Gentlemanvaultboy

Awful Midnight Poetry - Set in the world of Epithet Erased!

How did I not see this earlier?

World of Light

Merry Christmas from your old buddy Master Hand, Linkle.

Hyrule was burning.

The sky was dark, the sound of the pouring rain drowned out by the vile screams of the Calamity and the mechanical whirring and stomps of his spider like army pouring across the countryside. There were bright flashes of light in the distant, and explosions. Signs that those guardians had found something living and scoured it from the earth.

This was undoubtedly their hour of greatest need. Linkle knew what she had to do.

So why wasn't it working?

Her muddy boots scraped across the marble floor of the temple, her grunts of exertion echoing across the high, empty walls. She pulled. She pulled with all her might, arching her back, face red from the effort, her hands slick with sweat on the hilt. Too much. Her hands slipped off the top, sending her tumbling back and down the short set of steps leading up to its resting place.

She sat on the cold floor, staring at it. The Master Sword sat, resplendent in its pedestal. Linkle stood up rubbing her head and ran back up to the sword. She laid on her back, put her feet up against the cross guard and pushed until she felt like she was going to pop a vein before relenting and sitting up again.

She looked at herself in the reflection of its blade. She was doing something wrong, she had to be. Maybe there was some test she hadn't passed, or there was some kind of key she hasn't bothered to get. That was stupid, though. There was no way the sword would let Hyrule be destroyed on a technicality like that. She had to draw it.

It was something only she could do.

She got up, caught her breath, and went to they again. As she did so there was a flash from outside. She spun around, expecting to see one of those crawling machines and hear the beeping of it charging up its beam, but all that greeted her was the welcome crack of thunder. She deflated with relief. It wasn't like her crossbows did any good against those things. It's why she'd come for the sword.

She was about to turn back when she saw movement. A boy stumbled in out of the darkness, clad in blue and wearily wearing what looked like a pot lid on his arm. In his other hand her gripped the busted remains of a short swords. He looked up at Linkle, surprise plastered on his face.

She mirrored his look, but then dismissed it. No, it wasn't weird. You took shelter anywhere you could in situation like this. She was surprised more people hadn't fled here. He was just one more reason she had to get this sword unstuck.

"It'll be okay." She said as the boy started opening his mouth. "I've got it. Just give me a few more minutes."

He gave her an odd look, turned around to stare out into the darkness for a moment, then shrugged his shoulders and sat with his back to her on the steps.

She nodded, then resumed pulling.

"Hey?" The boy asked after a few more minutes.

"Yeah?" She answered, breathless.

"Why do you want it?"

"It's not a matter of wanting it." She said, just a hint of pride creeping into her voice.

"But you really want it." The boy went, not looking up.

"Well, who wouldn't?" She replied, a little offended.

The boy ignored her. She went back to pulling.

They counted the time with the rumble of thunder. They came almost regularly now. Flash, rumble, flash, rumble. Three, four, five, ten, twenty. It was impossible to tell how much time had really passed, but it was enough for Linkle's frustration to build to excruciating levels. She pulled back from her task and lashed out with a foot, kicking at the word as hard as she could. It didn't even wiggle, the only result being a clanging echo and a sore toe. The echo hung around the chamber for a long time, unnaturaly bouncing off ever wall and somehow getting louder and louder as it went.

It was only when she heard the boy behind her stand up, when she turned to look at the entrance, that she realized that changing wasn't an echo. In the doorway, do large that it couldn't fit its bell shaped body through the door, one of those metal monstrosities stared in at them. The blue of its eye chanced to a hateful red as it locked on to them.

Linkle scrambled for her crossbows. She knew the eye was a weaker part, maybe if she used to doorways as cover she'd eventually manage to plink the thing to death. She dived of the small raised platform and started for the doorway, but she realized she was the only one moving.

The boy stood, eyes narrowed, staring down the barrel of that thing even as it began to beep. She saw his grip on the pot lid tighten as he raised it up. "Hey!" She called out. "Move or-"

"It'll be okay." He said, again not even looking at her. Never breaking his focus. "I've got it."

The things beeping was reaching a fever pitch now, and there was a flash that lit up the room as a beam of light shot out of the eye toward him. Linkle couldn't even move fast enough to push him out of the way, so she braced to watch this boy get obliterated. He braced to though, and as the beam was just inches from him her struck out with the pot lid.

What happened next struck Linkle as some kind of miracle. Instead of vaporising as it met the beam the pot lid looked like it was pushing the beam back, like it was just water. Not just deflecting it, reflecting it. The beam bounced right off the lid and lanced right through the guardians eye. The guardian sparked, stumbled back, and exploded into a shower of bolts and gears as she looked on in awe.

"Hey." He said, arresting her attention back toward him. "Would you mind if I gave it shot?"

She looked between him and the sword, then slowly nodded her head.

He hooded back to her in gratitude, dropping his broken sword to the ground and approaching the Master Sword. He placed both his hands solemnly on the handle, took a deep breath, and began to pull up. At first Linkle was sure that nothing was happening, but as the boy strained a light began to pool at the bottom of the blade. Slowly but surely, inch by laborious inch, the blade began to withdraw from the stone until finally it was wrenched free. The boy, panting like he'd just run a marathon, nonetheless raised the sword over his head despite how heavy it seemed to weigh on him. Satisfied, he solemnly shethed the thing and walked down the steps, past Linkle, and toward the stormy night.

"Wait a minute." She called after him. He stopped, looking over his shoulder at her. "Why do you want it?"

He shook his head. "It's not a matter of wanting it." He said, a hint of sadness creeping into his voice.

"Well...," Linkle stumbled, struggling for words. "When is it going to be my turn?"

The boy thought about it for a moment. "Hopefully? Never," was what he finally settled on. He gave one last nod to Linkle and then dashed out the door of the temple, leaving her alone with only one thought playing in her head on what seemed like an endless loop.

The thing only she could do was get out the way.

Royal Rumble!

There, now I know it works for everybody.

Royal Rumble!

I feel like Kath wears it all day before packing it in for the party.

Is it working now?

@Hammerman

World of Light

Linkle

Level 5 - (38/50) + 1

Location: The Darkest Steppe ~ Yog-Sothoth's Jurassic Fight Club Part 4: Golden Time
Word Count: 513

@Lugubrious@ProPro@Stekkmen@thedman @Yankee

---

Linkle came down off the brief combat high of becoming a human bomb and beheld a blasted land swirling in sacred light. It was as though the goddess Hylia herself was looking down upon them, it was completely different from the green light before.

In this moment of respite that she and Poppi had bought them she took a moment to survey the battlefield. The farmers were almost handled, not that least of which by the impromptu koopa troop kickball game. Across the field the centurion was cutting a swath through the farmers. She was going to head that way to take out the crystals that formed but the Courier had some strange monster bury the crystals in the ground, the strange light still glowing out from under the cracks in the earth. The cadet and Euden were both on the monsters back, holding on for dear life.

The farmers were getting cleared out, but experience told her that they wouldn't stop coming until they beat the big boss. "Princess!" She called out, looking around for Princess Toadstool as Tora and Pop pi cuddled near her on the groumd.. "If anything comes near these two, shoot it!" With that she took off after Agoston toward the Brachy.

As she charged down the hill she could swear she heard a phantom whinny, like the ghost of her kart coming back to haunt her.

As she approached the buried crystals she suddenly got a strange idea. She stepped back to what she thought was a safe range, holstered her crossbows, and pulled her square bow off her shoulders. Pulling out one of her blocky arrows she put the buried crystals between her and the Brachy and narrowed her eyes. Which part would get that things attention the most, the eyes or the belly or...

She got her opportunity when the Courier put on a burst of speed and, as the monster reared up, blasted the underside of the monsters neck so quickly it was more like one shot then five. Zeroing in on any wound that assault would have left she let the arrow fly directly into it. A moment later she put her fingers in her mouth and whistled as loudly as she could before nocking another arrow and firing.

She didn't really plan on hurting it. She just wanted to get it angry enough to come after her, to try and lure it into the impromptu minefield Agoston and The Courier had created. With the crystals buried she hoped that the resulting explosions would be low enough to the ground that they would just hit the monster and not the boys riding atop it.

Royal Rumble!

Fixed the broken link in my post.

Create a story 2: The electric boogaloo

Once, there was a man. He lived in a land far away. Alone, he spent his days chopping wood and whittling small wooden people. One day he decided to whittle a different kind of toy. But then the ATF came. And shortly after, the Fire Nation attacked. Determined to end the war the man resorted to black magic to turn his figures into real life wooden soldiers. Unfortunately, a fighting force made out of wood was hardly effective against an army of pyrokinetics. The army caught on fire, panicked, and ran off into a forest causing a forest fire.

The fire spread far and unnaturally quickly, consuming most of the continent in a hellish blaze.

Royal Rumble!

@Hammerman

---

"And what in the world are we searching for up here?"

Katherine coughed at the dust kicked up from moving another old box out of the way. The attic was cramped, dusty, and lit by only a swinging bulb that hung from the ceiling. It was only cramped from all the stuff. Al around her she could see things her parents had collected and left up here, some individually through the lines of boxes. She glimpsed a full length mirror, a line of of arcade cabinets, a chest containing all the old toys she was too old for now. But what she was looking for was...there!

She pushed her way forward, hopping over a foosball table before reaching a big, white, plastic conifer tree taller than she was laying on its side like a logger had just come through here and felled it. Around it were boxes she knew contained spools of lights and delicate old glass orbs. Near the base of the tree was a big wardrobe that she threw open, dust flying off in a cloud.

"I'm not sure its safe for someone who so recently almost lost her lungs to be up here."

"Stop acting like you're my mom." Kath said, pawing through a bunch of see-through plastic bags containing neatly folded festival outfits hanging within. "I'm looking for something they got Chrissy a while back. It was this gown, big floofy dress, cute snowflake leggings, the whole shebang. Totally not her style. Here!"

She pulled the thing off its hook, pressing the bag to her skin and judging the size. She couldn't have gotten that much bigger since they'd last dressed up for the holidays. Nodding in satisfaction she took it and started back toward the mirror, pulling off her shirt in the process.

---

"Ho ho ho ho ho ho!" Katherine laughed as she came down from the attic, the tail of her new dress trailing down the steps as she descended. It was a little tighter than she'd anticipated, but a loosening of that corset had put that problem to bed. She twirled the little scepter she'd found in the toy chest, pressing the button that was supposed to make it glow and getting nothing because the batteries had died ages ago. On her face she wore a wide mask, the crown of which was an actual tiara topped with a star that sparkled in the hallway light. "Fear me mortals, for I am the snow queen. Summer days will never come again." She raised a hand to the side of her mouth. "Ho ho ho ho ho ho!"

"You're not doing it right."

"Eh?" Kath asked.

"Tilt your chin up. Higher. Higher. Now begin with the oooo sound."

"Oh, ho ho ho ho ho?"

"We'll practice."

Paradigm Shift: Agents of Fate [Currently Accepting!]

Matthew turned around to look, scanning Tue dark road behind them for any sort of person tailing them.

"I hope that means you expected someone to have started chasing us by now." He said. "Buuuut that doesn't seem like what you meant." He turned back and settled anxiously into his seat again. "Did you guys plan on grabbing some other people besides me out here? Other, you know, wizards?"

Man, it sounded weird when you said it out loud. He wondered his these people had even sniffed him out. Then again, the feds had also apparently sniffed him out in the first minutes of when he'd suddenly known he had magic powers. This girl, though, she'd been waiting for him, specifically. So that would mean, unlike the feds, she'd known beforehand who was going to turn and who wasn't.

Would have been nice to get more than a few minutes warning, in that case.

World of Light

Yeah, that thing went down under the weight of many slashes.