrule was the Triforce.
“No one knows for sure,” the King said.
“I’m late for the party!” Zelda said.
“Ah, crap,” Bcdefg123 said. “We have to go now. Wait… one more thing. Just about an hour or two ago, I found a piece of technology in my house that might have been from Earth. The thing was, it wasn’t mine.”
The King shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know of anything like that. Nobody was supposed to be keeping tabs on you or anything. That’s probably why my grandfather forgot about your confinement.”
“All right…” And so Bcdefg123 and Zelda left the castle.
-----
Vercingetorix’s Estate
“Our two Alpha units were defeated, and our stronger Gamma unit decided to withdraw. The report says that somebody else was fighting along with him,” Dylan said to Vercingetorix.
“A girl from Kakariko. About 16 years old, maybe more,” Echo said.
“And where did you come from?” Dylan asked.
“I had a front-row seat to the fight. I think you’re wasting your time and money, personally.”
“Why’s that?” Vercingetorix asked, sitting on a bed.
“Bcdefg123 took down one of the Alpha units, but he acted surprised when he actually got him, like he wasn’t expecting it. On top of that, he struggled with his sword a bit, like he couldn’t control the weight. On the other hand, the girl killed the other Alpha unit using only a shard of glass, and she did it without any hesitation at all.”
“Echo, your next assignment is to get any information you can find on that girl,” Dylan said. “The price will be the same as Bcdefg123. 50 rupees up front, and 200 on completion to my satisfaction. You have one week.”
“Deal,” Echo said, and Dylan gave her a purple rupee, worth 50 green rupees. She left.
“You seriously don’t think a girl is worth this much trouble?” Vercingetorix asked.
“No, of course not,” Dylan said. “I want her to stay off our backs for a while… it seems to me she’s taking an unusual amount of interest in her assignments.”
“Ah…” Vercingetorix said. “So you’re hoping that that before she comes back, this’ll already be over.”
“Exactly.”
-----
Later that day
“Oh please…” Bcdefg123 said as he discovered another Altik look-alike… in front of his house. “Can I help you with anything?” he asked, trying to avoid another fight. The look-alike ran for it. Bcdefg123 just watched. Y’know… I really don’t care right now. As long as I’m not attacked again. He went inside his house.
“BCDEFG123!” A questionably dressed man screamed his name while running into the village. “Huh huh huh huh!” he went, a ‘huh’ for every step he took. He had a white t-shirt on with overalls, and a red hat. He was the infamous postman of Hyrule.
“You have one letter, sir!” he said in a loud voice right in front of Bcdefg123, who had just come out of his house. Nothing else happened.
“… You said you had a letter for me, right?” Bcdefg123 said, breaking the silence.
“Yes! One letter for you, sir!” the postman shouted. Silence again.
“So, uh, feel like giving it to me?”
“One letter, sir!” he shouted again. Finally, Bcdefg123 gave up and searched the basket that the postman was carrying on his back. He sifted through the many letters until he found one addressed for him. It had no return address. He went back inside his house with the letter.
The postman still did not get the message. “One letter, sir!” he shouted, but nobody was around to hear him.
-----
Bcdefg123, we know all about you and your many adventures. And so we are kindly requesting your cooperation before we become… less kind, the letter started off ominously. In Hyrule, a relic called the Didgeridoo of Minutes can be found. The relic was split into two pieces long ago. One is known to currently reside with the Zora tribe, while the other can be found somewhere in the Gerudo deserts. With the complete didgeridoo, wait in the alley beside the Happy Mask shop at sundown five days from now. To ensure this does happen, we feel it is necessary to explain to you that the incident you endured in the castle gallery earlier today can be repeated many times over if necessary. Except worse. We expect nothing less than your full cooperation. We also took the liberty of giving your companion a similar letter. The letter included two pictures. One was of a large group of Altik look-alikes, perhaps a hundred or more, and the other was of Zelda.
What the... this is blackmail! Bcdefg123 rushed out of his house again, and into Zelda’s.
“Hey! Did Zelda come home from her party yet?” he asked Zelda’s mother.
“Yes, as a matter of fact, she did.”
“Did she get a letter in the mail today?” Bcdefg123 questioned further, vaguely hoping that he wouldn’t be suspected of prying, and dashing the fear by reasoning that it was for the cause of safety.
“Yes.”
“And did she leave the house again?”
“Yes. She said she was going to the waterfall.”
The waterfall… so that would mean the Zora’s domain. “Thanks!” Bcdefg123 said, and ran out of the village towards the land of the Zoras.
END of chapter 2

[Altik_0]

I'm feeling very excluded from this story... well, the actual me anyway. I suppose I should probably feel at least somewhat flattered that I was the cloned guy.

Haha, the postman must be the unfortunate offspring of ERROR and one of the "I know nothing" ladies from LoZ II: Link's Adventure.

[Bcdefg123]

Nah, actually I had the mailman from Twilight Princess clearly in mind (just a bit dumber). But if it more clearly resembles something else, then great!

Don't worry though. You'll have your (real) appearance eventually... I'll try to work in some sidestory or something on Earth in the meantime. It'll be a while before the next chapter- I've got two week-long scout outings and then a college orientation in very close range calendar-speaking to each other. And I don't think I'll get a chapter completely done this week.

This post has been edited by Bcdefg123 on Jul 4 2009, 09:29 AM

[Altik_0]

No worries. I get the feeling that it's just me reading – no real reason to rush on my behalf.

[Bcdefg123]

I'm thinking this is the best chapter of HDL I've ever written... the final chapter of HDL 2 is probably second best.

The Hylian Domain Legacy 3 Chapter 3- Will You Be My Sword?
“Oh my god… why do the Zoras have to be on top of a waterfall?” Bcdefg123 asked himself at the bottom of a huge waterfall. He looked around and saw a semi-worn path, laden with switchbacks that didn’t look too overly painful to hike up. Bcdefg123 started running up the mountainside path. It was slow going. He ran out of energy only 50 feet up and had to rest for a while. Remembering the letter, he forced himself to keep walking up the slope. I don’t have time to rest… he remembered. He trudged on, passing underneath the waterfall. Sapped of his strength, he took one last step and passed out. He landed on a slope and rolled off the edge of the path, which overlooked a 100-foot drop into the waters below.
-----
Earth
It was nighttime in Thrillsville, and Altik was heading back to his apartment alone, returning from a late-night dinner.
“Whoah!” A gunshot suddenly sounded and he jumped towards a wall. That sounded really close by… He looked in all directions to try and find out where it came from. Looking down an alleyway across from him, he heard a bit of movement. He rushed down the alley, unsheathing his dual swords and hoping to take whatever it was that tried to shoot him by surprise. He found nothing.
-----
Hyrule
Bcdefg123 opened his eyes. He saw water reflections dancing on a cave wall- or was it the ceiling? It had to be, because he had his back to the ground, was lying down, and was looking straight up. And there was only one place in Hyrule he knew of that had water in a cave…
“It’s the Zora’s Domain,” he said, quickly sitting up. Indeed it was: he was on one of the many rocks that dotted the lake, the source of all Hyrule’s water. Many humanoid beings were swimming around it, or otherwise resting on rocks. The humanoid beings were, of course, Zoras, who were covered in silver scales and who were well-adapted to water, possessing gills alongside lungs and fins alongside hands. Despite their amphibious nature, Zoras became sick if they spent too much time away from water. Bcdefg123 looked the other way and saw that two of them had been standing right behind him.
“You’re awake then?” the taller one said.
“I’d think so, at least,” Bcdefg123 smiled. He realized that he didn’t even seem to be hurt. “How did I get up here? I thought I was dead once I fell…”
“Well, that would be because of her.” The Zora motioned towards the other, younger Zora.
“You were falling into the Lower Hylian Lake, and I was right under you, so I helped break your fall once you were in the water by catching you. If I wasn’t there, you probably would have collided with the rocks…”
Bcdefg123 stood up and thanked the person who saved him. It struck him that she didn’t look too much like the other Zoras he’d seen. She had a pointed head and was wearing clothes, including a shirt with a fairly giant blue gem in the center and a cape that served to accent her image as a walking isosceles triangle. Other than that, she had a thoughtful, unconcerned expression that reminded Bcdefg123 of Zelda… Zelda…
“Were there any other outsiders who came here recently?” Bcdefg123 asked the two.
“Uh, yeah,” the taller Zora said. “One came about half an hour before you did. A girl came and asked about some ancient relic that we’ve never heard about before. She said it was really important, so I told her to see the King of the Zoras. And that was the last I saw of her.”
“So she definitely headed off towards the King?” Bcdefg123 asked.
“Yes, she was granted an audience with the King and she went to see him.”
“So, uh, can I see him too? I need to find her, because… well, I need to know she’s safe…”
The taller Zora smiled. “I see. Then I’ll escort you to…”
“No, I can do that,” the other Zora said. “You need to stay here to watch the entrance, right?”
“All right, Raza,” the taller one said, and jumped off into the water, swimming off towards what Bcdefg123 presumed to be the entrance to the Domain.
“Thanks again for saving my life. I owe you big time,” Bcdefg123 said.
“Oh, not at all!” Raza said. “I was just at the right place at the right time. Follow me.” She jumped into the water and swam off. Bcdefg123 briefly wondered whether she expected him to start swimming, but then he found a dry trail. Surprisingly, he had to run to keep up with her. When they reached a dead end, Raza popped her head above water. “It’s through here,” she said. What Bcdefg123 presumed was a dead end actually continued on underwater. “You’ll have to climb in, but the water’s fine.” He jumped in the water obediently and floated next to Raza. The water felt cold to him, but it was probably perfect for Raza.
“The pathway to the King’s chamber is designed so only a Zora, or otherwise somebody with a Zora escort, like you, can get in. There is a current that runs in this path that will push anybody without the swimming skills of a Zora backwards, so they can’t get in, or otherwise they will drown halfway through.”
“That’s interesting,” Bcdefg123 said, feeling once again the fondness towards Hyrule that had made him stay behind 80 Hylian years ago.
“Grab my hand, and take a deep breath,” Raza said. “And don’t let go. One, two, three…”
Raza went underwater and Bcdefg123 had no choice but to follow. He tightened his grasp on Raza’s hand. Looking ahead, he saw the current that they had to pass, and with surprising force, Raza tugged him through it. He could no longer keep his eyes open and closed them, trusting Raza to guide him through.
Raza looked at him, smiling. “Haha! Don’t worry about it!” Well, there was an interesting fact that Bcdefg123 never knew: Zoras could talk underwater. Just then, Bcdefg123 felt the sheath that contained the Master Sword leave him. Without seeing, he made a grab for it with his free hand and surprisingly managed to hold onto it. He felt the current subside and he broke the surface, able to stand in the pool that was the King’s chamber. Gasping for air and shivering, he climbed up onto dry land, first throwing the Master Sword onto the rock.
“Is that… the Master Sword?” Raza asked, a little more quietly than usual.
“Indeed!” somebody else in the room said. The king looked on from a stone balcony, from which a small waterfall originated. “I just got word that the Master Sword was removed from its display within Hyrule Castle and given to a Bcdefg123.”
“The hero?” Raza asked in shock.
“Yeah. I’m Bcdefg123, but that’s not the point right now. I’m looking for somebody, and I hear that she asked you about an ancient artifact, the Didgeridoo of Minutes. I need to be with her- I mean…” Bcdefg123 said, flustered, “I’m supposed to be helping her find it.”
“I sent her up to the top of the mountain,” the King said. “There lies the entrance to another cave, the Cave of Song, called so because explorers have heard a faint melody within it, which cannot be traced to any source. If you cross-reference it with a legend of Hyrule which says that a half of an ancient artifact is hidden somewhere on this mountain, I believe that what you seek may very well be there. Your friend is exploring this cave as we speak.”
“Really?! Can you show me how to get there?” Bcdefg123 asked.
“I’ll come with you,” Raza said. “Follow me!”
-----
Earth
Altik continued walking, albeit in an exceedingly wary state of mind. No sooner than he started again he was shot at again. Half-expecting it, he was able to avoid it. This time, however, he saw what he was being shot with, because something stuck in the wall he was walking against. After checking to see if he could find his assailant, he examined the projectile used. He took it out of the wall and turned it over slowly. It was marked with a ten-character serial number starting with the letters KIT.
Unbelievable… this tranquilizer is… Altik struggled to gain control over his thoughts. But why now, after thirteen years? The assailant took advantage of Altik’s distraction to shoot another tranquilizer his way. Dodging it yet again, he finally found his mark in the form of a hooded person on the roof of the shop he was looking at.
-----
Hyrule
“Hmm…” Bcdefg123 listened to the faint music.
“It sounds like it’s coming from everywhere, doesn’t it?” Raza asked him.
“Hang on…” Bcdefg123 closed his eyes in an attempt to concentrate. There was no origin that could be derived from the music. “Yeah. I guess it is. But how?”
“If we knew that, we wouldn’t be here, would we?” Raza said.
“I guess so.” Bcdefg123 said. “Let’s go.”
As they descended deeper into the cavern, Bcdefg123 was surprised at how it was lighted every so often, a testament to how they were, after all, still on a mountain.
“Oh, you did come! I was worried that you went to the desert instead,” said a voice from deeper inside the cave.
“So… you’re safe, I take it?” Bcdefg123 asked Zelda.
“That’s good,” Raza said.
“Huh? Who else is with you?” Zelda asked.
“She’s Raza, a Zora girl who saved my life when I was coming up here. Coming here yourself was a very bad idea!”
“Yet she didn’t need somebody to save her…” Raza whispered. Bcdefg123 didn’t say anything; there was no denying the truth of what she said.
“Did you say something?” Zelda called back. Bcdefg123 grumbled to himself and went ahead.
A few minutes later, Raza, who was leading the group, stopped.
“What is it?” Bcdefg123 asked.
“Listen to the music. It’s louder here, isn’t it?”
The music was now distinguishable as a happy song… if it were a bit faster. It sounded more like something that somebody would play to themselves if they were lonely.
“Hmm…” Zelda said, feeling the walls. “There’s a door here…”
“What? A door? And nobody’s seriously noticed that before?” Bcdefg123 said, examining the spot where Zelda had done the same. “No, it’s not a door, exactly. It’s more like a giant rock blocking a passage. It seems like it couldn’t have been here naturally… Zelda, Raza, help me push this here…” All three of them attempted to push the rock from its resting place. To their surprise, it started to nudge a little bit. When they stopped, it rolled back into place. “And again! On three, one… two… three!” With renewed strength, they started to push the rock once more. This time, they took the rock further, so they had a glimpse into the next room. Bcdefg123 saw a downhill slope to the immediate left. “Push it to the left!” he yelled. The rock started to roll down a couple feet, and then it was stopped by a cave wall. The three of them went in and examined the room.
“I think this is it!” Zelda said. She picked up a small, yet extremely polished, wooden stick. One of its ends looked like it was snapped off from something else.
“It’s a nice stick, but is it really what we’re looking for?” Bcdefg123 asked.
“Just hold it,” Zelda said, giving it to him. When he touched it, he heard the melody sounding as if it were originating from within him. “Isn’t it cool?” Zelda asked, but Bcdefg123’s thoughts lay elsewhere.
“Wow,” he said as the music continued in his head. “This may be even more annoying than the piano.”
-----
“So you found it?” the Zora King asked them back in his hidden chamber.
“Yes,” Raza said, and held up the piece of wood so he could see it. “The song came from this thing. It was fairly easy to find.”
“I didn’t even have to use the sword…” Bcdefg123 said.
“What do you mean?” the King asked him. “Were you expecting to use it?”
“Well…” Bcdefg123 said, thinking it would be polite to explain why he was taking an ancient Zora artifact. “It’s related to why I got the sword in the first place. The King of Hyrule let me have it because there were a few attackers within the castle earlier this morning. They’ve been spotted in other places around the land, but nobody knows why. There’s another thing too… they all look like Altik, another one of the Hylian Domain heroes.”
“That’s interesting…” the King asked.
“There seems to be many of them. There was a letter- well, blackmail is a better word for it- that I got that says we need to retrieve the Didgeridoo, otherwise they threatened an attack on us.”
“They might have wanted to kill us by doing this,” Zelda said, “But now I think they want the instrument. But what can it do if it’s made complete?”
“Good question…” the King said. “What do YOU plan to do with it, though?”
“I… I don’t know…” Bcdefg123 said. “First we need to see what it does once it’s whole. Then I think we’ll try to find out who wants it. The person told us to meet them a couple days from now. We have that time to figure it out, so… I guess we’ll play it by ear.”
“All right then. I trust a hero with our relic, so take the didgeridoo piece. And if there’s anything else we can help you with, please ask.”
“There is,” Bcdefg123 said. “This Master Sword…” He unsheathed it and held it up. “When King Regis gave it to me, he said it had lost its power to repel evil. He didn’t know how to get that power back.”
“Well…” the King said, his cheerful mood dropping a few noticeable notches, “I’m afraid I do.”
“Huh?” Zelda asked. “You’re afraid… you do…?”
“Raza… show them.”
“This way, please,” Raza said. Puzzled, Zelda and Bcdefg123 followed her through the passage to the lake.
“Where are we going?” Zelda asked first.
“Please. Just follow me.” Was it just a trick of the water-reflected light, or was Raza… shedding tears? As they walked down into the Zora cave residences, Bcdefg123 looked at Zelda meaningfully, but she was admiring the Zora residences. What they were looking at was a large aquatic chamber, with pathways leading in all directions. Names of families were etched on the rock directly above each pathway, signifying the people who lived there. They arrived at one bearing a name ‘Raza’. Just one name here… does she live alone?
They went inside. The water dropped off to create a two foot pool in a room big enough for possibly a few more people. Bcdefg123 noted the presence of a few fish in the pool. There was a corner of the room where the rock rose above the water to create level ground, and this was where Bcdefg123 and Zelda made their way to. Sitting down, they asked Raza why she took them here.
“Take out the sword,” she said half-heartedly.
“No. Not until you tell me everything,” Bcdefg123 said.
“All right…” Raza said, sitting down in the pool. Only her head remained above water. “I am the sword’s power.”
“What the… that’s absurd, you can’t possibly be…”
“I’m serious. Hold the sword outward… like that…”
“Ok, but I don’t see how this will…” Bcdefg123 stopped. “It… does look like you…” He felt weird for saying it, but the way the sword seemed to echo her… Raza’s face looked somewhat like the handle and guard of the sword, and the jewels in the hilt and Raza’s clothes matched up… the cape also looked familiar, and when Raza stood up straight, like she was doing now, there was almost an eerie resemblance between her and the sword. Bcdefg123 was seized by a sudden, inexplicable desire to grab Raza by the neck and use her as a sword, but he let go of that rather alarming thought. Suddenly, both Raza and the blade of the Master Sword began to glow blue.
“Whoah… what are you doing?!” Bcdefg123 said, jerking away the Master Sword.
“I had hoped that the sword would never be used during my lifetime…” Raza said. “But then you came, and I saw the sword, and I was trying to deny it. But now I’m ready. I’m going to merge with the sword!” Glowing blue threads connected Raza and the Master Sword, and the water Raza was standing in also began to glow blue as well.
“No!” Bcdefg123 yelled, and panicked. Zelda took a more direct approach: she threw herself onto Raza, toppling her over into the water, disrupting the entire process. The eerie blue light vanished.
“Is she…?” Bcdefg123 said to himself, examining the Master Sword. Nothing seemed different about it, so he sheathed it. Raza started thrashing underwater and slipped free from Zelda. She stood up.
“Why did you stop me?! This is my destiny!”
“That’s a stupid reason!” Bcdefg123 yelled. “Now listen to me.” Bcdefg123 jumped in the water right in front of her. “I never asked you to do what you just tried to do. The sword’s been working just fine for me so far, power to repel evil or no power to repel evil. What if you never came out of the sword?!” Raza was in the water sobbing now.
“Uh, hey, do you think you’re being harsh…?” Zelda said.
“And you did it so readily! Like you weren’t even worth anything in the first place!”
“Stop it!” Zelda yelled.
“Hey! Don’t interrupt me, I was right in the middle of this great heartfelt lecture!” Bcdefg123 said like a child being deprived a toy.
“You were… you were acting…?” Zelda said.
“Well, maybe I was exaggerating a little…” Bcdefg123 said, looking from Zelda to Raza, “But the point is… you saved me, remember?” He extended a hand to help Raza up. “I still haven’t paid you back for that.” Raza looked up at him and allowed him to help her up. “If you really want to help us, then help us get that other piece of the didgeridoo.”
“Really? You’ll let me come?” Raza said.
“Of course! If you want to, that is,” Bcdefg123 said.
“I will!” Raza said.
“Welcome to the club!” Zelda said, hugging Raza.
-----
Earth
“So…” Altik said, up on the rooftop. “Why do you want to kill me? And why do you have a Kitla-grade tranquilizer? Kitla was extinguished thirteen years ago.”
“So it was…” the man said. “And everyone involved died then. Everybody… except for the two people on this rooftop.”
END of Chapter 3