There's all sorts of things happening in real life so this this story has been updated late, and probably will continue to be late. I really can't sort out when I'll be able to post the chapters after these, especially with the idea-blank I've been having... Anyway, let's see what Vaati gets up to today! So,

in the last chapter...

Link, Ezlo and Venom soon found their way to The Fortress of Winds, where Link began figuring out how to use his Pink Stuff -AKA psychic powers-, Ezlo taught Link about secondary magic and Venom learned about primary magic from Ezlo and Link, though ultimately she ended up making magical explosions instead. While teaching Link, Ezlo was deeply reminded of the time he had once taught Vaati with the exact same methods- and when he got extremely annoyed at Link, the ten-year-old boy's reaction hit Ezlo hard as the hat realised that it really was all of his fault that Vaati was the way he was now. However, Link decided to talk to Guardian Spirt, but to the others he just passed right out! Spirt told Link the truth of his identity and of the rage of his enemy. The medicine in Link's bag seemed to have the side effect of suppressing Link's psychic powers, though they soon came back in a pinky-red explosion. After an incredibly tough battle with the Thing -or the Mechanical Thing- Link, Ezlo and Venom were all lulled to sleep at the rainbow sunset of the top of the fortress, but the Wind Element was nowhere to be seen...

Chapter 15: Four Vaatis and a Cat

Vaati woke up and stretched out a bit. The bed in the king's private chamber really was luxurious. Speaking of the king, he was currently a stone statue to the side of the room right next to Zelda- naturally, Vaati had thought it best not to give the king a chance to mess up his plans.

Thinking about where those legends claimed the elements were, Vaati got out of the bed and paced around the room. (In the ancient shrine deep in the forest named after us, in a cave of fire which is larger than large at the top of the top-west mountain, in the fortress of the people who guide the skies, in the frozen depths of a goddess's lake.) Vaati recited in his mind. Now that he was here, it seemed obvious where all of those elements were. Two of them had been found already and Link was no doubt on his way to the third one.

(What will Link do,) mused Vaati, still pacing, (once he's fixed the sword? Try to stop me, of course. My own magic would never work against the steel of the elements, but the light force, which was made with the help of a goddess or so they say... With that, I will certainly stand a chance against him.)

Adding up all the hours he'd need to extract the light force and (hopefully) convert it to his branches of magic, he realised that he would need at least a full day, possibly more give or take a few hours, to fully convert the light force, not to mention bring its power under control. Link had to be stopped at all costs- his entire plan was at stake here!

"Now, what am I going to do to stop-Link-stopping-me-get-the-light-force?" asked Vaati out loud to himself -again, the old habit of his- "I've got to slow him down... hmmm... so what better way to do it than by turning this huge maze of a castle into a confusing nest of traps? He may know his way around, but I can twist things. Change things. I will fix this place up while he goes and gets those elements- if he can survive that, he can survive this."

Thinking about where to start, Vaati de-stonified the king and quickly re-possessed him. On the way down a corridor, Vaati heard a terrifying, horrifying, sound that sent vibrations running through every inch of his spiritual form, making his eye and the king's eyes widen with shock and fear...

"Meooow..." came the petrifying sound from just behind him...

Vaati slowly turned the king's body around to face...

A large, snow-white CAT with bright orangey-red eyes and gleaming, razor-sharp canines.

"Meooow..." meowed the cat, "You arrren't the king..."

An ancestral fear started to make Vaati panic- while it's true that minish have many predators, including snakes, some lizards, cuccoos and general other creatures, CATS are by far the worst. Intelligent (unlike cuccoos), unreasonable (unlike snakes) and mostly nocturnal (unlike most lizards), CATS have been hunting minish and their close biological cousins, mice and rats, since day one (unlike general other creatures)- hence the ancestral fear.

"Forrr yourrr inforrrmation..." dangerously purred the cat, "My name is Sielema." [Seye(rhymes with pie)-ah-lee-ma]

"D-D-D-Do you know who I am?" asked Vaati.

"No. But I know you arrre minish..." mewed Sielema, back arching, tail swishing and claws extending, "...and I am going to prrrrrove it!" with that, the cat pounced at Vaati so his natural instinct was RUN AWAY!

So run away he did, Sielema seeming a lot larger than she really was and Vaati seeming a lot smaller-

"CAT!" screamed Vale, pulling Vaati away from the terrifying, terrible, tabby-coated beast hoping to eat them for dinner-

CLATTER! Down went a picture frame or three as Vaati accidentally banged the king's elbows against them in his rush to get away from the CAT, who was unfazed by all the noise-

"MEOW!" boomed the tabby-coated CAT with the enormous emerald orbs with slit pupils, seeming to let minish go only to scoop them back up again-

CRASH! "MEOW!" A large decorative vase got kicked by the king's foot in Vaati's attempt to escape Sielema. Said albino cat narrowly dodged the flying vase, meowing loudly in slight panic, and it smashed behind her-

CRACK! A temporary shelter was flattened by one of the creature's paws easily. The seemingly-overpowered being didn't even notice in its pursuit of the twilight minish-

BANG! Vaati, now royally terrified, dashed through a door and slammed it behind him... Unfortunately for him, it just so happened to be the KITCHEN door, which had a cat-flap in it, allowing Sielema to easily and somewhat gracefully jump through without even a pause.

Also unfortunately for Vaati, the kitchen just so happened to have quite a few people in it- and all of them were staring at him. Due to all the excitement, he didn't notice.

("CAT! CAT! CAT!") all the voices in his head were screaming at once and he could barely think properly and he was panicking crazily and-

Vale and one-year-old Vaati narrowly escaped the cat, collapsing into an abandoned (hopefully) burrow just as day broke. Neither could sleep, though both were too exhausted to move-

SMASH! Crashing into a pile of plates by accident due to the king's body not moving as naturally as his own, Vaati bolted around the corner of the kitchen, kitchen people skittering out of the way in shock ("Isn't the albino cat friendly?") and confusion.

("GET A GRIP ON YOURSELVES!") Vaati screeched at himself in his head, drowning out the dangerous hissing of Sielema and the clinking and crunching of the various unfortunate kitchen people scattering out of the way of the drama with his very own inner voice, the sort he himself spoke within his own mind but still heard just as clearly as the rest-

Even back then, he'd hated being so helpless. So WEAK.

Well, he was neither of those things now! ("There are at least TEN ways we can knock out Sielema! STOP RUNNING AWAY IN FEAR! ME INCLUDED!")

In that exact moment, Sielema leaped directly at Vaati's face, claws outstretched, joints bent. Almost seeming like an albino tiger, she leaped high, high into the air, almost five times her hight, just as Vaati sent a him-sized spinning whirlwind which picked up a lot of the smashed plates, even more non-smashed plates, and Sielema.

After the cat had been thoroughly spun, the wind dissipated and Sielema came crashing down... So Vaati promptly picked up the first random frying pan he saw (sometimes, that's the more logical course of action than focusing magic into the shape of a weapon. Especially if your worst fear is probably out to kill you) and-

BANG! went the frying pan- right on Sielema's head.

Though maybe not quite as hard as it sounded at the time.

Vaati breathed heavily in exhilaration, the king's lips curling into a somewhat unsettling smile along with those of Vaati's spiritual form. Dropping the frying pan, he picked up the defeated (for now *_^) cat and left the room, leaving all the baffled kitchen people behind.

There was a lot of silence. Then a lot of murmuring. What was going on? The people in the room confirmed what they'd just seen...

There was Confusion. Disbelief. Realisation. Then there was only one emotion in the room- Fear.

Everybody knew the real king LOVES his precious cat!

So who was this doppelgänger? Vaati?!

(What a... great relief!) Thought Vaati, holding That Cat by her tail and walking to the castle dungeons. He hoped she hadn't succeeded in messing up his plans... Either way, in order to really do large-scale changes on the castle, he would first need a map. Or however many maps this castle had. Naturally, he'd still need to see the whole place face-to-wall first. As Vaati had already seen most of the castle, that wouldn't be a problem.

("Now THAT... That was awesome!") cheered the malevolent voice in Vaati's mind. Vaati's spiritual form's lips curled into a dark, almost -yet not quite bitter- malevolent smile...

There, in Vaati's consciousness, was Vaati's own spiritual form -though he was half-there, half not. This form was exactly like Vaati's true physical form, it was how he saw himself- as himself, as he was.

Directly behind this form was another, near identical form... though this one wore no hat. The second form was more like a shadow, but not truly one... perhaps one could say the form was more like a ghost. A ghost with no emotion nor expression... However, the second form's eye was clear- a deep, shining red with an aqua-green pupil.

To the right of the second form was a third, a strong form this was. The third form was held up by no cloak nor hat, instead stepping back a bit in order to avoid a pure black mist forming by the others. The third form may his been strong, but also afraid- no, not quite afraid... again, the form's eye was clear- a more pink-red, with a wider pupil as so to make the world brighter- even if that was also an illusion in a sense.

To the left of the second form was a fourth form- a somewhat darker form, though the fourth seemed near identical to the others. The dark mist clung tightly near this form, as within it was pain, bitterness... a core of fear. Though this form was at the moment by far the strongest, this form was also the weakest. The eye of this form was a sharp, iridescent blood-red.

Vaati tried to ignore the voice, but he couldn't help laughing just a little as the defeated cat was very firmly locked in one of the cells.

Satisfied, he headed back up the stairs and walked along the castle's corridors. It really wasn't very long before he came across a particular soldier- that one who was particularly serious about his job with the well-polished spear. No wonder, according to the king's memories (which sadly had no map information since the king never used them), that everyone called him 'Serious Sam'.

"Where can I get the maps of this castle?" inquired Vaati in what he hoped was an authoritative tone of voice.

"Well, the new recruits each got a map each just now from Captain Lucy." explained Serious Sam, "She gave each one of those recruits a map for each floor of this castle, can you believe it? I have no idea what the captain's up to this time but I do believe she said something along the lines of 'You recruits had better find your way to the top tower in ten! If you're not there by then you can kiss your career goodbye, Newbies!'. Anyway, they all set off in different directions despite Milly's attempt to get them to work as a team. Speaking of those other four recruits, I think said something about going to the entrance to figure things out from there... though he was holding his map up-side down... I hope that will help, your majesty! Also, I'll give you an update about the light force search soon."

"Thank you very much." replied Vaati, next going to the throne room. As what Serious Sam had said seemed to be correct, he figured that would be over there, probably lost. Sure enough, in said rom, there was a lost-looking teenager wearing slightly-too-big uniform and holdng his map upside-down.

"Hey! Are you ?" Vaati asked, though the question sounded more like a bossy demand.

"Yes, your majesty!" replied the teenager, straightening his back slightly and saluting.

"Give me that map!" Ordered Vaati, "And the top tower is up several flights of stairs over that way!"

The recruit handed him the map and set off in the direction Vaati had pointed to -with the king's hand, obviously- to go to the top tower and meet Captain Lucy there.

Vaati thought about where the other recruits might be. Including the underground floors, the castle had a total of five floors. This meant that there were five recruits, each with a map to a different floor, one of which Vaati had found already. The map Vaati had gained was of the first floor, the one he was on right now. He then turned his thoughts to what he knew about the recruits. He knew one of the remaining four was Milly Lisan (he supposed the mail-man was fast around here) and that, according to the situation Serious Sam had told him about, she was at least sensible... but that was just about it.

The sorcerer pretending to be the king sighed in annoyance and decided to look around the other floors and ask around about the other recruits.

A couple of hours later...

Vaati stopped for lunch at the dining room, having found a few leads but was unfortunately not that much closer to actually tracking down the recruits. Thinking about the leads he had, he tried to come up with a conclusion of sorts.

Right about then, Sielema woke up in the dungeon cell, very cross, very determined to get rid of the impostor, and quite frankly a bit hungry too. However, this cat wasn't about to me stopped by something as measly as being locked up... but first, the albino-coloured cat thought she must have missed something very, very important in the festival that year.

The reason why she hadn't been there, you see, was because Sielema wasn't particularly sociable and preferred her own company to that of random people, a few travellers, their oh-so-annoying animal companions and all that noisy music. Upon discovering that the princess was now a stone statue, Sielema had promised herself that she would do everything in her power to take whoever did it down.

Right now, though, she was pushing an empty crate out of the way with her body. The cat continued to carefully walk out of the cat-sized tunnel that led out of the dungeons and out into the kitchen- the space beneath the kitchen sink, to be exact. There, the cook and that-nice-lady-Sielema-couldn't-remember-the-name-of were worridly talking about the fake-king.

"...and then he hit poor Sielema on the head with a frying pan and left, dragging her by the tail!" finished the cook, dramatically waving her wooden spoon around.

Sielema quietly purred with pleasure. She'd done it. Everybody knew the king loves her!

"You're right... his majesty loves his cat!" gasped the lady -wasn't her name 'Mrs Thaip'?- in shock. "Well, then it has to be Vaati in some sort of foul magical disguise!"

"Vaati..? You can't be serious..!? That evil sorcerer who turned the princess to stone... here in Hyrule Castle?! We have to warn everybody and STAY AWAY from the 'king' at all costs! Nobody stands a chance against that purple magician!" concluded the cook.

"Good idea... Let's hope a hero shows up or something... or maybe Captain Lucy or Serious Sam could help sort this out..? I'm going to go and warn people now." finished Mrs Thaip -that was her name, right?- before walking out of the room.

Sielema hissed in annoyance. All these people were so WEAK-WILLED that her effort to expose this minish-magician-called-Vaati were for naught! (Fine.) she thought, (Play it that way, Destiny. I shall beat that impostor myself! After all... they don't call me the 'Royal Albino Phantom Guard Cat with the Heart of Fire' for nothing...)

A dangerous ember seemed to glow in the cat's orangey-red eyes as she resolved to keep that promise she'd made to herself.

After a bit of a wild goose chase, as they say, Vaati now had exactly... two maps. He had just decided to go to the top tower himself and wait for the recruits to (hopefully) show up when he quite suddednly heard the king's voice in his consciousness once more.

("VAATI! I TOLD YOU TO STOP THIS!") yelled the king.

("Here we go again...") sighed Vaati in his mind.

("I think... I think you ought to listen to him.") added the somewhat-timid voice.

("Psh. We should just beat him again! That'll be fun.") sneered the malevolent voice.

("Fun? We won't have time to knock him out every two seconds. We have approximately five and a half days to prepare. Link is coming. Deal with the king for good, wether it is by violence or kindness.") Pointed out the third voice, the emotionless, calculative voice.

Hearing their voices before had made Vaati feel confused, trying to agree with them all. But the more they had spoken, the less 'Vaati' they had seemed to be. They didn't seem like his perception of himself, so they seemed more separate... especially after the incident involving That Cat... they were... ANNOYING.

("ALL OF VAATI, STOP THIS! IT'S CROWDED!") shouted the king.

("ALL OF YOU, BE QUIET!") bellowed Vaati over the top of all of those voices.

Once again, he closed the king's physical eyes and opened his own in his black consciousness of nothingness... except, as the king had so obviously stated earlier, it was a bit more crowded in here.

Especially as there were now THREE other Vaatis, one with neither cloak nor hat and a pink-red eye, one with only the cloak and a blood-red eye with an aqua-green pupil, and the last one with both the cloak and the hat who had bright, laughing iridescent blood-red eyes and a pure black mist surrounding him.

Vaati looked from the other hims to the befuddled and annoyed king then back again. There was instant quiet.

"There's now four of me?" asked Vaati (the original)

"It is rather a complex matter. We should talk AFTER someone has dealt with the king-" replied the emotionless voice... the 'Vaati?' with the cloak but no hat.

BANG! "I'm way ahead of all of you." cut in the malevolent voice... the 'Vaati?' with the odd black mist following him around. This form was twirling a magical frying pan in his left fingers and smirking over the knocked-out form of the king.

The original Vaati turned to look at all the others in turn... then he forcefully asked "WHAT is going on here?!"

The calculative one turned to answer. "We are essentially the voices in your mind. However... hmmm... you messing with spiritual magic and coming here caused your simple logic to react. The situation with That CAT-" every form of Vaati shuddered "-put you in a situation in which your conflicting emotions would bring us all back up again... or at least these two." he pointed to the timid one and the malevolent one. "Due to that, and your coming here, your own logic would not allow the existence of disembodied voices. So what else would you see us as physically but ghostly, altered versions of yourself?"

It made sense and though something about the explanation didn't quite fit, Vaati wasn't too worried about knowing right now anyway.

"Well then..." said Vaati, "From now on, I'll call you-" he pointed to the malevolent one, "-Mal, short for Malevolent, you-" he pointed to the timid one, "-Timi, short for Timid, and you-" he pointed to the calculative one, "-Calcus, short for Calculative. Obviously, I am in charge here and YOU can all be QUIET, right?"

The others looked at one another.

"Things don't usually work like that..." pointed out Timi, but Vaati wasn't having any of it.

"How about I get to be in charge? Then I -you?- can REALLY start actually GOING somewhere with this whole, 'get the light force' thing. Seriously, ALL you REALLY have to do is get rid of the kid and take the elements before he gets the chance to use the sacred sword against you. And we STILL need to get some revenge on the -heh heh heh- HAT and that village..." Suggested Mal, "Why faff around trying to keep them all a-"

"NOBODY is going to DIE!" yelled Vaati at him, suddenly getting bad feelings about these three... "Now I have some things to be doing so you should all NOT BOTHER ME." with that, Vaati left the consciousness.

"Spoilsport." grumbled Mal.

"Calcus... why didn't you tell Vaati the true reason as to how we exist?" asked Timi. The other spirit form looked away into the endless nothingness.

"Because we cannot tell him for as long as he doesn't accept it himself." replied the emotionless 'voice'.

Opening the king's eyes once more, Vaati continued on his way to the top tower. If he was going to have to deal with... with... essentially three more personas of himself... but then, that idea was a little unsettling in itself... How did they even get there?! Something about that explanation really was a bit off... regardless, he figured they could all be quiet while he got on with his life.

...but still, it was unsettling that a certain persona would run away from anything, a certain persona would try to kill people and a certain persona would... would... what? Err... be completely emotionless? It was confusing. Vaati simply couldn't get his mind off the subject...

So that was what he was in deep thought about as he made his way to the top tower of Hyrule Castle. Until he was interrupted by someone trying to get his attention.

"Umm... excuse me, your majesty, but I'm lost..." began one of the new recruits from behind him. Vaati was relieved, to say the least, that one of them had just shown up like that.

"Just give me that map." cut in Vaati, "The top tower is up the set of stairs over that way."

...So now he had three maps.

"Stay away from the king, he's Vaati in disguise!" warned the cook to I-Insist,-Call-Me-Tim as said soldier got a drink from the kitchen.

"Stay away from the king, he's Vaati in disguise!" warned I-Insist,-Call-Me-Tim to Beverage Ben somewhere on the fifth floor of the castle.

"Stay away from the king, he's Vaati in disguise!" warned Beverage Ben to J-Parker and Serious Sam while passing them on the fourth floor of the castle.

"Stay away from the king, he's Vaati in disguise!" warned J-Parker to another new recruit somewhere on the fourth floor.

"Stay away from the king, he's Vaati in disguise!" warned Serious Sam to everyone he passed around Hyrule Town.

"Stay away from the king, he's Vaati in disguise!" warned Wheaton to Mira Lisan when she came into Wheaton and Pita's bakery for a snack.

Mira raised an eyebrow and replied, "Well, I'd better go tell Smith about this..."

So, while going to Smith's House, nearly everyone now aware of the bad news, Mira just sighed inwardly at the attitude of people around here. Relying on some old legend the second some amateur 'bad guy' showed up and caused a bit of trouble. It wasn't as if the actually dangerous monsters were being trained into an army or something. In fact, she was almost positive the whole ruckus was one big mistake! Ahh, there was Smith's house. She knocked on the door and filled Smith in about the news.

"WHAT?!" gasped Smith in shock, standing outside his house. "VAATI?! Pretending to be King Daltus?!" What was that sorcerer up to now?! "THAT'S IT! I'M GOING TO GO AND FIGHT THAT MAGICIAN WHILE I KNOW WHERE HE IS!"

"Honestly..." sighed Mira, shaking her head, "If you're going to go and fight that sorcerer you'll need backup. He truly can be a powerful foe... I'm coming too!"

So that was how Mira and Smith ended up making their way to the castle... soon having to negotiate with the guards keeping everyone out of the castle for 'safety reasons'. They weren't being very reasonable...

Finally up at the top tower, Vaati was surprised to see that nobody was there. Instead, there was a note on the table in the middle with messy handwriting on it that read, 'If you're one of the recruits, you've MISSED the meeting. Too bad. I'll be at the dungeons with Milly, the only one who actually made it here! -Captain Lucy.'

He just teleported there. Hopefully he'd find the fourth map.

The first thing Vaati noticed down there was that Sielema had escaped. The second thing was how empty it was. Something wasn't right... surely people hadn't seen through his disguise already? However, on another nearby table there was a map and another note. The map was of the third floor and had a large red cross on it. The note read, 'Meet over here for some training on TEAMWORK. -Captain Lucy.'

The sorcerer decided to wait here for the last recruit to show up so he could get the last map already. In the meantime, his thoughts inevitably wandered back to the other personas. As his thoughts wandered to them, the voices seemed to come back.

("What is he going to do once he has all those maps anyway? Make a giant death-trap especially made to stop that kid! Why not just go and take the elements already?!") Mal complained.

("So would you go into the cold, wet, deep depths of Lake Hylia?") replied Calcus, emotionless as always. He seemed to really actually consider the terrifying idea...

Either way, that seemed to make Mal be quiet. It was odd how Vaati could hear them when he wanted to. Now that he came to think about it, he wasn't completely feeling like himself after the cat incident. At the same time, this new, somewhat lighter feeling felt good.

It wasn't much longer before the recruit showed up and Vaati finally got that final map. Merging all the maps into one, he teleported back to the king's chamber again and stonified the king once more before writing down what had happened today in his diary. Taking a rest couldn't hurt, after all Vaati did need his sleep.

However, he did hear Timi, or at least a voice he assumed to be Timi, talking loud and clear again as he drifted off to sleep... ("To forget... is a sad thing...")