In a random act of craziness, two heroes from completely different worlds swap places: one finds himself on Starship Mario, traveling to the far reaches of the universe. The other winds up in Hyrule Field, battling demons he knows nothing about, wit...
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Chapter 3
Starship Mario | Lower Decks - Brig
It stopped, very suddenly. The motion, the haze, the destruction at the subatomic level. The agony hung around for another moment or two, boiling in his veins, before finally ebbing away, leaving a yawning, hollow chill behind. His throat spasmed until his lips parted, gasping in air. With oxygen came rationality; he remembered his name: Link. His home country: Hyrule. His age and height: Nineteen and five foot seven. The rest was a little hazy...
Slowly, he opened his eyes. And found himself in...
...a cot, lying flat on his belly, facedown in a pillow.
And not just facedown — holy gods, he was smothering himself! Choking, he tried to lift his head, and found his neck muscles to be unresponsive. What the— What was this? Sleep paralysis?
All right, calm down. Your body will catch up in a moment. He could deal with this. He certainly had before — he was probably the only sap in the whole of Hyrule unlucky enough to suffer from chronic sleep paralysis, so over the years (before he'd been tasked with saving the country), he'd taught himself how to relax after waking up to the disgusting realization that he couldn't move his body.
Breathe, Link. I know you're about to smother on your own pillow, but breathe. You'll be able to move in a moment. Just give it a moment. Relax.
It took a little longer than usual for his body to catch up this time — several long, maddening minutes passed before he was able to finally lift his head, move his arms. But with the ability to move himself came an awful, full-body ache-and-throb — he felt like he'd been caught in the middle of a carriage wreck, broken down and haphazardly put back together again.
Groaning, he sat up, his joints shrieking like old hinges and every artery and vein seeming to throb beneath his skin. Just moving his eyes put a migraine in his skull — but that didn't stop them from nearly popping out of their sockets when he saw where he was.
What...the... A cell! He was in a cell! One so small that if he stood, he was certain his hair would come close to brushing the ceiling. A wall of bars spanned a few yards away from him, giving a ribbed view of the narrow chamber that lay behind: it seemed to be a hallway of some sort, with a single opening in the far wall. At least, he thought it was an opening: it was sealed shut, and didn't seem to have a doorknob.
Link swung his legs over the side of the bed — then hissed as his skull throbbed in pain. Okay...what's going on here? Where in the Goddesses' name was he? And how had he gotten here? He tried to think back, but was astonished to find that he couldn't remember. His body apparently wasn't the only thing that had taken a hit: his memory was like a broken mirror, filled with jagged pieces that didn't seem to fit together. Hyrule, he remembered Hyrule. And Princess Zelda, trapped in the upper tower of Hyrule Castle. And the Twilight, an eternal dusk that had swept over Hyrule. And Zant, the dastard that had induced the Twilight...
