We all are animals anyway

Link gave Zid some instructions and headed into the orchard crouching. Zid stayed behind counting and then followed the Time Hero. Zelda was told to sit and remain quiet. But of course, she was not going to do that. Yes, she was scared, disgusted by the idea of what was happening to the girls inside the shed, and completely revolted by the prospect of Link slaughtering the men responsible…

Zid's task in all this was disgusting, but VERY important. He had to scan the bodies left behind by Link in search of any type of information. Names, bank accounts, cellphones, ANYTHING. The info was necessary to conclude if these criminals were casuals, or if they were an organized group with branches across Sydney.

ZELDA POV

¨Stay here and don't look¨ Link said, well that is kind of IMPOSIBLE. Those are dangerous people; how can he tell me to just stay put? It's my brothers and HIM risking their lives, I need to be able to respond quickly if needed, and to do that, I NEED TO WATCH.

The Princess breaths in to calm herself and parts the leaves to look at the field. She could not locate Link in there, then she notices a figure slowly rising from a crouched position, he was wearing a brown tank top and holding stilettos in his hands.

That must be Ziel… he was not wearing a tank top, was he? Well, I guess he could have been wearing that under his t-shirt. WHAT THE…

Link suddenly rushes in to ambush his first target from behind; he slashes the man's neck with his left hand while his right one was thrusting his stiletto on the mugger's back. Link seemed to be enjoying the man's panicked attempt at screaming, but with a stiletto piercing his lung, and his vocal cords damaged, the best he could do was a low whimper. Link lowers the thug to the ground, then moves to his next victim crouching.

That was… the delinquent wasn't even aware; he was completely caught off guard. How? I remember reading that we don't perceive most smells consciously, but most of us are able to avoid incoming attacks from other people because our unconscious mind smells them. Link's steps may be silent, but how the hell does he hide his smell? 

Zid starts searching on the fallen outlaw's pockets and even looks inside the shoes when a grunt is heard.

"WAS THAT YOU LEAF? Another villain on the vicinity yells.

A small grunt is heard followed by a cough; Link suddenly stands facing away from the other speaker. He continues to fake cough and raises a thumb to signal he is OK. Link was wearing a brown cap that must have been Leaf's.

"I fucking told you to medicate that cough you fucking ass, I have a mint. Get here so I can shove it down your fucking throat"

Link continues to cough as he approaches the man while keeping his head down, all under the guise of having trouble breathing and shallowing, but in reality, he was avoiding detection. Link stopped his advance and lowered his body when the wind blew hard, faking a coughing attack. Once he got close enough, he impaled the man's head with his stiletto. Drawing the man to his knees, Link carefully grabs the dead man's hair with the right hand, avoiding the frontal bone where the tip of his blade was clearly coming out of. The Hero then pulls the bladed weapon out from the criminal's chin with his left hand. Link was smiling while cleaning the dagger on the mugger's clothing, then released the dead man's hair, allowing the body to drop heavily on the ground. Zelda refused to shed tears, but was clearly affected by what she saw.

I think I get how he pulled it off the first time, he waits until the wind current is not strong enough to give him away, and when it is, he crouched to mix his sent with the barley… simple but he is completely avoiding detection. The idea of a slayer being able to approach you unnoticed is terrifying.

ZID POV

LINK WAS NOT JOCKING. I must admit that I still had my doubts about him, but DAMN. He knows what he is doing. Even now that he gutted one in front of another, the fucker who watched the carnage ran off screaming… and I believe that was no mistake. HE ALLOWED IT KNOWING ROBERT WOULD TAKE CARE THE DESERTER.

BANG!!! Link chuckles at the sound and turns to Zid dusting his gloves "How many did I get, and did you find anything?"

I used to believe he was testing me and Li, but it's not that at all, he has high expectations of us, based on what I don't know.

"7 if you count the one that Robert just shot, I found no info that connects them to a larger group, but their ID show that they were foreigners from New Zealand" Zid says with clear doubt.

Link frowns and shakes his head "No, with those facial features they cannot be New Zealanders… they were preparing to migrate there" he states as he waves for Li and Zelda to close in.

That sounds possible, damn… this guy is sharp.

Zelda approaches them, her eyes still a little glassy due to her crying not so long ago. Robert jumps from a tree to the roof of the house and climbs down.

Then a slap is heard followed by a whimper. Link turns to Zelda.

"Stay out here, you really don't want to see this" Link warns the Princess, and this time... the Princess obeyed.

Link silently jogs to the shed's door and with a smooth, practiced motion, he turns the handle ensuring the door swings open with minimal sound. His eyes go wide at the scene beyond the door frame, but he composes himself and smirking he stares at Zid. He opens the door wider using his left hand and steps back slightly inviting the Pirate to enter first. Once Zid enters he hollers irate seeing the felon still pumping in and out of one of the girls… hell breaks loose after that.

LINK POV

Zid ran up to the ravisher and pulled him off the girl slamming him to the ground. Then sat on top of the felon and stared throwing savage punches at his face. The man starts screaming and throws his hands up to shield his face from the punches. Zid, bothered by this, bites off the man's middle finger, staining himself and the felon with the blood spurt coming out of the fingerless hand. Zid smiles viciously hearing the rapist wailing in pain, he then spits out the digit "YOU DON'T GET TO DEFEND YOURSELF FROM ME!" he roars as he continues the onslaught.

In the middle of the room laid the body of one of the sisters, bruises and gashes filled her arms and legs. Her right humerus obviously broken, since the bone was clearly visible sticking out of the skin. Her face was swollen and tainted in red and bluish-purple, due to the multiple hits it sustained, a small string of blood was pouring out of her mouth, her eyes where open and still holding terror in them.

Li entered when he heard there was a fight going on, and upon seeing the scene he tried to join Zid on punishing the rapist but was immediately stopped by Link.

"This is HIS fight, I believe he knew the sisters, don't interfere" The Hero of time declares.

Robert widens his eyes and yells loudly exuding pain and impotence, then glances at Zid with sorrow before walking out of the shed.

Well monkey boy is a savage, FUCKING GOOD, I believe the rapist is dead by now but I will stop the battering in a minute, Zid needs this. Let's check on the survivor now.

Link start walking to the girl, she tried to cover herself with sheets from the bed she was on. She was watching everything Zid was doing, even when he stood up to retrieve a knife and came back to harshly cut the penis of the assailant, but the man didn't react, he was already dead. Yet Zid continued his merciless punishment. Curiously the girl didn't appear to be afraid of her unlikely savior. Then the victim looked at Link and managed to speak.

"He is Z1D-403 isn't he?" the girl asks.

Link stares at her lifting an eyebrow.

Well, that confirms my assumption that Zid knew the girls.

"Were you the one who took him to the hospital a few years ago?" Link asks her.

"No… that was my sist-" she starts sobbing without ending the sentence.

Link nods and walks towards the Pirate to stop his merciless beating. Zid finally does once he notices the girl sobbing, he sighs and slowly walks towards the dead sister's body. Crouching down he retrieves the bracelet with his name from her wrist, then kisses his right hand's second and third fingers placing said kiss on the death girl's cheek. 

Walking back, Zid says to the surviving girl "Please don't cry, I am not here to hurt you"

Sobbing and trembling in pain the girl looks at Zid "I know that, I am not crying because of you… I am crying for Ava" she wails.

Zid starts punching his own head "This shouldn't have happened Isla, I should have been here on time, I…"

"DON'T, this was not your fault, you should not have been here to begin with, you were supposed to be death… Ava believed you were, but you aren't, you came for us… thank you" she wipes her face clean from the tears "Ava would have loved seeing you alive and well" Isla says, not because she was trying make Zid feel better, but because she honestly believed Ava would have loved know that her monkey boy was alive.

Zid smiles, but soon realizes a harsh truth, he starts pulling on Link's arm in panic "If word gets out of this, Isla will never find a husband... nobody wants a defiled woman, no matter how it happened"

Is that what worries you Zid? Do you even know who you are talking to?

Ziel answers with a malevolent grin "That is why she will lie, and we will help her do it… FIRST we get rid of the bodies in the field" Link turns to look straight at the girl "Don't you dare clean yourself in any way, just put your dress back on and wash your lady parts, but don't put on clean clothes or brush your hair. Your current appearance only helps make the story you are going to sell more believable"

Isla stands, not caring about her nakedness, and puts her dress back on. It was dirty and ragged, surely due to the fight she must have put. Link takes a deep breath in and smiles at the image.

"You are going to tell them that the man was alone, he raped and killed Ava. You were not here, you just came back from buying whatever and saw the man defiling your sister, you grabbed this kitchen knife and staved him" Link actually grabs the knife Zid used on the rapist and stabs him once again in the heart, he then rubs the handle harshly with his gloved hands to erase the Pirate's hand prints and hands the knife to Isla, to get her print on it.

"She ends up claiming to have done all this? the beating, biting of a finger, cutting out his-" Zid asks and watches mortified at what Link was about to do.

The Hero picks up the finger and approaches Isla, she closes her eyes in fear as Link rubs the finger around her mouth, the girl begins to gag and Link uses that as an opportunity to shove the finger inside her jaw, Isla just spits it out and glares at Link in anger, blood staining her mouth and face.

Link grins "PERFECT" turns to look at the Pirate "Tell me that is not the face of a demented girl that could have done all this out of vengeance" Ziel chuckles "She did all this out of vengeance. After she stabbed the man in the heart, later checked on Ava and realized she was dead. Fury made her go back to the rapist and beat the crap out of him in anger… then she called the cops"

"That… doesn't sound too bad, I can see it happening that way" Zid exclaims amazed.

"She will need her hands to be stained with his blood too" says Li as he reenters the shed.

"I don't think she will mind giving him a few punches of her own, right sweetie?" Link taunts her.

Isla stands up and sits on top of the rapist and starts punching him. Making sure to stain her dress with his blood in the process.

She is already committed to the story; she is taking care of staining her dress with his blood too… I love smart girls.

Link clears his throat to draw his brother's attention "She may need privacy to wash her intimate parts, lets rid of the bodies outside, Isla… 30 minutes and you make the call, we were not here, ok? May the rest of your life be peaceful and happy." As he was leaving, he turns back "One last detail, after you stabbed him, he did not die immediately, he tried to grab you and that is when you bit the finger off, he fell on his knees and dropped dead soon after. You went to check on your sister and came back to do the rest out of vengeance… then you called the cops"

Isla nods at Link and stands up rushing to hug the monkey boy.

"I feel I won't be seeing you again. Just… take care, and THANK YOU" she says as she briefly kisses him on the mouth, Zid's eyes open wide at that as Isla's tears continue to roll down her face "That kiss was from Ava" she says as she takes the bracelet from him to place it on her own wrist sobbing. Zid bows at her and turns to exit the shed.

"Half an hour and you make that call; we were never here" Link tells the survivor and follows his brother out of the shed.

After cutting the bodies in pieces and digging them under the barley crops as fertilizer, everyone was walking back in silence. The group managed to reach another small town but… Link felt they all needed solitude to wrap their minds around everything, also Zid will surely have questions, Link needed privacy to answer them. Hence, he told them to camp just outside of the town.

This time around, Zid taught Robert how to ignite the campfire. As they all were sitting in a circle around the fire, Zelda began to dig inside her backpack for the apples she had stored, that apple was going to be their dinner since they were too close to the town to legally hunt.

"Does this classify as a normal work day for you?" Zid asks Link on a neutral tone.

"Yes, sometimes is better, others MUCH worse"

"But… when does it ever end?" Zid asks in defeat.

Link smiles "It doesn't, there will always be bad people, and that is normal. It's like cancer cells in your body, they spawn everyday but your T-Cells find and destroy them… we are humanity's T-Cells"

Zid shakes his head "Still, you kill one but 10 more spawn, I don't think... the task sounds IMPOSIBLE"

Link looks at Zid, takes a big breath of air, and slowly lifts his knees to rest his arms in them before answering.

"It does sound like an overwhelming task, but that doesn't change anything... we still have to do it. To beat the impossible, we end up doing the unthinkable" Link's left hand simulates a plane or ship going down "We, have to sink to the enemy's level. That means, we study them, their habits, we learn to think like them, eat like them, and mimic them in every way. the objective is to become undetectable"

"In other words, unstoppable" Zelda comments as she takes a bite from her apple.

Link smiles at the Princess statement and nods "That is the idea my Princess, they can't fight against whom they won't even suspect, that is how we fight fire with fire… constantly resisting the devil's pull"

Zid perks at that last statemen "Wait, what do you mean by that? what is the devil's pull?" Zid asks.

Link chuckles "It's the feedback loop, you always end up becoming what you imitate. We SWORD agents may have morphed into them… but we must never forget that WE ARE NOT THE SAME"

Zid ponder about what he just heard and then looks at Link with eyes full of determination "Ziel…" Zid stands up and goes down on a knee in front of the Hero "I need your help, I CRAVE this you are speaking of, how do I become a SWORD agent?"

Link smiles evilly.

Got you.