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Perhaps splitting up wasn't the best idea, looking back.
The Chain had ended up in another unfamiliar era, which, fortunately, was nothing new. They just needed to figure out whose era they were closest too, and work from there.
To try and make this task easier, Warriors had decided to they should split up— a solid idea, in Legend's opinion— and assigned them groups. However, unfortunately for Legend, Warriors picked the groups himself, meaning that Legend couldn't just pair up with someone trusted, like Sky or Twilight. Instead, he'd been paired with Wind— no shade to him, of course, he did at least like the guy, but still, the pairing did end up being… problematic.
Legend, of course, didn't know this. In fact, he was more focused on their mission— scouting out the land— that he didn't notice that anything was wrong until the duo stumbled across a monster camp, and Legend began to try and plan.
"There doesn't seem to be that many," Legend noted. "Still, that hinox… what items do you have right now?" While Wind probably did have all of his items, it was better not to risk assumptions, in Legend's opinion. Especially because he still didn't know everything everyone in the group had.
Rather than a verbal response, which was honestly what Legend had expected, Wind began to actually go through his bag and take out all of his items. From the Wind Waker to the hammer.
Legend frowned. Wind was usually happy to chat away about his items, even going as far as to explain how he'd gotten them. What was different this time?
"…right," Legend said instead, looking at the pile while trying to piece together what was what. "Well, what do you think will help the most?"
Wind had to take a moment to think about that, but he eventually picked up his hammer. Hm… Legend could get behind that. It allowed Wind to put some distance between himself and enemies, after all, even if Legend probably prefer arrows, if one was doing that.
"Works for me," he said in reply, then looking through his own items, and comparing them to the camp up ahead.
The monsters seemed to be a mix of Wind's era, as well as Time's. There was a hinox from Four's era too, for whatever reason. Due to the fact that at least two "groups" of them weren't from this era, Legend would dare say that he had the upper hand.
Taking another look at Wind's items, and then the hinox, Legend decided to ask, "say, how many arrows do you have? I've got 43."
Regretfully, the Chain hadn't had the time to restock arrows recently, resulting in their collective arrow count going down slowly. This was, of course, barring Sky, who, for some reason, literally took the arrows that had shot him out of his body for later use. If that wasn't dangerous and reckless? Legend didn't know what was.
Anyway, rather than verbally replying, Wind instead raised his fingers; first was seven, and then making a zero with his fingers. Seventy, then. Alright, Legend could work with that.
Something was still wrong, though. Why wouldn't Wind just… say the number? That wasn't how he was like; not at all. If Wind not rambling about his items was weird? Then this was downright creepy. Although, to be fair to Wind, Legend himself had lost speech before; usually under extreme stress, or right after an adventure (like Koholint, as much as he hated to admit it. He hadn't been able to speak for a while after that), although, this hadn't been an issue for Wind before…
Legend frowned, although he did mentally note the number down. "You alright? Cat got your tongue?"
Wind thought for a bit, then made a "so-so" motion, because that wasn't confusing at all.
"Let me rephrase that: can you speak?"
Wind shook his head. So a temporary loss of speech. Perfect. Just perfect.
"I see…" Legend replied. "Well, we're going to have to find a way to work around that. Do you have anything you can use to communicate?"
As he said that, Legend began digging through his own materials. He did have a journal, but he didn't know Wind's Hylian. It had a different sentence structure, set of rules, characters, and all-in-all, just impossible to translate right now. The Book of Mudora also only translated Time's, Sky's, and Fo— Hm… didn't Four use the same Hylian as Wind?
"Four wouldn't happen to use your Hylian, would you?" Legend asked, opening his book, and digging for both his journal and the Book of Modura. Maybe they'd be able to communicate, after all.
Wind didn't reply, cocking his head in confusion.
"…I asked, does Four use your Hylian? Like, the language?"
That just seemed to make him even more confused.
Legend frowned. What was there to be confused about? He'd been pretty clear: does Four use Wind's Hylian or not?
He sighed, taking out his pen and journal, and writing "Does he use this version of the language?" (using the Book of Mudora as a guide, of course), before handing it to Wind.
Wind's eyes widened, surprised, and he nodded.
Taking the pen and journal from Legend (which he didn't fight— Wind could use a method of communication, anyway, and it wasn't like Wind could actually read the journal), Wind decided to write something.
I have a question: why did you have to ask? Isn't there only one version of Hylian? You were speaking the language anyway, weren't you? Also, who's "Four"? Why would someone be named that, anyway?
…ah. That complicated things. Didn't Wind have memory problems? Maybe those were just acting up again.
"Well, no." Legend replied, still making sure to be quiet— they were pretty close to the camp, after all. "We're all from different eras, remember? The language has changed a lot of the years; you and I may not even come from the same timeline. 'Four's just a nickname, though. Yours is Wind. Speaking of which, Four is the reason we can understand each other. Something about jabbernuts? I'm not really sure."
Jabbernuts? Timelines?
Legend shrugged after taking a moment to decipher what Wind had said. He was worried that Wind didn't remember the timeline thing, but he couldn't worry about that right now.
"Some item from his era. I wouldn't worry too much about it, or the timeline thing, for that matter. What I would worry about, however, is your lack of speech. Do you want to use a flare, or something?" As bad of an idea as that could be, Legend couldn't think of any other way for Wind to quickly communicate, so they would have to take what they could get.
Wind nodded.
"Alright… how much magic do you have left? Think you have enough left for a fire arrow?"
Another nod. Good. They were getting somewhere.
"How about this: if you need help, you fire one of those over me? Don't worry about hurting me. I should be able to hear and move out of the way. If not, I have potions to spare."
A determined expression forming on his face, Wind nodded again. So they were on the same page. Perfect.
"We should attack the monster camp… Think you can get to that wooden platform over there?" Legend pointed to the platform in question, which was rather close to the hinox.
Shooting him a thumbs-up, Wind got his grappling hook ready.
"Perfect. I'm going to take on the smaller monsters, and you can take the hinox. Unless you want to reverse that?" He raised an eyebrow when saying that last part, waiting for Wind's input.
He held up his finger first, and then began writing again. Not long after, he showed Legend the message.
I think I can do that. Should we go now?
"Yeah, we can do that. Ready?"
Upon getting another nod, the two charged into battle.
Legend ran at a moblin from Time's era, and Wind used his hookshot to get up to the platform. Wind was out of Legend's viewpoint, and Legend could only hope that Wind was keeping himself safe.
The moblin swung its club, and Legend narrowly missed it, already sweating a bit. He heard an arrow fly by, but it lacked the familiar sound of magic, so he ignored it. It wasn't too important, anyway. Probably just Wind aiming for the eye.
Legend thrust his sword, managing to draw black blood. The moblin roared, as expected, and a combination of bokoblins and lizalfos surrounded Legend. Ah, so they were playing that game again, weren't they?
He took a deep breath, preparing himself for a spin attack, once again glad that he had practiced it. He did the spin attack, doing the most damage to the bokoblins from Wind's time. Most of the enemies stumbled back. Good. That was what he wanted.
Legend took this opportunity to dig a boomerang out of his bag, throwing it at the moblin, and preparing another spin attack.
Somewhere around him, he heard the hinox stumble. That gave him hope for how Wind was faring, and made him feel a bit confident that Wind was handling himself. The kid wasn't kidding when he said that he was just as capable as them, huh?
After doing another spin attack, knocking down a few monsters, Legend turned his attention back to the moblin, which was preparing another attack. Fortunately, Legend blocked it with his shield, pushing him slightly back.
He swung his sword at the moblin, landing a successful hit. However, because of this, he was too slow to move out of the way of when the moblin swung it's club again. Crap.
Legend took a few stabilizing breaths, ignoring the pain (was he bruised?), before managing to get up and attack again.
The attack finally finished off the moblin, and Legend, still breathing heavily, turned to take care of the rest of the enemies. He decided to use his nice boomerang to try and tackle them, although he had his fire rod prepared too. He could never be too careful, after all.
The nice boomerang took down a few monsters, but not enough for Legend's liking. That was fine, though. One swing of the rod, and the remaining monsters were toast.
A fire arrow flew over Legend's head, and he quickly turned his attention to the hinox. Dang it, just what had happened?
A quick glance over showed that Wind, bow still in his hand, was trying to run away, bleeding from an earlier attack. So, Legend needed to buy Wind time to run away and collect himself. That should be simple enough.
Legend decided that the best way to do this was to nock an arrow and fire, even if it hurt like hell, and he winced the whole time.
Unfortunately, it didn't hit the eye, but it did land. That would have to be good enough for now— Legend wasn't risking drawing another arrow again until he'd taken a potion.
From there, Legend used his fire rod again, since it was already at the top of his bag. Fortunately for him, it seemed that Wind had already dealt enough damage to make the fire rod be the finishing blow, as the hinox crumpled to the ground, dead.
After a few more deep breaths, Legend turned to look at Wind. "You alright?"
Wind nodded, despite clearly being bleeding. Perhaps that wasn't the smartest question…
"Here." Legend said, taking two red potions out of his bag, and handing one to Wind. "Drink."
Taking the bottle, Wind didn't protest much as he drank it, his wounds closing up.
Legend himself drank a red potion, feeling himself sigh of relief as his own injuries healed. So that was one problem handled. Now, to address the elephant in the room…
"If you don't mind me asking," Legend began, taking the bottle back from Wind, "why can't you speak right now? Did something happen earlier?" Legend wouldn't be surprised if something had simply been too loud, or something similar to that. From his own experiences (and Ravio's), that could cause a temporary loss of speech. Wind's reply, however, surprised him.
I'm just… unable to. Is that an issue?
Legend frowned. No, that couldn't be right. Wind had spoken before— in fact, Legend would dare say that he was one of the most talkative members of the Chain. Why was Wind acting otherwise?
Hm… that old possession theory that Legend had previously discarded came back to mind. He'd decided that it wasn't possible due to the fact that possession was usually overt, and also, the Tempered Sword, nor Sky's Master Sword, reacted badly around him. Perhaps it was true, though? Maybe it was an odd body swap spell…
"No," he lied, "although, I wonder… what's your name?"
Wind (or "Wind", he supposed) froze up for a bit, almost… scared?
"Just be honest." Legend told him, sighing. "I'm not going to do anything, if you're worried about that."
Yet, he added mentally. He still didn't know if this was a threat, after all.
Nodding, "Wind" wrote out a response, although he (they?) still looked very uncertain.
Legend, of course, did have to locate the Book of Mudora again, but once he did, it only took a few minutes to translate what was written.
Shell. My name's Shell.
Well, that just confirmed it. This wasn't Wind.
Although… Legend wasn't sure if this was demonic possession, or anything. Again, the Tempered Sword had no reaction, not even a weak one, and Shell, as they'd called themselves, had helped Legend. No malicious entity would do that, he was sure.
Seeing that Shell was looking at him with worry in their eyes, Legend took a deep breath, and asked:
"Alright, Shell. How did you get into this body?"
That just seemed to confuse them, as they began to write again.
What do you mean? I've always been here. This is my body. Am I doing something wrong?
That just made Legend even more confused. Was this actually demonic possession? He'd heard of such cases before… but that didn't add up. Those that possessed others usually knew what they were doing. Shell seemed genuinely convinced that Wind's body belonged to them. That had to mean something. Maybe this was a long con? What benefit would that have though, especially with eight other heroes?
Realizing that Shell was waiting on a response, Legend snapped himself out of his thoughts. "No, not really… just… what do you remember?" Maybe he could figure out how long Shell had been in his friend's body this way.
I remember fighting in a war with Mask and the Captain. If you mean before this… I was coming out from the portal, I think?
Yet another thing that didn't add up. So it had just spontaneously happened? What were the chances of that? Especially with the portal. Not to mention the war… didn't Wind sometimes call Time "Mask"? Shell must've been around for a while, then… but wouldn't Time have noticed that? Ugh, it just didn't make sense!
Legend contemplated whether or not it was worth it to attempt to point the Tempered Sword at Shell. Sure, its powers were diminished compared to what Sky's Master Sword could do, but it was still the Master Sword. He decided not to, though. It wouldn't help the situation.
So, looking at the facts… Shell didn't remember anything from when Wind was in control, Shell had probably been there for a while, and, most importantly, Shell had nothing to gain from this. Their behavior also didn't line up with what malicious possession usually looked like, so that was another point in their favor. In other words: this couldn't be demonic possession, or maybe even possession at all. Especially since Shell didn't seem to know who Wind was.
Deciding that he had no choice but to just trust Shell for now (and maybe observe carefully to see if they made any moves), Legend sighed yet again. "Right… well, come on. There might be a village nearby. Who knows? The others may be there."
They perked up a bit at that, and the two were off.
Legend didn't like what this spelled out. Not at all. If it wasn't possession, then what was it? There was just no way to know. Sure, it at least provided an explanation for Wind's behavior, but at what cost, really? Things were just even more confusing now. The safest option was probably to observe Shell to see if they did anything, then tell someone if something happened. That would have to do for now.
Although… maybe Time had some answers? Legend could only hope that was the case; figuring this out was horrible. Maybe Four knew, too. He'd have to see about that.
For now though, he was at least content to walk along the path to what would hopefully be a village. At least it let him keep a good eye on Shell.
Hm… given their performance earlier… perhaps they were trustworthy, after all? Legend would have to see about that, but part of him did hope that it was true.
That was a later issue, though. For now—
"Hey, don't just step off-course like that! Don't you know that it's dangerous?"
—He'd have to actually make it somewhere, and that was going to be a challenge.