Song of the Chapter: Zant Battle - The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

Beyond the black waterfall lurked more monsters and maddening traps. The Master Sword's radiance cut through them all.

After cutting down a small legion of shadow beasts, all that remained of Midna's royal guard, Eragon gazed up at a massive door lined with elegant glowing runes. His unease only grew when Midna emerged from his shadow.

"This door leads to the throne room," she murmured. "It's nearly over."

On its own the door glowed and opened. Expecting a new swarm of monsters, Eragon lifted his sword. Only stairs upward awaited him.

Remembering a castle littered with deadly traps, Eragon slowly advanced up the stairs, the Twilight Princess hovering at his side. In the empty hall his footsteps were deafening.

The throne room was as imposingly bare as the rest of the castle, held up by carved columns of black stone. A smaller staircase led up to the throne and its dais, the only object in the chamber decorated in glowing blue lines. Zant did not rise at their approach but remained in regal repose. His ugly helm concealed all but the lower half of a moon-pale face, lips curled in the barest hint of a smirk.

Eragon slowed as they neared the second staircase, stopping when Midna did. A tense silence descended over the chamber.

"Zant," Midna said at last. She waved a seemingly idle hand. "Isn't this ironic? Here we are, all thanks to the curse you put on Eragon!"

The usurper king rose from his stolen throne. Eragon glimpsed needle-sharp teeth when he sneered. "You speak of magic? Still your tongue for a moment, bitch, and I tell you both magic and the oppression of ages..."

They both recoiled in revulsion when Zant's fish-like helm retracted. Lord Higure and the other purified Twili had human faces. Zant's nose was little more than two thin slits set into a serpentine face. His eyes were slanted like a cat's, two glowing pupils against fiery orange. A dark gold headpiece only emphasized how elongated his neck was in proportion to his body. A twisting rune was etched into the very flesh between his eyes and his vestigial nose.

"Oh, Zant," Midna whispered. "What happened to you?"

Deaf to her horror, Zant took several liquid steps toward the edge of the dais. "The people of our tribe... a tribe that mastered the greatest arts of magic... were locked away in this world like insects in a cage." He slowly extended his arms to emphasize the entire chamber. "In the shadows we regressed, so much that soon we neither knew anger nor hatred... nor even the faintest bloom of desire." Slowly he twisted his arms and torso in a degree impossible for a human skeleton. His backward, upside-down head glared down at them. "And all of it was the fault of a useless, do-nothing royal family that had resigned us all to this miserable half-existence."

Zant unfolded into a normal stature, only to jump into the air and stomp the ground like a petulant child. Panting from his exertion, he continued, "I had served and endured in that depraved household for far too long, my impudent princess."

Suddenly Zant was in the air, his face mere inches away. Eragon lashed out. His blade struck empty air as the abomination appeared again behind them, spinning like a dervish. Eragon whirled, always placing the Master Sword between Midna and her usurper even if he could not strike out fast enough.

"And why, you ask? Because I believed I would be the next to rule our people! That is why!"

Zant manifested at the opposite end of the chamber, spine drooping dejectedly backward. Eragon's inner dragon roared to strike. Human caution warned him back. Zant could teleport in the blink of an eye. To step away from Midna was to leave her unprotected.

"But would they acknowledge me as their king? No! You and your damned father denied me!" Zant gazed dreamily upward. "It was then, in the thrall of my hatred and despair, that I turned my eyes to the heavens... and found a god."

Feeling foul magic pulling at his senses, Eragon gritted his teeth and resisted the blackness edging out his sight. Zant's pull was too strong. It dragged him down into the vision.


The Palace of Twilight was not yet a small archipelago of towers floating in the sky. Its onyx walls rose strong and sturdy around a garden fragrant with dew and the scent of a thousand glowing flowers that bloomed only beneath the orange, sunless skies of a twilit world. Pale purple clouds drifted idly by overhead.

The idyllic tranquility was broken when a slender figure stumbled in, the voluminous sleeves held up to his face concealing the tears but not his stifled cries. Only in the garden's privacy did he fall to his knees, sobbing openly.

With a start Eragon realized the man must have been Zant. His features were not yet unnaturally corrupted and scarred by arcane symbols. Tears streamed over a slender nose from eyes much like Midna's.

Zant not only sobbed and screamed, but slammed his fists and very head upon the earth like it was to blame for his misfortune. He screamed for power and for the very world to feel the force of his rage. A sudden brightness overhead made him first glance up in irritation, and then overwhelming awe.

Even the oldest, strongest Sols in Eluryh could only manage a pale blue light. They paled in comparison to the orb that burned black and burnt orange above him. Zant had never seen the sun of the world his ancestors had been driven from, but he imagined it was much like this infernal sun shining down upon him. This brilliance burned only the tears from his eyes and filled his veins with fire.

Zant let it consume him whole.

Inside shadows and flames formed themselves into a rough facsimile of a face. Those burning eyes bore straight through Zant's humiliation and dejection to the darkest depths of his soul... and deemed him promising.

The rough lips curled themselves into a pleased smirk.

"I shall house my power in you. If there is anything you desire, then I shall desire it, too."


As the vision faded away Eragon quickly rose up his sword and Midna retreated to his shadow. Zant snapped forward into a primal stance, helm once again fixed in place.

Eragon charged forward, Zant vanishing once more. He whirled around to discover the usurper king upon his dais.

"My god had only one wish... to merge shadow and light... and make darkness!"

Zant floated up into the air, beyond reach. Eragon sheathed the Master Sword and reached for bow and quiver slung over his shoulder. Zant struck first, sinister red runes spiraling out around him.

The throne room faded away and Eragon gagged upon noxious fumes from a poisonous pool. Standing upon green grass, he looked up to walls of living tree bark, and realized himself in the chamber where they had first fought the twilit parasite.

"Midna," he barked to his shadow. "Is this an illusion or are we really here?"

Zant appearing overhead to rain fireballs down upon his head was no illusion. Eragon ran to dodge them.

"Oh, this is an illusion alright, but every illusion is a shadow and Zant is their king. The poison in that pool is still strong enough to melt the flesh off your bones!"

Zant tired first. When the barrage stopped Eragon raised his bow and fired. The usurper fell with a scream but bounced harmlessly on the pool's surface until he reached solid ground. Eragon ruthlessly pressed on with the Master Sword.

Suddenly Zant was gone and the dependable earth beneath his feet tilted sharply. Eragon's boots skidded against glass as he slid toward burning magma.

Instinctively he drew upon the shadow crystal's power, a dragon's claws gouging into the rock to find the purchase human soles could not. Eragon roared as Zant's shadow balls seared his side. His retaliatory blasts were not fast enough.

When Zant had once again vanished to dodge his flames, Eragon returned to human form. "Midna, I need the Iron Boots!"

This time he weathered Zant's onslaught behind his shield. When Zant's tantrum again sent the island heaving, Eragon remained firm in his position. The magma was real enough to scorch, but the rock beneath him was magnetic enough for the Iron Boots to grip down. Again he raised the Hero's Bow. The arrow struck true. With Zant stunned, Midna replaced the boots upon his feet and he surged forward with the Master Sword.

The heat and hellish light evaporated into cool darkness. Eragon choked on water real enough to drown. When a familiar mask appeared around his head he took gasping breaths until his eyes adjusted to the darkness. In the Zora Armor he surged down to the lake floor where he had once battled a monstrous eel's first larval form. Waiting for him instead was a monstrous likeness of Zant's helm. He almost wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it all.

When he neared the lower part of the helm retracted to reveal the true Zant and his onslaught. Eragon could not reach him in time before the helm slammed shut.

He tapped the helm's surface to confirm it was indeed metal. With a vicious smirk he inhaled as much air as he lungs could take and transformed. His flames scalded water and metal alike. From within Zant shrieked at the sensation of being broiled alive.

When Eragon resumed human form the Zora Armor and its water-breathing mask were waiting. The massive helm slowly sank back into the earth but many duplicates sprouted around him to take its place. His flames were not strong enough to heat all of the helms at once nor was he fast enough to reach Zant before he teleported elsewhere. Even the Hero's Bow failed with water to weigh down its arrows.

Eragon grunted when the Iron Boots suddenly rooted him to the lakebed. He needed the agile Zora flippers.

Then Midna manifested the Clawshot in his right hand.

Even with the boots weighing him down he could still turn fast enough to spin and pinpoint his target. The Clawshot fired, clamped down on voluminous robes, and reeled back with its catch in tow. In his left hand the Master Sword struck true.

Were Eragon still floating when water again became air, he could have crashed to earth. Already rooted to the ground, he was able to take off running the moment Midna freed him of the Iron Boots and the Zora Armor, for its thick insulation and cumbersome flippers made him as clumsy on the land as he was graceful in the water.

Zant maniacally danced upon the same wooden columns where a possessed white monkey had once raged. This time Eragon did not bother with the Hero's Bow before immediately transforming. The Forest Temple was housed within a tree. Even if he could not his target he could still burn the arena down around them. A dragon's body could withstand the heat.

With a furious shriek the fires were doused by ice and winter winds. Zant's floating form swelled to titanic proportions. It gave Eragon all the bigger target to aim his flames at.

Being bathed in pure light was still not enough to stop such a persistent shadow. The icy chamber vanished as Hyrule Castle and its magical barrier loomed behind Zant, the sky lit by the sun's dying rays.

Zant's upper body twitched as if he wanted to make some movement with his head, but his helm was too rigid to allow much mobility. The helm's empty, bulging eyes fixated upon Eragon's draconic body. Then he raised a deliberate hand and pushed down.

The green dragon snarled as he felt a familiar coldness leaching onto his scales and seeping inwards. He rallied his inner strength and swatted it aside. Even in this form the Master Sword's radiance remained.

Zant spasmed as if about to descend into another tantrum but his stance evened out into tranquil fury. "You dare twist my own power against me!" He sharply threw out a hand and pulled back.

Eragon snarled and dug his claws into the stone. It ate away at him scale by scale, chewing at his wings and flames and heart of hearts. He screamed in agony.

Then he lay upon his hands and knees, gasping and suddenly so much less than what he had been. His soul keened its loss even as Midna screamed meaningless words into his air. Zant stalked forward, curved blades in hand, to finish off what was left of him.

"-gon, please, get up!"

His inner fire was gone and Saphira a world away, but upon his back the Master Sword burned. With a roar he unsheathed his blade and pounced.

Zant's arms were unnaturally wrong and his movements erratic, like a broken clockwork toy. Uncaring of strategy and the blades whizzing past his head, Eragon surged forward, his only thought to make his opponent as broken as he was.

Zant raised his arms to spin. Eragon pierced the Master Sword through his chest.

Zant screamed and the world around them shattered like a broken mirror.


In the throne room's gloom Midna examined her pudgy little hands in horror. A quick glance at her squat, stumpy imp body confirmed her worst fears. She only remained at a dignified height in wasting her own magic upon levitation.

Eragon's dull eyes rested indifferently upon her. Midna gaped back. He had stabbed Zant straight through the heart with the fucking Blade of Evil's Bane. His death should have immediately ended her curse. Why was she still a fucking imp?

"Y-you traitors!"

Midna whirled. Zant still sat hunched over on her father's throne. Her disbelief at his impossible survival quickly ignited into rage.

"Traitors, ha!" she spat. "You want to only know why none would call you king? It was your eyes, Zant. All saw the lust for power burning in your pupils. Did you think we'd forget our ancestors lost our very world to such greed?"

Zant's burning eyes never looked up from the ground. "Midna... foolish little imp... The curse on you cannot be broken. It was placed on you by the power of my god. The power you held as leader of the Twili will never return! Already he has descended to be born again into the world that cast us all out!"

Midna dimly felt her magic stirring, but her fury was too thick to focus right. She advanced, stopping only when Eragon gently grabbed her arm.

"As long as my master, Ganon, survives, he will resurrect me without cease! And you cannot kill power incarnate!"

Zant's empty eyes fixated upon her as his unnatural neck swiveled like a snake. He cooed mockingly down at her.

From deep within her something hot and heavy erupted. Before it could consume her she channeled it out through her hair.

On their own power her hair surged forward, darkening into monstrous red tendrils before burrowing into Zant's chest cavity. Unable to contain such raw power, his body swelled and exploded.

Midna's immediately hatred withered and died. Though her hair resumed its normal state she instinctively drew away from Eragon, curling into herself at the weight of the revelation. She had just used a mere fraction of the magic had father had once possessed. Good gods, what atrocities had her ancestors wrought with such power at their fingertips?

Shaking, she slowly turned back to Eragon. He looked just as bewildered as she felt.

"Eragon!" she implored. "Now is the time! We must save Zelda!" Once more she gazed down at little imp hands that belied their true power. "The evil power Zant was wielding... I couldn't take it from him, but at least I still have the magic of my ancestors. With it, I can return the cherished strength Zelda bestowed upon me..."

Eragon's stricken face turned upon her with newfound hope.

Midna's heart sank. She still remembered the horror of being ripped from her true form just as she had remembered hoping Zant's imminent death could restore her. Eragon had not hatched a dragon. Such a body had merely been his body's natural defense against such crippling darkness, but he had embraced that curse and turned it into a blessing.

"I'm so sorry, Eragon. Zant transformed you through Ganon's evil power. I could shape his curse to our advantage once the Master Sword broke it, but he destroyed that power. I cannot make it anew."

With a shaky exhale Eragon sheathed the Master Sword. "It is for the best. I would not be able to hold back the darkness once the Master Sword is returned to its pedestal."

Midna turned her back to him, allowing him a moment to regain his composure. Only then did she create a portal back to the Mirror.

Pasting on her best attempt at a rallying grin, she extended her hand to him. "Now, let's go! Princess Zelda is waiting!"

He returned her smile with a resolute need and took her hand in his.

I thought long and hard about how to incorporate Eragon's dragon form into the final boss battle without it overshadowing everything else. Then dark inspiration hit me. Zant meant to twist Eragon into another mindless shadow beast and instead woke a dragon. If he couldn't corrupt Eragon, then he sure as hell could take back the accidental gift he gave.