A/N: I think I mentioned something in the original A/N for this chapter about sequels and a prequel? Just letting you know that all of that still exists, and it's a little bit more fleshed out this time. I don't have the excuse of chores this time or homework, since I've been pretty good about getting my classwork done in class, so let's hope I get this done quickly.
Rewritten as of 10/27/13, completed as of 10/31/13
Chapter 12: Where'd the Bridge Go?
I groaned when my feet touched solid ground. I would say that going into the Twilight is uncomfortable, but it would be an understatement. I looked around, trying to adjust to the different feel that the Twilight had. Even the air felt different. Visually, it was like... an endless sunset. But, that's what Twilight is, right? The light left in the sky just after the sun goes under the horizon.
I turned to Link, wanting to get going quickly. The inability to keep track of time via the sun's position in the sky was disconcerting, and I didn't want to linger in the Twilight longer than I had to. When I looked, I saw he was already a wolf again, and I guessed that he probably didn't want to be in that form any longer than he had to. I was expecting it when Midna appeared, letting herself fall on Link's back, so that time I didn't jump.
"How lovely! The black clouds of twilight are so fetching today. I feel so much more at ease here..." she sighed, stretching her arms above her head. Then she smirked as she looked at Link. "And you look so much better like this than in those dusty old clothes, anyway." she added, patting him on the head.
"Hey... I like those 'dusty old clothes'..." I protested. Then something occurred to me. "...Where's Bethany?"
I heard a loud huff from behind me, and I froze. That, was not human. So, Bethany turned into some kind of animal, then. Did I want to find out what she'd turned into? Not...particularly, but I'd have to anyways. So, with that in mine I turned around, wanting to get it over with, and...
I screamed, something in between a scream of fright and a fangirly scream. Do you want to know why? Bethany, the girl I'd known from basically the day I'd come to Earth, was a freaking dragon! Not just any type of dragon either, a Night Fury! Like the ones from How to Train Your Dragon! She wasn't completely black, like Toothless was in the movie though. She was absolutely covered in little blue accents, almost strategically placed to make her look.. cute. For a dragon, anyways. And her scales were more of a blue-black instead of the flat-black that the movie dragon had had. All over her head, the tips of her wings, her tail, her legs. A cross between cute and dangerous.
My best friend was an epic-looking dragon.
"Holy mother!" my eyes were wide as I tried to contain my freakout. Bethany's blue eyes were as wide as mine - and geeze, they were like... baseball sized now- and she was looking down at herself, probably twice as baffled as I was.
In my peripheral vision I saw Bethany's tail moving around, and I couldn't hold back a laugh when she jumped a foot in the air when it brushed her leg.
"H-Having a little trouble, Bethany?" I asked, trying to stop. She rolled her eyes at me.
'Shut up!' she exclaimed, and I was relieved that she seemed to be able to do the same thought-speak thing that Link could.
"Hm, this could be helpful! With a dragon to help, taking down the Shadow Beasts will be much easier now!" Midna mused. I noticed she was frowning. "It raises a question, though. I've never heard of a light-dweller turning into a dragon in the Twilight."
I shrugged. "I'm sure it'll be explained later. Right now, though, we need to move." I said. Then a tiny -though amusing- problem came to light; Bethany wasn't used to being a dragon, and thus had to learn how to walk on four limbs, with wings and a tail to account for. It really was quite funny, watching her stumble over her own feet -er, paws, or whatever Night Fury's have. Well, until she gave me what would have been a raised eyebrow and a '...really? now?' expression were it on a human's face. I just shrugged at her innocently.
We didn't have to wait long for Bethany to get accustomed to her new body, though it was more than a little bit worrying when she found out how she could breathe fire. While it set a nearby Deku Baba on fire, and that was a good thing, it was still worrying.
After giving my friend a few minutes to adjust, we were on our way. She still stumbled every so often, but we were moving.
'Hold up.' Bethany said, maybe five minutes later. Link and I turned back to look at her curiously. 'I smell something.' she said, then her eyes focused on something ahead of us. I followed her gaze. Then I saw it, sticking out of the ground.
"Link, isn't that-"
'My wooden sword!' he exclaimed, breaking into a run with Bethany and I following closely behind. 'I lent it to Talo the day of the attack,' he continued when we reached it. He sniffed at the broken piece of wood for a moment, before closing his eyes as though he were deep in thought. 'All of the kids' scents are on it. But... not Ilia.' his hopeful tone diminished slightly on the last two words, but I knew he was relieved that we'd caught the kids' scent.
"Good noses." I said, slightly teasing. Bethany just nudged my ribs with her nose, before gesturing with her head to continue.
'Let's follow the scent. We'll reach them faster with a clear trail to follow.' she suggested to Link, who nodded.
"See? Isn't being a wolf more convenient?" Midna asked. "I mean, if you weren't a wolf, the only one to pick up the scent would be her. And she's never met the village kids, right? So she wouldn't know the scent." she reasoned. The little imp was almost right.
I didn't see any need to tell her that I already knew where we were supposed to go, so even if Link hadn't caught the scent it wouldn't matter. I didn't say it, because I knew it would bring up unnecessary and hard-to-answer questions.
Link just picked up the pace without commenting, taking the lead as we ran. I found myself once again glad for my stamina, because if I didn't have it then I wouldn't have been able to keep up with my currently-non-human friends.
While following the trail, we stopped a few times for a minute or so to catch our breath, but I'm not entirely sure how long we ran for. It was hard to keep track of time without the help of the sun. I barely realized how close we were to the Kakariko Gorge - and, subsequently, out next Shadow Beast fight - until the dark pillars dropped with a shuddering crash and we were penned in with not three Shadow Beasts, but five. How was that fair at all? Did the world think we could just take more because we had one more person with us? ...Yeah, probably.
"I guess they knew you brought a friend!" Midna quipped. I shrugged at her while I drew my sword, before looking to Bethany.
"Think you've adjusted enough to fight?" I asked. Bethany's response was, of course, to snort with a roll of her big eyes before leaping forward to attack the nearest of the charging beasts. Charging, what a laugh.
Well, that answered my question well enough. I just hoped she wouldn't get overconfident and get herself hurt. I couldn't think on that now, we had to take these things out to get another portal.
Just as I finished the thought, one of the Shadow Beasts reached me. I jumped to the side to avoid a swipe of it's large claws, rolling until I was more or less behind it, and delivering a deep slash to the creature's back. It howled in pain, swinging it arm backwards and catching me off guard. It connected with my torso and I fell backwards, landing hard on the ground. Then it just stood there, like it didn't know what to do next.
Never before was I so glad that the Shadow Beasts generally had crappy reaction time as I was when I jumped to my feet, taking the thing out with a few more swings of my sword. I noticed that Bethany had taken out one as well, in my peripheral. Now there were...two left. Wait, who'd taken out two? Link and Midna or Bethany? ...Bethany. Link and Midna took out the last two out like they were nothing, and once all of them had fallen, the Shadow Beasts exploded into fragments of Twilight, coming together above us to form a new portal in the sky.
'That was... freaky. And kind of awesome.'Bethany said as she caught her breath. I laughed, though the sound came out a little breathless.
"First fight leaves you with that feeling," I said. I could certainly relate. My first actual sword fight had been, well, different and a little bit awesome, so I knew how she was feeling. A bit, anyways. I didn't know what fighting like a dragon was like. "What's it like fighting as a dragon?" I asked, exhilaration making me grin a bit.
"Think we can discuss that later?" Midna snipped. "We've got a problem." she said from the edge of Kakariko Gorge. The gorge that I now noticed was without its bridge.
'...Where'd the bridge go?'
The question was asked by Bethany as she peered over the gorge's edge, meanwhile I was maintaining my somewhat-safe distance away. Midna huffed irritably.
"It must have been the work of those Shadow Beasts. Ugh! What a pain!" the imp griped. "Where could it be? Pull out your map and have a look!" she ordered.
I was already halfway through doing it by the time she said it, and I pointed to the portal we'd need to use.
"There. I'm pretty sure I remember seeing it there, kind of out of place. I'd say it's our best bet." I explained. Midna gave a short not before warping us away.
'Woah, that was weird.' Bethany mumbled when we came together again in Faron Woods. It was already night out in the world of light. When had that happened?
"You know, most people can't leave the twilight that easily. You'd better be grateful! It's your job to look for the bridge! Look hard!" Midna snarked, appearing from Link's shadow. I rolled my eyes, seeing Bethany doing the same.
"Yeah, yeah... now, where was it..." I muttered, not having to look for the bridge very long. "Like I said, it's kind of out of place." I gestured to it when I saw it. before running towards the bridge that was on its side against the knee of a cliff. Midna flew out of Link's shadow, seemingly appraising the bridge.
"Wow! It's perfect, don't you think? What do you think? Should we take it?" she asked. I gave her a look that said 'what do you think?' and she giggled.
"You know where to go." I said. I always found it a bit redundant how you could choose where to warp when you had a large object with you, like the bridge, the lava-rock in Death Mountain, the Bridge of Eldin. You knew where it had to go, why did you have the option to go to the wrong place?
"Right, back to Kakariko Gorge." Midna nodded before turning to the bridge. With a grunt and cry of exertion, her magic hair lifted, and the bridge lifted with it. Then we warped again. I closed my eyes.
When I opened them again, we were back at the Kakariko Gorge.
"See! Just as I thought... Eee hee! So, isn't the power of twilight amazing? Call me if you need the power again. It should help you find what we're looking for, don't you think? All right! Let's keep going!"
None of us said anything for a few moments, just running across the bridge. Then I remembered the Twilit Bulblins up ahead, just at the same time they spotted us. Bethany and I shared a conspiratorial look before she roared loudly, spewing a jet of flames towards the Twilit Bulblins, who had been running towards us. Both dispersed in a flurry of the Twilight shards. Then we came to the locked gate to Kakariko.
"Huh... What are they doing there? This is a pretty elaborate gate... What are they trying to keep in? ...Or out?" Midna mused. "I bet it'll be worth our while to dig in..." she said to Link. Bethany snorted.
'Dig? Puh-leeze.' she said, rolling her rather large eyes before shooting another jet of flame towards the lock on the gate, this one wire-thin; the perfect way to melt off the lock. Which, she did. Then using her claw, she flipped the lock away from the gate and pushed it open. I clapped and grinned, holding my hand out for a high-five, which Bethany obliged with a strange-sounding snicker.
"Y'now, I think I could learn to like you being a dragon. I'm just glad it wasn't another breed of dragon, as cool as the other ones were." I said, knowing she would know which dragons I was referring to. The other breeds of Dragon from How to Train Your Dragon were still pretty cool, but I was glad that she'd become a Night Fury. Or, at least something like one. During our trip I'd noticed a few difference between them, but her physical appearance was still almost ridiculously close to Night Fury.
'Other breeds?' Link repeated questioningly as we walked into the canyon, along the path that'd lead us to the village. I nodded.
"Yeah. Supposedly, dragons don't exist in our world, but there's stories about them, with a lot of different breeds. "Y'know, I'm really glad you didn't turn into a Gronkle, or a Zippleback, or a Nadder. I think it would have been cute if you were a Terrible Terror though. I can picture it now." I teased Bethany, giggling when an image of a Terrible Terror taking down a Shadow Beast came into my mind. Bethany rolled her eyes again.
'Glad I amuse you. I'd never be a Gronkle though.' she said, shuddering slightly. Link looked like he was just dying to ask us.
"I'll show you pictures of them later." I promised Link nodded, and we were once again running, though I wasn't sure if he was really all that satisfied with the promise.
A/N: Sorry these chapters are still pretty short. I'm only rewriting what happens between the start and finish of the chapter, and there's only so much I can add without crossing either boundary. Anyways, hope you enjoyed it.
