Chapter 11- The Sorceress's Misfits

As they reached the vast desert, the sun burned red as the light of day died on the horizon. When the silhouette of the Arbiter Ground's great tower came into sight the sun's rays were replaced with the dim glow of lanterns and fires. Vaati quickly descended, dropping Link into the sand as he shifted from his demon form to his Hylian form.

Link brushed the grit from his clothes absentmindedly as he looked over the ruins of the ancient temple and prison, noticing the frantic monsters as they darted around the complex. Lanterns zipped through the air, occasionally stopping by each other, perhaps sharing information. Other poes passed in and out of the walls of the Arbiter Grounds. ReDead stood to lethargically guard the entrance, a few linen-wrapped gibdo joining them.

Groups of stalfos gathered around the fires that burned away spiked, wooden battlements- bulblin-made judging by the crudeness of the remaining structures. The stalfos flung sand about as they tried to smother the flames, most attempting to cup handfuls of sand only to have most flow through their boney fingers before it reached the flames. From where Link stood he could only see a few stalfos that were smart enough to use their shields to shovel sand onto the fire.

Vaati watched Link, holding back a laugh as the brat took in just how idiotic weak monster like stalfos were. "Marveling at their intelligence?" he asked teasingly, eyebrow raised in mock-interest. When Link gave a small nod, Vaati scoffed before walking forward. The stalfos were of no consequence. No, the sorceress inside was his only concern. The Arbiter Grounds were in disarray: gaping holes in the stone walls scorched by bombs, arrows and weaponry littering the ground, the fires, the agitated poes as they flitted around the area. It seemed Shadow had won the battle.

"Why do you think monsters flock to the powerful?" Vaati looked over his shoulder to confirm Link was following. The hero trailed a few steps behind, eyes bouncing from monster to monster as they walked towards the entrance. "They have no minds of their own. Without a leader they mill about, attacking whatever happens to stumble by." Vaati laughed once as Link flinched at a passing poe. As funny as it was to see Link uncomfortably walking among the horde of monsters, it was slowing them down. "Eivie has likely ordered them not to attack us." She knew they were coming and that such fodder could not stop him. "They wouldn't dare attack me, not unless they wished to die," he muttered to himself.

Link nodded his head, still not at ease. Like that was possible when he was in the cursed temple surrounded by lanterns held by invisible poes, corpses that could paralyze with a single shriek, or skeletons toting an assortment of sharpened weapons. It didn't matter that the stalfos and ReDead seemed dim-witted, the poes zipping around did not. "Are the poes an exception to that 'follow the leader' rule? Gomess and Eivie seem to be working together rather than one being in control." Link paused only when Vaati shot a glare over his shoulder. "Not to mention they literally eat poes that don't listen to them."

"Poes were once human, and some of their intelligence remains intact even beyond their deaths," Vaati grumbled. Poes were always the troublesome ones with their own agendas sometimes superseding their better's orders. Hue. The Death Sword. Both prime examples of this self-interest. Eivie and Gomess took it further because of their remembrance of their former humanity.

Vaati picked up his pace, the subject dropped before it even began. Link rolled his eyes, briefly forgetting the growing amount of ReDead surrounding them as they approached the entrance. It was when one dried corpse bumped into his shoulder did Link hold back a squeak. The ReDead moaned before dragging its feet away. The one that bumped into Vaati didn't get off so easily. No, the sorcerer growled before whipping his arm to the side dramatically, summoning a gust that sent the ReDead flying through the air. After that, the ReDead made sure to clear the path.

Once they reached the entrance, Link cautiously peeked around Vaati to see a dark set of stairs leading into the towering building of stone. Vaati continued on, paying no mind to the crumbling stonework as he kicked loose rubble to the side. Link walked two steps behind the sorcerer, fearing the darkness behind him. He would have been closer but if he stepped on Vaati cape or tripped into him… An angry demon bat in a small corridor did not sound pleasant.

The stairway lead into an open room filled with sandpits, only a few spots of floor sticking above the golden grains. Two poes were posted as guards at the other end of the room, next to the door leading further in. The two spotted Link and Vaati, lanterns' swaying halting to a strange stillness. Vaati kept going, grumbling about the missing floor as he went. Link hesitantly took a few steps towards the sand. As soon as Vaati set foot in front of the doorway, the lanterns rushed forward.

A near smack to the face caused a whirlwind to blast sand into the air. As Link snapped his eyes closed and covered his face, he heard metallic clanks as the poes' lanterns struck the wall.

"Explain yourselves!" Vaati yelled.

Link brushed his clothes off, watching curiously as the two poes became visible. Both wore a set of tattered purple and white robes, their faces hidden by the shadow of their hoods, leaving only yellow-green eyes discernable.

"We were told no one is to enter," one squeaked, turning its back to Vaati as it clutched its lantern protectively.

"I thought that we were to keep shadows from entering?" the other asked. "This one's a monster," it said pointing at Vaati before directing a finger at Link, "and that's a human."

"But no one's supposed to be here but us," the first stated, although the inflection was bordering on a question. "And what if they are here to steal stuff like the other one?"

"Move," Vaati hissed, the senseless chattering only wasting time. He needed to go yell at Eivie, not her lackeys.

"Gomess said that anybody that comes in is to be scared off or killed," the confused poe said, ignoring Vaati's order despite clearly hearing it. The flinch at his voice had given it away.

"But Eivie said that shadows are-"

"You two," a new voice addressed flatly.

The two poes stiffened at the voice, looking to the wall behind them. Link watched in amazement as another poe passed through the stone. The new poe wore a flowing black dress covered by a magenta robe and an assortment of shining jewelry. It's lantern set the room aglow with pink light from the oddly colored flame. It was female, her the upper torso and face visible while her lower body faded away to nothingness. She glared at the other two poes, waiting for them to acknowledge her.

"Morgan!" the two squeaked in unison, backing away from the pink poe. She said nothing in response, her blank stare focused on the smaller ghosts. "S-s-sorry," the two stuttered before racing off though the ceiling.

Vaati watched, his anger replaced with curiosity. This Morgan poe reminded him of the torch-carrying Poe Sisters that had once served at the Death Sword's side. The pink poe before him, however, may be stronger than those four had been, perhaps even nearing the Death Sword's prowess. He hadn't expected to see such a powerful, natural-born poe in the Arbiter Grounds. He assumed Eivie and Gomess would have devoured the strongest poes.

"This one will escort you," Morgan stated, turning curtly and expecting the two visitors to follow.

Vaati raised an eyebrow at the no-nonsense, business-like tone of the pink poe. He shrugged, figuring that perhaps this one poe was tolerable. Link, on the other hand, was reluctant to follow the creature further into the dark, catacomb-like building. He recognized that the poe was different, figuring it had a higher ranking by the odd colored flame and the vibrant dyed clothes. The ghost reminded him of Eivie and Gomess, although seemingly more straightforward.

After silently following the pink poe for a few minutes, Link braved asking, "What happened here?" As they had walked through the halls and a few other rooms, it was apparent there had been a battle inside the grounds. The twili monsters' weapons scattered about the stone floors; the chunks of rubble from blown apart walls; it was obvious Shadow had been through.

"You refer to the shadow?" Morgan glanced over her shoulder, yellow-green eyes catching Link's nod. "He arrived outside because the mistress had wards preventing him from warping inside. After blasting his way inside he destroyed the wards. This one had been elsewhere." She paused, slowing the pace of her hovering so she was beside Vaati. "Mistress did not expect an attack here, so this one had been at the palace before the little ones called for its return."

Vaati stopped, causing Link to nearly crash into him. The sorcerer crossed his arms over his chest and narrowed his eyes at the poe. "Why did Eivie have you watching my palace?"

"This one was to watch your trinkets while you were out. Shadow could have easily stolen items from your otherwise unguarded home." Morgan snorted when Vaati's face went blank with the realization that he had, in fact, left his palace unguarded.

He'd blame Eivie for that as well, seeing as she had infuriated him to the point of being too preoccupied with his anger to notice something like that. It certainly wasn't because he thought no one could reach his palace, or that he forgot that Shadow could teleport to it. Nope. That would make him look like a complete fool.

"This one arrived here after the shadow fled with the mistress's things." Morgan finished, turning around to continue leading them through the ruins.

Link stared after the pink phantom. She seemed to share being at Vaati's palace purely for the amusement of his reaction; a very poe-ish thing to do. They enjoyed teasing people, Vaati appearing to be one of their favorite targets.

"Do you know what he took?" Link asked, deciding that the conversation was taking his mind off the dark halls filled with odd creaks and eerie moans. Something nerve-raking about being in the sight of a massacre.

"The mistress has many things. This one does not care to know what the shadow took."

"Or did Eivie not tell you what he took?" Vaati cut in, rejoining the conversation after silently seething about leaving his palace unprotected. "I take it you are not one of her favorites considering how she had you loitering about my palace." Had he returned to his palace and found the poe, he would not have hesitated to kill her. She was expendable to Eivie. "She sent you to greet us, perhaps hoping I would kill you?"

"This one is not on good terms with the mistress and the harvester. Not human enough. A threat to their rule. The small ones would happily follow this one instead." Morgan scoffed after adding, "This one would not eat them."

Vaati actually laughed at the poe's response. He would much rather have Morgan leading the poes than Eivie and Gomess. She followed proper monster etiquette.

"Why do you keep referring to yourself as 'this one?'" Link asked after walking in silence for a few seconds. One mysterious groan from the dark corner of the room was enough. He needed them talking over the weird noises, even if it meant asking random questions.

"This one does not understand. Why should this one refer to itself differently?" Morgan turned around, hovering backwards while staring at Link quizzically. "This one speaks of itself, no one else. 'I' is everyone. This one is not."

"Um… Okay?" Link had no idea what the poe was on about. It sounded like she simply didn't like saying 'I' because everyone else did, like she wanted to be sure that it was her speaking and not anyone else? Link shook his head, not understanding. "But why not say Morgan instead of 'this one?'" That was pretty much the same thing, wasn't it?

Morgan's eyes narrowed. "This one is not called Morgan. That is the name the mistress gave me. This one does not have such a name. Names are for humans. This one is not human. This one refuses to be referred to as such."

"Link, quit asking stupid questions. It doesn't matter, so shut up," Vaati snapped. If these two would quit yapping, he could listen if he had actually just heard angry shouting nearby. More importantly, he would know if it had been Eivie. The partial words he heard bounce around through the halls sounded like it could have been her voice.

"This one agrees." Morgan turned around, returning to ignoring Link, annoyed with his questions and lack of comprehension.

With Link silenced, the yelling down the hall became almost understandable, the noise only gaining volume as they walked. Eventually the pink glow of Morgan's lantern mixed with blue as the fire of an overzealous jinx spell spilled out of the next room into the hall.

"She's ahead," Morgan muttered, taking an abrupt turn. She disappeared through the wall, leaving them to deal with the obviously enraged sorceress.

"Keep quiet," Vaati ordered as he kept moving forward. He waved a hand in front of him, summoning a breeze just large enough to disperse the jinx spell. "She doesn't know we're here," Vaati said with a smirk. Eivie would not be making such a fuss had she known they had arrived. No, she liked to act infuriatingly calm and superior. Morgan had lead them to her just because she figured they could make Eivie angry.

Link nodded his head, stepping closer to Vaati to avoid the odd blue flames as they moved towards the wall. The wisps of flames soon turned into a cold inferno as they arrived to the entrance of the next room. The stopped in the doorway of the circular room, staring at the whirlwind of flames as they spun around in a vortex of bright blue.

Eivie was in the center of the room, hovering above the ground in her swirling spell. Her human features fought against her monster ones, the horns sprouting from her head would vanish and appear as she tried to contain her rage. Her hair flew wildly behind her as she yelled at the lumpy monster cowering beneath her.

Link was more terrified of the cowering creature than the sorceress- though he figured if he saw more than her back he would have changed his mind. The fleshy monster's jaw hung open to show its horrifying set of teeth. The greyed skin's only patches of color seemed to be spatters of blood. While the arms on its body were small and unassuming, the long, clawed hands reaching from the floor of the room were more than just disconcerting. It was a dead hand.

"So you thought it better to allow the enemy the items than your pathetic, insignificant life?" Eivie screamed at the dead hand, more blue flames appearing in the room.

"I thought the Grounds were lost," the dead hand blubbered. "I thought I might escape before I was killed! These aren't my-"

"Do you think yourself more important? You should have died by Shadow's hands to protect my stuff. I will ensure your death by my hands will be far more painful and prolonged, creature," she hissed.

"I will do better next time," the monster wailed as it bowed it creepily long neck forward to grovel.

"Next time!?" She raised her fists into the air. "You believe there will be a next time!? My stuff is already gone you idiotic, bumbling, pitiful excuse of a monster!"

Vaati couldn't hold back any longer, his laughter interrupting the dead hand's begging and Eivie's yelling. At the familiar sound, the blue flames swirling around the room faded away, leaving the room darker and lit only by a few torches. Eivie looked over her shoulder, yellow eyes wide as she saw that her guests had arrived under her nose. She landed on the floor with a quiet thud, her eyes narrowing as Vaati continued to laugh.

"Have you so little control over your underlings?" Vaati chuckled a bit more when Eivie's face scrunched up in disgust.

"You are one to speak considering that Shadow Link had been one of your underlings," she snarled before turning back to the pile of blubbering flesh behind her. "Peate, I will deal with you later. If you even consider fleeing, know that I will send Gomess to fetch you."

At the mention of Gomess, the dead hand's black eyes widened and his jaw quivered. "I will never do that," he said unconvincingly before he burrowed below the ground, his several arms following after him.

"I assume Koloktos is destroyed, then," Eivie stated once she looked back to the Link and Vaati. Link's nod made her sigh. "I was fond of the construct. It fulfilled its duties without question, even if asked to fight the hero himself and his demon helper."

"I am not Link's helper," Vaati growled, not caring that she was obviously trying to bait him. "What oh-so-important items did Shadow take?" He quickly changed the subject back. She would not be throwing them off on pointless tangents.

"Hmm," Eivie hummed as she bit her lip and looked to the ground. She crossed her arms over her chest, fidgeting nervously.

"What did he take?" Link asked worriedly as he noticed the sorceress's reluctance to share the details. It couldn't mean anything good.

"He, um, took a few things," she muttered before holding her hands in front of her, hands forming loose fists. Eivie stood silently, straightening out fingers as she took count of what had been taken. Seven was the final count when she looked up.

"What did he take?" Vaati snarled, stepping forward and ready to lash out.

"Well," Eivie said sharply in response to Vaati before sheepishly beginning her list. "The hero's bow is-"

"How did you even get that?" Vaati interrupted, throwing his hands into the air.

"I was bored and spent a decade delving into dungeons, if you must know." She looked away from Vaati to Link, assuming that he may not know the exact problem with Shadow having the bow was. "The hero's bow is more effective against monsters than a regular bow."

She paused before moving on to the next item. "The power gauntlets. Shadow can easily move about large objects now, as well as being able to throw larger bombs he summons." With a sigh, she began pacing back and forth, avoiding the glares Vaati was sending at her. "Roc's cape will allow him to jump great distances as though he were flying. The cape will greatly increase his agility."

"And the rest?" Vaati asked impatiently when Eivie paused again. She probably saved the worst for last.

Eivie stopped pacing as she laced her fingers together behind her back. "The Lens of Truth is gone."

Vaati's eyes widened a bit, remembering hearing of this object. While it had been after his time the rumors of the lens painted it as a troublesome item for Shadow to possess.

"What does that do?" Link cut in, noticing that Vaati recognized and reacted to the name.

Eivie laughed humorlessly a single time before glancing up at Link. "We can no longer hide. The lens will allow Shadow to see poes no matter if they are invisible or not. I should have been more careful with an item that destroys one of my greatest advantages." Vaati's scoff at her response made her sigh again before ominously adding, "That is not the worst thing Shadow made off with." With Vaati quieted by her somber tone, she muttered "The mirror shield."

Vaati fell silent, unable to fully express the bounds of his rage for a second. He stared at Eivie, pointing a finger at her accusingly. Koloktos had been irritating, but Shadow having the mirror shield? She certainly screwed them over now.

"The shield reflects magic attacks back at the caster. I had attempted to recreate the affect in Koloktos's armor, but that deflected it chaotically. The mirror shield would send Vaati and my spells right back at us," she told Link, knowing that Vaati already figured it out. His stunned silence had confirmed he knew. "Shadow was also able to make off with two invulnerability potions. As it stands, he has every advantage over us."

"How did you let this happen!?" Vaati fumed. The sheer stupidity of it all! She left all of this crap lying around in the Arbiter Grounds with nothing but a few wards and a single dead hand to protect it? Every one of her damned poes should have been guarding items that had been used by the hero for the sole purpose of helping him defeat monsters.

"If you had not revealed my intentions to betray Shadow, this would not have happened!" Eivie shouted as she stepped forward. "You chose the worst time to be a damned idiot, you know? Gomess and I had been elsewhere. My strongest poe, Morgan, had been at your palace that you left unguarded. I did not know about the army of monsters Shadow had called from the Twilight." She growled, a burst of flames surrounding her briefly. "Had I known you would have done something so ridiculously stupid, this place would have been protected sevenfold!"

Seeing the oncoming shouting match, Link stepped forward, ready to step between the feuding monsters even if it was a horrible place to be. "Would you two-" he started, only to stumble, the ground trembling beneath his feet for a few seconds before stilling. "Stop… it?" he trailed off, looking around as the distant sound of shrieking echoed into the room from farther into the Arbiter Grounds.

"Eivie," Vaati hissed, nearly praying that it not be another Koloktos-sized problem rampaging about.

As Eivie opened her mouth to bite back at Vaati's unsaid remark, a poe shot through the wall and flew at the sorceress. The small purple and white clad poe shook as it prepared to give its angry master what had to be bad news.

"Shadow Link suddenly showed up in Stallord's grave and filled the area with sand and then released a bunch of angry moldorm!" The poe lowered its eyes, expecting Eivie's wrath.

Instead delirious laughter filled the air. Eivie abruptly cut herself off as she faced away from the others, raising into the air. "If he thinks he can continue to irritate me without consequence he will soon know why I am The Hunter, The Undead Queen, Sorceress of Wishes…" She continued listing off her silly and large list of names as she hovered towards the doorway opposite the one Vaati and Link entered.

The poe stared after its master in utter confusion. Vaati was quick to walk through the stunned phantom, not daring to leave the incompetent Eivie to clean up Shadow's latest mess. The moldorm had to be a distraction, because such weak monsters posed no real threat to poes. Even the larger Molgera wouldn't be too much of a problem.

"Wait up!" Link stepped around the poe, quickening his pace before he lost sight of Vaati in the darkness of the dimly lit hall. "That poe mentioned Stallord," he started. "It was a giant monster made of bone that the Twilight Hero defeated. Do you think that maybe it was still alive or that Shadow somehow revived it?"

"Who cares?" Vaati heard Link's footsteps stop for a moment, likely because the hero didn't like his answer. "As long as Eivie did not make any improvements to it, the monster is will just be an old pile of bones like all other stalfos."

"You're hopeless," Link mouthed, not wanting to start a fight with Vaati and risk being left behind as Eivie floated through the dark halls and rooms on the way to Stallord's grave. Vaati even summoned a little pale spark to light their way as the number of torches lining the walls dwindled- he had grown tired of kicking around rubble that cluttered the aged, battle-torn ruins. Any closed doors that they happened upon, Eivie would float through, forgetting that the ones following her were corporeal. Link ended up lifting the heavy stone doors up for them to pass under. The screeching of moldorm became louder as they went.

With one final door, they entered a ginormous room with vaulted ceilings. There was a pillar in the center of the sand filled room that went nearly to the ceiling, a small bridge showing that the pillar somehow connected with the outside of the tower. That secret may have had something to do with the odd spiral of grooves circling the pillar.

A blast of vibrant orange flames erupted over the sand pit, striking down the moderm that had been mid leap. The charred husks fell to the ground before dispersing in a cloud of purple smoke. Eivie wasted no time summoning more flames to burn the invaders to ash. Vaati joined in, lazily striking down the moldorm with energy blasts and slices of wind. Eventually Link drew his bow, shooting arrows at targets as the seemingly endless stream of moldorm leapt from the ground.

Even as the number of creatures decreased, nothing happened. No grand entrances. No reveal of a giant monster. Just moldorm after moldorm. Suspicion crept into Link's mind as he fired at the weak worms. Shadow had to be up to something, but what? Link glanced over at Vaati, seeing the sorcerer's gaze move around the room as he barely paid attention to the moldorm. Link wasn't comforted by Vaati's look of mistrust as he studied the room.

"Well," Eivie said as the sand pit ceased moving with the wriggling of the monstrous worms. She turned back to Link and Vaati, hovering over to them leisurely so they could continue their earlier conversation. "I-"

Everything slowed. A red and black portal opened behind Eivie. As she turned to the sound, Shadow materialized beside her. Her eyes widened as Shadow launched himself at her, a glowing crystal lighting her face as Shadow brought it down. The shard was implanted in her forehead, the sorceress letting out an ear-splitting, unearthly screech that froze everyone for a few seconds. Shadow landed in the sand, smirking as he looked up at the still hovering Eivie while she brought her hands up to grasp at the crystal stabbed into her head.

Shadow looked over to Vaati and Link, smiling a vengeful grin. "Have fun," was all he said before he disappeared back into the twilight portal.

"What is that?" Link said, dropping his arms to his side as he stared up at Eivie. She growled and hissed as she grabbed for the crystal, her hands repealed by crackling bursts from the shard.

"A corruption crystal from the Twilight Realm," Vaati answered, his tone flat and serious. He remembered the crystals –more so the waterfall of crystal particles in front of the Twilight Palace- and their ability to drive monsters to madness. He'd touched the dust once and it took several of Kiera's beasts to restrain his demon form in order to remove the shards. And Eivie had a crystal the size of his hand jabbed into her forehead. Grand. "It will force her into her monster form and she will become rabid, attacking whatever she sees."

Link's eyes widened at Vaati's words. "We're going to have to fight her?"

"Yes." Vaati ground his teeth together. Eivie would be nothing more than a feral beast out for blood because of the crystal. She wouldn't recognize him, or even Link. No, Eivie would not hold back because of her emotions. They would have to overpower a centuries old monster that was perhaps as strong as him when he had a piece of the Triforce.

They both silently watched as Eivie stopped reaching for the shard, as her face began to hollow and her eyes turned completely yellow, pupils disappearing. She held her hands in front of her, flexing them as her purple nails lengthened. Four horns sprouted from her head, the rest of her skin graying with death and clinging to the bone beneath. With a roar she turned to them, baring sharpened teeth.

Beside Link, the wind picked up before swirling around Vaati. In seconds he transformed into his demon form, needing all of the power he had to face the fully transformed sorceress. Link raised his bow, notching another arrow onto the string as he watched the demon eye and skeletal creature glare at each other.

Link would rather have battled several Koloktos at once than the phantom monster that hovered before them, eyes empty of human emotion and filled with the blood lust of creature of evil.

He'd rather battle Vaati than the thing in front of him.

A/N- And the battle next chapter! How will they deal with this I wonder… Kill Eivie or be killed themselves… Well, I thought of including the battle here but, honestly, my laziness caught up with me the last two weeks (Elder Scrolls Online consumed a lot of free time) and this chapter is pretty long on its own and I felt I needed to update, so this this is it for now. Hopefully it's adequate.

The corruption crystal idea is from Twilight Princess, like the one that forces Link to stay in wolf form or the ones seen on Stallord and the other boss monsters. I figure Shadow would take advantage of such a thing, especially because he saw that it overpowered Vaati back when they were all stuck in the Twilight.

Morgan was just an little OC I stuck in there because Eivie needed some more powerful underlings to order around and because she and Gomess couldn't be the only strong poes around. Her speech was heavily influenced by the Khajiit of the Elder Scrolls, and I think it works for her because she really hates Eivie's fondness for humans and humans in general to the point she'll do anything to other herself from them. Probably not the last time the pink poe will be around as a minor character, but I might just give her a side story when the main story is done. Peate the death hand was my sister's idea and because she gave me such far flung ideas I might have him in a side story or show up again later.

Thank you all for reading, following, favoriting, and reviewing!

Reviews are always welcome! Even if you're a guest or just want to say hey, I like this!

Thank you SoulDea for following the story!

TheBlueGumball- (Sorry that I didn't reply to this before the chapter actually was done, I was being real lazy). And no worries about not reviewing the previous chapter, I know that finals are draining and time consuming. As for the fanart, don't worry, the thought was seriously flattering enough. I know drawing someone else's character can be weird –especially with limited references and descriptions. I'm still working on Eivie's design myself! (I did get a kick out of that comparison of "a Teletubby died," though I'm sure it wasn't quite that horrific.) Thank you for sticking around! Even if it's not a review every chapter, reviewers like you do keep me going!