My pace slowed down a lot because of school, but it's my last semester so I won't have that excuse much longer. I guess I'll just have to gripe about work instead.

Fun fact. When I first started rewriting this chapter I had to ride a bus home from a training exercise, but I didn't leave the state of Texas at any point during those 738 miles (1188 kilometers for the non-Americans here). I could have continued driving straight for about 200 more miles after that before I got to Louisiana. So yeah, Texas is big.

As usual, there's a short summary of the major edits at the bottom of the page for my old readers. New readers shouldn't look at it.

Chapter 7

Link

The aura was different on the trail, and I didn't know whether to blame my drastically changed magical abilities, the fact that it was still fairly dark, or some unknown force. On the way here, I had felt mostly safe once we got onto Malon's homemade trail. Now I only felt ominous anticipation of something bad to come. Something was definitely watching us now.

"Do you feel that?" I asked Malon quietly. She nodded.

"The Stalfos found us." She said. "They probably felt your aura when you blew apart the back of the temple, and came to observe. Now they're waiting."

"For what?" I asked, instinctively placing my hand on the grip of my handgun.

"For the leader of the pack to make a call on whether or not to hunt us."

I looked around into the dark woods, more than a little spooked. Hopefully these Stalfos weren't as tough as the one in the Sacred Grove.

"That Stalfos back at the temple was the Hero of Light." I said. "Do you think he's the leader? This could be some sort of test."

"It's certainly possible." Malon huffed out. "Or it could just be a bunch of sadistic undead looking to kill us. They always like to keep things interesting."

I appreciated Malon's lighthearted take on the situation. I was still somewhat shaken from battling a sacred artifact and traveling to a different world, so the possibility of being hunted by a pack of Stalfos was more nerve wracking than it would normally be.

"Yeah, they're hunting us." Malon said after a few moments.

"How do you know?"

"There's two scouts about fifty meters behind us watching from the treeline, and then twenty of them coming at us from the north. I know your magic is probably weakened, but you can feel them by observing the aura in the area. A Stalfos actually absorbs magical aura into itself, so it appears as a giant black spot, per se."

I closed my eyes and focused. It was noticeably harder to extend my aura around myself, but the less I tried the more it seemed to flow from my body and into the air. Sure enough, I could feel two empty areas behind me. There was nothing to the north, though.

"I'm not feeling anything around the bigger group." I said. "How far away are they?"

"Several kilometers, I think." Malon replied. "You may not be able to find them at that distance. Remember this isn't my first time being hunted by Stalfos, so I have a little experience dealing with them."

"If you're right, we're going to be running into them soon." I said. "We have to go north to get to the gunship."

"I hope you're prepared, then." Malon said. "We can try to stealth this, or we can go loud and get out of the forest as soon as possible. It's probably a twenty-minute run to the treeline, but they're going to come at us quick once they realize we know they're hunting us. Any preference?"

"I'd prefer not to get into a fight at all, but it sounds like we don't have much of a choice. Let's just make a run for it."

"Okay, just remember that you don't have your magic to bail you out of this one." Malon said.

"I've still got some magic." I said. "It just feels different. Once we get into combat I'll check out where I'm at."

"Whatever you say." Malon said, stopping as we reached the main trail. "You ready?"

"Yeah, let's go."

Zelda

The time for the trap was rapidly approaching, and Ralph had already informed me that it was moving forward as planned. The news that Spud had gained sentience had been leaked, so it would likely fuel the Collective's ego and draw them into attacking.

The main problem was that Spud had managed to hack the nuclear missile codes so that we no longer had control over them. Furthermore, nobody knew how he was doing it, since we had cut all extranet access to the castle. Now he was threatening to launch those nukes all over Hyrule if we didn't remove the shackles in the next 24 hours.

This had all happened immediately after Ralph's Planetary Defense troops had blown open the doors to the armory. It had taken quite a bit of explosive power, but Spud had let us do it without harming Richard or his technicians. Then, once we started handing out weapons to veterans who had come to retrieve them, another IT technician had brought the news that the nuclear codes had been changed.

I sighed as I watched a group of older men walk away with rifles and ammunition. Rusl was nervous about me standing so close, but I knew there was nothing to fear from these people.

"If this hasn't set the people into a panic, I don't know what will." Rusl said quietly.

"I could tell them that the demented AI now controls the nukes and we don't know how he's doing it." I said.

"Let's just keep that one quiet for now."

We continued to stare at the gathered veterans for a while, but eventually I turned back towards the castle and walked away. There was a lot of work left to do, and now we had the extra difficulty of Spud threatening us with total destruction. It would take several days to manually disable all of the nuclear bombs, so Castle was in a terrifying limbo right now. Anti-air assets were moving into position around the nuclear silos, but even those were at least 12 hours from being properly set up to intercept any nukes Spud might fire.

The problem was that there wasn't much I could do. I didn't have the military expertise to be useful in strategy meetings, and I couldn't contribute to anything involving Spud. All I could do was watch and wait, trusting the people in my command to make good decisions. My future would be determined by their decisions in the next few days.

As we walked towards the castle, Rusl grabbed my arm and pulled me aside.

"I need you to listen to me." He said. "Impa is going to take you off-planet, and she's instructed me to bring you to the airport around noon. She's not going to let you refuse this, since it's about your personal safety. You need to start packing your things to leave."

I stared at him, dumbfounded.

"Is she stupid?" I asked finally.

"I… Look, Impa is my boss." Rusl said. "I have no choice but to follow orders, and my orders are to get you to the airport no matter what it takes."

"Last time I checked, Impa works for me. You will not be taking me off this planet." I said forcefully.

"Zelda, please-"

"No, don't you dare think of trying to force me. Keep in mind that I'm a magic user, not some pushover who can't defend herself."

"You're really putting me between a rock and a hard place here."

"My orders supersede Impa's, so you can safely ignore her."

Rusl sighed.

"Fine. But you do know she's going to come for you, right?"

"Then I'll fire her on the spot and have her arrested for attempted kidnapping. She will understand that my word is final." I said. "Even if it means my certain death, she will follow my orders."

I turned and stepped onto the stairs, making the long climb to my room with Rusl following in silence. When I reached my door and started digging around for my keys, he came up behind me and put his hand on my neck. I felt a small pinch.

"You didn't." I said, already feeling the tingling of the paralyzing agent he had just injected me with.

The door opened, and Impa caught me as I fell.

"You… I'm going to kill you personally." I groaned, unable to move my limbs. The toxin wouldn't affect my ability to speak or think clearly, but I would be helpless for several minutes.

"You may do that after we get you to safety." Impa said. "My job is to keep you safe, and sometimes that requires that we violate your orders."

"Oh, you just wait and see." I growled. "Just you fucking wait. The second this wears off I'll incinerate the lot of you."

All of the SSC guards were in my room now, save for Link and Malon. It looked like they had already packed my stuff and were ready to go.

"I am sorry, Zelda." Rusl said. I could hear the pain in his voice, but I was absolutely livid.

"I trusted all of you, and this is what I get. Tricks. Lies. Deception. If any of you want to keep your jobs, you'd better walk out of this room right now. Apparently there's only two of you I can trust."

"Link and Malon are on a mission, otherwise they'd be right here with us." Impa said. "All seven of us here will turn in our resignations the second we return from the galactic center, but for now we're going to do our job. Protecting your life trumps even your own orders."

"I should have you all shot."

"Probably, but then you'd only have two-"

The castle's alarm suddenly activated, causing us all to stop arguing. Yellow lights were flashing in my room, which could only mean one thing.

"The nukes." Impa said, completing my thought. "Hurry! Get the queen into the escape craft!"

Rusl slung me over his shoulder, ignoring my protests, and barreled down the stairs.

Spud isn't firing the nukes. There's no way. This isn't happening.

Dear Goddesses, please don't let this be happening right now.

I didn't know how Rusl carried my weight downstairs so easily, but soon we had burst onto the castle lawn. A small escape craft was waiting for me, and Rusl jumped inside, putting me in a chair and buckling me in with a safety harness. Impa and Rauru followed, but the other guards didn't.

"Ralis, you know what needs to be done." Impa said.

Ralis nodded, and then glanced at me as the door closed. I could see the unspoken apology in his eyes, but I didn't care. I was absolutely furious.

"Ready!" The pilot yelled back into the cabin. I didn't recognize him, and I didn't know how I felt about that. Usually Malon flew any aircraft I flew in, and I knew she was one of the best pilots in the military. That was why she had been picked for the SSC in the first place.

"Ready." Impa said. "Get us off the planet."

"You want an in-atmosphere jump?" The pilot asked.

"Yes."

"Impa, are you insane? That's like setting off a bomb. You might kill someone." I said, scowling.

The FTL drive activated behind me with a hum, charging as the escape craft rose higher and higher into the air.

"What is that?" The pilot asked, pointing out the front of the cockpit.

Oh no…

A nuclear missile was rising high over Castle Town, chased by several Air Force gunships. It was extremely high in the atmosphere, though, and the gunships were having a hard time keeping altitude.

"How long until the jump?" Impa asked.

"Thirty seconds until full charge."

"Jump early."

"Absolutely not!" I yelled. "You know damn well that will destroy the entire city. We're too close to the ground, and undercharged jumps cause exponentially more destruction in the atmosphere."

"That nuclear bomb will destroy the city regardless, Zelda." Impa said, turning to face me.

"Do you see how high it's going? It's not going to destroy anything if it detonates in the exosphere. It'll just knock out power to everything below." I said, and then addressed the pilot. "If you want an execution order on your head, go ahead and jump early. I'll kill you myself."

The pilot gulped, causing Impa to scowl.

"Twenty seconds to full charge." He said, apparently having decided to follow my orders.

The gunships had been forced to give up their pursuit of the missile, and were now screaming back down to the surface in an effort to get out of the immediate blast zone. The nuke had to be up in the mesosphere by now, which meant it wouldn't do much to anyone on the ground. I just prayed that it would go higher, even though that would mean more widespread destruction to Castle's electronic infrastructure. Electronics could be rebuilt, but people couldn't be brought back to life.

"Ten seconds."

With a flash, the nuke detonated. The escape craft's windows automatically darkened, and the pilot turned the nose of the ship down.

"Aborting jump!" He yelled back, opening the throttle and dropping back towards the ground.

We wouldn't escape the electromagnetic pulse from the bomb, and we all knew it. The electronics in the escape ship failed before we had even lost a quarter of our altitude, and we entered free fall. I squirmed in my harness as the paralyzing toxin wore off, but still couldn't move my arms and legs.

"I've got this." Rauru said calmly. A white bubble appeared around our ship, and we decelerated slowly. Several minutes later, we touched down gently on the lawn of the castle.

I breathed a sigh of relief, but my heart was still racing. I was ready to kill any of the SSC members I could get my hands on, but I still couldn't move very easily.

The door opened, and I saw that Nabooru had come out to meet us.

"I guess you guys didn't make it, then." She said. "The castle's electronics are fine, but it looks like most of the city was affected by the EMP. That wasn't the only bomb, either. Most of Castle's populated areas just went dark on the power grid. Communications with the Naval Fleets, Orbital Fleet, and the Orbital Cannon Fleet have been lost, too. I think this was the primary purpose of the attack."

"That's wonderful. Any change in Spud's actions now that the nukes have been launched?" Impa asked.

"Not that I've heard of, but it's only been about four minutes since you left. Ralis went down to check. The current problem is that the orbital cannons were moving back to cover the planet, and now we don't have comms open to report this to Planetary Defense."

"I'm sure something still works inside the castle, and I would hope they detected an explosion of that magnitude." Rauru said. "We need to get Zelda inside so that she's shielded from any radiation that might reach this far."

I clumsily reached over and unbuckled my harness, fighting off the effects of the paralyzing agent. Rusl leaned over and helped, then got me to my feet.

"Come on, Zelda. Let's get you inside." He said quietly, pulling my arm over his shoulder.

I was about to blast him with light magic, but I decided not to. My initial rage at their blatant kidnapping had quickly turned to shock as nuclear bombs wiped out our entire infrastructure. This day had gone from bad to worse in just a few minutes, and physically harming my guards wouldn't solve anything.

It was time to speak with Spud again.

Link

The Stalfos hunting party found us after about ten minutes, but they just trailed us for a little while. I shot three of them, but I could tell that there were plenty more. Furthermore, it looked as if my handgun didn't kill any of them with a single shot. They weren't as tough as the Hero of Light's Stalfos had been, but they weren't as fragile as a human being.

Malon covered the left and I covered the right as we continued running down the trail as fast as we could. There were still three kilometers or so until we reached the treeline, so we would need to pace ourselves. Fortunately, Malon was surprisingly fast.

I double-tapped another Stalfos, dropping it to the ground in a heap of shattered bones.

Malon swore to herself as she fired a string of rounds.

"I should have brought a bigger rifle." She said. "These Stalfos are tougher than the standard ones, and 5.56mm isn't doing anything to them."

"Here," I said, tossing her my handgun and a spare magazine.

"Is it working?"

"Yeah, just shoot them in the chest two or three times each. Those bullets are way over pressurized."

She put her rifle on her back and started firing, and I switched to my sniper rifle. With a quick twist, the scope rolled over to expose the red dot sight underneath, which I used for closer range activities like this. The first Stalfos I shot was blown to pieces.

Suddenly, five of them jumped from the trees and landed in the trail in front of us. I stopped suddenly, grabbing Malon so that she wouldn't run into them. We made quick work of them, and then turned around to find eight more coming from behind. I blew through the rest of my magazine, and then changed it while Malon emptied hers. One of the Stalfos escaped death by projectile, so I used my TALOS suit's melee assist and shattered it to pieces when it got close.

"There's a hell of a lot more than twenty now." Malon said as we turned and started back down the trail. "Probably forty more. Mag me."

I tossed her another pistol magazine and then looked around. There were still plenty of Stalfos running through the woods, and most of them were armed. It appeared that the unarmed ones had just been a test.

Don't let any of them get close again.

I realized the Master Sword was on my back, so I had that option. Just to test their shields, I fired my rifle into one of them. The bullet punched through the metal, dropping the Stalfos that had been holding it, so I worked my way down their line. Eventually they took the hint and backed further into the woods before giving chase.

I turned and started firing ahead of Malon, taking out Stalfos on her side. Once I had dispatched several of them, I turned back to my side.

Shit!

I dropped and rolled, turning backwards as I did so. I squeezed off a shot instinctively, destroying the Stalfos that had nearly taken my head off.

"Link, I'm out!"

I tossed Malon another magazine and chased after her, reloading my own weapon in the process.

I should have brought more ammo.

I was down to half on both weapons, so I would need to be careful. Instead of taking out every Stalfos I saw, I reserved my shots for those who looked like they were about to attack.

Unfortunately, the Stalfos seemed to realize that and attacked all at once. Twenty of them flooded the trail, forcing me to mag dump into their line and reload again.

Twenty-one rounds left.

"Mag." Malon called out. I tossed one to her, and she caught it with the handgun in midair. I didn't have time to appreciate the skill involved in that move before I had to shoot several Stalfos out of the way. I ducked as one swung its sword at me, punching it as I passed by. Several more lunged at me from the treeline, so I jumped back to the middle of the trail and continued running.

"I'm going to run out of ammo before we make it to the treeline." I said. "You may have to switch back to your rifle and do the best you can."

I unloaded my magazine into a group of approaching Stalfos.

"Goddesses, each one I kill gets replaced by two more." Malon said, reaching out and taking another magazine from me as she ran out. I only had three more full handgun magazines.

I could see the curve at the end of the trail off in the distance, but we still weren't close enough to sprint it out. Furthermore, the Stalfos had begun to move ahead of us, and were likely to try to cut us off before we got there. They didn't have the physical limitations of human bodies, and could run much farther and faster than we could.

"Are there any other trails that lead off to the east or west?" I asked Malon. "They're going to block us from going north."

"No, this is it until we get to the treeline."

"We're going to be fighting through a horde of them."

"I know. Just get behind me whenever we need to punch through."

I had no idea what she was planning, but I would just have to trust her. Sure enough, about twenty Stalfos were forming a barricade several hundred meters in front of us. I shot as many as I could, but I was running too fast to get good hits at this distance.

"Here we go." Malon said.

I fell in step directly behind her and caught my handgun as she tossed it back. A wall of fire appeared in front of her as we ran, exploding when we crashed into a Stalfos. Several of them were incinerated immediately, and I shot another as we passed by.

I nearly fell over as I was smashed on the side of the head, and I felt my handgun fall from my hand. Malon skidded to a halt in front of me, turning and firing with her rifle immediately to kill the Stalfos that had hit me. I rolled as another tried to stab me with its sword, turning to kick it in the head.

"Right!" Malon yelled. I rolled left, dodging another attack that I hadn't seen. Several more shots impacted, and a Stalfos fell on top of me.

I tried pointing my rifle at another one, but it hacked the barrel in half with its sword.

Shit!

I yanked the Master Sword off my back, blocking a slash and rolling closer to Malon. She continued to fire, so I got out of her way and hopped to my feet. A Stalfos closed with me, and I clumsily blocked its attack. I had never used a real sword, but it wasn't too difficult to get the hang of.

I managed to roll around the back of the attacking Stalfos and hack it to pieces. Then I turned and ducked out of the way of another attack, smashing the head of another. Malon shot one enough times to drop it, and I turned back to evaluate the situation.

Only two Stalfos were left, and I couldn't sense any others in the area. I made quick work of them, not wanting to push my luck. Once we were done, Malon and I started running again, reaching the treeline within minutes.

Once out of the forest, we dropped to the ground, exhausted. I took off my helmet, throwing it aside.

"That… was insane…" I coughed out, turning to look at Malon as she removed her helmet.

We made eye contact, and then both started laughing uncontrollably.

"That was crazy." Malon coughed out once the initial burst of humor had begun to pass.

"Yeah." I said, still chuckling a little.

She tossed me her rifle, and I looked at it carefully. One of the cartridges had ruptured, sending the bullet out the front of the magazine well. The weapon was ruined.

"So that's why you let me handle those last two?"

"Yeah." Malon replied, taking her rifle back. "This thing is ruined, and you're nearly out of ammo for both of your weapons. We'd better get back to the gunship before-"

We both jumped as a giant flash lit up the sky behind us. By the time we turned around, we couldn't tell what had caused it, but I knew that Castle Town was in that direction.

"Was that magic?" Malon asked, scanning the area.

"No." I said, noticing that a small radiation warning had appeared in my visor. "We just got hit by an electromagnetic pulse, which means that was probably a high-altitude nuke."

"A… No way. Nobody's fired a nuke in centuries. Do you think the invasion already started? That could have been an orbital cannon firing."

"I don't know. That wouldn't explain the radiation warning my suit is giving me." I said, but then turned back to her when I noticed she was bleeding.

"How long were you going to let that bleed before you let me treat it?" I asked, pointing at her neck.

Malon squinted at me, and then put her hand up to the right side of her face, where the cut started. It went all the way down to her collarbone, and I could see that it had dug pretty deep at a few points.

"Oh, shit. I didn't even notice."

Neither of us noticed. I thought to myself. Blood was running down her body and collecting on the ground, but her armor's color had concealed it.

"Come on, let's get to the gunship." I said, putting my hand on her shoulder in case she started to feel dizzy.

The gunship was only a few hundred meters away, but it took us several minutes to get there. It looked as if the police had left the collapsed husk of Lon Lon Ranch in smoking ruins, so we were out here without help. Once there, I laid Malon down on the grass and opened the door. A field medical kit was stashed in a compartment behind the cockpit, so I pulled it out and opened it.

"Link, I think I've lost a lot of blood. This cut… it's pretty deep and it's on my neck."

"Yeah, you have." I said, fishing out a roll of combat gauze and a package of clotting sponges.

"I… This is a problem. We're both bleeding."

I looked down at myself, finally noticing that my leg felt warmer than it should. Fortunately it looked as if my armor had taken the brunt of the attack, so I decided to ignore it for now.

"I'll be fine." I said, "Now hold still. This will probably sting."

I put a few clotting sponges into the deeper parts of the wound, and then packed the rest of it with combat gauze. The bleeding stopped quickly, but Malon's eyes were starting to glaze over. She had likely lost quite a bit of blood back in the woods before we noticed the injury. I was going to have to address that quickly.

I checked her for other wounds, but her armor had done its job. I didn't know how the Stalfos had managed to pierce her helmet and my plate armor with primitive weapons, but it was a moot point now.

I pressed the manual release on my own suit, dropping the light armor plates to the ground and stripping the whole thing off. I didn't have much clothing on underneath it, but I didn't care at this point. I wrapped my own leg wound with a bandage, anchoring it tightly to provide pressure and stop the bleeding.

Malon sat up slowly, so I turned my attention back to her.

"Hold still." I said, stopping her.

"It's… my neck." She said, reaching up and trying to pick at the wound. "One of them got me in the neck."

This is bad. She's forgetting things now.

"I know." I said, grabbing her hand so she couldn't touch the wound. "I treated it. You lost a lot of blood, but I'm going to get some out of the gunship."

"There's no blood for me." She said, obviously fighting against passing out.

"You're not…"

"Type E blood, yes." She said. "There isn't enough of the stuff to stock in gunships. I'm one in a hundred, in a very unfortunate way."

"You didn't stash a bag of your own blood in case you needed it at some point?" I asked.

"No, I… I had to donate it all to the police department…"

"Well then…" I said, walking over to the gunship and reaching inside. I opened the medical compartment and pulled out a two IV needles, some surgical tubing, and a tourniquet.

"What are you doing?" Malon asked as I wiped the inside of her elbow with a disinfectant.

"You're in luck." I said. "Guess who else is one in a hundred."

"Are you…you are not transferring your blood directly… Link, you're injured, too. You can't do that."

"No time to worry about that. I'm bigger than you, and I lost a lot less blood. I'll be fine." I said, wrapping the tourniquet around her upper arm and slapping the vein in her elbow a couple times to make it swell. I inserted the IV needle, and then removed the tourniquet and attached the tube. I used a small hand tool to depressurize the tube, making sure that I wouldn't be forcing air up into my own vein, and then repeated the process on myself.

When I removed the tourniquet from myself, my blood flowed into Malon's arm. I was careful to stay standing so that gravity would carry my blood down to her, and not the opposite direction. Malon turned away, grimacing.

"First time getting a direct transfer?" I asked.

"Yes, but it's not that. I just… don't like blood." She said, her face turning gray.

"Don't look, then." I said. "But I'm not going to let you die of blood loss out here. We're in this together, now. And the gunship needs a pilot."

Malon shook her head.

"It isn't going to work. It's not protected against EMP's."

I looked at the gunship, hoping she was wrong. It was a long way back to Castle Town from here.

She was probably right, though.

"Maybe we were far enough away?" I suggested.

"Maybe if you used a nuke from five-hundred years ago we would be. Don't get your hopes up."

"I'm not sure." Malon said, sighing. "But we're out of radio contact, and we can't fly. We're going to have to start walking once we're both healed."

"You do realize that Castle Town is over three hundred kilometers away, right?" I asked.

"Got any other ideas?"

I shrugged.

"Let's just finish this transfusion and get some rest." I said. "Then we can figure out what to do. Maybe the others will be able to come get us by that time."

"I wouldn't count on that, but maybe." Malon replied. "That EMP came from over Castle Town, which means all of their electronics got hit hard."

"I can still dream." I said, leaning back against the gunship. All I wanted to do was sit down, but it was going to take at least another twenty minutes to give Malon enough blood to make sure she was safe. I watched her as I stood, making sure that she wasn't slipping into unconsciousness. I had to nudge her with my foot a few times, but talking to her seemed to help the most.

Once she appeared to have recovered, I sealed the surgical tube and removed my IV. Lastly, I removed the needle from her arm and laid her down on the ground, her feet on top of a bag of medical supplies to help prevent shock.

"Get some rest." I said, feeling her forehead and cheeks for signs of a fever or reaction. She reached up and grabbed my hand sleepily when I touched her face.

"Thanks, Oni."

I sighed, not sure how to respond now that I knew who Oni was. She was already completely out of it, so I decided to just leave it be.

"No problem." I replied, standing up. It looked like it was about to rain, so I was going to find some canvas or cloth to set up some sort of shelter, but I felt Malon's hand on my leg.

"Don't leave me." She said, her eyes now wide open. "I'm scared. I'm so…cold."

"I'm going to be close by. I'm just going to set up a tent so we don't get rained on."

"Link, please."

I took her hand for a brief moment, realizing she must be about to panic. Even in her delusional state, she knew that being cold after losing a lot of blood was a bad thing.

"I'll be right here the whole time." I said. "I need to find something to keep you warm and dry."

She stared at me for a few moments, and then nodded, shivering slightly.

"Please hurry."

I tore into the gunship's emergency compartment, removing the tarp, blankets, and the wood stove. The tarp had magnetic strips that held itself against the gunship, and I secured the other end to the ground with sticks. This close to the forest, there were sticks everywhere, so I filled the wood stove and lit it underneath the tarp in between Malon and the gunship. Next, I threw both blankets over her. Finally, I dug a small hole just over a meter away to start a larger campfire. The smoke would help anyone looking for us in the air, and it would provide Malon with another source of heat.

"Don't you…need one of these blankets?" Malon chattered out, shivering in the chilly air.

"Not as much as you." I said, realizing that I was still in only my underwear. I hadn't even noticed the cold up to this point.

"I… okay." Malon whispered. "I'm going to go to sleep now. Please… promise me you won't let me die. Wake me up if you think I'm slipping away. I'm… not ready."

"I promise I won't let you die, Malon." I said, tucking the blankets around her neck. "Now get some rest. You'll be fine."

She fell asleep in a matter of seconds, so I turned my attention back to the fire. Now that I had thought about the cold, I was definitely feeling it. As I looked over to the forest, though, I noticed a familiar Stalfos standing at its edge beckoning to me.

I've had about enough of these things for one morning. I thought, but walked towards the Hero of Twilight anyways.

"What do you want?" I asked once I was close enough.

The Hero began speaking, but I couldn't understand a word of what he was saying without my translator. I shook my head and shrugged. He stared at me for a moment, and then realized what the problem was.

Once I had put my armor back on, I turned on the translator in the helmet so that I could listen.

Why could I understand him perfectly in the Twilight Realm but he's incapable of replicating that language here? I thought to myself, frustrated.

"I need to watch over my friend. She's been hurt badly." I said. "Please make this quick."

"She will be properly taken care of while you're gone. I will begin your training immediately."

"Are you serious?" I grumbled quietly, hoping my leg wouldn't give out.

"Dead serious."

I stared at the Hero of Light for a few moments, wondering if he was making an undead joke or not. Finally, I shook my head.

"All right, let's get this started."

"Excellent." The Hero said.

He turned quickly and led me into the woods.

Training was brutal. I staggered back to the gunship hours later, covered in bruises and sore from head to toe. The Hero was relentless when it came to mistakes. I was certainly no swordsman, and I had actually never trained very hard in hand to hand combat.

I thought Impa said I would gain this knowledge when I pulled the Master Sword from its pedestal. I thought to myself, groaning as I stumbled away from the woods.

Surprisingly, Malon looked as if she had been cleaned up and taken care of. Her armor was lying in a neat pile on the ground, and her dried blood had been wiped off. She had even been changed into fresh clothing, which I definitely hadn't seen in the gunship.

"Who was here?" I asked the Hero of Light curiously, turning to face him.

He was gone.

Oh, great. He beats the crap out of me and then disappears.

I turned my attention back to the camp and walked over to see what else had been changed. The fire had obviously been maintained, since it was still burning, and the wood stove underneath the canvas was still glowing bright. It had been eight hours, so I had expected to have to start the fire again.

"Oh, Link." Malon said sleepily, looking up at me. "Is everything okay? You look like a dodongo just rolled over you."

"I think I would have preferred that." I said, opening the gunship to dig for food. Once I had found some of the freeze-dried rations, I handed a package to Malon. She fumbled with it, and eventually I had to open the bag for her.

"Sorry, I'm feeling pretty weak right now." She admitted.

"I know. You lost a lot of blood earlier." I said. "You're fine now, though, so I think you're through the worst of it. Do you remember anything?"

"Not very much after we got out of the woods."

Malon sat up slowly, staring at the smoldering remains of Lon Lon Ranch just past the hill. I could feel a faint aura of sadness coming from her, but she didn't show it very readily.

"Any regrets?" I asked cautiously. Malon just shook her head.

"Only that I had to do what I did. My dad ruined thousands of lives with his drugs, so he really had it coming. I'm glad you didn't kill him, though. It would have been a lot easier, but I think I would have been a lot more upset about this all. Now he can face the court system and answer for what he's done."

"It's hard to think he did all that." I admitted. "But maybe I still look for the best in people, and I wouldn't expect someone like you to… well, I guess he didn't raise you for very long. I guess what I mean is that you don't typically see someone as successful as you coming from families like that."

"It's fortunate that I didn't go to live with him until I was fourteen, otherwise I may have gone a completely different path with my life. Even the three years I spent at Lon Lon had an awful influence on me." Malon said.

We sat in silence for a while, until my mind wandered back to our current predicament. As the sun set over the western horizon, the temperature was plummeting. This gunship hadn't had enough supplies to sustain two people for more than a four or five days, but we were over three hundred kilometers from Castle Town. Furthermore, this section of Hyrule Field was known for being completely barren, with almost no civilization between the forest and the city. There were agricultural hubs scattered around the area, but they were all automated. We'd be lucky to find a single human being between here and the edge of the city.

I looked at the gunship, wondering how hard it would be to fix.

"You really think this thing is a goner?" I asked Malon curiously.

"I'll try to fix it tomorrow." She said. "But honestly, I don't think it will work. Protecting our ground equipment from radiation is hardly a priority, since EMP's have only been utilized three or four times in history. Our armor provides basic shielding because we all spend so much time in space, but these gunships don't."

"So what do we do?" I asked.

"I… I'm not sure." Malon admitted. "I guess we start walking north like you suggested before I fell asleep. If we cover fifty kilometers per day, we could be back in Castle Town in less than a week. The problem is going to be sustainment, since we only have enough food to feed ourselves for a few days."

"That's at average physical output, too." I said. "Walking fifty kilometers every day burns a few more calories than normal. But at least you made me fill my pack up to the brim with water before we left, otherwise I would have to worry a lot more about that."

"There's some purification tablets in the gunship that we can use." Malon said. "We might be able to scavenge something from the remains of Lon Lon Ranch, too. It's not a perfect plan, but I think it's the best one we've got."

"I'm not sure how much longer that Stalfos wants me to train in the woods. I'll ask him tomorrow if there's anywhere we can find some food."

"Oh, is that why you're all beat up?"

I sighed.

"Let's just say that melee combat wasn't always my strong suit. There's a reason I stuck with a sniper rifle."

"I hope his training doesn't last a while, because we're severely limited on rations right now. Not that a Stalfos would understand that, but maybe you should explain it to him before he has you working your ass off all day. I should be good to go in a couple days, so maybe he could finish his training around then."

I decided to think about that later. Somehow the Hero of Light didn't seem like the type to make concessions for my personal wellbeing, although he couldn't stop me from leaving if it came down to it.

I jumped as something cold touched the back of my neck, and then realized it was a snowflake. More fell, and within a few minutes the long grass was beginning to frost.

"I think we should probably get in the gunship so we don't freeze to death." I said, standing up. "We won't have the campfire right next to us, but it'll shield us from the wind and snow."

"Yeah, that's probably a good idea." Malon said, nodding.

I pulled the side door open and quickly removed the seats from the floor, dragging them out onto the grass. It would be a tight fit for two people lying down inside, but it would work. We also wouldn't have to pull watch, since the doors of the gunship would lock and become almost impenetrable.

I grabbed the bag of clothing I had stashed in the gunship when we left. My armor was comfortable enough to sleep in, but it took up a lot of excess room and wasn't nearly as warm as sweatpants and a hoodie.

If I still had my magic, I would have been able to easily warm the interior of the gunship. For now, though, I'd have to accept the fact that the temperature was below freezing.

I hate the cold.

Malon stood up slowly, and then laid out a blanket on the floor of the gunship. I noticed that she only had a flimsy shirt and a pair of shorts, and sighed to myself.

You'll survive.

"Hey, take this." I said, taking off my hoodie and tossing it to her.

She caught it, but was already opening her mouth to argue.

"Don't." I said, preempting her. "You lost a lot of blood today, so you're going to need the heat more than I will. My comfort matters a lot less than your wellbeing, and you'll need to be in good shape when we start walking."

She sighed, but put the hoodie on and got in the gunship.

"Get in here before you freeze to death, you idiot." She said, although I could hear the appreciation in her voice.

After a quick check around the area to make sure that we hadn't left any sensitive items outside, I crawled inside and shut the door. The latch clicked, and I felt an overwhelming sense of security. It would take more than a pack of angry Stalfos to get through the armor plating on this gunship.

"Not to make this weird or anything, but I'm going to cuddle you pretty hard while we're in here." Malon said. "I haven't been this cold since I went through Mountain Warfare School on Snowpeak."

"It's the blood loss." I said, laying down next to her and wrapping us both in blankets. "And I really don't think you'd have much choice. There isn't any room in here for personal space."

"You won't be able to escape when I start whispering sweet nothings." She said, a pained grin on her face.

We both laughed, but the humor passed quickly as the cold set in.

Malon was definitely colder than I was. I felt like a block of ice was being pushed up against me, but I had to put up with it for the sake of her wellbeing.

We laid in silence for a while, shivering together.

"Hey, Link?" Malon said after a few minutes.

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for helping me today. I could have died."

"You know I wouldn't let that happen. We're in this together."

"I know. I guess I'm just not used to anyone else caring enough to give me their own blood."

"What else was I supposed to do?" I asked.

"I don't really know, but thank you regardless."

We were quiet again, and finally I heard Malon's breathing slow as she fell asleep again. I hadn't thought about it earlier, but I was fairly squeamish around my own blood. The only reason I hadn't hesitated was because I was afraid that she might die, and that was a much more terrifying thought than losing a couple pints.

I would never have admitted it at the time, but I knew exactly why I would have done anything to keep Malon alive. It was the same reason that, despite the temperature being well below freezing and our lack of basic supplies, I was enjoying the fact that she was curled up next to me.

I shook my head of the thought, knowing that my personal feelings needed to wait until this war was over. Soon enough, I followed Malon into deep sleep.

I woke with a start, squinting as I tried to see anything in the pitch-black cabin of the gunship. It took me several moments to realize that I couldn't feel the cold or see anything around me. In fact, I wasn't even in the gunship anymore.

Is this lucid dreaming? What's going on?

"Stand up, Link."

The Hero of Light was standing in front of me in his true form, the only thing visible in the uniform darkness behind him.

"Where are we?" I asked, standing.

"This is a part of the Twilight that's farthest from Hyrule. Here the barrier that separates our worlds is much thicker, and no light can reach us. If you could see, though, you would see only endless sand around us. We are in the middle of a vast desert."

"Then how can I see you if there's no light?" I asked.

"Because I am the same as you. An outsider from the World of Light. Here we will train your mind while your body rests."

"So I'm… still asleep in Hyrule?"

"Yes."

I sighed, wishing that I could have had a moment to escape from my current situation.

"What are we doing to train my mind, then?"

"You will be learning to blend with the shadows. It's a trick I learned from an old friend long ago, similar to the skills that the Sheikah have passed down throughout history."

"I already have optical camouflage." I said. "How is this any different?"

"I believe modern technology allows for the viewing of body heat and, in some cases, the presence of life, correct?"

"So this technique doesn't produce heat or a visible life force signature?" I asked.

"No. Although you will likely be unable to master this ability like a Sheikah or a Twili, it will inevitably be of use to you as you seek to avenge your friends and family."

"How…" I started, but decided not to ask how much he knew about my life.

"Shall we begin?"

I nodded.

"Very well. Prepare yourself."

By the time the brutal overnight training was over, I hadn't even gotten close to accomplishing the Hero of Light's skill. Further adding to my misery was the fact that I was just as tired as if I hadn't slept at all. Fortunately we had some powdered coffee with our ration kits, so I put emptied the contents of several packets directly onto my tongue.

Once that was done, I crawled over Malon and opened the door. The snow had continued falling all night, leaving a thin layer on the ground. The embers of the campfire were still glowing, so I quickly threw some wood on it and got the flames going again.

I shivered in the cold air, staring out across the open plains of Hyrule Field. I could feel that I was being watched from the woods, but it wasn't a menacing presence. The longer I paid attention, the more convinced I became that it was simply the Hero of Light waiting for me to return to training.

Has he forgotten that living creatures have to eat? I wondered, tearing into a ration pack and slamming down the food inside. It was one of only twenty-five that had been packaged in a case, so it would likely be my last meal until the end of the day. With that in mind, I saved a few smaller items to snack on throughout my next training course.

Once I had thoroughly warmed up by the fire and stepped into my armor, I picked up the Master Sword and returned to the wood line. Sure enough, the Hero of Light was waiting for me in Stalfos form.

"Tomorrow, we will begin training as soon as you eat. Do not delay." He said.

"Yeah, whatever." I grumbled. "Is your mysterious force going to be watching over Malon again today?"

"She will be taken care of every day that we train."

I nodded.

"Let's go, then."

We trained nonstop for the rest of the day, until I was so tired I could barely move my body. By late afternoon, I physically couldn't move anymore. I collapsed on the ground after a particularly hard right hook thrown by the Hero of Light.

From then on, I didn't have a single moment to rest. I was either training my body during the day, or training my mind at night. Malon recovered slowly each day, severely limited by our food and water rations, but I knew she was resilient enough to be fully healed before we ran out of anything. The Hero of Light started bringing some forms of edible plants and wildlife in the morning, but it wasn't nearly enough.

One day while I was gone, Malon felt good enough to get up and walk around the burnt husk of Lon Lon Ranch. During her adventure, she happened to find a water pump that had been left standing, meaning we no longer had to dehydrate ourselves in an attempt to ration out our supplies.

I was glad to see Malon recovering. I hadn't admitted to myself how scared I was that she could die, but I knew now based on the sense of relief that flooded me when I saw her walking again. I had lost hundreds of friends in my years of service, but Malon would have been the hardest to let go.

I could tell she was worried about me. By the fourth day of training I was so exhausted that I couldn't maintain a coherent conversation, but I forced myself to wake up and go into the woods anyways. Malon was now able to get up with me, and she stopped me before I stepped into my armor.

"Link, how much is he going to continue to beat up on you?" She asked, looking at the bruises covering my body. "I know you're a tough nut to crack, but don't you think this is bordering on dangerous levels of starvation and physical exertion? You've already lost a lot of weight, and you're covered in injuries."

"I'll survive." I said.

I had been through much worse training before, but Malon didn't need to know about it.

Interestingly enough, I had already begun to feel the changes in my body. Underneath all the bruises and sore muscles, I felt stronger and much more balanced. I would probably stop feeling that way once we ran out of food, but for now I was improving physically.

I've let myself get soft. I thought as I walked back to the woods. I had been much stronger than this at one point.

The Hero of Light was waiting for me in the same spot he always was. There were four dead cuccos at his feet, which was a nice sight.

"Where did you find those?" I asked curiously.

"They ran into the woods when Lon Lon Ranch was burned." The Hero said.

I tossed them out of the wood line for Malon to retrieve whenever she wanted, and then turned back.

"More of the same?"

"Today you will train until you strike me with the Master Sword." The Hero said. "Afterwards, you may rest peacefully until tonight. Whether this takes ten minutes or twelve hours is entirely up to you."

I stared the Hero down, making up my mind immediately that I was going to finish this quickly.

"Your determination is evident. Can you match it with skill?"

I nodded, drawing the Master Sword and moving into an offensive stance. My sword was held behind me perpendicular to my body, with my left hand extended in front so that I could use my armored wrist as a small shield. It was a stance that I hadn't been taught, but I knew that I had the speed required to bring the Master Sword around and hit the Hero hard.

He stared at me for a moment, obviously perplexed by my strange stance, but said nothing. He drew his sword and lifted his shield, signaling that he was ready.

Instead of rushing in for a quick strike, though, I waited. The Hero paced around me quietly, but I didn't move a muscle. Although he was an undead being and didn't react the same way a human would, I knew he was caught off guard by my sudden change in strategy.

Finally he struck, moving from my left and stabbing his sword towards my side. It was a perfect strike, and should have caught me in an awkward position. I was unable to block a stab with the armor on my wrist, and my sword was extended out to the right, held in my right hand. I couldn't bring it around in time to parry the attack, but I had been hoping he would try this.

In my close-combat training course I had taken several years ago, the instructors had stressed the importance of using our armor systems as an offensive aid rather than simply as a defensive last resort. I knew from many hits that my TALOS suit could handle glancing blows and most slashing attacks from the Hero's sword, so I leaned back and turned slightly as he stabbed. The attack missed by millimeters, and I turned towards the Hero, reaching my left arm over and around his sword.

As my hand clamped over the hilt of his blade, he immediately knew what I would do. His shield was in his right hand, putting him in an awkward position to defend from my counterattack, so he immediately let go of his sword and turned to his left. The edge of his shield caught the Master Sword, but I wasn't done.

With the Hero's sword now in my control, I flipped it around and held it in my left hand. Before the Hero could regain solid footing, I slammed into him, knocking him off balance. He blocked my follow-up strike with the Master Sword, but couldn't get his shield down fast enough to stop my blow to his legs, forcing him to jump over it.

Now!

I rammed into him again, knocking him down to the floor of the forest. In one swift motion, I stepped on top of his shield, pinning it to the forest floor, and drove his own sword into his right arm. It didn't penetrate his thick undead bone, but I was able to hold him against the ground as I thrust the Master Sword into his chest with my right hand. The minimal armor he was wearing creaked as it tore apart, and the Master Sword punched down into his body.

He stared at me for a moment, and then nodded. I removed the Master Sword from his chest and checked my watch.

"Forty seconds." I said, handing his sword back to him and stepping away. "I'm assuming this means I can go sleep now?"

"Yes, you may." The Hero said. "I see now that I underestimated you. I hadn't given enough credit to the warriors of modern times. Rest now, and prepare for the continuation of your training tonight."

I turned and walked out of the woods, sheathing the Master Sword as I did so. Malon had walked over to pick up the dead cuccos, and looked up at me curiously when I emerged from the woods.

"Did you forget something?" She asked.

"No, I'm done for the day." I said, making an effort to not sound conceited.

"Oh, well that's good. We're going to need more wood soon, so can you go take care of that real quick?"

I realized immediately that I wasn't going to be able to rest. We still had to survive.

With a small sigh, I nodded and trudged back into the woods to begin searching. It didn't take long, but there was still plenty to do around the camp. By the time I was able to lay back down in the gunship, it was past noon.

Malon climbed in behind me, shutting the door and crawling under the blankets to stave off the cold. I felt like this was all we did, but I didn't mind at this particular moment.

"Goddesses, we're in a mess out here." She said, her teeth chattering. "I might freeze before we even start the long hike."

"Who knows?" I said. "Maybe Rauru and Impa are staging a rescue operation right now. Hopefully they feel some sort of obligation to find us."

"Honestly, I don't think they will. I've been with the Special Services Corps for three years and they've never once gone out of their way to run a rescue mission for one of their own. It's kind of a shock when you realize that nobody's coming to get you on missions like this, but I look at it as them having faith in our abilities. We haven't had anyone killed in actual combat since Zelda's father was in power." Malon said. "Lenzo doesn't count, since that was an electronic failure during planetary entry."

"So basically we're on our own during missions?" I asked.

"For better or worse, yes." Malon replied. "If Impa thought we needed extra help, she would have sent Sword or Ralis with us, since they're next up the hierarchy in terms of seniority. Honestly I'm surprised she let me come with you, but I guess she figured you could use my knowledge of the Lost Woods."

"Good thing she did, otherwise my flesh would probably be rotting off by now, and I definitely wouldn't have found the Master Sword."

"Probably." Malon said, but changed the subject. "I wonder what's going on in the city. There's supposed to be a war going on, but we're far enough away that we would have no idea. If only the radio worked…"

"We can't do anything about it right now, so it's hardly worth worrying about." I said.

We laid in silence for a moment, and I was glad for the peace. For the first time in almost a week of constant activity, I was able to lay down and rest without the threat of immediate harassment or death. I hadn't slept before I left, so my mind had been going for a week straight without a significant break. If my body hadn't had a chance to shut down, I would be at my breaking point. Regardless, I was still seeing shadow people in my peripheral vision and hearing voices. That was a significant sign of exhaustion, and I knew it wouldn't be long before I started to crash. Not even a full day of real sleep would fix that problem, but I'd have to work with what I had.

Just as I closed my eyes, though, I heard a noise outside.

"What's that?" I asked quietly.

"It sounds like… rotors." Malon whispered. "Whatever it is, it's getting closer. I know I just said we wouldn't be getting rescued, but this sure sounds like a search and rescue team to me."

"No, I don't think so." I said, noting the rough pitch of the rotors cutting through the air. Even the most basic Hylian military helicopters and gunships didn't have rotors that loud. The Collective, on the other hand, hadn't advanced their engineering skills nearly as far as the Empire.

I moved over to the gunner's window in the tail section, climbing down into the seat and looking through the small periscope.

"Malon, you'd better come here and look at this." I said, my heart nearly leaping out of my chest.

"What is it?" She asked, worried.

"Collective soldiers." I answered. "A lot of them."

It looked like my nap was going to have to wait.

PLEASE REVIEW!

I haven't been getting many reviews and it's a little disheartening. I write this for my readers, so I like to hear their thoughts.

Summary of edits

No more Hylia. I can't justify using a goddess as a minor side character. Her presence is alluded to, though

Link no longer receives new armor from Hylia, since she doesn't appear to him in the new version

Link learns to blend with the shadows from the Hero of Light rather than Impa because I thought that just made a lot more sense

There's a little bit better of a description as to what goes on during Link's training

The lack of quality sleep starts to affect Link

I had to rewrite this whole chapter. This general sentiment and storyline progression is the same, but the text is significantly different. I didn't copy and paste anything this time.