The Fractured Holder [Pokémon/LoZ Crossover]

29| Fear and Resolve

According to his parents, those people were called the Gerudo, but his mother never referred to them in that way. They were either "desert scum" or "usurpers." Link had no idea what any of those words meant, but how his mother spoke them told him they were bad things. Apparently they stole from other people and hurt them for no reason. Link began to feel uncomfortable, so he decided to just go back to bed.

As he lay in bed, Link could vaguely hear the conversation between his parents and the Gerudo. But as time went on, it began to sound less like a conversation and more like an argument. Fear began to well up inside Link, and he buried his head under his pillow. He hated it when his parents fought, but combined with the powerful voices of the Gerudo, it was even more frightening.

Questions swarmed Link's mind as the adults' argument continued. What were they yelling about? Had his parents done something bad? Eventually Link was curled up in a ball under his blankets, tensed so hard his limbs ached, wanting desperately to ignore the shouts while grim curiosity still had a hold on him.

Then he heard the screams.

Fear struck Link fast and hard, and his nails dug deep into his palms. He could hardly feel the pain though. There had been several screams, though one stuck out to him the most. It belonged to his mother. Link forced himself out of bed, and on shaking legs, he crept to his door and peered out.

Link could now see the people in the doorway, a quartet of towering Gerudo. One of the Gerudo, a man, was supporting a female as she was moments from collapsing. "Rija!" he cried, clutching her. But what really had Link's attention was his mother. There she was, laying on the ground with his father holding her up. Even from where he was, Link could see the red spreading across the front of her dress.

In moments, Link's curiosity and fear were overtaken by sheer horror. He wasn't stupid, he knew what that was, he'd seen it dripping from the Pokémon his father and his friends brought back from hunting. But this time it wasn't coming from a Sawsbuck, it was his own mother's blood.

Link's stomach ached as something nasty and sour rose in his throat, and he clamped his hands over his mouth so it wouldn't come out. He couldn't stop watching. His mother wasn't moving, and his father was now crying. Link had never seen his father cry before.

"How could this happen?" his father exclaimed, his voice cracking pathetically. "Millia! Millia, please say something!"

The two Gerudo women standing behind the male shouldered their way past him and into the home, looming over Link's parents. "We'll handle this," one of them said.

Link was finally able to move again, and instead of running for his parents, he did the opposite. He retreated into his room, his hands still over his mouth as his eyes were filling with tears. His mother was surely dead, just like those hunted Pokémon. But the Gerudo terrified him more. He could hear his father's muffled voice, loud and panicked. They were going to kill them all, weren't they?

On unsteady legs, Link scrambled onto his bed and pushed open his window, climbing out as quickly as he could. Once on the grass, he ran into the forest behind his house. The foliage swallowed him instantly, but he wasn't about to stop running. He needed to get away from those horrible Gerudo, he didn't want to end up like those Pokémon, like his mother.

Hardly anything was recognizable to Link as he ran through the forest. Everything was washed out with dark blues and drenched in shadow where the moon couldn't leak through. Did the Gerudo have any Pokémon that could track him? The mere thought terrified him all the more and spurred him forwards.

The sound of trickling water filled the air, reaching Link's ears moments before he emerged from the trees onto the bank of a stream. He knew this was the boundary he and his friends weren't allowed to pass when playing in the woods, but for the first time, Link ignored it. The water was cold on his feet, the pebbles lining the bottom of the stream unstable and slippery. He almost fell but caught himself, and then he was past the stream, heading into the unknown forest.