[center][color=darkgreen][h3]Linkle[/h3][/color]
[color=darkgreen][b] Level 3[/b][/color] - (30/30) [b]LEVEL UP![/b]

[b]Acquire[/b] [b]Strength[/b]: [i]Hit and Run[/i] - skillful, tactical, painful. While on the move, Linkle can engage a single enemy at melee range, deliver a solid strike or two, and move on without opening herself up to counterattack. While only one enemy can be hit at once, she can 'dash attack' several in a row if need be.

[color=darkgreen][b] Level 4[/b][/color] - (0/40) + 3

[color=darkgreen][b]Location:[/b][/color] Peach's Castle, Dark Forest Bridge ---> Peaches Castle, Entrance ---> Scrapyard

[color=darkgreen][b]Word Count: 1,322[/b][/color][/center]

[@Lugubrious] [@Dawnrider][@Genon][@DracoLunaris]

[hr]

Linkle leaned in curiously as the man ruffled through the rucksack he had conjured from this air, wondering where it was she could get one of those. After all, all the legends mentioned the hero carrying tons of different gear and specialized equipment, but never made any mention of where he stored it all save for the verses and verses dedicated to glass bottles. She was even more taken aback as the thing he pulled from it manged to conjure some sort of large machine on the bridge, almost as big as that robot that had been guarding the bridge. She leaned in again to admire the thing and ponder as to what it did, and the Kid took this opportunity to lift the top hat back from Linkle's head, letting her rabbit ears flop freely. The Kid at least seemed to know what this thing could do, and Linkle got a taste of it as the engine kicked into high gear and the machine was lifted off the ground by the rotating blades!

Linkle would have waved as they went off in their amazing flying machine if her hands weren't occupied holding her ears flat to the top of her head to drown out the noise the thing made. Those rabbit ears seemed to be the real problem. They were sharp of hearing. A little too sharp, maybe. A loud noise like that machine or the roar of that monster could be debilitating if it happened in the middle of the fight. Maybe Shadow Junpei had been doing her favor when he'd cut them down to size. Still, even that pain didn't manage to quell the wonder of seeing that thing lift off and shoot through the air toward the entrance of the castle like the majestic Cucco tossed from a roof.

She wondered if it was as fast as a falling Cucco too.

Grinning and dropped down into a sprinters position, whistled a loud sharp starting whistle, and took off at full speed after it.

[hr]

"HA!" Linkle said, skidding to a stop just in view of the Kid and strange warrior on the path to the castle entrance. She bounced from one leg to the other in pride. The man had already had time to put away his flying machine by the time she had run up, but he hadn't made it inside yet. That, at least, counted for something in Linkle's eyes. She waved to the pair as they walked inside then, not even pausing to catch her breath, spun around and started making her way over to where Bowser Junior had gone. It wasn't a moment later that she spotted Tora and Poppi waiting on the bridge. Tora called out to her, complimenting her on her new ears. She rubbed one in unconscious pride and beamed at him. "They're actually a bit of a pain, but I'm coming into them. They were a friends, after all. Besides, it's more common than you'd think for the hero to end up turned into a rabbit when traveling another world. Of course that time it was a curse instead of a gift..."

If given the chance she would have regaled the two with the entire Legend of [i]A Link to the Past[/i], but unfortunately (or fortunately) the bridge crossing was way too short for even an abridged version of the story even when they had to slow down to navigate the holes and debris. "I wonder if we should fix it or finish knocking it down. The rabbits seem alright, but who knows what sort of ideas those robots might get when they come back to see a castle full of non-shadow people." 

As they made it across Linkle could see Junior ordering around the rabbits as though they had always worked for him. It made her laugh. That kid seemed like a chip off the old block in more ways than one, but it didn't seem as though the rabbits were putting in as much hustle as they could as the daylight continued to wail. She looked around, cautiously searching for any scary red-eyed stalfos bot or freakish long armed monsters. The thought of being out here in the dark, where those things could be lurking around, made her nervous. She had a sudden vision of that robot suddenly bursting from one of the scrap piles as the last rays of light faded, then another, the another, the skeletal things shambling in an ever tightening circle around their small group as still more emerged from the scarp each bearing one of those guns that put clean holes in their fellows metal skin. The thought made her shudder.

She thought about just going ham on friend hearts and freeing all the rabbits, but thought better of that. After two times she could tell that the process of freeing someone with a heart left her slightly drained. Not in a tired way, but it was definitely something diminishing like using up her momentum to perform a big attack. It wasn't something you could just do whenever you wanted, so she decided on a different approach and stepped up beside Junior. "Here, let me try something. I've got some experience motivating unruly little guys." 

Back home on the Cucco farm Linkle had discovered long ago that you had to think like a creature if you wanted to make it do what you wanted. It wasn't like goats, where you could scare them and throw them around and they'd be all docile in their corral. You could only push a Cucco so far before it reached its breaking point and when that happened it would kick, peck, and holler so loud you could swear the world was ending. In most cases it might as well have been, because then you'd hear the chorus of clucks and the beating of many wings. The sky would go black at the approach of the swarm and the perpetrator would be engulfed in a sea of white feathers. In most cases that would be the last you ever saw of that person. You couldn't order a Cucco. You had to get into its head.

Luckily a rabbit had already gotten into her head and in Linkle's estimation that was about the same.

She took off her white rabbid fur cloak and draped it over Junior, showing off the blazing green of her cloak. The same green that had adorned the previous leader of these rabbids. With a concentrated force of will she made her white ears stand all the way up and looked around for exactly what Junior had wanted to scavenge from this rubble. She couldn't see any of the carts she was familiar with laying around, but she did see a few things with wheels that had already been ripped from the rubble by them. They were strange, reminding her more of that flying machine the warrior had pulled from nowhere than a horse drawn cart, just without the spinning bits. It dawned on her that this might be the same sort of machine, just for land travel instead of air. That was actually really smart. They'd be able to get anywhere in no time if these things moved as fast as that. So she set her sights on a set of wheels sticking out of a large scarp pile and let out a loud yell as she took off for it. She grabbed hold of the tires and with a strained grunt dragged the cart free from the pile, lifting it up to her chest and displaying it with the satisfied smile of someone that had just landed a prize winning fish. Then she set it on the ground and took off running for a new cart, dragging it out to. This one she very visibly rolled over near Tora, figuring if he were able to create something as amazing as Poppi fixing this would be easy for him.

She stood up proudly, looking over all the rabbits in the area, and grinned. "Come on, that's two points for me already! Are we rabbits or rodents? We don't want the robots to get them, do we? Let's go!" she raised her arms in the air, let out a whoop, and then took off toward the next cart in her sights hoping to set an example that the rabbits would follow.