Chapter One: Why Pissing Off Ancient Wizards Isn't Smart

Halloween night, Carnival of Carnage…

RED and BLU were fighting as always, though this time things had been mixed up by Merasmus after RED Soldier's most recent slight against the wizard. They were all surrounded by a madcap carnival where the attractions were hazards to avoid and the goal was to seize the Bombonomicon like it were an intelligence briefcase and bring it to the lift that would send the losing team to Hell. (for a short while, anyways)

And in the midst of the chaos, RED and BLU both found themselves back at the lift, pinned in place as Merasmus's disembodied voice, having temporarily blocked out the (doubtlessly infuriated) Administrator, howled victoriously in their ears.

"Yes, YES! The Wheel!"

A huge wheel with various curses and buffs began spinning above them, deciding what new spell would help or hinder the two teams next.

Nobody, least of all Merasmus himself, expected it to spark and start spinning out of control.

"Wait, wait, what?" Merasmus declared in confusion. "That's not supposed to happen!"

"Ah can bloodeh move again!" RED Demoman cried, waving his arms.

"That thing's gonna blow!" RED Engineer yelled, running. "Let's get outta here!"

RED Team took the initiative and booked it as far as they could from the malfunctioning magical device. BLU Team, however, was not so fortunate. A bright flash of light, and one explosion later, and all nine mercenaries of Builder's League United were totally obliterated.

Or at least, that's what RED would say afterwards to their livid employer, while Merasmus wisely slipped into the shadows and was never heard from again.

XXXXXX

"Navi…

"Navi the Fairy…

"A blanket of evil enshrouds the land… Even now, the servants of evil are gaining strength, preparing for an assault on our world…before this darkness, even my power is as nothing… Go now, Navi…find the boy without a fairy…His journey is about to…?!"

"G-Great Deku Tree! What's wrong?!"

"Something…something has happened…a powerful force of magic has brought a stranger to our forest…Navi…I do not have much time left…bring them both to me…the boy…and the stranger…"

XXXXXX

"Uuuuuuugh…"

BLU Sniper groaned from the migraine pounding through his skull, putting a hand to his forehead as he blearily opened his eyes, his vision unfocused.

Someone, a child from the sounds of it, gasped. "He's waking up!"

"What do we do?" another child, a girl, whimpered.

"Harumph! I say we toss him out in the Lost Woods before he tries to hurt us!" a boy's voice gruffly spoke up.

Mouthy little wanker, Sniper immediately thought to himself, his vision starting to clear.

"Stop it, Mido! You don't know if he'll actually do that!" yet another girl (why were there so many kids?) chastised.

Sniper shook his head and sat up straight, finally taking in his surroundings. He appeared to be inside a wooden hut, with simple furnishings. But that wasn't what drew his attention. It was the eight or nine kids wearing green clothes that were surrounding him, their expressions ranging from curiosity and suspicion to fear and, in one case, hostility. All of them had glowing balls with wings fluttering overhead.

Sniper blinked as he looked at each kid through his omnipresent sunglasses, and then realized something. He felt a draft on his head. His eyes widened as he patted his head, finding that his hat was not resting on it. Seeing this, a girl with green hair stepped forward and held it out to him. "Here, sir," she said cautiously. "Is this what you're looking for?"

Sniper breathed a sigh of relief. "Thanks, Shiela," he said gratefully as he took it from her and put it back on his head where it belonged.

"Saria."

"Wot?" Sniper uttered, looking up at her confused.

"My name's Saria, not Shiela," the green-haired girl explained patiently.

Sniper adjusted his hat awkwardly. "Sorry, just an Aussie way'a addressin' a lass." He looked around again. "Where am Oi? How far am Oi from Teufort? And bloody hell, where're your parents?"

"See? This guy's nuts!" a boy with blonde hair, a pointed cap, and a snobbish expression on his face snapped, gesturing towards the mercenary.

"Mido, shut up," Saria snapped right back irritably. "He's obviously not from around here."

"Yeah, if the big white light that dropped him here was any indication," a girl with yellow hair tied into two balls at the base of her neck pointed out.

Sniper's eyes suddenly bulged as the memories hit him. "T-that broight whoite loight! Did anyone else come outta it?!"

The kids all slowly shook their heads. "No…just you," Saria replied.

Sniper was quiet for a moment. "Well…if Oi'm aloive, then they've gotta be too," he said to himself with conviction. "So where're your parents? Oi need to talk to someone who can help me out."

"U-um," one of the girls spoke up hesitantly. "We don't have parents like normal people. We came from the Great Deku Tree. We're Kokiri."

"Wait, so you're sayin' you're plant people?" Sniper asked, not really believing it.

"Yes and no," Saria explained. "It would be really difficult to explain to an outsider, so…"

"So the only 'adult' Oi can talk to here…is a tree."

"I'm afraid so," Saria confirmed. "We Kokiri stop aging past a certain point. We stay kids our whole lives."

How the bloody hell do they even reproduce? Sniper wondered. "So, uh, what's with the glowin' mosquitoes hangin' over your heads?"

Several of the aforementioned balls of light looked offended by this, their wings drooping as their lights slowly took on more reddish tones. "Those are our guardian fairies, you jerk!" Mido snapped. "Our partners!"

"Now Oi'll be the first to say that magic's real," Sniper countered. "Oi've had my fair share'a encounters with an angry wizard. But tellin' me that fairies are real is stretchin' it real thin there."

"Fairies are most certainly real, mister," Saria said, as patiently as always. "Though you aren't alone in your belief; fairies haven't been seen in large numbers outside the Lost Woods and Tarm Ruins for centuries. A lot of outsiders probably do think they don't exist anymore."

It was at that moment that another Kokiri abruptly entered, drawing every eye in the room to him, and eventually the fairy hovering over his head. Saria was the first to respond, a big smile gracing her features as her hands clapped over her mouth. "Link! You did it! You finally got a fairy!" she gasped elatedly.

"OH, COME ON!" Mido shouted. "After all these years, something weird happens and NOW he gets his own fairy?!"

"Guys, there's no time!" the fairy cried in a tiny, high-pitched but definitely female voice. "The Great Deku Tree is in trouble!"

The Kokiri all gasped, while Sniper remained silent, watching the scene play out with his eagle-like attentiveness. "What do you mean, something's wrong with the Great Deku Tree?" Mido snapped, his hands on his hips.

"He's sick," Link said with an urgent look on his face. "He said he wanted to see me, but he also said something about a 'stranger who entered the forest'…"

"Er…moight that be me, perhaps?" Sniper suddenly spoke up, raising a hand awkwardly.

The fairy flitted right up to Sniper's face, regarding him closely as he drew back. "Croikey, that's broight."

"You're a human," she observed. "But I've never seen clothes like yours before...why are you here?"

"Look, last Oi remember, Oi was foightin' the RED Team over the Bombonomicon Ex-Pootis in some insane killer carnival Merasmus the Wizard cooked up because the RED Team's Soldier pissed him off again. Then the big bloody wheel that decoided what spell would affect us all for the next few seconds went outta control, then there was this big flash'a loight, and now Oi'm apparently here."

Everyone around him was perfectly silent for several moments.

"Yep, definitely crazy," Mido muttered under his breath.

"Listen, ya little miniature delinquent," Sniper suddenly growled. "Oi'm not one to call moiself the sanest'a buggers, but everythin' Oi said was the truth, and Oi don't take too well to bein' called a liar. So come on down off your hoigh horse and keep a lid on that bloody mouth before Oi do somethin' to ya that you will never forget."

Mido huffed as he left the house.

"Oooookay, hey listen, if you could just come with us to meet the Great Deku Tree, that would be nice," Link's fairy uncertainly chimed.

"What the hell?" Sniper shrugged as he stood up, grunting at his sore back and knees. "Oi was gonna visit the bugger anyways."

"Just follow us," Link said purposefully, exiting the house.

Sniper followed behind, and about thirty feet behind them, the other Kokiri trailed after them, anxious to see what was wrong with their guardian. As they walked, Sniper took in the scenery around him. He had apparently been sent to some fairy-tale forest, with houses carved into giant tree stumps and various wooden bridges connecting them together via their roofs. The air was thick with dancing lights of multiple colors. Not a bad place to end up, all things considered, Sniper mused to himself.

Link awkwardly looked up at the much-taller man and cleared his throat. "Uh, my name's Link, by the way. This here's my new fairy partner, Navi. What's your name?"

Sniper looked down at him as they walked. "Mundy. Lawrence Mundy, though oftentoimes Oi go boi the toitle of moi occupation."

"And what's that?' Navi asked curiously.

"Snoipah."

"A…a Sniper?" Navi marveled, taken aback.

Link blinked in confusion. "What's a Sniper?"

"Long-range assassin class," Sniper explained. "You won't know Oi'm there till it's too late. Oi'll have already planted a bullet roight between your eyes from three hundred yards off."

Navi yelped, hiding under Link's hat. Sniper just shrugged. "Relax, Shiela. Oi ain't in the business'a killin' fairies. Though Oi do follow the Code'a Snoipahs to the letter. Be polite. Be efficient. Have a plan to kill everyone ya meet."

"That's not helping!" Navi shrieked from under Link's hat.

"So you know how to fight?" Link hesitantly asked, hoping to change the subject and calm Navi down.

"Oi'm a mercenary. Fightin's what Oi do."

"Then maybe you'll be a big help after all…oh no."

Sniper stopped walking right after Link did. "What?"

He followed Link's irritated gaze over to the entrance to the Great Deku Tree's Meadow, and found Mido standing defiantly in the middle, blocking the path. "Where do you think you're going, weirdoes?"

"To see the Great Deku Tree, Mido," Link growled. "He summoned us."

Mido petulantly folded his arms. "What is it about you that makes Saria and the Great Deku Tree love you so much?!"

"Probably because you're a whoiny wankah and a spoiled brat," Sniper spoke up, his eyes narrowed. "Now step asoide. This is moi last warnin'."

"Hmph! Maybe you can take care of yourself, mister, but Link here ain't even a real man! I don't care what the Deku Tree says: if Link wants to get past me, he's gotta get a sword and shield first!"

"Alroight, Oi warned ya enough," Sniper grunted.

Then, before Link, Navi, or Mido could do or say anything else, Sniper reached into his vest pocket and hurled a bottle of strange yellow liquid at Mido. It smashed into his chest, thankfully shattering easily so that no harm came from the shrapnel, but Mido was now coated in the mysterious contents.

"Oh, yuck!" Link exclaimed, holding his nose. "It smells like…" He then noticed the shit-eating grin on Sniper's face. "You gotta be kidding…"

"YUCK!" Mido cried, looking over his drenched body. "It smells gross! What is this?!"

Sniper was grinning from ear to ear as he answered, "Let's just say that you now give new meanin' to the term 'pissbaby'."

The look of horror on Mido's face was truly comical. "OH MY GODDESSES, IS THIS YOUR PEE?!"

"Or as Oi loike to call it, Jarate!" Sniper cackled.

Mido couldn't even scream because that would mean drawing in the scent of the human's bottled urine. Gagging and coughing up a fit, he ran past them and dove into the nearby stream. The whole time, Link and Sniper were laughing their fool asses off.

"Oh sweet Din, the look on his face!" Link howled with laughter, doubling over as tears spilled from his eyes.

"YeHA HA HA ha ha ha ha heh heh heh!" Sniper cackled merrily. "Wankah had it comin'!"

Link sighed merrily as he stood, slowly sobering up, though his cheeks were still red. "He's right, though; if I'm gonna help the Great Deku Tree, I'm gonna need to find something to defend myself with."

"Kid, Oi got enough skill for the both of us," Sniper commented, unsheathing a large knife with a curved blade that widened on the end and bent slightly inward. "This 'ere's moi trusty kukri. Bloody beaut, ain't it?"

"That's a really big knife," Navi commented uncertainly, still not quite ready to leave the safety of Link's hat.

Sniper grinned as he sheathed it. "Comes in handy when Oi wanna get rid'a Spoies." He deflated a little as he sighed. "Still wish Oi had moi snoipah roifle with me, or even moi old Huntsman, but it looks loike it didn't make the trip with me."

"Still, I think I should go get a sword and shield," Link pointed out. "Just in case."

"And where're you gonna foind either'a those out here?"

"The store sells shields, and I know where to find a sword," Link replied, starting off. "I'll be right back!"

Sniper rolled his eyes and shook his head, ignoring Mido as he continued to thrash about in the water, frantically trying to cleanse himself. True to his word, Link eventually returned a few minutes later, carrying a gold-handled short sword with a foot-long blade in his left hand and a wooden shield with a red spiral marking on his right.

"I'm ready," Link declared. "Let's go."

As Sniper followed the young boy, he had the strange feeling that he was letting himself be pulled into something very, very big. The dimensionally-displaced mercenary scoffed to himself as he thought about it.

So much for professionalism.