Sir NZ: So, I'm sorry you had to wait this long for a new chapter, really, life just kinda got in the way with school, sports and getting more of a life than I had before. Hope this chapter makes up for it.

Disclaimer: I own James and Rachel. Nothing else. Nada.

How to Rebuild a Galaxy

Step Nine

Analyze a New Threat

All was quiet on the Spirit of Fire as it glided through space towards Earth, its mission completed with Master Chief recovered. Snake and MC were getting a long overdue rest, but both were in a relatively uneasy sleep, unable to get over their training that required one to be a light sleeper.

Two marines were walking toward the medical bay for some headache pills after a hard night of partying, complete with major headache. They lazily pushed the med bay door open, and began to walk towards the medicine cabinet.

"What the-? Get it off!" shouted the first marine as a small yellow being attached itself to his face. He began to try and swat it off with his fists, but it was too late as the creature tapped into his nervous system. As he fell down to the ground in pain, the second marine started to panic, but froze because he still had trouble thinking straight. He turned to the left and a yellow, humanoid creature slashed him in the face, knocking him to the ground. He quickly looked around, his headache still bothering him, but less with the adrenaline rushing through him. He scanned the room and there were yellow, vaguely humanoid creatures with many other looking yellow beings coming at him from all directions.

With only a split second to spare, he realized one thing. He was going to die. But not quietly. Whatever these things wanted, they probably didn't want the rest of the ship's crew to know about it until it was too late. He grabbed at his belt and felt for a round object that he always had on him: a fragmentation grenade. With the window of opportunity closing in on him, he had to act fast. He pulled the pin off the grenade and remembered his college days as a pitcher. Find your target, start the delivery, then fire a strike.

His target, a red button on the other side of the room. His delivery, very odd since he was throwing from the floor. And fire a strike he did, hitting the button head on as the grenade exploded.

And another strikeout for Andy Foshevsky. This kid's really on fire today, he may go to the big leagues someday. He wished he could have accomplished the dream he had since he was a little kid, going to the National Baseball Association of Russia and pitching until he retired with millions of Ameros to his name, with a beautiful wife and healthy, successful kids. But he would never see that dream come true. He would die now, surrounded by unknown aliens who would mutilate his corpse, while never becoming rich, or marrying, or having kids.

I saved a couple lives today, I guess that isn't so bad. Those were his final thoughts as a smaller one attached to his face and brought his life to a painful end. But after he died, the sound the strange beings most definitely didn't want to hear came on: the shrieking siren of the ship's emergency alarm.

"Show me your…"

"BRIGHT LIGHTS"

"CITY LIGHTS"

"I'm in love with a Yankee Rose!"

The Arbiter tried to cover the ear holes in his helmet to block out the noise of every grunt in the command center singing some infernal music from Earth. The Arbiter liked ceremonial music that was played during important events, and in general, calmer music than what was playing right now. This quickly got on his nerves after a couple minutes, but he wanted to keep morale up over this long journey, so he agreed to let the crew listen to something they agreed upon, this station being their choice. Luckily for him, he saved by the bell… or the electronic bell chimes on his radar scanner.

He quickly glanced at the radar screen, which displayed a large blinking object on the screen in their way. "Visual confirmation?" said the Arbiter to display one of the camera's images of the object. The Arbiter cracked a smile as he saw what was on the screen.

"Shut off the music, and power up all weapons' systems!" Roared the Arbiter as his chair rose to accommodate his view of the room, and the crew's view of him.

New York, the capital city of the United States of North America was one of the greatest cities on the planet Earth. It was like a Mecca for the western world, as thousands of tourists from around the world came to see New Yankee Stadium, Wall Street and the League of Nations. It was a city where miracles happened. After the Lylatians reduced Washington D.C. to a smoldering wreck, independence day –style, it was in New York where the resistance met and formulated the plan that eventually turned the tide of the war. It was also in New York where a meeting was called together to go over what had exactly happened that fateful day when a blast so strong tore through space that the Leaning Tower of Pisa finally fell over.

Many of the important members of the world were there, the president of the United States, the Prime Minister of the European Union and the Dictator of Russia to name a few notables. The League of Nations itself was the successor to the United Nations, which broke apart after World War III broke out, and is a very important forum for the international community. On this day, however, many different leaders of the intergalactic community met in the gigantic white meeting hall appropriately named Woodrow Wilson hall, for the political giant who came up with the original idea (and name) for the League of Nations back in 1918.

The delegates met at precisely 10:30 AM to discuss the matter at hand. The President, Franklin Grant rose up in the center podium to start off the meeting, as he was the accepted leader of the congregation, his fellow leaders from Earth eagerly watching from their box. The central platform slowly rotated to give everyone a few of the President's face at some point, and could be manually rotated to face whomever was speaking at the time.

"Friends, comrades, fellow intergalactic leaders, I have very distressing news to share with you today" he began, in his booming voice that won him the Presidency in the first place. "As I'm sure you are all aware, a week ago there were two planets in the middle rim, both called Ivalice. They were connected by some sort of odd magic, not fully understood by our scientists and intellectuals, and one of them disappeared. We shall refer to this planet as fantasy Ivalice. Now, the sister planet, Ivalice, hosted the third round of the Super Smash Brothers tournament a few days prior to today. All was going well, until an "accident" between two abnormally strong hopefuls appeared to create some sort of supernova explosion that was able to cut through atmospheres and hit other planets, some severely, some not. Ivalice is gone, Hyrule took a great hit from the blast, communications with the Mushroom Kingdom have been cut off, and from a few survivor's testimonies, the group of guardians that put on the tournament in the first place, the Super Smash Brothers, are in disarray"

The President stopped to give a chance for anybody to comment as he gazed over the crowd. A frown came over his face as he saw Peter Bolshevik, dictator of Russia, was smoking a huge Russian cigar. The President himself had instituted the "no smoking" rule in the meeting chamber. He knew that Russia didn't exactly like the U.S. after it stole back Alaska after an attempted Russian coup.

"So what? What's the problem?" shouted the delegate from Theyron (Fire Emblem world).

"Yeah, we're just a bunch of peace-loving planets, not governments ripe for research funds!" said the Kanto delegate.

"The King does not approve of such misappropriation of his time!" shouted a tiny waddle doo.

The continued for quite some time, as Wolf, ROB, Pit and Olimar stayed quiet in the SSB box. Each was happy to be alive, as they were found among the wreck of their escape ship that landed in the Pacific Ocean. After a while of bickering between the other candidates, the president finally used the loudspeaker to his advantage.

"Be quiet!" roared the voice of the loudspeaker as the president put the microphone down. He began to speak normally.

"Listen to me, something is wrong here, and I would at least like to ask for your help in reassembling the intergalactic team of warriors known as the Smash Brothers. Now, I know that you're all thinking 'what has Earth done to set such an example?' Well, Earth has sent one of the current members to go find a missing honorary member of the SB. Agent codenamed Solid Snake is currently on board the Spirit of Fire retrieving Master Chief Petty Officer John-117 from an uninhabited planet in the middle rim"

It was at that moment, that the caller waiting button started flashing on the President's control panel. The President recognized the ID number and answered it.

"And here is the Spirit of Fire communications center now, here to tell us that the mission was a success and that they are on their way home" announced the President, confident in his Marines.

Applause was heard from many different points in the hall as the president pressed the answer button. It was not was they expected.

"Mayday mayday, this is the UNSC frigate Spirit of Fire, and this is a red alert! Mission Spartan retrieval was a success, although something appears to have followed him on! The ship is in chaos as there is a battle onboard between these yellow… beings and our marines. Captain Cutter is insisting on landing on Earth as planned, although our engines are severely damaged! We plan to land in the Atlantic Ocean, 20 miles off New York harbor, send the word to send rescue boats for whatever remains of our crew." The audio message cut out.

The President made a few mumbles into a private communications device calling for rescue boats to be outfitted for this operation. He turned his attention back to the other delegates.

"Alright, well the important thing is that both Snake and Master Chief get back safely. Now, whose support do we have?" asked the President, expecting SOMEBODY to join Earth in its cause, but all he got was a couple mumbling and discussions between delegations. Finally, the Pop Star delegate stood up.

"It has been determined that the King is cautious toward such hasty action towards an unknown presence" announced the shortest delegate to the President.

"Same here" said a small Eskimo from the frigid ice planet of the Ice Climbers.

Wolf had had enough of this stupidity of these politicians, he got up and began yelling at the other delegates.

"Look, we almost died because of this magic mumbo jumbo and now my comrades are in danger. You will join us, or so help me, I think I speak for the whole Lylat system when I say that the Lylatians will never come to your aid" Wolf spoke, leaning forward and shaking his fist at them.

"But there is no rush, we don't even know what we're dealing with here" quickly countered the Fire Emblem delegate.

Before Wolf could reply, a shrill alarm went off as red lights went off around the League of Nations building. The message that came over the intercom was hoarse and crackly, and at some points unintelligible.

"They're bac… Extremely large fleet sighted at sector M. Hal… o… station … fallen. Prepare for them. The Co… is coming fast" the message was replaced as a large explosion sounded over the speakers, and then static.

"No problems, that's right, the galaxy is fine the way it is, no random space stations blowing up or anything" said Wolf sarcastically as he got a glare from King Dedede, who was down in the Pop Star box, since he was actually King of Dreamland. D3 (as I shall call him) was quite lazy, and really didn't want to deal with a problem like this, and Wolf wasn't exactly helping his cause.

The President reestablished control over the meeting "do we have any visuals from the station's camera?" He asked the A.I. of the building, who was always listening.

The A.I. then responded in a clear, cool voice "The pictures are mostly that of wreckage or the cameras were too damaged to take a clear picture" it paused "but wait, we do have this picture".

A screen came down in the North end of the room, and displayed a purple looking craft, with vapor trails coming out of two wings angled below the ship.

"There is your problem. The Covenant is coming" announced Wolf. The delegates began clamoring to sign defense treaties with each other.

Snake and Master Chief both bolted awake and grabbed weapons once they heard the shrill alarm going off in the hallway. The grabbed a marine running by them in panic and asked what was going on.

"I wish I could say sirs, but there is a conflict spreading throughout the ship. The alarm was triggered in the medical bay, and all around the ship, guards are reporting foreign beings are engaging them in conflict. They've reached the communications array, but we are holding valiantly. From what the others say, the guards around the engine room are running short, and I am being sent to perhaps buy more time" the tired-looking marine quickly explained between breaths.

Both Chief and Snake looked at each other, their faces turning white at the thought of what would happen if they reached the engine room. They let go of the poor marine and sprinted off in the direction of the engine room, Snake following Chief's lead. They both began loading guns on the way there, Chief's SMG and Snake's dual pistols. By the time they reached the central hallway, they saw a grim sight, as many marines were on the ground as casualties, with the still standing marines desperately fighting for their lives.

"The Flood" Chief remarked as he quickly jumped into the fight. Each ducking behind cover, Chief had no trouble spraying covering fire for the other marines while Snake was getting headshots on the aliens like he was getting paid for everyone he made. With them there, the marines were able to defeat the attacking aliens with little extra casualties.

"Who's in charge here?" demanded Chief in a stern voice.

"Me sir!" the marine saluted. "Colonel Buell, 43rd squad sir!"

"What is your mission?"

"We were sent to relieve defending forces at the engine room sir!" The marine was still in salutation posture.

"Alright, you marines, with me! We're going to the engine room! Address me as Chief, or Sierra-117 if you prefer. This is my associate and close comrade, Snake! His word carries as much weight as mine does! Marines out!" yelled Chief as he pointed down the hallway. Snake secretly beamed with joy as he heard Chief call him a "close comrade", Snake never really had any friends, and he thought that this space marine was a perfect place to start. And where is there a better place for two guys to bond than in the fires of battle?

The ragtag group, with two of the galaxy's most renowned heroes at its head, moved toward the engine room with startling speed. After five minutes of near-sprinting, they reached a mass of aliens on the flank of the assault on the engine room.

"Blow 'em to bits!" yelled Snake as he grabbed an RPG from a nearby corpse. The soldiers began to fire and kill plenty of them, but there were just too many, they couldn't get to soldiers under siege at any time close in the future.

"Chief this isn't working! There's no way we can get to them at this rate!" shouted Snake over the gun fire.

"Right, guess we'll just have to bust our way through" said Chief as he charged into the group of hostile aliens. Snake looked at him in disbelief and awe, until he snapped out of it.

"Either come with us, or give us some covering fire" he ordered the troops as he sprinted to join up with Master Chief.

Luckily, they were both adept in hand-to-hand combat, so they were actually able to hold their own while making their way through the large crowd of rather unintelligent aliens. They got to the front of the pack just as the last marine guard fell. Both thinking the same thing, they rolled into the engine room and Chief reached out to his right to bash in the door closing button, which guillotined an alien as it fell.

"Alright, we're in the engine room, what now?" asked Snake to Chief.

"I honestly don't know, but we have to stop the aliens from destroying the rest of the ship"

They both looked at the engine core, and they both thought of how the ship would probably blow up into two pieces if it blew up. They looked at each other and had the same idea, although with different opinions about it.

"No, we cannot blow up the engine core!" said Chief

"Chief, we have to! If we don't, the entire ship is doomed! We can't fight them all off!" replied Snake.

Chief grudgingly accepted this as fact and pulled out a timed charge.

"I'm giving us five minutes to get to the other side of the ship before this thing blows up like Chinese New Year! On the count of three, open the door and kick some alien ass until we get through them, and then just run for the hills! Got it?" asked Chief as he cocked his arm back, ready to throw the device.

Snake nodded and on Chief's count, hit the "open" button, right above the bashed-in "closed" button. The duo came out guns blazing as they took down countless enemies in succession and once they ran out of ammo, punched, kicked and slide tackled (Snake: "Played for an English soccer team bitches!") their way through the mob of parasites. After punching aside the last alien their way, they wasted no time getting out of there as fast as they could run.

And they made it all the way there no problem. HA! NO WAY!

The aliens gave chase to the two escaping figures, as fast as their borrowed limbs could carry them, which was actually respectably fast, but no match for their prey. However, that wasn't to say they stopped chasing them. As soon as they crossed the threshold for the main hallway, the ship rumbled as if in San Francisco during an earthquake. After the quake stopped, the duo made their way to central command. As soon as the doors opened…

"You idiots! What did you do?" Cutter was already in their face, red as a beat. Snake found it hard to keep up eye contact with the commander, but Chief found it easier due to his visor obscuring Cutter's vision of his face.

"Sir…" Chief began "We saved the ship's crew. There were too many of them to hold off on our own, so blew up the engine core and snapped the ship in half, isolating ourselves from the alien threat"

Cutter didn't appear pleased in the slightest. "Blew up the engine core did you? That's ALL you did? Do you know how much that will cost in taxpayer dollars? Do you?" he yelled at them, fully expecting a response.

"Less than the price of the hundreds of lives we saved today" replied Snake, who got a glare in return. "Sir" he finished while looking straight ahead again.

"I don't want you two pulling anything like this ever again" His voice was cold and commanding. "Do I make myself clear?" He appeared to calm down somewhat, but was still fighting the urge to strangle one of them.

"Yes" they said in unison.

"Good. At ease" he left them alone as he walked away.

Both looked out the front window, and saw a familiar sight drifting towards them. Home.

Mario was sleeping peacefully in his bed, turning over every now and then, his sleep restless due to his current situation. Dreams of Peach danced around in his head, reminding his subconscious who wasn't with him right now. He only hoped that she was okay and that they could meet again soon. His thoughts of his beloved were interrupted by a large crash, to which he shot awake. He hastily got out of his bed and ran out the door, forgetting his trademark hat, running out there in his undershirt and his mushroom boxers.

As he ran into the foyer and saw there was no damage done, he went outside to check if something had fallen down outside. Peeking his head outside, he scanned from left to right until he caught a glimpse of what looked like a small fire 100 something feet away.

When Mario came to the smoldering wreck laying on his (?) front lawn, he was puzzled. It looked like whatever it was, it had come from outer space. After circling it a few times, still unable to determine what it was, Mario decided to leave it be until morning. That is, until he heard a small voice come from the wreck.

"Hallo?" he curiously asked, to see if he got a response. Again, he got a small cry in response.

He walked over to what looked like a sheet of metal covering the top, and lifted it out of the way, revealing a dark enclosure below it. Squinting his eyes, he bent down to see if he could see anybody (or thing) through the thick blanket of darkness. At first, he couldn't see anything, but as his eyes adjusted, he could see two red eyes in the darkness, weakly shining among the darkness.

"What's the matter Mario?" a female voice asked from behind him.

Mario quickly turned around, startled by his companion's presence. He quickly turned around and got into fighting stance, just in case of course.

"Is this some kind of space debris?" asked Rachel as she lithely moved towards him in all white sleeping garb.

"I-a think there is someone in there. Maybe an alien perhaps? I saw-a two red eyes" said Mario as he relaxed.

"Could you maybe light a fireball in your hand, so we shed some light on whatever it is?" asked Rachel as she gestured towards the dark hole. Why didn't I think of that before? He lit a small fireball in his hand and lit the small enclosure up. Both Mario and Rachel poked their heads in and surveyed what had crashed so near their home. They were both startled when they saw a familiar figure laying there, on the edge of consciousness. The blue figure slowly turned her head towards them, her red eyes struggling to stay open.

"Lucario?" Said Rachel before Mario could open his mouth. She jumped into the pile of debris, followed by Mario. He glanced around and recognized it as the engine room of their escape pod, still largely intact despite hurdling through thousands of miles of desolate space and crashing through the Mushroom Kingdom atmosphere and into the Castle grounds. He went to Lucario's other side, the one that Rachel wasn't on, and picked him up with Rachel.

"Let's get you-a some medical attention" said Mario as they carried him directly under their point of entry.

The only problem being that Lucario isn't exactly light. Recall that Lucario is a Fighting/Steel type pokemon. The Fighting part isn't really a problem in this case, but the Steel is. As you very well know, steel is very heavy, and Lucario is about twice as massive as your mom's laundry machine, and therefore, twice as heavy. Now if we had DK and Ganon out here, they could probably toss him from here through the front door if they wanted to, but they weren't here. Ganon was having dreams of those curvy desert warriors that inhabited his native tribe, and DK was having dreams about those curvy yellow cuties he liked to eat so much. But seeing as how they weren't here right now, Lucario being part steel was quite a large problem.

"Mario…"

"Yes Rachel?"

"How are we going to get her out of here?"

"Ya know, I'm not really sure"

They laid Lucario on the ground gently, and began to think intensely on how they would accomplish this. They tried leaning against a wall, lying down on the ground, even hanging upside down to think of a way to get Lucario straight up eight feet. None of it worked, and they had come to an impasse on the subject. That is, until the "weakling" came to their rescue.

"Mario, is that you lighting that fire?" asked a small and tired sounding voice from outside the crash.

"Ness, is that-a you? Could you possibly lift Lucario out of here with your telekinesis?" Mario gestured upwards as he said the last part.

"I don't think I can lift her from that level, maybe if you throw her up, I can catch her and bring her up the rest of the way" Ness pulled up his sleeves in preparation.

"Alright, sounds good Ness, lets pick him up Mario" said Rachel, putting her hands under Lucario's back.

"On the count of Three! One, Two, Three!" On three, Lucario was about 6 feet off the ground, propelled by the combined strength of Mario and Rachel. They looked up to see Ness struggling to get Lucario up all the way. They quickly climbed out and grabbed Lucario by the feet, helping to get her on solid ground again before Ness dropped her.

"Alright, let's bring her to a spare bed and get her whatever she needs. Ness, can you communicate with her telepathically?" asked Mario, probably already knowing the answer.

"Yes I can, just gimme a second. She says she hasn't had food or water since the ship blew up so… one, two, carry the four, divide by the square root of negative one, times the natural log of e…" rambled Ness, trying to do the math on his fingers. Rachel and Mario looked at each other, confused at the math operations he was doing to calculate the days without food, and more importantly, how was he doing them on his fingers. "26 days! 26 days without food or water, let's go get her inside quick!" Ness quickly picked her up telepathically and began to rush towards the castle, his fatigue from before apparently forgotten.

As soon as they got inside, Ness started frantically opening up the cupboards and throwing random pieces of whatever they have in their food supply over his head, landing near Lucario.

"That should be enough! Now for some water! Falco, go get me some water!" Ness pointed to a spot behind him and to the right.

"Hey, how'd you know I was there? Huh? Oh never mind, I'll go get a glass of water" said Falco as he came out from behind a corner and went to grab some water from their large jug.

It was not long before Samus and Ganondorf came out of their rooms to find out what the commotion was. Ganondorf appeared to not really care, but Samus was deeply concerned.

How did you survive this long Lucario? Well, I guess living alone, sometimes without food or water for days at a time, trains you for this kind of stuff…

The two Hylians led the way as Marth followed closely behind them in the Library. Marth was curiously looking around the giant room, absorbing all that the torch would illuminate.

From what Marth could see, it was at least four stories high, with bookshelves going up beyond the range of the light that the torch illuminated. The floor had an old-looking red colored rug spread across its entire expanse. The walls had more bookshelves on them, but there were periodic breaks in the walls of books to fit amazingly detailed Hylian tapestries between the bookcases.

"How long is this library? We've been walking for at least 20 minutes now" asked Link, seemingly to Zelda.

Zelda tilted her head down in quiet annoyance at not having a straight answer "Well Link, this is the Library of Time, I would think that it must have several million books in it, ancient knowledge that hasn't been read in ages"

The ensuing silence from Link probably meant that he accepted the answer, so Zelda didn't bother elaborating, but Marth began to wonder why exactly they were walking deeper into this unfamiliar library in the first place.

After a while, the group reached another large door, not so unlike the last one. It was an extremely large door that looked to be at least 500 years old, except unlike the completely brown one that was the entrance to the library, this one was colored blue and yellow, blue on the indentations, and white everywhere else. However it had an extremely simple carving on it. The Triforce symbol was outlined about midway up the 15 foot tall door, sending chills down both Zelda's and Link's spine, although Marth was rather unimpressed.

"Your ancients were quite uninteresting in their drawings, back in my land, every square inch of a door like this would be brightly colored and had many grooves and scenes of old carved into it, unlike this… this… geometric carving of triangles" Marth said quite like an art critique.

Both Zelda and Link became visibly annoyed, as Link reached down to his belt to grab his sword, but Zelda, sensing what he might do, held his hand to restrain him. Even though it wasn't in a romantic way, Link still allowed a small blush to creep onto his face, killing his intense anger for the blue-haired royal for the moment.

"Marth, you have to understand that these "triangles" are religious symbols that mean a lot to both Link and me. Do not make the mistake of insulting them ever again, because next time I'll let Link do what he wants with you" Zelda's tone was slightly above that of murderous intent to the prince, and Marth got the message to probably keep his inner art critic quiet while he was in Hyrule.

Link and Zelda both turned back to the door, contemplating whether to open it or not. Apparently they had the same idea, because both Zelda and Link grabbed the handles, Zelda's hands on Link's, and both recoiled faster than you can say "Navi".

"Link" said Zelda as she held out her arms towards the door while slightly bowing. Link did as she motioned and looked down the long dark hallway. The wooden walls and rug underneath turned to a stone pathway as Zelda took a few tentative steps toward the foreboding hallway. The small hairs on her arms stood on end as a chill breeze blew slowly out of the darkness.

Marth came from behind her "I'll led the way princess, just in case we run into trouble" the prince confidently walked past her into the dark passageway. She and Link both looked at each other, exchanged a worried look and began to follow the prince down the hallway.

Marth really wasn't as confident as his posture and disposition would suggest, but he had to look good in front of the princess didn't he? So he kept walking forward and slightly downward it felt like. He could feel the farther they went, the colder it got too. He also began to notice that the walls got smoother as they went along, appearing to almost be man-made.

Finally a light at the end of the tunnel (pun definitely intended) appeared and the trio stepped into a large circular room. The architecture of the room definitely looked ancient, almost completely made of stone. There were two levels to the room, the upper level was the outside circle which the trio was standing on, and the lower level was the inner circle. There was a beam of dull light shining down from the hole in the ceiling down to the center of the inner circle. Upon closer inspection, the inner circle had a painting of the Triforce on the floor, which both Zelda and Link noticed. Marth noticed the abundance of statues with decorative armor that littered the outside ring of the lower level and the two that blocked their way with two crossed spears. Link stepped forward and stood in front of the two spears that blocked his way. To his surprise, the statues brought the spears out of his way, clearing his path. Link turned his head around to get a look at Zelda and Marth.

Zelda nodded up and down, expressing her approval. Marth gave him a skeptical look, and didn't really say no, so Link turned forward again, took a deep breath and walked between the two statues. To his horror, he heard a creaking noise as she quickly turned around wide-eyed to see the two spears crossed again. He looked past the spears at Marth, who looked just as surprised as he was, and Zelda was so tense she didn't have a visible reaction.

Link slowly turned around and walked towards the light. It was right now that he wondered what possessed him to go walk up to the spears in the first place. As he got off the small ramp leading down to the center floor, he saw the other statues Marth noticed earlier. He counted six statues that looked oddly familiar with their black and gold armor, he just couldn't remember from where.

He walked up to the light and looked around. No, he wasn't transported to a different world, time or anything like that. Simply nothing happened. Looked at the floor beneath him and noticed a small carving. He bent down to get a closer look at it and saw a small picture of a sword. He stood back up and slowly pulled out the Master Sword from its sheath. He held it underneath the light, to see if anything would happen. After a couple of seconds, he started to put it away when the light began to fade.

The only sounds that could be heard where Link's gasp of surprise and Zelda's small "eek" as the light went out entirely. The light in the room was the small (by now) torch that Zelda held.

Two things happened at once that nobody expected. The Master Sword began glowing the same dull white that the light had been glowing, Link looking in awe at his sword. The light now illuminated the statues that stood in a wide circle around the inner level and a small creak escaped one of the statues. Then another. And another. Soon, the statues were slowing moving, as if breaking off centuries old chains that restricted movement.

The statues raised various weapons as their red eyes began to glow a menacing red glow. In unison, they began walking forward. Illuminated by only the glow of the Master Sword, their armor glistened as Link reached his right hand behind his back slowly to grab his… oh shit. He left his shield in his room. The battle began quickly as Link chose to rush towards one with a giant sword. The statue (?) raised sword as it sent the sheet of metal crashing towards Link with tremendous force. Link quickly rolled around to its side as the sword hit the ground with a small quake. He got up and saw straps on its back that held the armor together. He then knew what his enemies were. They were darknuts, knights that he had faced throughout his many adventures. He remembered that he had to get their armor off before anything, so he swung vertically at the bent-down darknut's back and cut the straps in two. The surprised darknut, free from the extra weight, lurched upwards from trying to get the sword out of the ground. Link quickly brought his sword back around for a lethal stab into its chest. It fell on top of its armor with a clank.

He looked up to see five more ready to avenge their fallen comrade, weapons raised and slowly lumbering towards him. Arrows wouldn't help here and his sword was a bit limited in range compared to their long and heavy weapons. An explosion startled the darknuts as one of their helmets flew off into the darkness. A well-placed din's fire from Zelda had exposed the creature's head. Damn, he loved that woman. He quickly whipped out his bow and buried an arrow into its head. The creature fell with a crash and spilled green blood all over the bottom left triangle of the Triforce.

He put his bow away and surveyed the remaining four enemies staggering towards him. He then heard a scream come from Zelda and saw that the other two statues apparently didn't like what Zelda did to their buddy and came alive too. To add to Marth and Zelda's problems these two were about 8 feet tall and held spears as long as Marth was tall.

Zelda quickly backpedaled to get some room between her and the large armored demon. She charged up a Din's fire (ball?) then sent it towards the monster, letting it explode around the torso. The Darknut was knocked back a bit, but to no noticeable avail. She tried it again, letting the fireball explode this time around the head, hoping to knock its helmet off like last time. She underestimated the monster's reach, and as it exploded, it swung the spear out in a wide arc, putting a large gash in her arm. She closed her eyes in pain as she brought her arm close to her body out of reflex.

She opened her eyes to see what looked like the monster recovering from the bright flash of the fireball in its eyes. It turned its head side to side one last time, opened its eyes and brought its attention back to her. The quick use of two spells in a row made her a bit more tired than she would have liked. She quickly brought her good hand to her head and pushed off the beads of sweat that accumulated on her brow. The monster stepped forward and began a relentless barrage of swipes and thrusts that pushed Zelda on the defensive, not giving her much time to recuperate and use another spell.

Finally she saw the mistake that she was looking for, as the monster pulled back for an especially hard thrust. She stepped back, held her breath and did a small jump onto the spear as the darknut thrust it out. Using it like a springboard, she used it to get up the extra few feet, concentrated all her energy into her outstretched toe and discharged it once she felt her toe his flesh. The monster roared as electrical energy surged into its body and throughout its armor. The darknut finally succumbed to the electricity and fell onto its knees, then face first onto the ground, still convulsing from the electric shocks while it got discharged into the ground. Once the monster was still, she looked over at Marth and his own battle with his darknut.

From what she could see, neither had done much damage to the other, although it was clear the monster had Marth on the defensive. From what she could see, Marth had knocked off small bits of its armor, mostly around the shoulders, while the darknut had ripped a small bit of Marth's cape off. Too weak to do much, she picked up her torch, went behind the monster and shoved the still-lit part onto its exposed back.

The startled darknut bent over backwards and clutched at its back, searching for the source of the searing pain. Bending over backwards created the hole, literally, that Marth was looking for. The plates covering the darknut's stomach were stretched just enough for a sword to fit through, exposing small bits of its stomach. Marth quickly stabbed through the beast's stomach and just as quickly as it bent over backwards, it bent over forward clutching its stomach. After quickly avoiding getting hit on the head by the torso after it lurched forward, Marth jumped on the darknut's shoulders, brought his sword up and stabbed down its spine, instantly killing it.

He jumped off the darknut's shoulders before it fell over with a large crash and a dust cloud. Rushing over to Zelda's kneeling figure, he grabbed her injured arm to examine it.

"Zelda, did the monster's spear do this to you?" He looked into her blue eyes, already knowing the answer.

Looking at the ground, she slowly nodded up and down while wiping a teardrop from her eye.

"Aw look" he held her chin up so she would look at him "its gonna be alright" He wiped another tear away with his index finger. At least she stopped looking so said. A harsh clang interrupted their little moment as they were both reminded Link was taking on four of the smaller darknuts by himself and by the looks of it, the battle was not going his way. His swipes were becoming more haggard, and he had had his trademark hat knocked off ducking under an axe swipe.

"Please Marth, you must go help him! I'm too weak right now, could you please go help Link out?" she begged with tears beginning to form in her eyes again. I would really rather not go help out fairy-boy, but how can you say no to a face like that? "Don't worry, I'll get him out of there alive. He then got up and quickly ran down the path the larger darknuts had guarded.

Unsheathing his sword as he ran towards the unsuspecting attackers, he targeted the closest darknut as his first victim. Once within range, the air shimmered as Falchion sliced through the exposed straps of the darknut, dropping all of its armor onto the floor. This darknut quickly recovered however, and turned around to face its attacker. The darknut grabbed its large metallic axe in both hands and began charging towards Marth at startling speed.

Marth tensed and quickly spun out of the way, putting his sword behind his back to block the incoming axe. The two weapons met with a clang, and both fighters held the lock of the weapons for a second. Marth broke the lock to get into a better position and re-analyze the situation. With some fancy footwork and quick sword feints and blows, Marth kept the darknut confused just long enough to stab it through the heart. Marth satisfyingly turned his sword around in the hole for emphasis, then drew his sword out, letting the body fall to ground with a dull thud.

Turning back to Link, he saw that Link had somehow taken down the other three darknuts with no major injuries, and then he turned back to Zelda, who was nursing her hurt arm over by the entrance. Link grabbed his hat, and then walked over to Zelda behind Marth.

"Link, what were you doing, trying to mess with things you have no idea about? Say you had gotten yourself killed out there? What would I have done?" asked Zelda from her knees, tears in her eyes. Link, taken aback by the princess' sudden wave of concern for his well being before her own, took a few seconds to answer.

"Well, I didn't see you try and stop me" he paused "Besides, I didn't get myself killed now did I? Thanks to Marth over here" the last part came out a bit uneasily, as if forced by some otherworldly force. Link turned to Marth and held out his hand.

"Thanks back there" Link said a bit shakily.

"No problem" If Zelda was paying attention, she might have seen that this moment wasn't exactly genuine as both men were still wary of each other, and really just wanted to impress Zelda with their maturity.

"Do you need help walking, princess?" asked Marth as he offered his hand down to Zelda.

"I don't…" she began to get up, then suddenly collapsed back down. "Okay, I might need some help, thank you Marth" Marth helped her up and put her arm around his shoulder and let her use him as a support.

"Let's go back, get some rest"

"That sounds nice right now" Zelda and Marth walked collaboratively up the passage they just came down.

Link was a bit more distracted than they were, he did follow along, but he was much more interested in the new ghostly glow his sword had more than anything.

Sir NZ: Okay, again I'm really sorry about the huge delay in updating this, it's just that I've had lots of stuff going on and I'm having a bit of writer's block on this story. I'm thinking about maybe starting a new one, we'll see. And now that summer's here, I think you can expect a couple more chapters out of this at least. No promises though. Review and tell me what you thought of this 7650 word monster.

The "Immortal" Sir NZ