The princess nods in approval. “If you dont mind, I think I will stay and observe- From afar, I assure you. Once you finish, I can escort you out of the maze.” Zelda backs up. She wasnt quite sure how much room the Repairman needed. She would guess as much room as any other Repairman. Remembering the ‘wall’s’ power, the girl shuffled back abit more. “Oh, M…Mister? Just Zelda will be fine.” The princess made a note to research ‘televangelness’ later on.
“Oh, that’s–that is fine,” he said, putting a hand on the lower pins. “Let me know when I can start again.”
He nodded as Zelda assured him just using her name would be fine.
He was about to remove the pins, noting Zelda was some distance away, when he remembered something and turned back to her.
“Actually, didn’t you drop a book in there? You want me to get that first?”
He was sure that’d be easy. Just don’t look out there… don’t look out there..
I snorted. This little blot was scared of us after all we’d been through? Sure, we’re THE toughest things on the streets, but I felt we bonded. ……Ah, forget him! He’s just like the rest. Nobody wants to get to know us, fully. We can’t have our cake and eat it too. Although….
“You know, Ink Boy, I think you got something there about our jobs being similar…. You clean up messes too. Only our jobs are a lot messier.” I noticed the flashing lights. “Speaking of….you got an alert. You need a lift?” -Smartass
The Repairman nodded, sympathetically.
He was about to say "No, I don’t need it,” but stopped before the words could escape. Just ditching after all this? Really?
“That’d be nice,” he said, aloud. After a moment, he added, “But wait, didn’t we leave your car over in our Toontown?”
Ah, well. He was used to walking, anyhow.
“So you came all the way out to the middle of nowhere to fix a crack in a… what is a wall doing out here anyway?!” Galanthus was surprised he hadn’t noticed the wall until now. He flew up to inspect it while muttering to himself, gradually getting louder until he could be overheard. “If those humans are trying to build out here, I’ll- AUGH! I don’t know what I’ll do, but I’ll do something!”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said, frantically trying to get his attention away from the Wall. He didn’t want to disturb this place any longer than he needed to. The fairy was pretty touchy about his turf, it seemed.
“No one’s building here!” he said, a little louder than he meant. “That Wall is more of a…um… reality wall…?”
Hoo boy, this would be hard to explain. He didn’t want to risk more cement over the guy’s flower.
The arrow was still a bit disoriented, and jumped when he was shaken awake. “…O-of course, Mr. Sir.” He started to make his way towards the stairs, but was flying a bit slowly… “Should I tell her the others are coming too?”
Beepsumu, meanwhile, made her way down the stairs, still looking concerned. “Well… She’s not eating for me either…” She sat back down at the table and picked up another arrow. “She wasn’t looking so good either…”
“Hmm?” the Repairman asked, looking back at the arrow. “Oh, yeah. That’d prolly be good.”
He looked up at Beepsumu, mild worry in his eyes, but said nothing. The second arrow went by in silence, until he had one or two more dents left.
It was at that point he looked up again.
“…Is it all right if I go look?” he asked. “Might as well bring this guy up anyway…”
Beep’s eyes widened slightly when the arrow said Vinny was having trouble. She knew exactly what he meant. She quickly finished with the arrow she was working on, then said “E-excuse me. I have to do something.” She then disappeared into the kitchen.
The dog arrow took this opportunity to speak again. “Well, take all the time you need. They’re not going to die from being smashed, mind you. They’ll wake up as soon as they’re back into shape.” He remembered the bungee cord on his head. “Oh yes, Mr. Sir! We were able to make a new string for Bowyetta. Thanks to you she’s doing just fine, aside from the fact that she won’t eat right now… Anyway, Vinny told me you wanted this back.”
A minute or so later, Beepsumu appeared from the kitchen holding some sort of tray and hurried upstairs.
“Oh, good,” the Repairman replied, somewhat relieved. He still didn’t believe in death, but at least the arrows didn’t have to respawn or whatever.
Still, as he was just finishing up with the first one, he started to wonder if he could speed this up at all…
“Hmm? Oh, thank you.” he nodded, taking the cord back. He sent the arrow he just fixed on its way and picked up the next one. Then Beepsumu caught his eye as she went upstairs.
“Um,” he said, trying to get the attention of the arrow he just patched up, “could you go and tell Bowyetta you’re awake?”
“On to Ancient Whittleton then!” Sparky cheers, ushering the group outside and setting a course southwest. “So Whittleton’s one of the oldest cities in New Hyrule, but it’s also grown a lot. Apparently it’s still considered a smallish city, but it’s way bigger than anything I’ve ever seen in my life! I think the population’s like 30,000 or something like that. Anyways, since it’s so old it has like these semi-circular bands of different architecture styles, getting older and older as you approach the old train station.”
Sparky pointed out the buildings as they walked, which had already shifted from the plaster covered modern types to stone bricks and wood siding, although the style was still modern enough to not feel out of place.
“The old train station I used isn’t in use anymore- none of them are, actually. As New Hyrule developed, the people started building around the Spirit Tracks, and they even had to lay some new rails in some areas. Those ones aren’t magical, of course, so they have to maintain them. But anyways, eventually there was enough train traffic that using the old stations became dangerous. They’re right on the tracks and there isn’t a siding rail for other trains to go around them. Also they were small and intended for single passenger or freight cars, which was terribly inconvenient after a while.”
By now the buildings had gotten smaller and more rustic looking. Most of them were made of wood siding, although the occasional building used split logs instead. Vio had silently pointed out a sign earlier designating the area a historic neighborhood, and indeed most of the buildings were houses rather than businesses. The streets were also narrower, obviously a more recent edition, and there were no concrete sidewalks, but rather stone paved paths between the street and the fenced in yards, which had flowers and shrubs spilling outwards from them.
“So to solve that problem, they built new train stations on the newer tracks, nice and big with siding rails and everything. I actually like them a lot, they’re very handsome looking. Aboda’s station is probably my favorite, but I might be biased because that’s my hometown…” Sparky chuckled, cheeks turning just a little bit pink. “Anyways, here we are! Whittleton as I knew it! These aren’t the original buildings, those rotted away ages ago, but they did a really good job reconstructing it!”
Sparky led them through a circle of trees into a clearing, and spread his arms wide to show off the village that was so dear to his heart. There were a handful of buildings that looked like enormous, hollowed out tree stumps with wooden porches and doorways and windows attached or carved into them. In the southwest corner of the village, secluded by a stand of cedar trees was a tent-like structure covered in canvas and painted with bright colors. Were the Repairman able to read the various signs in Ancient Hylian scattered about, he would have known that this building was the general store. Charming gardens overgrown with grass and wildflowers were scattered among the houses, and piles of timber were located near a wooden porch-like structure. Just beyond the structure the Spirit Tracks could be seen once again, which meant that it had to be the ancient train station.
Sparky clasped his hands behind his back, rocking forward on his toes a little bit.
“So, what do you think? New Hyrule’s come a long way huh?”
“It sure has,” the Repairman replied appreciatively. He gawked at the progression between modern Whittleton and Old Whittleton with the respect only a craftsman could have. The sight of all this architecture…!
He ambled around, in awe of the small, yet charming, replica of old Whittleton. The Repairman didn’t normally tour, mostly focusing on his job and immediate interactions, but this was truly fascinating!
He finally had a good look at the Spirit Tracks, now that they were mentioned. As his cart was currently in his hammerspace, the glow from before began to seep out from behind his back.
“So no one uses these trac–” he began to ask, before noticing the glow.
He pulled it out and finally looked inside his toolbox for what was causing it.
One of the magic-sensitive items he pulled out was an orange wand, with a simple ball at the end, labeled “Arcanometer.” It was glowing awfully bright.
“Apparently a pretty powerful set of tracks,” the Repairman remarked, before setting the wand back in and pulling out a small, cat-shaped slime. He figured the Cat Slime might want to look around, too.
As he set his pet to the side, stroking his little head, he closed the toolbox up again.
He stopped, staring at the lid for a moment.
“…Not usually this quiet…” he muttered, looking towards the top of his own head in mild concern. The Cat Slime squeaked questioningly.
He shook himself, and started to gawk again. While the Repairman had at least some experience with other languages (Spanish, Japanese, Webdings, Russian, etc.), he had little knowledge of Ancient Hylian. After a moment of looking at them, he turned to Sparky.
Pearson pointed to a huge, oncoming pile of zombies. “We need to get past THAT.” He grabbed the Repairman’s hand and used his hyper ability. He quickly hopped onto the Chomper’s Pizza building, pulling the Repairman up with him. He sighed in relief. The zombies were too dumb to look up. He glanced at the Repairman. “Have I actually introduced myself yet?”
“Wait, how are we–WAUGH!”
The Repairman could feel himself stretch as he was pulled screaming at high speeds onto the roof of a building.
As he splatted into a smear, he wondered if the zombies noticed that at all. He noticed that the pea pod didn’t seem too worried, so he just adjusted himself back to his usual form and replied, “No, I don’t think so…I was just introduced to your Wall-breaking friend…”
He didn’t really hold that against Chad, mind. Most Toons broke the Wall; the Repairman learned to save his energy for the outright vandals.
Light shot his impudent descendant a glare that could have melted the polar ice caps.
“I most certainly did not attack cuccos for fun! I told you it was an accident!”
Sparky floats over to the Wall, inspecting the gaping hole that was now in it. He happened to notice the three faces on the other side and gave them a friendly wave.
“Hello! They sure are taking their sweet time fixing this thing, huh?”
Blue grumbles, stomping over to the elder hero and yanking him by the wrist back from the Wall. Green and Vio had already given him the run down over what behaviors you should avoid where it was concerned.
“Cut it out Sparky you’re making it worse! You’re the oldest here you’re supposed to set an example, geez!”
“Awww but when else will the break be big enough to say ‘hi’ through? You’re such a meanie Blue!”
“Ah,” the Repairman nodded, more flattered than anything else to be compared with something from a set canon. “I…guess we could see what could be causing issues…?”
“No, no, it’ll be fine,” the Repairman replied to Art’s offer to fix it, a little too quickly. “I got it.”
I waved back to one of the few Links I actually played as before. What a cheerful kid! I looked forward to the rest of the new Hyrule tour–
Oh, right. The Wall. *ahem*
The Wall was definitely suffering for this. The cracks and tiny holes went up about a story.
And the Repairman’s light turned bright enough to give himself a headache. He struggled to grab his tool cart and get over there NOW!
He didn’t even care who did it or what happened anymore. All that concerned him for the moment was fixing the one thing he was made to maintain and was very important (for some reason).
He pulled some of a very long ladder from one of the toolboxes and leaned it up against the Wall. He ignored everything around him as he clambered up the latter, intent on making sure this was not where he failed.
Beep thought she caught a glimpse of the ceiling falling apart again, but she said nothing, and instead looked away with a guilty expression. “I-I’m sorry, I don’t understand…” Well, she actually DID understand, but the less she said about it, the less likely things were to fall apart. So, she continued to work on the arrows in silence, until..
“Excuse me! Beep, Mr. Sir!”
Another arrow came down the stairs, with the bungee cord wrapped around his “head” like some sort of ridiculous hat. “Um, how are the arrows coming? I’m asking because… Well, Vinny’s having some trouble with Bowyetta, you know how she gets when she’s upset…”
“Oh, you know, when–” the Repairman started to explain, before slapping a hand over where his mouth would be. “…Ah, right. Never mind.”
The Repairman had trouble seeing the chaos that resulted when he was paralyzed, so he had little context for what the arrow was saying. Still, it sounded bad.
“Um…” the Repairman replied, looking at the pile of eight or nine arrows he still needed to fix. He had just finished fixing the first one to get smashed, or at least not dented.
“It’s gonna be a bit, but we’re working on it,” he finally said, not unkindly. “I’m sure they’ll all be fine after this…”
The Repairman couldn’t help but wonder how Jingletooth managed to fit an entire mech suit in her closet. Well, obviously, it was hammerspace, but how long had that thing been collecting dust in there?
Whatever the case, Jingletooth’s maniacal laughter suggested this mech wasn’t a good thing. What was worse, a small red magnet had taken all of the Repairman’s possessions, except for a plastic toy screwdriver. Oh, boy…
The Repairman wasn’t even sure how he got roped into a duel with Beepsumu. They had just been discussing the fabric of reality. Then debating. Then arguing. Then feuding. Eventually money and dignity rode on the answer. Not having any other way to check, they had to battle. One a hardened mercenary, and one who never fired a legitimate gun. He just hoped he didn’t blow his own arm off…
Wha…Why was Bowyetta looking at him like that…? Her arrows didn’t seem all that friendly, either… And what was with the accusations leveled at him? Was it mind control, an imposter, or what? In any case, the Repairman hoped he’d be able to get out of this with minimal damage to either side…
Well, clearly, Bonkakira was no stranger to a good ol’ bar brawl. The Repairman discovered this firsthand when he accidentally sat in the same seat as one of her beloved cardboard cutouts. One thing led to another, and now the Repairman was holding up a chair defensively, hoping he could calm her down before they both got arrested..
Siblings-a-Fixin' 