Sir Chaine leaned against one wall of the room, lost in his own thoughts. Scott took a moment after completing his preparations to consider the other man.

Clad in a light blue tunic, and a stocking cap atop his head, Chaine bore more than a passing resemblance to a certain adventure game character. Briefly, Scott considered asking how many heart containers the man had, but he chose to curtail his curiosity and enthusiasm.

In all honesty, he could say that the quite man leaning against the wall was someone who brought out his inner geek. Clearly he represented some sort of parodied variation on Link from the Legend of Zelda, but there was more to his shown personality than the silent protagonists from those games.

In truth, he was slightly surprised that Chaine spoke at all. It was obvious that the source material's protagonist actually spoke to people in the game, but the voice and words spoken were almost never shown. The game character was meant to be a stand-in for the player.

Chaine, while not a chatty individual, was definitely someone who would speak his mind. The moment he started to complain about wearing a tunic, the very tunic he now wore no doubt, it became obvious that he cared deeply for his princess but refused to be ruled over completely.

Scott averted his gaze, but continued to consider the only other source of testosterone in the room. His personality, much like Samantha's, seemed to be a conglomeration of a lot of things Scott had seen. Even some of his spoken words were similar to various representations of the original character, but not from the games. There was an animated series and a few other non-game bits of media that the source character appeared in at times. That character, Link, actually spoke in those.

Depending on who had creative control, his personality could vary. However, he often seemed heroic if a bit brash. Chaine seemed to match that sort of personality, but also seemed capable of being quite.

What were these people? Were they real or just NPCs in a game? Chaine was not Link, he was sure of it. Yet, even from the limited amount of time that Scott was around the man, he could see various similarities.

It was like all of the pop-culture and the original material converged at a single point and then some more stuff was added in to bring a real life version into existence, one with his own somewhat distinct backstory and life. Albeit, an obvious parody of the original.

Kitty, a girl who in her humanoid form looked a great deal like a real-life Felicia from the fighting game Darkstalkers, was the most changed of the three recognizable characters. She possessed innate abilities foreign to the original, a love for shoes, and being more into women than men seemed a bit off. There was also the part of her backstory where she was a princess to consider.

Saelil? Who knew if she was anyone else? The only clue he had about her was that she bore a striking resemblance to appearance to Lulu from Final Fantasy X. However, it was a similarity in appearance combined with a dark elven overlay. She also smiled a lot more, and did not seem interested in playing with dolls.

Really, she could be anyone, or no one at all, from his gaming knowledge. The resemblance might be nothing more than her impressive feminine architecture and capacity to look both cute and dark at the same time.

Samantha? She was odd, but somewhat understandable. Some of the fandom around Metroid seemed to have seeped into her. She did not want to be considered as a sex object, but she showed little issue with using her sex appeal as another weapon in her arsenal. That felt a great deal more like a fanboy's wish-fulfillment fantasy than the original character. Yet, little things about her seemed to be a dead ringer for the original.

At times it was hard to believe that such people could be real. At others, Scott found that he was happier if he simply accepted the situation as perfectly real.

Why aliens, gods, or whatever the bastards called themselves now, would need to take a world full of human souls and turn them into night lights was anyone's guess. They could create and populate entire worlds of their own. It made little sense to coerce people from other planets when such power was available.

A moment later a disturbing thought flittered through his mind. "No, it couldn't be..." Scott whispered softly.

The more he thought about it, the more it became apparent. His eyes widened and he snorted incredulously. "Are they really just doing this because they're a bunch of bored assholes with nothing better to do?"

"What?" asked Chaine. His meditations on previous events interrupted by Scott's rambling nature, he looked askance at him.

"I was just thinking about something unrelated," said Scott. He glanced toward the door that led to the companion rooms. "The others should be ready soon."

Chaine nodded once, but said nothing. His reached down and curled his fingers around the handle of his sword. Rushing ahead would be foolish, but he was prepared. He would rescue the princess and bring down the one who did such terrible things. "I'm ready when you are."

Scott nodded as well then looked to the companion door once more. Now they only needed to wait for the girls to return. There was little certainty of what lay ahead of them, but short-cutting the preparations was a terrible idea. If the princess was safe when Chaine was saved, she would probably remain that way for at least a little while longer.

Still, time was of the essence. The girls should not have as many experience points or options that he did. It became disconcerting to him that they were taking as long as they already had.

After another few minutes passed Scott frowned. "Hey, I'm going to go check on them."

"Right... I'll be waiting here, I guess..." said Chaine with a slight edge in his tone. His desire to set out for the rescue operation was obvious.

Scott fully understood that driving need. It was time to put a little hustle under some shapely rears. The princess wasn't going to save herself!

**