Hyrule Omen

His name is Link. He is a Hylian—a forgotten race endowed with long ears so that they may here the wisdom of the goddesses. Their race is a dying one with only a handful left; though none as special as Link. Orphaned to and raised by the forest dwelling immortal children named the Kokiri, Link grew to be one of them. Fate stepped in and he was whisked away in a quest to stop the desert king Gannondorf. This was a feat that transcended time itself. In the end, Link left manhood to return to being just a boy who soon set out to save the parallel land of Termina, unbeknownst to him. Link did return to Hyrule, but something else was amiss. It had been prophesized that he may not return to the kingdom he called home, and in some ways he did not. This was not his Hyrule. An ominous presence floated high in the air, sometimes blocking the sun. Monsters came from the vessel high above; monsters quite unlike any Link had faced as so many were metal, but were not mere knights. The beasts were referred to as “technology.” Or so that is how Magus named them.

The fearsome warlock was once a boy prince named Janus, long, long ago. He would have been heir to his kingdom…had it not forever been destroyed. The kingdom of Zeal meant little to him, however. Instead, the boy who grew up in a different time to become the feared man he was in the end, sought only his sister—Schala. Having said goodbye to her twice, surviving a similar fate, and having come face to face with others who had survived the same attack, Magus knew she must still live and vowed to find her. After the defeat of the planet-killing Lavos, he left the do-gooders and set off on his search. His resources were limited and with no leads and no fortune it became clear that Magus would need assistance. Using a spell similar to that one he conjured once to summon Lavos, Magus managed to catapult himself through time. He almost killed himself but had made it to the year 1000. He came to steal away Balthasar’s flying temporal carriage, the Epoch, but it seemed Frog had been expecting him.

The fighting friend of the brave knight Cyrus, Glenn, stood poised, ready for this moment. His friends, Crono and Lucca, had come back in time for him. They said they feared that Lavos must have come from his own world and that they wanted to make sure nobody else, anywhere, anytime, would have to suffer the same fate they had put an end to. Lucca wished to find Lavos’ home and watch it, destroy it if they must, should danger ever seem to present itself. Her, Crono, and Marle would take the telepad as it would be much faster to travel instantaneously. Glenn, Frog as he still prefers, was to guard the Epoch to make sure no undesireable changes were made to history. Frog felt only one man who even knew of the Epoch would chance such a thing, and here he stands now—the very warlock who gave him this cursed form.

It was not agreed that Magus could have use of the Epoch. Though the warlock utilized teleportation, Frog had the advantage of agility…though neither man gave it their all. They were not enemies any more, but old brothers in arms. The struggle was short and without any true power because of this. Frog was restless and felt in his heart Magus’s pain. He agreed to take him wherever he wished to go.

“But t’will be me who pilots Epoch, Magus!”

However, it was not time travel, nor was it space travel that the Epoch brought them. Magus later suggested one long night that the technology of the Epoch, in being so similar to that of the Black Omen, was drawn to the world where the Omen lay hidden.

There was no mistake that Link was one of them. Nor was there any mistake as to why the Omen had come to this place, as was also explained by Magus on the very same long night.

“The Triforce, the power of the goddesses of your world, Link, is exactly what my mother would be looking for. If you consider that what Lucca said is true, then my mother would want this Triforce to grant her an army of Lavos. It was never the kingdom of Zeal that granted us our abilities or technological advancement, it was Lavos. With an army of his kind, my mother would ensure herself the chance to conquer every world in existence, no matter where they may be.”

“Space, time, or other.” Link finishes the warlock’s sentence, remembering oh so recently the alternate reality that was Termina. His deeds there would be for naught if the Black Omen and Zeal were not defeated. Link feels his inners chill as he thinks that perhaps it would have been best to let the moon destroy that world; to save them from this far more worse fate.




Magus looks over the numerous items littered about the technology filled room. It disgusts him—all of this, every bit, none of which his people actually invented. It’s all stolen; stolen ideals from the entity Lavos. Magus sneers and moves on to the next room, ever silent, and ever shadow-hidden. This room is similar; empty except for the walls. All around him are special pictures, “monitors,” they call them. They act as windows to multiple places and times. He sees Guardia kingdom as it was hundreds of years ago and as it will be centuries from now. He sees Hyrule, again, as it was, and a watery what-it-will-become. There are many others that he cannot place. Some of the screens have gone to investigate certain individuals in some of the settings. Magus has just begun to step from the room when a sinister emotion tugs him back. A young girl, blonde, wearing a red vest and holding twin daggers has caught his eye. A lump forms in his throat and he sickens. He may have never noticed her if he hadn’t glimpsed her eyes. Although everything else is wrong about her, Magus knows those eyes.

Schala.

Good gods, he thinks. It’s her. She’s different so it’s no wonder the warlock was never able to find her. He spent his years searching for her as he had remembered her. Ha. What if she had been searching for him, looking for him as she had last known him? Magus sneers. He’s something much different from that bratty sniveling little twerp that loomed through the kingdom of Zeal, his faithful cat always with him. If Schala had sought him out with that image in mind…Magus laughs to himself. He’s been foolish to seek out his sister as he remembered her. But he has also been foolish to take up this search alone. All along there was one person who had the ability to guide him on his quest; one person who could have sought out Schala no matter where in all of existence she may have gone. The warlock tightens his gloves and lifts from the metal grated floor to hover swiftly through hallways. It doesn’t take long to blaze through foes and guards and to find her.

“Well, well, well. Of all of the scum I expected to accumulate on this ship, I never imagined it would attract such filth as you, prophet.” Queen Zeal sits undisturbed at her throne despite having just witnessed Magus single-handedly lay to death her most trusted protectors. “What nerve you have to bring yourself before me and not even bow!” She stands and lifts a jewel-adorned hand.

“Put your twitchy paw away and hear me. A man that has so bested your men surely deserves your audience.” Magus holds his scythe before him and keeps a solemn face while Queen Zeal lowers her arm and gets comfortable in her seat. “Excellent. It seems that both of us have learned much in our travels. It also seems that both of us have something to contribute to one another.”

“Deals? I don’t make deals.”

“This isn’t a deal. This is family.” The warlock pauses while Queen Zeal lifts her eyebrows; he then utters, “Mother.” The room rings in silence until the Queen stands. Her face is awestruck with hatred and confusion while she descends the short stairwell and stands face to face with Magus. “It is me, mother, Janus.” The bombshell is dropped. Queen Zeal contorts her face with mixed emotion in a way that Magus cannot tell what she is feeling. For what must be an eternity passes as she takes his face in. At long last she seems to accept it and embraces him, completely forgetful of the danger he emits, unyielding of what her weakness could bring her. All that matters, even to himself, Magus soon realizes, is that mother and son are reunited. Zeal lives on.


“T’was a fault of mine, Link. Indeed, t’would have been best to have remained a party and not to have sent Magus away.” Frog mutters for the fifth time his apology as he pairs with Link down a metal corridor.

“Frog, please, forget it.”

“Nay, nay while we’re within these walls I cannae trust Magus to remain himself here. The Black Omen t’is a part of his history, and history t’is a wicked evil to men.”

Link is quiet and ignores the amphibian man. His thoughts rise and fall on Malon. He wishes he could have been quicker. He wonders if he had been alone if perhaps he could have saved her. He’s always been one to work alone. His ignorance of this sky-ship, the Black Omen, is all that brought upon his joining up with these other-world warriors. His mind wanders. This place is like nothing he’s ever known. Every surface is a gleaming metal sheen with twinkling lights. Everything is so cold and dead yet hums with life. He hates to think that within this mass, somewhere beyond monotonous halls Malon is a prisoner to an evil unknown. Not since his battle in the other world of Termina has Link felt so alien to all that around him.

Thought seems to have manifest itself real, for as Link and Frog enter a large, empty room, the lights vanish with only the colorful dots on the walls to see by. Out of the artificial night a whirling crescent of energy flies at them and smashes into Frog, knocking him to the wall. Two stark white eyes, large and ominous, peer out of the dark. A single light shines down from the ceiling and Link can make out his Oni form, the body he took up when he donned the Fierce Deity mask to give him ultimate strength and ability over the wicked Majora.

A long flat blade that twists from the hilt into two rails of sword that make out a mobius strip is drug along the floor in a shrieking, sparking flux. A grey and black armored copy of Link’s own tunic is adorned with silver and gold accents. The pale face is a mirror image except that it is painted ceremonially and capped with platinum hair; it’s a soulless face with no emotion other than a grim smile.

“T’is … I cannae understand, Link. T’is you?” Frog stands with leary pauses in his speech. He’s no stranger to evil twins, having witnessed recreations of him and his friends suspended within the halls of the Black Omen. This man is something more than just a dark form though. “T’is a spectre of ye.”

“No Frog, this is something different.” Whispers Link while drawing his sword.

“This is something different.” Mimics Oni, whispering also but in a bone-chilling way. His eyes, though without pupils, seem to shift to just over Link’s shoulder. Oni tips his head ever–so-slightly upward and Link about-faces.

Dark Link skitters forward from the darkness. He, on the other hand, is exactly like Link, with the exception that he is all dark; black tunic; grey skin; pure evil is Link’s shadow come to life. He, just as Link has done, holds sword drawn.

Frog, with Masamune out and ready, is strangled by an unseen assailant. The world burns and shifts before him and the next thing he can see is Queen Zeal herself, throned and smiling. He is released and at last Frog sees his foe; his lifelong nemesis, Magus, is strolling around him and looking at him face to face. “Ye’re brilliant Magus! Let us lead this lass to her well-deserved death!” But as Frog races towards the throne he is knocked backward by a strong arm.

“No, no, little frog. Our truce has expired.” A staff materializes within the warlock’s hands. He bangs the bottom of it against the floor and a curved scythe blade juts out from the top. No more words are needed as Magus attacks. Frog understands that the man has taken his rightful place as Zeal’s prince.

“I know what ye’re thinking Magus and she can’t help ye! If’n she could’ve found Schala, don’t ye think she’d long done it?” Frog leaps to the wall, tongue-grabs the scythe, and tosses it and the wielder away.

“Why, I’ve already found Schala, froggy-dear.” Queen Zeal lies. All she has found is a carbon copy, but she dare not yet tell her son. No need to be without both children, she thinks.

Magus teleports into midair just in front of Frog. He manages only a feeble slice across the amphibian’s chest and pays for it by taking a thick cut to his leg as Frog drops to the floor. The warlock flies downward, scythe swinging in a vertical arc to the left, then right, with even the finishing horizontal swipe missing the limber warrior.

“Magus, ye’ve been with me long enough to have seen the Masamune returned to full strength. Have the sense not to challenge me! Mine anger boils still for your blood, and I can nay say I’d hold back!”

The warlock ignores his foe and chops his weapon deep into the shoulder of the arm that holds Frog’s shield. The defensive disc falls loudly to the metal floor alongside a splatter of blood that spewed forth once the scythe was removed. In turn, Frog howls and hacks his sword harshly into Magus’ leg, maiming the appendage in such a way that the warlock must take to constant hovering to remain upright.

“You worthless little toad!” Queen Zeal wretches out at him, both her hands raised and ready to kill.

“Stay out of this mother.” Commands Magus, high in the air and with his now-bladeless weapon pointed at her. He continues while dematerializing the staff; then tightening his thick leather gauntlets, “His friend Cyrus was no match, and even he had a fully powered Masamune. Mortal weapons were never quite my skill.” Bared teeth and a glinting eye marks the warlock’s readying of his magical powers.


Meanwhile, Link fares horribly against the only two beings with sword skills to match his own. Oni Link has managed more than a dozen slices of skin; cuts that Link never feels until afterwards when he moves and pulls open the razor-slit wound. Dark Link has had less luck but has punctured the Hero of Time twice, once in the ribs, and again in the left breast—an attack aimed for the heart.

The only green-clad fighter struggles to defend himself. Still no light other than the dots on the walls and the one in the middle of the room fill the constrictive arena. The Master Sword glints as it is rapidly worked against the other blades. Link perspires and slams backwards into a steely wall while trying to avoid the last attack. He’s winded from trying so hard to keep up. He digs into his enchanted purse while rolling along the metal barrier, dodging incoming slashes, and pulls out a pre-lit bomb. The metal orb is lobbed at Dark Link and blasts the shadow man to the other side of the room. The boomerang, already brandished, clutches Oni’s sword and pulls it, with the warrior holding on ever tightly, to the floor. Using this to his advantage, Link pulls his bow and a quiver of arrows to his ready. He takes quick aim and fires, stabbing a bolt through Dark Link’s hand and rendering it uselessly bound to the wall. Another arrow is taken and sent into Oni’s wrist, the one still holding the infinity-shaped sword.

“Stay down, both of you. This is your only warning if you want to live.” Link threatens. His drawn bow points an arrow at Oni, then to Dark, then back to Oni. “Where is my companion?”

“He took him.” Hisses Dark.

“He took him.” Whisper-echoes Oni.

“He who? It looked like Magus, but he fights with us.” Argues Link.

“Yes, him, the son of Zeal.” Dark hisses again.

“The frog is his prey.” Oni whispers his own words at last.

While Link turns from Dark to aim at Oni, the shadow of Link breaks the arrow and stands to charge, taking an arrow to the sternum, but giving Oni time to swing his infinity sword upward, shaving a good deal of skin from Link’s right side. The Hero of Time falls back with a rageful scream, his bow drops to the floor and his Master Sword is instinctively taken up but with shaking hands.

Dark Link advances with his own sword raised and ready to impale Link. His feet stagger him sideways after passing Oni. He slows and stoops down to one knee, both knees; Dark Link collapses and his head rolls four-plus feet away. Oni sneers behind his upheld and bloody sword. Link cowers at the sight but still lifts his weapon up to defend himself.

“M-monster…” Stutters the Hylian.

“Assassin.” Corrects Oni as he slowly comes forward.

In his impending moment of defeat, Link sees emotion in Oni at last—relentlessness—he will not stop. Using it to his advantage, and at the absolute last moment, the Hero of Time shrieks and pierces the Master Sword upwards through Oni’s sternum and into his cranium. The very tip pokes out of the top of the assassin’s head but will not be seen under Oni’s hat. The sword is pulled free, tugging the spectre-looking warrior down only to let him pop back up like some wretchedly strung puppet on enebreated legs.
Oni hitches out gargled breaths of communication, “I’m…no more dead…than he…” He falls to the floor two arm lengths away from Dark Link’s body.

The Hylian slides down the wall and sits cradling his side. Visions of a struck Dark Link vaporizing away in the Water Temple only to return whole again haunt Link with Oni’s final words. He takes a small bottle from his purse and opens it to drink the red liquid within. He takes a bit and pours it over his worst wounds. After a moment of magic in which he feels replenished and looks healed (beyond the ripped clothing), Link gets to his feet and continues on his and Frog’s planned route.


It’s been twenty minutes since Magus began to unleash his dark energies. Frog blesses himself for being so fortunate as to have survived this long; not even Cyrus put up this much of a fight. However, the man once named Glenn is now hunched against where the floor turns into wall, smoldering as if he just climbed from a fire, and convulsing with something horrid that churns within him. The magic blasts are manageable, but it’s the hexes that keep Frog at bay. He lurches forward again as sticky tearing pain writhes inside of him.

“Where did the others go? Where did they take the Epoch?” Interrogates Magus, floating in the air beside his mother. “You don’t need to tell me, we will still find them. The Black Omen has already located Schala and all the rest who will prove invaluable to us in enslaving the Lavos race. With an army of Lavos, the Triforce will easily be ours.”

“Aye, everything’s wrapped up nicely, aye? Then what are ye waitin’ for? Finish me!” Says Frog coarsely.

“You’re both correct; Janus, we don’t need his assistance. Be gone with him.” Queen Zeal sits looking bored.

Magus says nothing as he weaves together his fearsome Black Hole spell. He looks into Frog’s eyes and can see the terror building. The warlock smiles while enchanting the last few pieces. The air is heavy and light; humid and windy. A solitary purple scratch in the invisible air of reality appears and glows brighter until it splits open like a sick grimace turning into an oval turning into a perfect circle. A void of infinite black inhales deeply, shredding the metallic walls of their technological epidermis. Frog too is pulled. The Zeal Prince, no longer needing to lend anything to spell, spreads his arms wide in triumph as the amphibian warrior stabs the Masamune into the floor to prolong his life. Only the last two members of the ancient Zeal hierarchy are untouched from the suction.

A long gash begins to form on the floor as Frog is pulled in. The sword, though driven deeply into the steel beneath him, is useless. Frog’s grip weakens about the handle as the Masamune jerkily cuts towards the Black Hole. He looks up and can see his friend Link coming toward him. He tries to shout but the vacuum takes his words. There is one way to make Link, possibly their last defense against Zeal and the Black Omen, stop. Frog releases the Masamune and takes one last look at the world of the living as he is taken into the void. Link freezes in defeat. The black hole closes in. Magus stands behind where it had been, cockily tightening and adjusting his gauntlets.

Today was the wrong time for them to come to the Black Omen, thinks Link. He’s lost both of his companions, the only two who could have even helped him navigate this airborne tomb; the only ones who could have helped him find Malon. It kills him as he reaches into his enchanted satchel and brings his ocarina out. He looks up at Magus who has spotted him and is sneering at him. His eyes close as do his lips around the ocarina’s mouthpiece. Magus is incanting something but the ocarina is played and Link is spiriting away. He’s lost them all; Frog, Magus, and Malon. Even the hero that comes sometimes fails.


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