Chapter 7
Midna's hands hit sand as she hurtled from the Twilight Portal, tumbling onto her back.
Hmm, that was less of a welcome than I expected, she thought to herself, lifting herself a few feet off the ground and brushing herself off. Dusk, Stella, and Nevera appeared as well, all of them covered in sand. None of them were too happy about it.
Waiting for the others to rid themselves of sand, Midna looked around her. They were in a round room of tall pillars and arches. Six pillars towered above the rest, casting shadows over the roofless chamber. Upon each pillar was a round, gold plate that had a symbol on it, each of them different from the others. One, Midna noticed, even had a chunk taken out of it. In the middle of the room sat a square platform with stairs carved out of it, leading up to a huge mirror-like object. No, it wasn't just any mirror, it was the Mirror of Twilight! It gave off a feeble, dying light that would not last for long.
"So, where are we?" Dusk said, surveying the room around them.
"I... I think I've read about this place," Nevera piped up. "But I bet you could tell us more about this place, Midna. You seem to know a lot."
"Well," Midna replied, "I've heard people talk about this place like memories of a fairy-tale. This is supposedly the Realm of Light, the opposite of our home. But... if my suspicions are correct, something has gone terribly wrong. It looks just like it is back in the Twilight Realm! See? There are even the same squares of Twilight Matter rising from the ground! If everything were all right, we should all be dead, or close to dead, right now."
"Zant did say something about taking over the Realm of Light..." Stella said shakily, "... but I always thought he was just joking, ya know? It's all my fault..."
"Stop saying that, Stella!" Dusk said, wrapping her arm around Stella's shoulders.
"Well, I think she's right," said an all-too-familiar voice coming from the shadows. The twili girls all spun around to face Zant, who was leisurely strolling into the room. "After all, she so willingly helped me get all of my followers, who might have been less than willing to join me."
"So, where are all of these followers you're talking about?!" Dusk spat. "All I see is some crazy twili that wants to take over the world and all that bad-guy stuff."
"Oh, so it's time for show-and-tell, now is it?" Zant chuckled. "I'll go first, I actually have two things. I'll show you one of my pets first."
At Zant's words, a portal opened up above their heads and out dropped a shadow beast.
"This," Zant said, "is one of my followers. Does this make sense now?" The twili girls all stared at the beast, except Midna, who seemed to be deep in thought.
"Next, I'll show you some of the power that I now posses. Watch closely," Zant continued. He raised his hands so that they were poking out from his sleeves. A big ball of reddish-black energy formed in between them. He turned to face the Twilight Mirror and focused the energy on it.
"No!" Nevera gasped.
"Oh, yes," Zant said maliciously, releasing the energy and cracking the Mirror into four separate pieces, three of which flew in opposite directions: up, north, and south.
Nevera stared in disbelief at the one remaining piece.
"Why did you do that?" she shot at him, "Now all of us are trapped here! Including you, Mr. 'I'm-Going-to-Take-Over-the-World'!"
"Actually, I can still get back to that wasteland you all call 'home'," Zant replied. "Didn't you see what I did to the Mirror? Well, as a slight change of subject, I just used that power to so conveniently teleport your precious Midna to Faron Woods. I'm surprised you haven't noticed yet, I actually did it before our show-and-tell session started."
The twili girls searched around for Midna in hopes that Zant was lying, but sure enough, she was no where to be found.
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"I had no idea… I hadn't heard the details about Talo's capture…" Ilia said, looking down at Colin. They were both standing in the shallow waters of the spirit's spring, where Ilia had taken Link's horse, Epona, to wash a wound on the mare's leg.
"But, Colin…" Ilia mumbled, not noticing that Link had walked up behind her. Epona had stretched her head out to Link fondly, searching for a pat or a treat. Ilia turned to stroke the horse's neck, pretending to ignore Link, but Epona let out a harsh snort that startled her.
"So, you still prefer your master over me, huh, Epona?" Ilia asked the horse, then turned to face Link. "Don't worry about your horse, Link. Fortunately, it looks like the injury isn't too serious. You two can go on together. But Link… Can you at least promise me this? No matter what happens on your journey, don't try to do anything… out of your league. Please. Just come home safely."
Link gave her a reassuring smile and stepped closer to take his horse, when there was a sudden noise of dozens of stamping hooves and what felt like a mini earthquake. Harsh squeals and grunts could be heard before the gates to the spring were forcefully knocked to the ground with a crash. About three huge, boar-like monsters with smaller, green monsters riding atop them burst into the spring. Ilia gave a scream and tried to run, but one of the green monsters quickly strung an arrow on a crude-looking bow and shot her cleanly in the back. Colin suffered the same fate. Link tried to do something, but a huge boar ran beside him and the monster riding on top of it knocked him out with a club.
Once the uproar had died down, the monsters took Ilia and Colin and slung them across their boars. Then, as majestically as a huge boar can, a bigger, blue boar with a huge, green monster riding it came into the spring. The monster surveyed the scene, nodded to himself, then took out a horn. He took a deep breath, then blew on it, creating a low melody that echoed throughout the spring. When he had finished, a red-and-black portal opened in the sky. The monster laughed to himself, then wheeled his steed around and ran out of the spring and onward in the direction of Faron Woods.
A few moments after the last boar had turned the corner, Link woke up. His head ached something awful, and for a minute he couldn't remember what had happened, but then his memory came back and he jumped to his feet. He sprinted at high speed across the bridge that connected Ordon to the Faron Woods, but he stopped in his tracks at the entrance to the woods.
Before him rose a great wall. It was as black as shadow, and glowing orange patterns decorated it. The warmth Link had just felt back at the spring was long gone, and any positive feeling he had was now gone as well.
Link was just trying to think of how he was going to get around it or go through it when suddenly a big black hand shot out of the wall and clutched Link's throat in its powerful grasp. Link had only a moment to think before he was yanked through the wall and into the netherworld beyond.
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