Fan Fiction / Fire Emblem Fan Fiction / Fire Emblem Fan Fiction / Pokemon Fan Fiction / Pokemon Fan Fiction ❯ Empty Hand Loser ❯ chapter 7 ( Chapter 8 )

I got up in the morning, took my pills and went to work. I got back home sometime in the evening and jacked in to see how things were going, if Falcon had any news for me yet.

 

It turned out it wasn't good news.

 

“So basically,” I told him, “you got your ass kicked by a faggot, and now you have nothing for me.”

 

“I said I'd find him,” he replied. “I never said I'd bring him back.”

 

“What good is that to me?”

 

“Send more of us next time.”

 

I sighed. “And how am I supposed to do that? Everyone's gone. It's the off season.”

 

Technically, I could send Sheik and Peach to back Falcon up. That would make things even. But that didn't seem like a good idea to me. That left no one to look after the house. And both Peach and Zelda were probably too sympathetic to Marth to do an effective job.

 

Marth leaving was about as bad as if Peach had left. Like her, he had been with me since the beginning. Did I believe he would return? Yes. That wasn't the point. The point was that anyone leaving had to get my permission first. I still didn't know how he got out in the first place. I never expected him to break the rules. I expected nothing less from Roy. But Marth….

 

“Is that all?” Falcon asked.

 

I waved him off. He turned to leave.

 

“Just a minute. What was it you said about Roy losing his memory?”

 

“That's what Marth said.”

 

“All right.”

 

Falcon left.

 

There were things Roy could take that would do that to him. The question was whether it had been a complete wipe, or if traces still remained. That determined whether or not he was still salvageable. And whether or not he was still salvageable determined when Marth was coming back.

 

It was a complicated situation. I would not have been dealing with it in the first place if I had been careful. When the whole thing between them first started, it had creeped the fuck out of me. And pissed me off. Crazy thought it was cute. I thought it was unnatural. “Marth and Roy” was not supposed to happen. Even now I couldn't figure out what I did wrong.

 

I should have broken it up when the first signs started showing. I could have canceled the contract with Roy and offered him money to leave. Kill the whole thing before it got too big for me to contain. I was paying for my mistake now.

 

I still hadn't figured out what to do when there was a knock at my door. “Come in,” I called. What now?

 

In walked Samus, dressed in dirty bloodstained armor. She removed her helmet. “Good thing you're here,” she said.

 

“What the hell happened to you?”

 

“We've got a little infestation problem. The Re-Dead are coming up from that well in the back.”

 

“Take care of it,” I said.

 

“We are. But they'll keep coming back unless we take more serious measures.”

 

“Do whatever you have to do,” I told her dismissively.

 

“Master, if I may…” a new voice interrupted us. Zelda glided into the room. Standing next to Samus she looked amazingly clean.

 

“I believe I have found the source of the problem,” Zelda announced with an inclination of her head.

 

“Yeah?” I prompted.

 

“It's you.”

 

I stared at her. “Me.”

 

“Yes. Your absence calls them here. When you are present, it scares them away. We were fighting them a little while ago. Then suddenly, they all withdrew. I think it's because you arrived. Whenever you are gone, more of them appear. When you are here, their numbers recede.”

 

“Makes sense,” Samus said.

 

“To solve the problem,” Zelda continued, “you must come here more often and stay longer.”

 

“Great,” I muttered sarcastically. Where was I going to find the time? In between working and drinking myself to death and counting the cracks on the walls of my apartment, I didn't have time for this. “I don't play this game anymore.”

 

“I beg your pardon?” Zelda said.

 

“Nothing. I understand the situation. Thanks for informing me. If that's all, you're dismissed.”

 

Samus raised an eyebrow, but turned to leave. Zelda bowed sagely and followed. I was left alone.

 

They would never understand how difficult it was for me to be there. They didn't know that I lived off of hourly wages and borrowed money. They didn't know that I had bills to pay. They didn't see me getting drunk every other night and walking the streets of cyberspace that way, taking pills and playing Minesweeper until dawn. They didn't know that I rarely left my room if not for work.

 

There was a lot about me they didn't know.

 

They didn't know about the panic attacks when Sage left. Or rather, when I left her. Or whatever. They didn't know about the pills. They didn't know about the emails I canceled before I could send them, the half-dialed phone calls. The days I slept through. The nights I stayed awake. The long road to the edge of insanity.

 

They didn't know and they didn't know.

 

Seems like these days I did nothing but work. On my off time I'd rather be vegetating than gaming, dreaming about better days. I didn't play or battle much anymore. That was because, these days, I kept losing. I had lost my touch. I couldn't keep a cool head anymore. Whenever the pressure built up from competition, I went a little bit on edge, a little closer to losing it. I always fucked up at that point. Two years ago I took a break from the tournaments to get my head cleared. I hadn't gone back since. My heart wasn't in it anymore.

 

Since then, things at the house have been good at times, bad at times, like a never ending cycle. I had good days and bad days. We had good days and bad days.

 

But they had been there, hadn't they? I couldn't deny that. When I lost Sage, my life fell apart. I had nothing left, and all I could do was jack in and play. I trained them. We battled in the amateur circuits. At our best, we had been unstoppable.

 

No matter how shitty my life was, the fact remained that I owed them. Which was why I had to get Marth back, for everyone's sake. I had to keep this house from falling down.

 

x x x

 

The smell of almonds followed her out into the hallway. Peach was cooking. Samus smiled to herself as she walked down the long line of identical doors. She picked one at random and opened it.

 

She stepped into the ruins of Hyrule Temple.

 

Unlike the dark interior of the hallway, the sky was a peaceful blue. Samus shut the door behind her and walked out across the stone floor. It took her a moment before she realized that she wasn't alone. In the distance, on the highest point, there was a figure practicing snap kicks.

 

Samus stood for a moment and just watched as Sheik threw powerful kicks into the air. When the Hylian stopped, she turned and saw that Samus was watching. The bounty hunter raised a hand in greeting. Sheik jumped down to meet her.

 

“How about a match?” Sheik asked.

 

Samus was out of her suit. That left her at a disadvantage, though it would probably be a good idea to get some training without it.

 

“All right.”

 

They backed off to a sufficient distance. Samus stretched out her limbs. They both settled into stances.

 

“Fighting off the undead yesterday wasn't good enough of a workout for you?” Samus asked.

 

“Hardly.”

 

Sheik came in with a low kick, which Samus blocked with both arms. She could barely react before Sheik planted and spun her other leg around in a kick aimed for the head. Samus ducked and backed up, creating space. Another furious kick came at her at lightning speed. She blocked and returned it with a punch to the chest, which Sheik was able to take without much trouble.

 

Sheik continued on the offensive, throwing Samus into a defensive position. Samus tried to shut off all conscious thought, to give up entirely to the part of herself that was most like a machine, that could only block hits, take hits, and seek out an opponent's weaknesses.

 

Most of the time, Samus had no problem summoning up the mindless fighting machine. But this time, something was off. As she dodged the skillful and precise motions of her opponent, she found herself trying to picture the Hylian princess in the body of the sheikah warrior. They were both one and same. Somewhere in Sheik's powerful punches and kicks, there was Zelda's grace. So why couldn't she see the two as one?

 

Samus ducked under another kick to the head. She lashed out with a punch about a second too late. Sheik dodged easily and came back with another attack. Samus was back on the defensive.

 

Zelda was always careful about when she was Sheik and when she was Zelda. Samus watched her carefully and waited for the change.

 

But the change didn't come.

 

Samus wondered if it was easier to stay as Sheik. Did Sheik feel the same things as Zelda? Was Sheik disappointed that Link didn't show up like he had promised in his letter?

 

Were they two people or one?

 

Samus had met up with Link only days ago on a houseboat in Termina. The old man at the potion shop had pointed her in the direction of the bay, saying that a young man who matched Link's description had been staying there. So she met him there and delivered Zelda's letter. He had read the entire thing in silence, before sitting down to compose one of his own. He had handed it to Samus with an utterly sincere look that she didn't doubt him.

 

Now Samus regretted not dragging him back home by the collar.

 

Who knew, maybe he had to save the world again.

 

A kick to the legs swept her feet out from under her and jarred Samus from her thoughts. The ground slammed against her back so hard she forgot the tuck in her head and knocked it against the stones. The world blurred and spun.

 

Sheik backed off and bowed out. The match was over.

 

Samus rubbed her head and stood up. She must have been really out of practice for battling without her suit.

 

“You were distracted,” Sheik said.

 

“Maybe just out of shape,” Samus replied.

 

“You did well.”

 

“No. You wiped the floor with me.”

 

Sheik considered her for a moment. Then she settled back against the wall. She pulled down her mask. At that moment, she was neither Sheik nor Zelda, but something in between. Samus couldn't decide which one.

 

“Samus,” she said, and the voice was neither that of the sheikah nor that of a Hylian princess. It was that of a wholly different being. Samus had never heard it before.

 

“Can you please tell me what you think of this house?”

 

“Of this house?”

 

“Yes.” Her eyes were on the ground, serious. She looked incredibly tired. “Is it…” She fought for words. “Does it…measure up? As a life's work?”

 

Samus didn't answer right away. She glanced around the temple. The house had many parts to it, many rooms. It could be anything: a racetrack, a dream world, a ruined temple. Many different people called it home: heroes, villains and sidekicks. The house was many different things.

 

“I think,” Samus said, “it's a work in progress. It changes and adapts. It's made up of whatever we put into it. Whatever happens, I think it will survive.”

 

Sheik/Zelda stood completely still. Then she raised her head and looked off at the horizon. Samus wondered if she had said the right thing.

 

“Thank you.”

 

There was too much pain in it though.

 

In a parallel universe, Samus stepped out of her shell. She went and put her arms around the Hylian princess-sheikah warrior. Held her. She gave the right answer. She went out and found the Hero of Time and dragged him all the way home.

 

But in this universe, the only one that existed, she only bowed, went to the door, and stepped out.