Story: Attached (chapter 6)

Authors: Grain

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Chapter 6

Title: Training

Zelda closed her eyes and let the wind rush over her as she rode her horse through the country side. She opened them again to take in the beautiful scenery of Hyrule. Riding always made her feel free; free from concerns of royalty. She kicked the horse "Hiya, hiya. Faster." Now in full gallop she was bouncing up and down on the horses back. "Zelda," a voice called. Who was it? She looked around but saw no one. Bouncing, "Zelda..." Up and down, "Zelda... "

Slowly opening her eyes, the dim room took shape. "Zelda." She was still bouncing. "Zelda. wake up." Samus was standing over her; her foot up on the edge of the bed, rhythmically bouncing it. She was wearing the same T-shirt she usually wore to bed, but was now fully dressed wearing blue jeans and sneakers as well, she was also wearing her leather jacket.

"What... what is it?" Zelda said sleepily.

"Its morning, time to get up."

Zelda sat up. "My bed... How did I... That's right, you carried me." She smiled. "Thank you."

"Come on, get up already."

"You know, you've really come around."

"What are you talking about?"

"At first you wouldn't even talk to me, now you're being so nice to me all the time."

"Its nothing, you think too much... Just come on and get out of bed, unless you don't want me to train you."

"Oh, that's right, you promised yesterday at lunch, I had forgotten with all that happened afterwards. But... my ankle... I can't."

"Your ankle is fine." Samus quickly took Zelda's hands in hers, then lunged back into the room, pulling Zelda up out of bed and several feet across the floor, forcing her to take several hard steps on the ground. "See?"

"It... it doesn't even feel sore!" She said, completely surprised by both the condition of her ankle and Samus' abrupt actions. "I suppose that thing you put on me worked."

"Yeah. So, ready to go then?"

"Wait, let me wash up and change my clothes first, I wore this all yesterday and to bed. And also I'm starving; I haven't eaten since lunch yesterday."

Samus rolled her eyes and sighed "Alright, go change, then well get some breakfast," she said reluctantly.

Zelda giggled, "Ha, that was cute how you acted all annoyed."

"Uhh... I..." Cute? She found that term particularly obnoxious, especially when applied to her, yet when Zelda said it, it sounded entirely different. How did she do that? Zelda could completely disarm her with a mere look or word. Her carefully constructed defenses and mental focus could be destroyed in an instant by this girl. It happened in their match when she hesitated to strike, and again at lunch when she found herself, without even realizing, divulging things that she'd preferred not to. Then her ever vigilant and suspicious mind entertained the idea that Zelda was in fact an agent of one of her enemies sent to distract her to death, but then quickly dismissed it. 'Ugh, how pathetic am I? She's just a normal girl.'

"Well come on, lets go."

"Uh, right."

After grabbing something to eat from the cafeteria they made their way to the training facilities. Zelda had never been there before and was unfamiliar with the place. There was a corridor with eight identical rooms, four on each side. These rooms were similar to the main arena in that they could recreate almost any environment, only they were a lot smaller and each had a control panel inside the room so that the user could set up training exercises as they wanted. The room was circular with a slightly raised platform in the center that took up most of the room. Zelda stepped up onto the platform, and spun around taking in the whole room, extending her arms as she spun.

"Lets get started, Zelda," Samus called out to her.

"Umm... Samus, thanks for taking the time to do this, I really appreciate it."

"I don't mind really."

"No, I mean it... Thank you. This means a lot to me. This is the reason I came to this arena in the first place. To get stronger I mean."

Samus nodded "...I understand..."

After taking another spin to look around the room Zelda asked, "So where do we begin? I remember you told me several things I need improvement on."

"That's right, you're quite slow, one of the slowest fighters I've seen here. You get tunnel vision, meaning you tend to focus only on one thing at a time. Probably the worst flaw though is that you lack even the most basic knowledge of any kind of martial arts. You're also somewhat undisciplined, meaning even with the things you do know to do, and know how to do correctly, you sometimes fail to do them."

"Ouch, that sounds pretty bad. You could tell all that from just that one match we had?"

"Mostly, but I'd seen you fight a few other times. I sometimes watch other matches to scope out the competition."

"Oh, I see."

"Alright, I'll start by teaching you some basic martial arts. This is your most serious problem and also the easiest to fix."

Samus walked over to the console hit a few buttons and made something appear in the center of the room. It was a humanoid figure; its body was featureless and somewhat translucent. It just stood there in a fighting stance not moving much. Samus removed her jacket, laid it over the console and walked up and stood in front of the figure.

"Any martial art consists of sets of moves that can be classified as punches, kicks, blocks, or grabs and throws. Punches and kicks are your primary means of attack, blocks are a defensive move and grabbing and throwing can be defensive or offensive. Come over here." Zelda approached and stood a few feet away. "I want you to watch carefully what I do, I'll demonstrate each type of move, then I want you to repeat it."

"Ok," Zelda nodded.

One by one Samus went over several types of punches and kicks, attacking the virtual dummy with each one. Every time she knocked it down it would relentlessly get back up and return to its pose. After demonstrating a move she then had Zelda perform that same move on it. Samus was impressed with the speed Zelda was able to learn, she only ever needed to show her the move once, and after only several attempts she was able to flawlessly replicate it.

When it came time to demonstrate blocking Samus had Zelda attack her, while she blocked. Once she got the idea they switched and Samus would attack Zelda while she blocked. After she got the hang of blocking Samus decided to throw random attacks at her and let her decide which kind of block to use. After taking several hits, Zelda got a bit frustrated.

"How am I supposed to know what attack you are going to use? They all happen so fast," she complained.

"Watch my feet and legs." Samus walked over to the dummy and repeated each of the moves she had taught Zelda "See, no matter what move I do, my legs move first. Most of the time you can tell what attack is coming sooner if you recognize the leg movements." She repeated the series of attacks again.

"I see, ok let's try again."

Samus resumed throwing random attack at her; quickly Zelda began improving her blocking ratio, stopping more and more of Samus' attacks, though Samus wasn't being all that vigorous in her efforts. As Zelda began stopping all her attacks she picked up the pace. "Good, that's really good, but now instead of just standing in one place I'm going to be moving around, this will make it harder to detect my leg movements." Zelda nodded. Though she found it more difficult she was still able to block the majority of Samus' attacks, and slowly improved as they went on. 'She really learns quickly,' Samus thought to herself. When they were finished with blocking exercises Samus showed Zelda grabbing and throwing.

"Alright, now its time to combine every thing you've learned." Samus returned to the console and hit a few buttons. The virtual manikin came to life and came straight at Zelda. "Defend yourself!" Samus called out. It kicked at her and she managed to block it, but its next attack connected, as well as the one after that. Its moves were different than the ones Samus had been using, and she couldn't read them, though it wasn't hitting her very hard at all.

"Pay attention to its movements; learn them and how to block each one."

Zelda watched its feet every time it attacked to learn the way it moved, though taking a beating in the process. Eventually though she was able to block its attacks.

"Don't just block, you need to attack it. That thing will never get tired, so if you just block all the time it will eventually overwhelm you."

Zelda started throwing attacks at it but only got blocked then counter attacked. She tried again with a different attack but with the same result.

"Attacking leaves you open and unable to block, you need to look for an opening. If you block one of its attacks then it will be open briefly."

"Right." Zelda took Samus' advice and tried blocking then counterattacking, and managed to connect with a kick. But her attack did little to the virtual fighter and it immediately hit her back, knocking her down. Samus jumped up on the platform and got in between them.

"Watch," she shouted. She attacked the fighter, limiting her moves to only the ones she had taught Zelda. She quickly took it down with a rapid succession of attacks as Zelda watched in amazement. She moved so much faster than Zelda and hit very hard; even without the armor her abilities were impressive.

"That was incredible," Zelda said as she slowly got to her feet. "I don't think I hit it hard enough, that's why it was able to hit me right back."

"That's right. If your attacks deal no damage they won't stun your opponent and you'll just be left open again. Though when you hit me yesterday you were able to shatter my armor, how'd you do that?"

"Magic. ...though I'm not really sure how I did it, I just reacted without thinking. I'd never used it in that way before. Mostly I use it to make a shield, and sometimes I use it to make a fireball that I can attack with from a distance."

"That's good, punching and kicking aren't our only weapons. You should make use of every ability you have. Though I can't help you with magic, you'll have to figure that out on your own."

She thought on it a minute. "It was like I channeled energy into my hand, and released it on contact."

"Do you think you can do it again?"

"I believe so."

"Show me," she again changed something on the console and the virtual fighter was reset and stood lifeless in the center of the room.

Zelda stood in front of it, she closed her eyes and concentrated, summoning up her magic. Then all of a sudden she punched the dummy in the face. But nothing happened, then a half second later she cried out in pain and retracted her arm. Her hand and forearm had sparks of residual magic energy glittering across them. She grabbed her wrist and winced.

"You alright," Samus said rushing up on to the platform, "What happened?"

"I'm ok... I don't think I did that right."

"Is your arm injured?"

Zelda opened and closed her hand and twirled her wrist around. "No, it's ok."

"Do you want to try again?" Zelda nodded "Try striking open palm, that's how you hit me."

"Right." Zelda again tried striking the dummy, this time it was hit with the magic energy, though it wasn't really affected much, just the same residual sparkle as before. "That was good but it wasn't close to what you did to me," Samus said. Zelda tried again; this time when she made contact there was a loud pop sound and the dummy was thrown to the ground. "See, there you go, though I think you can do much better, try it several more times."

"Ok." When the virtual punching bag had stood up again, she repeatedly attacked it, trying different methods with varying degrees of success. Eventually she found what worked and what didn't and was able to consistently knock it back with fairly severe force.

"That's excellent Zelda, with that technique you're hitting harder than I ever could without my armor."

"You really think so!" Zelda said sounding a bit over excited.

"Yeah, I think you've got the basics down. We should move on."

"Ok I'm ready, what's next?" she said eagerly.

"Well I said before you're too slow. Having a powerful attack won't do you any good if you can't make contact."

"No I guess not. So how do I become faster?"

"You don't, not in one day at least. It would take months of intense physical conditioning to actually increase the speed your body moves." Zelda looked a bit disappointed. "However, you can compensate for it. Your body may be slow, but I've noticed you mind works very fast."

"Oh, it does? Thank you. But how does that help?"

"Have you ever played chess?

"Oh yes, I'm actually quite good at it."

"Well combat is like chess, you have to look several moves ahead and try to force your opponent to make a move he doesn't want to; something that works against him or leaves him open to an attack."

"I think I understand, but fighting happens a lot faster than a game of chess, there's not enough time to think ahead. I don't think I could do something like that."

"You're right, you don't have much time to think, but your opponent doesn't either. Besides I know you can, I've already seen you do it."

"What do you mean?"

"During the match we had together, you fought Pichu. Remember? That thing is one of the faster opponents you'll find here. But it doesn't think ahead at all, it only reacts, relying entirely on instinct. Remember how you were able to hit it?"

"That's right; I tricked it into hitting itself by reflecting its attack back at it, and once it was stunned I was able to hit it with my own attack."

"Exactly, despite it being much faster than you, you were able to hit it by thinking ahead, though it won't be as easy when you face smarter opponents."

"So what do I need to do?"

"Well just like chess you need to recognize situations and learn how to turn them to your favor, this can only be done through practice though. So I'm going to have you fight one of these guys..." Samus gestured to the virtual fighter standing in the center of the room. "But I'm going to make it harder than before. I can change around their various attributes, like speed, strength, or skill level. I'm going to make it faster than you so you will always have to rely on cunning to get an advantage over it."

"How will I know what to do?"

"It's not as hard as it seems, you should be able to get the hang of it after a while. Just try to put yourself in your opponent's position, and try to think of what you would do to defeat yourself, more often than not it's the same thing they are thinking of. If there's anything obvious I think you're missing I'll let you know."

"Alright, I'm ready."

For the next few hours Zelda fought against her virtual opponent while Samus observed and provided advice. When Zelda had improved enough to consistently best her opponent Samus would increase its speed or skill level a small amount to constantly provide a challenge. Again Samus marveled at the speed with which she learned this stuff. She though back to her childhood when she first learned these skills under the direction of her Chozo guardians. They would frequently admonish her for not learning fast enough, not paying attention, or needing to have things explained multiple times.

Once Samus was convinced she'd progressed far enough she stopped the exercise. "Zelda! That's enough, you've got this. Let's move on."

"Wait. Can we take a break, I'm starving, and it's well past lunch time."

"I thought as much. Here." Samus reached into her jacket and remove a small sealed container. Zelda recognized these containers; they gave them out in the cafeteria to store leftovers. Samus must have gotten this when they stopped in for breakfast this morning.

"You brought a lunch for me?" Zelda was pleasantly surprised "Thank you."

"I thought you'd get hungry, I... didn't want to waste time running off to the cafeteria."

Zelda took the plastic box from Samus and sat on the edge of the raised platform. "You know, you really are a considerate person, even though you try and act like you don't care about anything most of the time."

Samus didn't respond, she just stood leaning over the console staring at Zelda.

"Samus?"

"uh... I'm not... really." She said a bit defensively.

Zelda sighed and opened her lunch; it was a grilled chicken breast sandwich. 'She remembered I said I like poultry.' She smiled. "Come sit with me," she said.

Samus came and sat down beside her. "Here," she offered half her sandwich to Samus.

"No that's alright; I don't need to eat now."

"You sure? It wouldn't be polite to eat while you have nothing."

"It's ok, I don't mind. Besides... I... got that for you," she said looking away.

Zelda smiled and nodded. "Thank you," she said and bit into her lunch.

"You've improved so much today, it's really impressive," Samus said suddenly.

"You're impressed with me?" Zelda said truly shocked.

"Yeah. When I first started training it took me a week to learn what you've picked up in just a few hours, though I was only a child at the time. I think you must be a natural."

"No, it's not that. It's always been like this with anything I learn. It's an ability I have."

"Well that's pretty incredible in itself."

"Though it's not a natural ability." Zelda sounded a bit down when she said that.

"What do you mean?"

"The Triforce of Wisdom." She touched the back of her left hand.

"What's that?"

"It's a power I have, or rather, was given to me."

"Given? By who?"

"Nayru. She's a goddess... I suppose I should explain. Din, Nayru, and Farore are the deities of our land Hyrule; the three goddesses. Each of them left a relic in the mortal realm, a fragment of their power, we call these the Triforce. There are three pieces; Power, Wisdom, and Courage, corresponding to Din, Nayru, and Farore respectively. Each piece is entrusted to a mortal, I have Nayru's piece, the Triforce of Wisdom."

"Your world sounds interesting."

"It has a certain charm to it, yes," she said then took a bite of her lunch.

"So, who has the other pieces?"

"You've actually met them both, Link has the Triforce of Courage, and... Ganondorf has the Triforce of Power."

"That guy who tried to kill you?"

"Ahh...Y...yes. I believe he was after my Triforce piece, he desires all three. If he obtains them all he would become very powerful."

"If he tries to hurt you again I'll kill him." She said coldly.

Zelda smiled. "So you're looking out for me then?"

"What... no... I just meant...ahh, just finish eating so we can get back to training."

"Hmm..." Zelda smiled again, then went back to eating. When Zelda had finished she quickly spoke up before Samus could say anything. "Samus. I don't think your losing your humanity."

Samus, a bit startled at Zelda's abrupt change of subject, didn't respond, she just stared straight ahead.

"If you were... we wouldn't even be here right now, you wouldn't be taking the time to help me like this. You wouldn't have thought to bring me a lunch, or carried me to my bed and been so kind to me when I was injured... wouldn't have saved my life." Samus still refused to look at her. "These aren't things someone who's losing their humanity would do!"

"Maybe you're right... Or maybe... they're a futile attempt to prevent the inevitable; to hang on to something that's gone already; the final battle of a lost war... I don't know."

Samus' words struck Zelda with an incredible sense of sorrow; she could feel it like a knot in her chest. How could someone think that about themselves? How could someone as wonderful as Samus think that about themselves? What must she be going through to feel that way? "Samus..." Zelda reached out to take her hand, but Samus stood up before she could. "You can't just give up on yourself!"

She walked over to the console and put her jacket on. "Zelda... I don't want to talk about this."

"But..."

"Come on, let's get back to work. There's still one more thing I need to teach you."

Zelda sighed "Alright."

She cleared her head and tried to focus on her training. Samus altered some settings on the console and the virtual fighter in the center of the room was replaced by two of them standing at opposite ends. "These two are the same as the last one you fought; same skill, same speed and strength. The only difference is now you have to fight both at the same time."

Zelda took a defensive posture and waited for them to come at her. Once one attacked she blocked it, then countered, only to get hit by the second fighter. She jumped back, away from them, and prepared for their attack again. This time she used magic to throw a fireball at one to distract it while she defended against the other ones attack. She managed to get a hit off on it and disable it but wasn't quick enough and was again hit by the second fighter. "How am I supposed to do this?"

"You have to watch both of them."

"I am."

"No you're watching one then the other."

"My eyes can only look in one direction at a time."

Samus stopped the virtual fighters then walked up on the platform. She positioned Zelda across from one of them "Stare straight at it, don't take your eyes off it." Samus then walked to the side of Zelda, she held up her hand and a number of fingers. "Without taking your eyes off him, tell me how many fingers I am holding up."

"How can I without looking?"

"Your eyes take in the entire scene, not just what's directly in front of you. You have to learn to not focus on only what you are staring at, observe everything."

Zelda concentrated. "Three, no four."

"Good, now how many?" She changed her fingers

"Five."

"And now."

"One."

"Last one."

"Three."

"Excellent."

Zelda looked at Samus finally.

"I said don't take your eyes of him!" Samus snapped.

"Oh, sorry." She looked back at the virtual dummy.

"Remember your blocking exercise?"

"Yes."

"Don't take your eyes off him." Samus moved more to the side of her then threw a punch. Zelda was hit, though not very hard. "You ok?" Samus asked.

"Yeah."

"Pay attention and it won't happen anymore." Samus threw another punch, and this time Zelda barely blocked it. Samus quickly followed up with another attack and hit Zelda again. But didn't stop to ask if she was alright, instead she continued with a third attack, and a fourth, and so on. Zelda eventually managed to start blocking all the attacks without looking directly at her. Samus then started moving all around and continued to attack. Once she was confident that Zelda could avert her attention without averting her eyes, she stopped the exercise. "Now use what you just learned and fight these two." She returned to the console and reactivated the virtual fighters.

This time Zelda faired a bit better, but was still getting hit by them. After a while though she was back to being able to hold her own against two as she had previously against one. So Samus decided to make it more challenging, she entered something into the console, and the plain featureless white interior of the room was replaced by an artificial environment, with lots of varying visual elements to distract Zelda.

"What did you do?"

"It's much harder isn't it?"

"Yes!"

"Well this is how you would fight for real, so get used to it."

She continued fighting and struggled to see both her opponents against the more complicated visual background without directly looking at them. But as always she made the adaptation relatively quickly. Eventually she managed to completely defeat one, its body dissolving into the air. After that the second one was no challenge and she quickly defeated it as well.

"That's excellent Zelda."

"Thanks!"

"Ok, Now I am going to put them on endless mode, As soon as you defeat one, it will be replaced by a fresh one. You ready?"

"Yes."

Two new virtual fighters materialized and began attacking Zelda. "Just keep fighting them until you are completely comfortable, I'll monitor you and increase their skill when I think you can handle it, just like before." They worked like this for a couple of hours, slowly improving Zelda skills. Though eventually Zelda began to feel fatigued.

"Samus, can we stop now?"

Samus hit a button on the console and the virtual fighters froze in place. "What's the matter?"

"I'm getting a bit tired, and I think I've improved more than enough for one day."

"You can stop if you want, but I think you should keep going. When ever I train and I get the urge to quit, I push myself to continue on at least as long as I had been training."

"Well I guess I could go a little longer."

"You should try and go a lot longer, longer than you think you can stand, and once you've reached your limit, then go a little longer."

"Is that what you do?"

"Yeah. If I give up easily while just training, how am I supposed to persevere in a real fight? I don't just train myself in the technical skills of combat, but also in the mental conditioning necessary to survive anything, any physical hardship or seemingly impossible situation, without quitting."

'You're too hard on yourself,' Zelda thought and was about say but she kept it to herself, she did understand the logic of what Samus was saying. "Alright then, I guess I have to continue on some more."

"But you'll have to do it on your own; I have a couple of matches to get to in a little while."

"Oh, you're going to leave." Zelda sounded disappointed.

"I... I'll come back and check on you when I'm done. Unless you want to quit, then I guess I'll see you back at the room."

"I..." Zelda did want to go watch Samus fight, she had missed her last fight because she was injured, and she didn't want to miss anymore. But she also didn't want to quit either; she had to decide. "No, I'll be here."

"Alright, see you later." Samus said and walked out the door.

Zelda ran out into the hall "Samus!" she yelled getting her attention. "...Thank you ...Thanks for today. I learned a lot, and I enjoyed it too, so thank you."

Samus nodded "Don't mention it." She waved then left down the hall.

Zelda return to the room, and resumed her training. She would take Samus' advice and push herself to her limit. She continued on for another hour. Her arms felt numb, She wouldn't quit, she couldn't, she had to prove to herself that she was strong... No that wasn't why. What would Samus think if she gave up? She recalled how good it felt when Samus praised her for doing so well. She couldn't disappoint her now. She pressed on, suppressing all thoughts of quitting.

End Part Six

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