Chapter Text
Finley eyed her opponent with caution as she caught her breath during a lull in the fight. Robbie was widely known as an unpredictable and dangerous opponent whose mind was as sharp as his blade. Even after fighting him nearly every week for the past nine months that she had been Purah’s guard, their spars still required a good bit of effort on her part. Purah lounged nearby on the low wall of the courtyard to the Royal Ancient Lab, shuffling through her notes while her two friends fought. With a sigh she sat up and eyed the two before making a decision.
“If you insist on fighting instead of researching, at least make it interesting,” she huffed with an eye roll, leaning back to catch the sunlight.
Finley shot a look toward her and Robbie took advantage of her distraction. She twisted around his sword and shoved an elbow in his gut before reaching deep down to the well of power Impa had helped her harness. With a flick of her fingers, Finley vanished, flash stepping back a few feet. Robbie stumbled, surprised at her sudden magic use, before grinning with a glint in his eyes.
“Oh, so we’re getting serious now, are we? Oh yes, bring it!” He grinned excitedly, flexing his hand in preparation for magic.
“Well, we wouldn’t want Purah getting bored. Things tend to explode when that happens,” Finley shot back, ignoring Purah’s indignant shout in the background.
“Are you sure about that? Explosions can lead to radical discoveries,” he asked, ever the pyromaniac. Without waiting for a reply, he teleported behind her and grazed her arm as she jumped back. The fight began in earnest as the two started using magic. As a Sheikah, Robbie was extremely agile and fast, slashing with a speed that made his sword blur.
Yet Finley hadn’t trained in the Sheikah arts for years and mentored under Impa with no results. Her instinctive grasp of magic allowed her to teleport and speed up with much less effort than her opponent. Finley’s blue eyes flashed as she detected movement to her left and spun on her heel to block Robbie’s short sword with one of her own, magic allowing her to be fast enough to catch the blade inches away from her face but failing to stop a few blond hairs from being cut off.
“True, but we both know Purah’s brand of explosions just end up with me explaining to the knights why everything is on fire, again.” Finley smirked and used her body weight as leverage to force Robbie to step back and disengage. Robbie eyed her as she flexed her wrist while readjusting her grip on her weapon before she shot into motion. The courtyard rang with sounds of steel on steel as the two crossed blades between backflips, rolls, and teleporting.
“After which they completely overreacted! That explosion was from an actual functioning guardian beam. It was progress in visible form! Imbeciles, every snapping one of them. I knew that connecting the two circuits would cause the weapons network to activate, but it’s not my fault that the last command given was to fire,” Purah sniffed. Those knights wouldn’t recognize a scientific breakthrough if their noses were shoved into it. Finley lifted a brow at that and ducked under Robbie’s fist to turn and look at Purah.
“Every one of them?” she questioned wryly, emphasizing the first word. Purah had the decency to wipe the high and mighty look from her face but stuck to her statement.
“Yes, each and every one. Don’t try to pretend like your brother is any different. We all know the truth here Fin,” Purah cocked her head in question. Not long after Finley shrugged in agreement and swung her sword at Robbie’s neck but was blocked.
“Yeah, he’s pretty much an idiot. No fancy sword or special Hero title is going to change that,” Finley agreed. Robbie let out a chuckle as he hopped away from the dagger Finley suddenly pulled in her off hand.
“We’d never know that if it weren’t for you. He’s got everybody fooled,” Robbie just barely finished his sentence before yelping and instinctively teleporting out of the path of the dagger flying towards his eye. Finley landed behind his previous position in time to grab the dagger and block the throwing knives he sent in retaliation. Purah laughed at the noise, shooting Robbie a joking sneer.
“Such a wuss Robbie. She’s not that scary,” Robbie glared at Purah before rushing Finley, catching her off balance and sending her stumbling back while trying to evade his strikes.
“How about you fight her then?!” Purah shook her head rapidly, grabbing her abandoned notes and waving them in the air.
“Snap, no thank you! I’m sticking to the books. Research is my gig while you two hit things with metal sticks.” This comment got her a stink eye from both fighters, but Purah was unphased. “Talking about research, let me pick your brain Fin!” At Finley’s nod, Purah stopped gesturing with her notes and shuffled through them. After squinting at one page and tilting another, she managed to read the chicken scrawl she called her professional shorthand note taking.
“So those ancient cores have geometrical patterns like the ones found in the divine beasts. But there’s a discrepancy in the shapes, causing the cores to have a somewhat raised button on them. Any attempts to activate this assumed button have completely flopped. There’s no snapping way in. We’ve tried everything! Pressing it, exposing it to other tech, shocking it, freezing it, and even setting it on fire! Which was awesome by the way. But it refuses to do anything!” Purah grit her teeth in frustration. Finley was quiet for a minute, dodging Robbie’s fist and stabbing with her dagger at his retreating arm before he teleported back to add a comment.
“The closest we’ve gotten to cracking the core was when a guardian’s beam hit near one. The core glowed blue for a sec before returning to yellow. It was a huge downer when nothing else happened. No difference in the affected core afterwards either,” Robbie grunted in between strikes. Finley considered the situation and the two scientists gave her time. She always took a while to process a question about ancient tech, but her perspective was often unpredicted and led to results.
Finley thought back to the visions Farore had shown her over her lifetime. As the twin to the Hero of Courage, she had a heightened ability with magic and often saw visions of the Heroes and Princesses of legend. After her near death in Zora’s Domain when she was younger, she had started to see visions of the future. This caused her to learn that her twin Link was the Link from the legends - the Hero that wields the Sword that Seals the Darkness. This revelation caused the twins to seriously start training hard at a young age. In her visions Finley watched her brother fight through a wild Hyrule alone, the land devastated after a century of the Calamity infecting the world. One of the weapons he often came across and used in her visions caught her attention – the guardian sword. Finley started thinking aloud, making sure to avoid any mention of her visions. Only Link knew about those and that was how it was going to stay.
“If the core reacted to the guardian’s laser, then there must be something about concentrated energy that changed its color. We know the significance of color in tech and changing from yellow to blue is indicative of user access controls being initialized. Is there any tool or object that is pure energy? Something like the guardian beam… Wait, Robbie. Weren’t you working on guardian weapons?” At Robbie’s nod, Finley fell even deeper into thought. This resulted in her starting to fight Robbie instinctually, pressing him hard. Robbie was shocked at her sudden increase in ability as she stopped focusing on the fight as much. She also didn’t see the two figures riding up the hill to the lab. Robbie was too pressed to do much to greet them but Purah perked up at the sight of the princess and her appointed knight of three months. Oblivious to the company, Finley kept talking as she gained the upper hand in the spar.
“So, if concentrated ancient energy activated the user controls, maybe the energy from the weapon could replicate the guardian’s beam. If ancient energy has a higher frequency than anything around it, which it must have in order to concentrate light in such a powerful and destructive form, would the change activate the ability to open the core? If what we think is a button is actually a receiver for the energy, we could theoretically open the core and see the inner workings. Yet, the concentration of energy must be pure enough to replicate a guardian beam and strong enough to trip the security gateways. Robbie’s weapons might not be enough to do that. Would a guardian’s eye be a good enough conductor to purify and amplify the energy from the weapons? If the eye is what focuses the guardian’s beams as we suspect, it may be powerful enough to work on the-“ Finley stopped suddenly at the sound of horses nearby. She paused as she took in the scene.
Robbie had been disarmed and was flat on his back with her sword pressed to his neck as she theorized aloud. Purah was ignoring her fellow scientist’s pleas for help to greet Princess Zelda with a smile. Zelda was politely nodding at Purah’s words but her wide eyes were fixed on Finley. Link stood in the background radiating amusement without a single outward sign of emotion, yet Finley was the only one that caught his true feelings. Finley looked down at Robbie with an even stare.
“Really? I wasn’t even paying attention! You need to increase your training man,” Finley raised a brow at Robbie’s reddening face before sheathing her weapons and turning to the princess with a bow.
“Your highness. Apologies for my inattentiveness.” Zelda could only nod dumbly at Finley’s apology, shocked to have seen someone fighting Robbie with Sheikah magic and winning, all while discussing theoretical hypotheses on ancient technology. A girl about her own age nonetheless! Before Zelda could come up with a reply, Purah pulled her attention away with a list of questions while Robbie jumped up and started storming over to Finley with a tick in his brow.
“I can’t believe you! All this time you were holding back in our spars?!” Finley looked at him with a hand on her hip and a raised eyebrow, nearly rolling her eyes in exasperation.
“Of course I was holding back! I can’t just break Hyrule’s top weapons researcher. What did you expect from the Hero’s twin, huh? I’ve been training since I was eight years old!” Finley turned from Robbie, ignoring his sputtering to pounce on Link. She trapped him in a hold that he halfheartedly tried to escape.
“And you! I heard what you’ve been up to. Seriously, are you still daft enough to take on a Hinox alone?! All the guards are talking about it - you are lucky you didn’t get hurt. You have no common sense. Hero or not, you are always going to be helpless without me around,” Finley growled at her brother while emphasizing her words with light hits. Link smiled slightly and let out a small chuckle at Finley’s antics.
As Purah dragged Zelda inside the lab, the princess was in shock that Link, her oh so stoic and boring knight, was chuckling and smiling. Zelda had never known Link had siblings, much less a twin. As the door closed on the scene outside, Zelda’s shock turned to resentment. The first sign of a possible friend to discuss ancient technology and scientific advancements with and of course she was his sister. Things she worked so hard for and failed to achieve just fell into that Hero’s lap with no effort on his part. He had the people’s admiration, her father’s approval, and the fulfillment of his role. Why would companionship be any different? Yet, despite her anger a spark of curiosity lingered deep in her heart as she remembered his expression. A smile, eyes full of love, a chuckle filling the air over his sister’s friendly admonishments – it was the first sign that a person was under the blank mask the knight always wore. For all her effort to remain apathetic towards Link, the princess couldn’t ignore her researcher’s curiosity about what else he was hiding behind a stony expression.