Showdown at the Shokay Corral [Doc Genzo]

What luck! Eve had been hunting the poor Rito down ever since that fateful show in Darunia, and the resulting events. She had meticulously figured out what Kinstone piece he had, and slyly swapped out her own piece from the Day of the Halved Stone with one matching the pretty Rito's. He had, almost by destiny itself, set up a stall to look for the piece's counterpart. With Ruairi playing shows across the country, and traveling in a now-iconic wagon he was not super hard to track down. The gilded Kokiri however, still put great pains into finding him. It was practically a crime how she had worked out finding him.

Back in Darunia, a cork board working out all the exact locations of the Rito had been set up in the girl's room. Her Fairy sat before it, pondering its meaning. The Tiny Fairy used her little dagger and chain to add more to the lattice of pinned yarn. Her spider web of chains added no extra meaning to the work of art. Alice sat back in front of it, daydreaming about its meaning. The sloppy crayon drawings of the Rito added some semblance of extra context to the design. Alice couldn't read, so no sense could be made of the object.

Evelyn slipped a handful of rupees to a suspicious Miniblin.

"Thanks for tracking him down! I was so close to finding him but I didn't see which way he went." she thanked the creature.

Pooky smiled back, jingling the rupees in his paws rhythmically, musically even. The Miniblin had ample and complete knowledge of the shopping district, and to that effect those who would advertise there as well. His instant knowledge of the stall was almost certain, having been advised of the Rito's significance by a certain suspicious Gerudo. Meryem was down a boss or two, but had still kept her business open. It was fortunate that wizardly Rito who had attacked them at the docks had competition. Though the spider's nest was full of unwanted individuals, this Gerudo at least would help in undermining those confirmed enemies of theirs. At the end of the day, it was ultimately better that Eve and Ruairi's names weren't being traded around by spies at all. But those in such shady business would disagree, intel was always more valuable than gemstones and gold in this world.

After following Pooky's instructions, Eve made her way to the most obvious, dead center of the trading hub possible. His location was so easy to find that the girl had clearly wasted a handful of rupees for no reason. Another easy win for Pooky, it was. She strolled up to the stall in a clandestine fashion. She didn't want him to see her casually walking straight toward him, as he would immediately know she planned this. Instead, she made her way to the stall and pretended to read the sign. She was seemingly unaware of Ruairi at all, intentionally not trying to see him.

"Oh! Chicky, I didn't know you were running this stall! Heehee, all you want is to fuse a kinstone? How quaint." she remarked, seemingly not knowing what 'quaint' means.

"Yeah. What a w-weird coincidence. I was just in town buying some s-smoked meats." she lied to his face.

The devious Kokiri made a mental note to find some magical way of being better at lying later. She made it look like she was still reading the sign. The bustle of the town was causing a lot of noise between their own speaking. Down the street and making their way past the booth was a group of five guards. Eve sweatily held onto her kinstone half, getting ready to reveal it at some point.

"O-oh you're looking for a kinstone? Red. . . what does this say." she started, voicing out the writing somewhat as she talked.

"Evelyn!" a sound came from beside her. "It's been a very long time!"

The goofy troupe of guards surrounded the girl and tried to talk to her. Oh the humanity. It had been several long adventures since she had any contact with the Castle Town soldiers. At first she had just been hiding her shady past from them, now she was in the process of keeping her entire life and adventures a secret from the guards. That excluded Julius of course, where ever he was.

"Oh hello! How's yer mum?" she started, pretending to be interested.

"Seriously, we haven't seen head or hair of you since the last mission! I don't think we're allowed to court-martial a kid for deserting though." the closest soldier teased.

"Haha, ya don't say." Eve nervously replied. "My uh, I had a lot of. . . you know. . ."

"Don't look so grim, kid. We're serious, we're not pressing charges or anything." a second soldier spoke up.

"I would only take that coming from a Captain. . . but uh, I talked to a Captain already and he said it was okay! You guys aren't going to send me a subpoena or something?" she awkwardly added.

"A Captain?! Guess you're off the hook. So what have you been up to?" the leader continued, choosing his words wisely.

"I UH. Tell them Chicky! Tell him what we did together!" Evelyn volunteered the poor Rito with her words.

"NO Chicky, we worked our butts off and saved an island village and that sweet bunny too!" Eve took over, exaggerating the positive parts of their experience on purpose. "Crazy person? Naw, nawww."

She was concerned about keeping the Rito's attention. But what was more pressing was getting these guards to fuck off.

"Besides- HEY! That guy is running off with cabbages! He didn't pay for them!" Eve lied to the guards.

Seeing her point at someone who was entirely too far away, the guards took chase.

"Hey! You have to pay for that!" they yelled as they ran off.

Eve sighed. She would also have to finish her conversation with Ruairi, and maybe get out of dodge some time this hour if she didn't want the guards coming back and interrogating her. She had done some solid investigating in regards to the Kinstone piece- yes, she knew the one she had was the right one. It was truly the one he was looking for, no doubt about that. The bratty girl started to get desperate.

"Don't worry Chicky." she said, winking. "Your secret is safe with me." presumably referring to the sheepish merchant who was about to start begging for him to stop using her stall.

"The thing is Chicky, we're up-and-abouters. We don't care about the haters." she explained, mysteriously. "Trust me, I can give you that secret thing you want."

She held tightly to the red shard, her glove soaking with sweat.

"You just have to say those words." she added at the end, almost ready to spring the almost pointless rock on him.

"No it's nothing weird I just thought you were looking for one of these, uh." she started quickly, stumbling on her own words.

Her hand slipped and the Red Kinstone shard fell on the ground as she removed it from her pocket. There was a clatter as it hit the grey stone bricks of the merchants' district. The shy merchant quivered, and almost jumped out of her own skin when the clatter of stone rang out. Now that the cat was out of the bag, at least Ruairi could live in peace knowing he didn't have some weird dark secret he wasn't supposed to talk about.

"That thing oh look at it go." she yelped as she juggled her weird little hands trying to pick it back up.

Evelyn was sweating now, knowing those guards would be back sooner or later. She was also self-conscious about Ruairi discovering that she had seriously sought him out with the exact same Kinstone piece he had-- a decently rare find. Although there was a rumor about some sort of Gold Rupee kinstones floating around with known and named owners. With that in mind Eve was hoping Ruairi would pass the whole thing off as a coincidence.

"I mean mmm, smoked meats! I can't wait to get my hands on the real thing I came here for." she painted a glorious picture of stupid excuses.

"Oh wow look at this though isn't that a kinstone piece you needed?" she pointed a little finger at the shiny red object in her other hand.

She was running out of excuses and time. That, and sooner or later Ruairi would call her out for stalking him, not that she had any idea what she had even done. The fancy dressed Kokiri was so full of shit it was leaking out her eyeballs. The merchant stared at the weird scribbles on her cheeks that she counted as makeup. There was a pause as the shopkeeper opened her mouth and then changed her mind in such an instant that she pretended to swallow something instead.

Soon, a real thief ran into town. This thief girl was colorblind, and got true excitement from seeing a match to her Green Rupee Kinstone piece being advertised all around town. She wanted to bring it back to her thieves' den to fuse it and reap all the rewards for herself. The thief sprinted out in the open, past five marching guards who were chasing some random person.

"What do you mean 'special' Chicky? Look the grooves on mine are the exact same." Eve argued, flailing her little gem in front of his face.

Instantly, Eve was pushed violently to the ground. Eve could feel her legs bending the wrong way as she collided with stone against her back. The thief snatched Ruairi's piece right out of his hands and continued running. Eve was already trying to get back up to run after whoever had just assaulted her. Her knees bent funny as she tried to get off the road.

"Run! We have an arsehole to catch!" she shouted, changing her posture to start running.

"She's not my-" Eve complained. She had cut herself off, suddenly not wanting to admit how few friends she actually had.

She had also still not realized the shopkeeper was a man. Not so relevant after having taken off after the thief. While she had all sorts of ropes and chains to use, it was no use trying to throw them while running at this speed. Her only goal now was to tail the thief to wherever they may be headed. In fact, it was possible if she could trick the thief into thinking they weren't still following her there may be a better chance of discovering the secret base. That said, Eve didn't really know where the miscreant was running off to. Maybe she was going to one of those "fence" things. Eve still didn't know where the criminal fence existed.

"Faster! But don't let her see us." she blurted between gasps at Ruairi. "She's slowing down and we can tail her around corners."

There was a sudden hush as both the thief and the two chasing her stopped stepping so loudly. A vagrant started yelling at Eve if she too could hear the gods. She made a shush finger at him and went "shhhh" and he slowly put down his sign. Eve wondered about Hylians sometimes, they were so odd. They turned a few more corners, spotting the tail of the thief's jacket shifting behind every other corner. They appeared to be gaining on her.

"Come on Chicky, I think we're close!" Eve yelped between breaths. She was slightly exhausted from the run too, but had so much more stamina from her endless adventures up to this point.

They peeked around the corner and saw the thief doing a number of suspicious things to try to get into a hidden door. It appeared to be some weird dance or one-person handshake as she recited some kind of password. There was a muttering of disinterest from behind the door, it slid open weakly and the thief disappeared within.

"We're gonna have to force our way in there. Hold on while I equip my sneaking suit." Eve explained, changing her stance momentarily.

Eve did a little jig, twirled around and landed her feet in position as a little jingle played. Transform Ego activated and Extra Eve appeared in her over-the-top swimsuit.

"Wait, that's embarrassing, that spell isn't what I needed here." Eve panicked.

Extra Eve stared blankly at her true self. This was definitely some major waste of time as the thief was headed deeper into the hideout. Eve really did have a sneaking suit, but she was going to need some tactical cover to change into it.

"Extra Eve, stand here and keep watch as I change." she commanded.

The clone stood in place facing outward in front of a small alleyway. Eve vanished into the shadows and quickly started changing. She popped out moments later in a strange black outfit featuring a vest with a lot of pockets on it. It was functional, but looked like something you would wear to a costume party, which it probably was. Especially considering the jazzy high boots it came with, it looked like something you would wear if your halloween costume was 'Shiekah Special Ops' or something. It seemed like a poor trade-off when her normal outfit had a type of protection built into it.

"This is my sneaking suit." she explained, holding a 'Y' pose to show off the ridiculous outfit.

Another disinterested murmur came from behind the door. It seemed, if it wasn't the password, the character with the deep voice guarding the door was literally too stubborn to do anything else. The guard must have been paid well too, working for thieves as he did. Money was simply no object to him.

"Move over Chicky! This is gonna get dangerous." Eve warned, barging down the street recklessly.

The weird Kokiri opened the button latch on her pretty green Adventure Pouch. She started yanking on some kind of long brass handle. The handle became longer and longer as it left the bag, almost reaching her own height. Finally, a head awkwardly popped out of the opening revealing some kind of big golden war mallet. It looked a lot more like a tool than a weapon, and that was probably intentional. In fact, she presumably only revealed this object with the interest of -oh no- using it as a battering ram of some kind.

Eve emptied her lungs in a tough stance with her hammer's head situated on the ground behind her. She began to breath in, and some gleaming lights appeared on the bangles around her wrists and the gem on her forehead. She released her energy with a "Hrrgraah" and lifted the weapon with speed. The hammer's head made an arc over her own head and swung loudly into the thin sliding door. It made quite a dent into the metal, and a very alarming amount of noise.

The guard slid the now-broken door open. The metal slid into its pocket until the point of the big dent where it stopped. The face of a Bokoblin appeared, and he grunted as he armed himself with his weapon. The Bokoblin aimed a crossbow at the two, unsure of who to aim at first. To his chagrin, the hammer was swinging back around at increasing speeds. The door was smashed into an angular shape as it bent in, folding like a big box.

The guard doubled over as his bearing was knocked aside by the impressive force.

"Get him Chicky! We're going inside!" she yelled senselessly.

The dramatic entrance appeared to do the trick, footprints appearing on the barreling Bokoblin's face. Eve dropped the hammer, rushed in, and sunk her icy-cold dagger into the back of his neck. A white fur of frost crystallized on the Bokoblin's upper torso and lower chin. The mystically sharp crystal of the blade slid effortlessly into the intelligent monster's spine. The crossbow clattered onto the stony floor.

"Pick that up." Eve said, seemingly to nobody. Surprisingly, Extra Eve appeared from around the corner and appeared to attempt to grab the hammer.

Rushing in without any caution, Eve thought for sure she saw the backside of a Korok running by. Eve, Ruairi, and Extra Eve entered the alcove of the hideout. This was the secret place called the "Thieves' Town:" a rumored syndicate base that existed in most major towns. The original Thieves' Town was located in Kakariko town long before its destruction.

The internal hallways were extremely dark, there was evidence of a lantern somewhere deeper within, but it was shockingly hard to see. Eve's incredible sneaking suit was starting to make sense, it was certainly hard to see her if there was no light sources. Granted, she had two companions that weren't wearing such things, and she continued to look silly.

"Hey! I said pick that up!" she berated the clone. Her spell was a strong illusion, and the clone couldn't collide with any physical object without losing power and vanishing. . . It seemed capable of doing incredibly basic things but this appeared to be its limit.

Eve followed the clone back outside, and grabbed the weapon herself. She made the awkward tool disappear back in her bag. She then grabbed Extra Eve by the hand and led her back inside. The mild interactions with her were certainly not enough to make the fake clone vanish.

"Goodness'! My ghastly doll is a better body double than you are." she taunted the unspeaking apparition.

"Sneaky, not sneaky. . . so long as they don't see me there's no problem right?" Eve argued.

They entered the dark hallway, reached the single lantern, and then met with a dim stairway. It was possible they could just. . . move the lantern. That didn't seem necessary though because a bright glow came from the doorway at the bottom of the stairwell. Eve was curious about the limits of her illusion. She looked back at the weird girl who was dressed for a swim.

"Go down there and look around inside that door." she commanded Extra Eve.

The flipper-clad girl loudly slapped down the stairs and made her way into the opening. There was an audible splash as, presumably, the simulated girl had finally achieved her dream of taking a swim. That finally answered Eve's aching question of whether water, a fluid, counted as a collision with this illusion. But why was there water down there? What was that light?

"We need to go fish up my clone." Eve insisted, running down the stairs.

What she found in the archway of the door was nothing short of shocking. There was a lengthy plane of water partially submerging what appeared to be a town full of small houses, interspersed with many ramps and metal lattice platforms. Atop the platforms and ramps were many Koroks, all running around and seemingly busy as if they had jobs to get done in this extremely cramped underground facility. The stairs didn't seem to go that deep? But it was at least the height of a couple houses as they climbed down, so it wasn't impossible. But Eve had to ask herself, was it necessary?

Extra Eve splashed around in the water, having only been told to explore "inside" the door. She seemed to be having fun despite the permanent blank look on her face. It seemed like she had some vague concepts of feelings and behavior. The Koroks immediately spotted the two girls coming out, and possibly Ruairi. They didn't sound any alarms but they started talking amongst themselves loudly. Perhaps this wasn't the real hideout yet, but they had still caused some trouble.