"So... which one of y'all's going first?" Fyer asked. "I ain't got all day."

No one moved forward.

===The Gerudo Desert===

"... But there's another tale told by my people. Though the goddesses forbade us to return to the world of light, they left one link between the light and the darkness. Something called the Mirror of Twilight was passed to the protectors of Hyrule," Midna continued on her tale, having stopped Link after he had recovered from his flight. She knew that the others would be a while before coming. She floated over to his side, so she could look at him directly. "Its our only path to the Twilight Realm... and we must get there!"

She placed her small hand, the one with the various glowing tattoos, on his cheek. A warm gesture. "You'll come with me... won't you?"

Link only smiled, and the imp removed her hand, looking slightly embarrassed by her actions. "By the way... you might want to move," she said, as she retreated to his shadow.

Perking up, he looked around, then turned back towards the lake. And heard the voice coming in from afar. He stepped back a few steps, as the voice grew louder.

"... aaaaaaaAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH--"

With no time left to spare, Link threw himself to the sand at his side, as R.D. hit the ground hard, causing an explosion of sand to kick up into the air, his scream cut short in the impact. Coughing, the boy stumbled out of the dune, and Link walked over, holding his hand out.

"If I ever see that fat little man ever again," R.D. growled out, hacking up what seemed like a lung as he accepted the hand and was pulled up. "I'm gonna kill him."

"Let's get out of the way," Link said, dusting himself off. "Your friends will be coming in soon, right?"

"If Matt and Alasea's able to shove Helena into the cannon, maybe," R.D. muttered, then coughed again as he stumbled off out of the way. "Ileyna and Hugo already took off, opted to fly in. It might take them a bit to get here."

Eventually something did arc towards them. It was screaming like R.D., but this time it was a word.

"...fuuuuuUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUC-"

Matt smashed into the desert sand the same way R.D., with the same kind of noise and explosive impact. He stumbled from his impressive wreckage, drawing off his sack and letting it fall to the ground. "Next time," he said to no one, "I'M riding in the bag." With that, he toppled.

The sack wriggled. Finally the buttoned lid popped off, and Helena's head poked out, glancing around before wrestling her body from the sack's dimensional folds.

"... I didn't know you could do that with that kind of bag," R.D. commented, where he was sitting on the dune.

"You can't," came Alasea's slightly muffled voice as she pulled herself out after Helena. "It doesn't have air for us, so I had to rig it."

Finally pulling herself out, she fell back onto the sound. "Oh wow, that trip wasn't pleasant," she commented, ignoring the venomous looks R.D. and Matt were giving her at that moment.

After several moments, they could see a familiar blue light in the air, and soon enough, Ileyna settled down onto the sand, Hugo held carefully in her arms. "Are you all right?" she asked. "I saw both of you get fired."

Edited by RisingDragon on February 24, 2010 at 12:03:55.

Hugo leapt down, kicking up sand out from his little feet. "See, that wasn't so bad."

Matt lifted a finger, still lying flat. "Shut uuuuuuuuuup!"

"Settle down, all of you," Link said calmly. "We're going to be waiting here for a while, until nightfall. Its simply too hot to attempt travel right now."

"Sounds good to me," R.D. said, stretching his legs out. "I wouldn't mind resting up a bit after getting shot out of a cannon."

Link nodded, and pointed off to the side. A short distance a ways, there was a rocky protrusion from there ground, where they could rest and set up camp without having to worry too much about the sand. "We'll make camp over there for now."

Helena held out a hand, bending over Matt's form. "Thanks for helping me out, Matt. I really appreciate it."

Grimacing, Matt slapped his grasp around Helena's hand. "You're just lucky I'm a sucker for a pretty girl."

"Thank you." The weredragon's impressive strength easily pulled Matt up, and he dusted his hands and pants off before scooping down to retrieve the sack.

Matt slung it over his shoulder. "And since I don't see any of those around here, you'll have to do." He raised his hands as Helena balled her fists up and reared back. "I'm just messin' around, calm down!"

Alasea put a hand on Helena's fist and shook her head. "You can punch him after he's done setting up camp for us," she said. "Now come on, let's get out of this sun."

R.D. stood up and gathered up his things as Link surveyed the area a bit. "There anything here we should be wary of?" he asked.

"I'm not sure. The Gerudo Desert's been blocked off for a reason, so no one's really been here in decades," he called back. "We'll have to be careful when its time to go to the prison."

"Good." Matt slapped the side of his pants pocket. "Because you know what we're gonna do when we start travelling again? We're not gonna bother with wagons or birds or cannons or any of that other CRAP. We're gonna use MY CAR, okay?

Helena lowered her fists. "Can it even go over these dunes without messing up?"

"It'd better."

"We'll worry about it later," R.D. said, waving it off as he went over to the small plateau, where he set his stuff down.

"Helena, didn't you say you wanted to learn how to fly?" Alasea asked, as she sat down onto the rock.

"Yeah, I did." Helena drew her pack off of her shoulder and let it fall with a whump next to the rock. "Why?"

"Don't you think this would be a great place to start learning?" Alasea pointed out. "I mean, look at it--its wide and open so there's little obstacles, and its hot as hell, so there's going to be plenty of thermals to work with."

Helena scanned the desert horizon. "You're right. Though I think I should start by improving my gliding."

"I'll help you out, then," Matt said.

"Matt, you don't have wings," Hugo pointed out. The Mettaur was recharging his batteries - they probably weren't that empty to begin with. "How are you going to teach her to glide?"

"I'm not," Matt said, dusting off his hands. "I figured I'd just catch her if she fell. That's the best I can do, really."

"He can also help her using the wind element on the Genesis Arm," R.D. pointed out.

"And if nothing else, she could at least chase him around as a dragon and provide us entertainment," Alasea said cheekily, getting a giggle from Ileyna.

Helena laughed. "Yeah, I could nibble on his shoes or something."

"Eh heh heh heh heh," Matt said, mocking their laughter. "Whatever. Anyway, I'll use the wind to keep you up, but you have to get up first on your own, okay? You gotta learn to do it by yourself."

"Okay, that's fair." Pushing back her bangs, Helena turned away from the group and took a few big steps away from the rock. She spread her hands out from her hips, pausing for a few moments before bending over, her wings already straining underneath her shirt before bursting through.

"See, this is why we keep buying her clothes," Matt told Link as Helena held onto her knees, resting while her wings spread out to their full width.

Link nodded. "Must be a hassle," he remarked, watching the girl transform.

"We have a device that can repair her clothing," R.D. explained. "The trick is for her to transform without turning her clothing to scrap, because it can only repair so much."

Link nodded, then called out. "Just don't glide too far. We still haven't figured out what's hiding out here."

As Matt walked out to help Helena, she turned around and called back, "I won't!"

And so, they went about waiting for nightfall. While Helena and Matt worked on training Helena on how to glide and fly, R.D. approached Link, wanting to learn those unique sword techniques that the green-clad warrior had used against the Heartless--he was always eager to increase his fighting prowess, as every bit he learned went that far in protecting him back in his home dimension.

After a short bit of discussion, Link nodded and brought out a wooden shield emblazoned with the face of one of those strange round-horned goats they had seen back in Castle Town before they left. They walked off a ways, discussing something before facing off from one another a set distance apart.

"Hey, Hugo," Alasea spoke up from where she sat, her arms hugging her legs to her chest. R.D. held his heavy sword in his left hand, like Link did with the Master Sword, and they tapped the blades together in some kind of dueling ceremony or something. "Did you ever notice that R.D.'s ambidextrous?"

Edited by RisingDragon on February 24, 2010 at 20:02:37.

"When I first met him," Hugo answered.

"... of course you noticed then," Alasea said, remembering that Hugo was a robot and thus would take in that kind of detail right away. "Do you think he knows?"

"What do you mean?" Ileyna asked, sitting next to her.

"Well, R.D.'s always using his right hand for everything," Alasea noted. "But if you hand something to him from his left side, he uses it just as easily with his left hand as he does his right. And I'm sure you've seen him use those Phase Blades of his. He's a damn nightmare with those."

"That's for sure," Hugo said. "What made you bring that up?"

"He's matching Link's hand placement instinctively, looks like," Alasea pointed out. "Even though he's set himself up to use his right hand."

Ileyna winced as Link quickly smashed his shield against R.D.'s, causing him to stagger. Then, without pause, Link leaped over him, flipping over while slashing with his sword--the tip of the weapon passed by R.D.'s head by only an inch before Link landed behind him and swung around, resting his sword right next to his neck. He said something too quiet for the girls to hear before both relaxed and R.D. turned around, ready to go again.

"... so was that something he's had before he lost his memories, or just something he picked up because he had amnesia?" Alasea finished, having paused with her heart caught in her throat from the spectacle.

Hugo moved forward, hopping off the rock to get a better view of the sword fight. "People can train themselves to be ambidextrous, but it can be difficult," he said. "But R.D. never had problems with it, so he's probably been that way all his life and never forgot how."

The two swordsmen switched off, now that R.D. knew the form and technique of the Helm-Splitter. After getting his bearings, he pressed onto the offensive, slamming the Ordon Shield into Link's Hylian Shield and knocking him back.

"Yeah, I guess so," Alasea replied, watching as R.D. jumped up, attempting to perform the same feat as Link did before, though not aiming at Link himself. "I wonder what else he's picked up from his memories," she said a little more quietly.

The unmistakable form of Helena now coasted towards the camp. She had gotten an impressive height, and slowly floated down towards them. "Hi!" she called down at them, waving.

"I said watch what you're doing!" Matt snapped in the distance.

Matt's advice came too late - Helena's wave threw off her balance. She tilted to one side, then the other as she abruptly dropped. Her scream rang out as Matt leapt into action, bursting towards the scene with the power of the wind gem. His arms met Helena's body to catch her at the right time, and he killed his flight, skidding forward through the sand on his knees.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaoooooooooooooow," he groaned, his expression and pose frozen.

"You two okay?" Alasea called out, standing up and proceeding over to them, readying a Healing Palm spell just in case. "That was a pretty nasty fall you took."

R.D. looked over at the commotion, halting his sparring session, and Link decided to drive in a lesson home. He threw himself to the side in a complicated roll, coming around in a half-circle and catching R.D.'s attention--R.D. snapped back to him much too late, and Link pushed off the ground and slammed a palm into his shoulder, knocking the boy off his feet and causing him to face-plant into the sand.

Sputtering, R.D. pushed himself up. "What was that for?!" he demanded as Link held a hand out to him, the Master Sword stuck into a dune beside him.

"You lost your concentration and left yourself open for a Back Slice," Link said. "Think of it as a reminder for what could happen in a real fight."

"Yeah, yeah," R.D. muttered as he allowed himself to be hauled up. "Guess we're trying that move now?"

Link nodded. "Should be useful if your opponent is handy with a shield and too quick to use a Helm Splitter on."

"I'm okay," Helena said. She scampered out his arms and looked down at him, still frozen. "You okay, Matt?"

"My kneeeeeees," Matt whined.

Hugo scoffed. "Grow up. You've been hit with a lot worse than that."

Alasea sighed and knelt down next to Matt, using her Healing Palm spell to try and heal whatever minor damage he took. "I don't even know who's more reckless, you or R.D.," she muttered. "You could've taken flight and landed instead, you know."

Behind her, the sounds of swords slashing through the air one after another signaled R.D. and Link resuming their training session. "There, that should do it," Alasea said, standing up.

"Well, it DIDN'T work like that, did it?" Matt stood back up and dusted off his pants. "Anyway, thanks for the heal."

"Sorry I fell," Helena said, folding her wings up. "Can we try again?"

Matt grimaced. "Well, I don't know how far I'll be able to go on my injured knees, but I guess I'll give it a shot!" He turned and began walking back towards the practice spot, while Helena giggled and followed.

After several hours, and a few mishaps spread out between the party that Alasea needed to heal, the light of the sky began to change, slowly going from blue to pink to orange as the sun finally began to set. With it, the air began to cool, though a little too rapidly for R.D.'s tastes.

"... looks like this desert's going to get cold," R.D. said as he gathered up their things. He pulled out the red cloak that had come with his outfit, while Alasea looked through their bags and found similar cloaks that she and Helena could use.

"Just keep moving and we should be fine," Link said, standing up on the high dune to look out at their surroundings. Off in the distance, a large, off-centered pillar of white stone could be seen, sticking high above the ground. Even further off, right of the pillar, were the six golden spires of the prison they were trying to reach, hiding behind several rocky plateaus. "Will you be ready to go soon?"

Matt lifted a hand. "Hold up. We're not gonna be chumps and hoof it, all right? We're takin' my car." He dug in his pocket for the folded square. "I dunno if it's got a heater, though, so y'all better bundle up, anyway."