Link and I both shot up off the stairs, and Link pushed me behind him. Zi smiled and started walking down the stairs.
"Calm down, Link. There's no need to play hero," he said. "And holy shit, Midna, you're a lot freakier in real life."
Midna floated next to Link in front of me and put her hands on her hips. "You're not leaving with her. We've got stuff to do here, so get out of our way or I'll make you."
"I'm not here to take her. Not right now."
"If you're not here to take me, then why have you been trying to track me down?" I asked.
"Am I not allowed to try to spend time with my best friend?" he said.
I glared up at him as he approached the bottom of the stairs. "Why would I want to spend time with someone who wants me dead?"
He sighed. "I don't want you dead."
"Then don't take me back!" I said. He started to talk, but I cut him off. "Don't you dare try to say that you don't have a choice because your dad will disown you or whatever if you don't take me back. You do have a choice. You'd just rather get to live the rest of your life comfortably than save mine."
"Because I can't save yours anyway. When I went back to my dad and talked to him after I last ran into you, he was pissed that you ran away. He made his own NEVA so he can come get you if I can't bring you back by myself. You're dying whether I do anything or not, and I want to make this easier for both of us."
Link took a step closer to Zi. "Neither of you are takin' her back."
"Ooh, he can talk," Zi said. "Why don't you be the mute you're supposed to be and stay out of this?"
"Stay out of her life," Link said slowly.
"Don't you have a skeleton to go stab or something, short shit?"
"You're the only skeleton he'll be stabbing if you try anything," Midna said.
My heart started to race faster. When Link said he would protect me from Zi, I hadn't imagined how he would protect me. Despite my ever-increasing resentment toward Zi, I was horrified at the thought of Link stabbing him, killing him. Zi didn't deserve to die because of his misguided loyalty to his dad, and I couldn't imagine putting his sweet mother through the pain of losing her only child.
"You can't kill him!" I shouted.
Link didn't look back at me as he responded. "I would never kill another human, and I don't wanna hurt one either, but if I gotta hurt him to save your life, I'll do it."
"Good news that I'm not trying anything then, as I said," Zi said, words too cheerful for the conversation we were having. "Right now, I'm here to spend some time with Vanna and explore this world while I still can, 'cause when we do eventually go back, one of the NEVAs is being locked away forever and the rest are being destroyed."
"What?" I said. "Why does your dad keep on wanting to let his inventions go to waste? First me, now NEVA...?"
"Because you're both similar. Awe-inspiring on the surface, but with 'incalculable hazards' lurking beneath," he said, rolling his eyes. "His words, not mine. Beats me what he thinks you could do. You're like 3'6" and you weigh basically nothing. But NEVA... Look what it did to you. Dragged you into some weird alternate dimension. Imagine if it dropped someone into space or something. One malfunction could kill someone instantly, and just one person misusing it could destroy our whole universe. He says he can't with good conscience allow people to use or even know about NEVA after what happened with you, so the one he's not recycling will be sent away for safekeeping."
'Mr. Rider wouldn't know good conscience if it slapped him in the face,' I thought. "So he thinks it's better to lock it up and let nobody know that it exists? You can't just hide something like the first time traveling device from people!"
"It won't be hidden from everyone. You have no idea how many discoveries are hidden from the public. NEVA won't be the first, it'll be far from the last, and it won't be nearly as important a discovery as other hidden findings have been. Only people in the government facility it's going to will be allowed to know that it ever existed."
"That makes it even worse! Of all the people to trust it with, he's giving it to the government? Who knows what they'll try to do with it?!"
"They're the ones who backed most of the funding for its creation. I think they kinda have a right to it."
"And I think Vanna has a right to live," Link said, "but he still thinks it's okay to kill her for no reason. I don't get it. She did nothin' wrong."
"Where we come from, robots don't have rights, so—"
"She's a person," Link said.
"I agree with you. But the rest of our world doesn't agree," Zi said. "And I don't know how much you know about technology, hillbilly, but when pieces of technology don't do things the way they're supposed to, they're considered glitched. In other words, broken. It was agreed upon by everyone who had a part in making her that she'd be shut down if she became glitched the way she did."
"But I'm not glitched! There's nothing wrong with me!" I said. I took in a deep breath to try to compose myself, but it didn't help much. "I was created to act like a human and now they want to kill me because I do!"
Zi frowned. "I don't think either of us wants to believe it, but you ... really are kinda glitched, Vanna. Your reaction to being told that you're a Synthuman was the one time where you weren't supposed to act like a human, but you did, and that's why they want to kill you. You reacting negatively goes directly against what you were programmed to do. You were supposed to stay calm and accept the truth like it was no big deal, not start crying and screaming."
I clenched my fists and narrowed my eyes at him. "Well I've accepted it now, so you can tell your dad to leave me the hell alone."
"Okay, one; no, you haven't accepted it. You're still upset about it. And two; it's too late now. It's not about whether or not you accept yourself now, it's about the fact that you didn't accept it at first when you were supposed to." Zi huffed and shivered, air coming out of his mouth in a white puff. "Look... I know you guys have to get inside this temple to continue on with your little quest to save the world, and since we all know I'm not leaving, let me come with you. I promise I won't try to run off with you right now if we can just spend a little more time together."
Midna and Link both looked back at me for an answer. I gaped for a minute, trying to decide what to say. Zi's betrayal had yet to fully taint my perception of him, and somewhere deep down, I still considered him my best friend. As much as I hated it, as much as I wanted to tell him to fuck off and leave me alone, I couldn't deny that I missed him.
"I... I guess I trust he won't try to kidnap me as long as you two are next to me," I finally said.
Midna turned back to Zi and leaned closer to him. "Then you can come with us for now, but just remember that while Link might be too scared to hurt a human being unless he absolutely has to, I have no problem with zapping you to dust the second you even think about getting in the way of my plans."
Zi pushed the sleeves of his jacket up and showed off his bare arms. "I got myself a magic pouch when I was in Castle Town. Both bracelets are in there, and you'll be able to see if I reach for them." He lifted the side of his jacket then, revealing the pouch strapped to his belt and patting it. "If we've got a deal, then let's go inside already. It's way warmer in there."
"But we have a friend that's supposed to meet us out here soon," I said.
"I'm sure your friend will realize you just went inside," Zi said. "Come on. I can tell you're cold in that outfit, Van. Looks nice, by the way."
Zi gave me a shit-eating grin before turning and taking the stairs two at a time. I crossed my arms over my chest and followed after him. Link caught up to me at the top of the stairs, green tunic in his hands, and he held it out to me. I could have turned down his offer given that I had clothes of my own in my pouch, but I liked the idea of wearing something of his more than I probably should have.
I thanked him and accepted the tunic, then put it on after stashing my bow away. The material was thick and sturdy, scratchier than I'd have liked, could have used a good wash, and it was baggy on me, but wearing it made me feel all fuzzy and warm.
We stopped at the end of the hallway leading inside and sat down against the walls, Zi across from me, Link, and Midna. It was quiet and awkward with none of us saying anything. I busied myself with moving my belt above Link's tunic on my waist and putting on my socks and boots, and my necklace from the Zora outfit, but after I was out of things to do, I couldn't stand the silence for long.
"So, how'd you even get all the way back here? Teleport right past the Bulblin camp?" I asked.
Zi made a noise of exasperation and smiled. "Wasn't that easy. I've had a hell of a time trying to get here over the past few days. NEVA can't teleport to places by name here, so I've had to go by distances instead, teleporting a few hundred feet at a time until I got to wherever I wanted to be. I accidentally teleported into Gerudo Town, got jailed and I might be a dad now, and then I—"
"Uh, gonna have to stop you there," I interrupted him, "you got put in jail, and..."
"Yeah, someone ought to teach the Gerudo more effective punishments for trespassing," he said. I stared at him in silence, and he broke out into laughter. "Hey, they gotta have babies somehow with them never giving birth to any males of their own."
"They don't give birth to males?" I said, shocked that I'd missed out on such a fundamental trait of their race. I had so many questions to ask Mahana when she arrived.
"Well, apparently they do, but only once every hundred years or so. Anyway, I teleported out of their jail, came here, almost got killed by Bulblins, and that's basically it. I set this place as a base on NEVA so I could get back here easily, and I've been checking every now and again to see if you'd made it here. I've mostly been traveling around, and going back home to talk to my dad between checks because I can't get signal here." He pulled out his phone and unlocked it. "It just won't... Oh, so now it wants to work."
"You've got signal?"
"Yeah. It's not strong, but it's there. Maybe because I'm near your phone and your phone's been able to keep signal this whole time...?"
"My phone died about a week and a half ago."
Zi pursed his lips. "Hm."
I knew him well enough to tell that he wanted to say something more, but he didn't. He put his phone back after sending a text, and then it became quiet again. The awkward silence was sporadically broken by impatient grumblings from Zi, and Link's yawns as he struggled to stay awake.
I sighed when I finally heard footsteps nearing the temple. As they got closer, it became obvious that there was more than one person coming in. Before they came into view, Zi, Link, and I stood, and Midna disappeared into my shadow.
It turned out to be both Mahana and Kira. Kira, spear and shield at her back, smiled at Link before her eyes landed on Zi. Her smile widened, but Mahana glared at him.
"I heard that a boy matching your description illegally entered our town yesterday and escaped from jail," Mahana said.
Zi shrugged with a convincing poker face. "Wasn't me. I'm a law-abiding citizen."
Mahana still looked suspicious of him. "Who are you?"
"This is my ... friend, Zi, and he's coming with us," I answered. "Zi, this is Mahana, and..."
"I'm Kira, her little sister that annoyed her until she let me come along," Kira said, smiling and holding her hand out to Zi. "Nice to meet you! It's not often I come across boys as tall as me."
Zi smiled back at her and shook her hand. "And it's not often I come across girls as tall as me."
Kira giggled, and Mahana groaned. "You're not here to flirt with every male you see, you're here to help," Mahana said to her.
Kira humphed and dropped Zi's hand. "Wasn't flirting," she murmured. "Shall we get started?"
It took only a few short steps for us all to exit the hallway, and we were left on a small extension of stone. The first challenge of the temple presented itself—most of the flooring in the long room was gone, taken over by sinking whirlpools of sand, and Moldorms swarmed beneath the surface.
Link was quick to pull out his clawshot. "We can all take turns with this latching onto that grate on the wall over there to get across this gap, and then we should be able to jump over the smaller gaps from there."
"Yeah, you all can have fun with that if you want to, but I'm not about to fall and drown in sand." Zi retrieved one of the NEVAs from his pouch and put it on. "NEVA, activate. Teleport: sixty feet forward."
In the blink of an eye, Zi disappeared from where he was and reappeared sixty feet away, past the treacherous floor and past the closed gate that blocked the hallway across the room. I was the only one not shocked by his action.
"How did he do that?!" Kira asked.
"Magic!" Zi called.
"Science," I said.
It was hard to tell what exactly he was doing because the gate partially obscured him, but it looked like Zi put both NEVAs on the ground in front of him. It was even harder to hear what he said because of the moving sand, but it became clear when both NEVAs appeared on the floor in front of us.
"You can take turns getting over here with them," he hollered over.
Kira reached down and picked one up while I picked up the other. I handed the one I had to Mahana and instructed them both to put them on and close their eyes. They were reluctant, but they complied.
"What do we have to say to make them take us over? Nee-ba, activate...?" Kira said.
"You two don't have to say anything. Just let me say it, and both bracelets will respond," I said. "NEVA, activate. Teleport: sixty feet forward."
As Zi had, they both disappeared and reappeared across the room, and then Zi sent the NEVAs back over once more.
Link hesitated after grabbing one. "Vanna..." he said quietly.
"I know it looks scary, but I promise they're safe," I said.
"No, that's not..." Link shook his head and looked at me with a frown. "You've been going along with us in hopes that Midna will be able to get your bracelet back so you can have the chance to leave and be safe. But you have one right now..."
"Oh."
I could leave.
It would take just one short prompt spoken quietly so Zi couldn't hear where I was headed to. I could go back to my world, sometime in the past or future, and live out my life without having to worry about Zi or Mr. Rider ever again.
And without ever again seeing Link, or the Hero's Shade, or Uli, Rusl, Fado, Beth, Talo, Malo, Luda, Renado, Mahana, Zoras, Fairies, Light Spirits, or even Ilia or Midna...
"I'm not leaving."
Link's brows raised. "Are you sure?"
"Yes, I'm sure," I said with a reassuring smile. "Zi might be a pain, but I don't think he's so much of a pain that it justifies taking such a drastic measure to get away from him. Not yet, at least. Do you want to get rid of me?"
"No, no! I just ... want you to be safe," he said innocently.
"Can you guys, like, hurry up?" Zi shouted.
I finished strapping my bracelet on and gave Link a look that told him to finish putting his on, too. Once he did, I closed my eyes and commanded the NEVAs to teleport us forward. The second we were finished teleporting over, I removed my bracelet; as long as I had it on and it was close enough to pick up Zi's voice, he could make it take me right to America, right to his dad.
Zi took both NEVAs back and stuffed them into his pouch before we started up a staircase with him and Kira taking the lead. If the question Kira asked him involving how his dad was a warlock was any indication, it seemed that Zi had given her a sensationalized explanation of NEVA during what little time they were across the gate and Link and I weren't. I would have told her the truth were it not so amusing to hear Zi's embellishments.
"...He's just always kinda had a knack for inventing spells, and—what?" Zi stopped in his tracks at the top of the stairs. "This ... is wrong."
"What do you mean?" Kira asked.
"That vat of oil is supposed to be in a little room off to the side, and there's supposed to be another little room off to the other side with the key to the door in it," he said.
"How do you know how this prison is supposed to be laid out?" Mahana asked.
"...I have foresight? But... A lot of reality doesn't line up with what I foresee," Zi said.
"So you're the son of a powerful warlock and yet you're just a bad fortuneteller. Tough luck." Mahana pushed her way between Kira and Zi to continue farther into the room. She spotted and grabbed the key to the locked door sitting at the base of a column in the corner and looked back at Zi with a smug grin. "Looks like it really wasn't in a room off to the side after all."
"The corner's close enough," Zi grumbled. "Link, if you've got a lantern, you should fill it up with that oil before we go on. The next room is really dark and we'll need to see so we don't get eaten by quicksand or stabbed by little skeletons."
I ended up refilling my lantern with oil as well, though I doubted that we would need two separate lanterns what with me having a glowing necklace and Zi having a flashlight on his phone. As Zi 'foretold,' the following room would have been exceptionally dark were it not for our lanterns and my necklace. Two sconces were beside the door we came in through, and a single sconce was above the door on the opposite side of the room, though all of their flames gave little light.
"There are supposed to be Stalchildren in here, you say?" Mahana said.
"I swear they're in here," Zi said. "We have to light the torches over there, and they're going to pop up on the way over..."
He snatched the lantern from my hand and ventured forth, holding the lantern out in whichever direction he wanted to look in. Right when he turned his back on a patch of sand, it shifted as if a burrowed Moldorm was about to jump out. Instead, six tiny skeletal creatures came out of the sand wielding spears.
I hadn't thought they would be too frightening, but they were. It was one thing to imagine them, and another to see animated skeletons walking around with your own eyes. Their childlike proportions did nothing to make them less creepy. If anything, that made it worse, because I couldn't help but wonder if they were once living children that wound up imprisoned among the worst criminals Hyrule had.
"They're behind you!" Kira shouted.
Kira's warning reached Zi too late; one of them jabbed a spear into the back of Zi's calf before he was able to turn all the way.
"Ow, you little asshole!" Zi yelled.
The Stalchild almost seemed to laugh, but that laughter turned into a high-pitched shriek when one swift kick from Zi broke all its bones apart. The pieces turned to dust as they hit the ground. It was so pathetic how easily it went down that I kind of felt bad for it.
Link shoved his lantern toward me, and once it was out of his hand, he reached for his sword and ran with Kira to Zi's defense. Zi had suffered a few more jabs to the legs before they made it to him, but he had also managed to kick two more of the remaining Stalchildren out of existence on his own.
"There's more where they came from," Zi said as the last one went down. He looked over at me and Mahana. "Thanks for helping."
"I was busy holding this lantern," I said.
"I was busy not caring about them poking you," Mahana said. "I don't think there's a weaker monster in the world than a Stalchild. Their spears are like pencils."
Zi bent over and pulled up his pants, showcasing the pinpoints on his legs with blood dripping from them in thin lines. "Look at those!"
"They're barely bleeding," Mahana said with a shrug.
"They wouldn't be bleeding at all if their spears were really like pencils!"
"You've just got thin skin. And one's about to poke you in the ass."
The laughter I'd been holding back came out when it did.
Zi stayed more vigilant after that, making sure to back off and let Link and Kira take care of the Stalchildren as they came on our way to the other side. He and I lit the torches beside the door, and the gate blocking the door drew up into the wall.
There was a burst of chilled air when Mahana opened the door. The change in ambience from the room we left to the room we entered was like the difference between day and night. The prior rooms had been warmer with warm-colored fires to match, but this one was cool, literally and figuratively. Four blue flames were atop posts along a grand staircase, and they bathed the room in their tone. There was something strangely beautiful and eerie about it at the same time.
"So, fortuneteller," Mahana started as we came to a stop in the middle of the room, "which way will we go from here? Up the stairs and through the arch or through the doors to the right or left?"
"Any second now, some Poes are going to come through the arch and a gate's going to slam over it, so we'll have to go through one of the doors on the side to get the arch open again..." Zi smiled the kind of smile he always had when he was up to something. "Unless, we teleport right past the gate. I don't think we even have to bother with going through the doors. There's nothing important back there unless Link wants to collect all the Poe souls, but we won't really need those if we're going to teleport past the gate."
"What do you mean by 'collect all the Poe souls'?" Link repeated.
Zi raised an eyebrow. "Aren't you collecting Poe souls?"
Link stared at him, just as confused as he was. "Why would I be collecting souls?"
"Because you're supposed to collect Poe souls to save Jovani...?"
"I've never come across a Poe or a Jovani in my life..."
"...You know, Zi, you're doing a good job affirming my suspicion that you're the worst fortuneteller ever," Mahana said. "I hear there's an actually competent one in Castle Town. You should see if she'll mentor you."
Zi crossed his arms. "Look, I'll admit I might have some details a little wrong, but if you think I'm entirely full of shit, then go try to walk through the arch."
Mahana smiled. "Gladly."
She headed for the arch, and it was as she placed a foot on the stairs that part of Zi's prediction first came true. Mahana paused as four lanterns floated out of the arch. Each lantern went to a blue flame, and one by one they swirled around them, stealing the fire from the posts and glowing blue with it themselves. When all four were lit, they circled above the posts in unison, and then a gate slammed down in the archway.
"Okay, so you have about a 30% accuracy rate," Mahana said.
"It's at least 90%!" Zi said.
The four lanterns came over to where me, Link, Kira, and Zi were all standing close together, and they moved in a circle around us. Link and Kira got out their weapons, and I handed Zi my lantern so I could get my bow and arrows ready. Three of them suddenly dispersed, leaving only one floating between us and Mahana. I would have tried to shoot at the Poe, but I worried that because it was invisible, my arrow would go right through it and hit Mahana instead. Kira thrust her spear at it, yet her attack only made the lantern swing in place.
Zi grabbed me and Kira and yanked us backward. "You can see it and attack it as a dog, Link! Go beast mode and get it!"
Mahana and Kira simultaneously made comments expressing bewilderment at Zi's statement, and Link took turns looking at each of them. "I haven't told either of you, but, um, yeah, I can turn into a wolf...?" he said. "Midna, transform me!"
Midna's arm extended from my shadow holding the embodiment of Zant's curse and she flung it at Link. On contact, he began to transform. Even with the heads-up, both Mahana and Kira were astounded, and so were Zi and I to a lesser extent. The bizarreness of it never fully went away to me, and I was sure it was more bizarre to Zi getting to see it in person for the first time.
With a growl, Link lunged at the Poe. When he landed on it, it looked like he was floating in the middle of the air, and it looked like he was biting at nothing when he began to maul it. He was thrown off a few times, but each time he got back up until he was able to bring the Poe down.
A long, ragged white robe with a blue hood materialized on the ground next to Link, and what looked like steam escaped its holes as it deflated. The lantern fell beside it and shattered, freeing the blue fire from within. The flame floated its way back over to its place atop one of the posts.
"...You weren't kidding. You really turned into a dog," Mahana said flatly.
Link barked three times, and then was transformed back into a human. "Why does everyone say I'm a dog when I'm a wolf?"
"Same difference," Zi said. "So. As I was saying—"
"Link just turned into a dog," Mahana cut in, eyes widening.
"Wolf," Link corrected.
Mahana threw her hands up in the air. "Dog, wolf, whatever! How? How could someone as amateur at magic as you do that? And what was that 'Midna' thing about?"
"And what about that little orange and black thing?" Kira asked.
"The short of it is, it's not really my own magic that makes me transform. It comes from the orange and black crystal you saw, which was thrown at me and taken out of me by my friend, Midna," Link calmly explained.
"What friend Midna?" Mahana asked. "I see me, you, Kira, Zi, and Vanna here, and that's it."
"Or can only you see her, when you're a dog?" Kira asked.
Link turned from Mahana to my direction, and he looked down at my feet. "She's visible to humans, but she prefers to hide in shadows when anyone other than me or Vanna are around. Do you want to come out, Midna?"
"No," came Midna's curt, disembodied voice.
"Just introduce yourself real quick, and you can go back into Vanna's shadow when you're done," Link said.
Midna groaned before coming out of my shadow. Mahana and Kira both gasped at the sight of her, and Midna crossed her arms. "My name's Midna. I'll be in Vanna's shadow, getting the crystal to and out of Link whenever he asks me to transform him. Bye."
With that, Midna dove down into my shadow. Mahana and Kira stared at it with their jaws slightly ajar.
"She doesn't like people much," I said.
"That's obvious," Mahana said. "So... She's just been there in your shadow?"
"Yeah."
"Wait!" Kira said. "Do you think if she threw that crystal at one of us instead of Link, we'd get to turn into dogs, too?"
"The crystal only turns Link into a dog," Midna answered from my shadow. "If it touched you, you'd turn into a spirit and be stuck without a body for the rest of eternity."
"Aw," Kira said, pouting.
Mahana let out a long breath and shook her head. "People from outside of the desert are even weirder than I thought."
Zi clapped his hands together. "Well, now that we're all over that, can I finish what I was going to say so we can get through this place already?" He didn't wait for anyone to answer. "Link would need to kill the rest of the Poes to open the gate, but since I'm here, we can just teleport right past the gate. Aside from the Poes, all that's to the doors to the sides is the compass and a lot of other monsters that I think would be better to not mess with."
"Do you even know why I wanted to come here in the first place?" Mahana asked.
"No. You weren't in my prophetic vision. Neither were any of your people at all, for that matter."
"The monsters in this prison are radiating such a powerful evil aura that it's constantly awakening monsters all around it, and those awakened monsters have been attacking my people. I'm here to rid this prison of the evils inside it once and for all to put a stop to the onslaught we've been dealing with. That means killing as many monsters as I can."
"Kay, well, you can do what you want," Zi said, shrugging. "I'm not getting my ass handed to me by a mummy, so I'll be here. You guys can go."
"...The monsters around this part of the prison actually aren't radiating too much of an evil aura," Link said, looking at Mahana. "I really have a feeling for that sorta thing, 'specially when I'm a wolf... Most of the aura is coming from deeper within the prison by only a couple of powerful monsters."
"It's probably the boss and the miniboss," Zi said.
"The boss and the miniboss?" Kira repeated.
"God, you guys need to invent video games," Zi said under his breath. "Miniboss is at the halfway point through here, boss is at the end. They're the big bads of this temple."
"It really might be better to just teleport past the gate," I said. "This place is supposed to be off-limits, isn't it? If Link doesn't kill the Poes, the gate will stay closed, and that would keep people from getting too far in here."
"And it would keep the monsters beyond the gate from getting out," Zi said.
"And skipping over some monsters means there's less risk of us getting injured in here," I finished.
Mahana pursed her lips and tapped her foot as she considered it. "...I suppose I could always come back to these rooms later on if killing the boss and miniboss doesn't make the Bulblins stop reawakening. Fine."
Zi reached down and grabbed the Poe's robe and stuffed it into his pouch. The rest of us asked him at the same time what he was doing, and he smiled. "I want a souvenir, duh. Now let's go! There's something in here that I've been dying to play with."
As of this chapter, I have officially posted as many chapters this year as I did in the entirety of last year. feels gud.
