The first set of guards was taken down with some degree of difficulty, but it seems they were just cannon fodder to wear the four heroes down. Link, their most versatile fighter, is exhausted, barely able to keep up the Master Sword. Ganondorf, physically the strongest, drops to his knee as he pants for air. Midna and Zelda are relatively fine due to not having to fight as hard, but using their magic, especially light magic and Zelda's time abilities, heavily depleted their mana stores.
"You gotta be careful, Link," Zelda says to her hero as she heals a wound in his right oblique. "It would be horrible if you died to some guards."
"Not very heroic, huh? Must be the eyepatch" He looks to the sea of the unconscious, possibly wounded (hopefully non-fatal) Twili guards. "They really put up a fight. Not sure if it was skill, numbers, or both, but I have never been this tired fighting monsters."
Zelda shrugs as she removes her hand. "I think it was the strategy. We're used to going for the kill that trying to incapacitate them exhausted us. They were definitely trying to kill us."
Midna helps Link to his feet, then slugs him in the shoulder. "That's for that joke earlier. I could have died had you not shown up."
"Ow! Don't blame me, blame Ganondorf! It was his idea to wait until you were on the block!"
Ganondorf sighs as he sheathes the Sage Sword. "I didn't want to interrupt the speech, okay? You were doing good, quite the story too."
Midna frowns as she crosses her arms. "Well, is it not true? We could use more force. I'm sure Auru and Bagu would agree, right?" She watches as Link, Zelda, and Ganondorf glance at each other quietly, almost awkwardly. "Hey, what's wrong? Why are you looking like that?"
Ganondorf steps up, sighing. "Midna… There is no Resistance. It's...gone."
Midna blinks twice. "What?"
Zelda drops her eyes. "Vaati was able to assemble the Triforce after putting me in a moral situation, but he was betrayed. The traitor used the lives of the Resistance, except the nine of us and somehow Sheik, to bring back Ganon. That ritual apparently was the same one my father would've gone through to bring the demon back had he died."
Midna feels her legs turn to jelly as she loses her balance. Ganondorf catches her on his chest, holding her tightly as tears stream down from her eyes. No, after all she's learned… Everyone is gone? "Gan...he's gone...Auru...my father...is gone?"
Ganondorf tightens his hold on Midna. "I'm sorry, Midna. If I had assisted Zelda, maybe… But there's a chance we'll see Auru and the others again."
"I highly doubt that, heroes." Midna rises up at the sound of her brother's voice in her head. The others are just as alert as she is as they search around for the Twilight Prince. "Oh, I'm nowhere around you. I'm in the throne room, my rightful place as the King of Twilight."
"King?" Midna says through her tears. "That's impossible."
"Oh, it is possible. After all, Her Holiness killed my father using her light! However, it seems we have another contender for the crown. You, my dear sister, have been recognized as a potential heir. Do you want to stop me from usurping the throne for myself? Then come, Princess Twilight! Let's settle this once and for all. Come alone, and let's end the tale our mother foresaw."
Midna turns to the castle as the connection to Zant is severed. Wiping her tears, she balls his fists tightly. "I have no choice but to end this. It...has come to this… Link, Zelda, Ganondorf, thank you for this. But now I must confront Zant."
"Are you going to kill him?" Link asks.
"I have no choice. Either he kills me and uses the realm for Vaati, or I win and save this world from evil."
"Don't worry, Link," Zelda says as she looks to the sky above them. "I don't think Zant is allowing us to be bored." As she says that, an ear-splitting shriek in the distance jolts their heads. Zelda grits her teeth while Midna frowns deeply. They both know the shriek, for they are the same one that belongs to the shadow beasts when the girls made it to Midoro Palace. Multiple portals appear in the sky above the city, releasing the beasts. Zelda glances at Midna as she summons her bow. "Get going. We will hold them off."
Midna nods just as a gate projection forms around them. Ganondorf and Link pick up their weapons and nod back to her. "Stay safe, everyone." Looking to the castle, Midna splits into tiny fragments as she teleports away to the dark castle, just as a portal forms over their head, dropping seven beasts around the goddesses' chosen.
"What are those things, Zelda?" Link says as he prepares himself for another fight.
"These shadow beasts have the ability to revive each other if we leave one alive. We have to defeat them all before that. Prohibere tempus!" Zelda throws her hand out, freezing time for all except the three of them. "You got three seconds! Ganondorf, Link, go!" Ganondorf zips around the circumference of the gate, managing to eliminate five of the seven beasts before time resumes. Link quickly vanquishes one before time resumes, thrusting the Master Sword in the final shadow beast's torso before it can bellow its awakening cry.
The gate vanishes as the seven bodies decompose, but the fight is far from over. From outside the square, multiple cries of incoming beasts from the three roads leading to the square rock the ears of Link, Zelda, and Ganondorf. Sighing, Ganondorf faces Zelda. "How long can you hold that ability?"
"At present, three seconds."
"Not enough." He turns to Link. "The time is now. We need the mask's power."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"No." Both men turn to Zelda, her face expressing seriousness about her decision. "I do not want to make a greater risk here and now. We can beat these things with our own power. I've grown my ability to stop time from one second to three in the last few days. It is possible I can hold it longer."
Link shakes his head. "Not enough...but what about slowing it down? Can you slow time down? Fi, is slowing down time a possible way to beat the beasts without their revival?"
The sword spirit appears at her master's right side. "There is a good probability that Zelda can slow time down and use an attack of light. It will be less of a strain and risk than a full pause. However, the best course of action would be Ganond-"
"I got it," Zelda snaps. She looks away, facing the incoming horde. The numbers of the beasts seem to innumerable, but it won't faze them. Ganondorf, Link, and Zelda, they have to hold out for Midna, for their friends back home, for the friends they've lost already. Raising her hands again, Zelda summons the spell. "Tardus tempus." The movements of the shadow beasts progressively slow down to about half of their normal movement. She places three light arrows on her bow, firing them at once down the right street in real-time speed, then repeats the same attack on the adjacent roads. As the arrows bounce and whiz down the streets, the beasts pop into dark matter as they're unable to move against something twice their speed. The entire affair is over in nearly twenty seconds after Zelda casts the spell. "Proin tempus." Time surrounding the trio resumes normally, noted by the speeding of the decay of beasts. Zelda drops her hand, taking a knee as exhaustion catches up to her. She looks up to the impressed Ganondorf and awestruck Link. "I've never done that before. But I hope Zant is done fucking with us."
Midna
The shadow beasts incinerate around Midna as yellow light dims from sight in the corridor outside the throne room. With no distractions between her and the chamber Zant resides in, Midna wastes no time for the final confrontation. Her feet, exposed to the cold floor, steps without fear, without faltering, without conflict. Zant must fall here and now.
She forces the doors open and walks up the double sets of stairs that lead up to the face of the throne. Halfway up the second set, Zant is visible, unmasked and smiling. Three-fourths up, she can see the withered form of his father, the king, alive-barely, if not slowly dying. She grits her teeth as she takes the final step and glares at her older brother. In contrast, he laughs. "Midna, welcome to my throne room." He turns to the orb in his right hand that shows the events outside. Zelda kneels down while Link and Ganondorf gaze down. Whatever is happening, it seems they're okay. "The princess, she is an amazing figure. I don't know how, but she managed to slow down time for my creations and take them out on her own. I see why Vaati is fixated on her. Ganondorf is no disappointment either. When he stared at me, I sensed a different man than the one I met on Death Mountain. The child of the devil has accepted his inner self." He cuts his eyes back to Midna, a sinister gleam within them. "Now I wonder if Mother is right about you. You, the one to unite light and shadow. As a Hyrulean, you are the Sage of Light. As a Twili, you are a bastard of the royalty, thus you have the power of one. Two opposing forces...and you have united them...and take sickens me."
Midna's body cascades in the radiance of light. "I can say the same of you, seeing what you've done. But there's one thing I never got, and that's how you confess to Crepusculum that you killed our mother yet he doesn't put you on the block as well."
Zant drops his shoulders as he looks to his father. "Oh, that. Your father manipulated her, put her in a trace that endangered both of us, so I had to do what I had to do to protect us. Of course, that is a total lie, but His Majesty's hatred of Auru made a compelling story. He believed me and all I said of Hyrule, how true vengeance for Horzona comes with the fall of Hyrule. He should have listened to you, Midna." Zant waves his hand, telekinetically throwing Crepusculum against a wall. Midna rushes over to the king to check on him while Zant stands up chuckling. "Mother is right, Midna. Shadow and light will be united...under my banner. Vaati has the Triforce, so your friends out there is no match for me...and the Fused Shadow." Midna turns back, seeing Zant's body surrounded by the four fragments of the Fused Shadow. He steps down away from the throne, one hand held out to Midna. "But I am willing to forgive and your former trespasses. I promised you that I'll bring you here, and while I am still willing you end you, I am your brother, bastard or not. Surrender, Midna, bow to me, acknowledge me as King of Twilight, and I will forgive you. Forget everyone. Crepusculum. Vaati. Ganondorf. Hyrule. Forget them. Together, this world is ours."
Midna stands up, looking to the floor. "For years… I think all my life, I tried to understand you. Why you hurt me, why you died, why you betrayed us, why you betrayed me. Now I get it. You were alone in Hyrule. You felt betrayed by Mother for leaving, by your family for not coming for you, by me for being Mother's favorite. She took you away, but she prepared me all my life to return here. You felt wronged. All you ever wanted these years is to come home...yet now you are still alone. In your anger and greed you've hurt, if not killed, your own father. Now you ask me to join you, the one who've suffered just for being born… I understand you now. But Zant, brother, you are alone in what you must atone for. And hell is where you shall atone." Midna raises her hand, calling the Fused Shadow fragments to here. They stop in the middle, due to Zant and his telekinetic power.
"Let go! That is my power!"
"Back in Midoro, when I fought against your ghost, I told you that the Fused Shadow, the voice of our ancestors, has denied you, that it will not submit to a king whose greed is the same as the one who got them here! It chose me then, and it shall choose me now!" Midna turns her eyes to the artifact itself, gasping softly as she sees said ancestors. Though she has never seen them in person, she recognizes them from the photo in the basement of her home. Her grandfather, regal and prideful. Her grandmother, patient and loving. Her mother, the warm face that Midna remembers from her childhood. Other faces show themselves behind Midna, multiple beings all gazing at Midna and Midna alone. "Zant, do you see them?"
"See who?"
"Exactly. Those who are chosen can see them. They look to me because they know who is the rightful heir. Your reign is over before it has officially begun, Zant!" Midna pulls her arm back, yanking the Fused Shadow out of Zant's grip. The fragments wrap around her head, surrounding her body with a dark aura. Her hair rises and glows bright orange, coming together to form a single tendril on the back of her head. Through the slits in the mask, Midna sees her brother's fear. Holding her right hand out, she transforms the sword Link handed her into a spear made of Twili magic. "Zant! May the goddesses have mercy on your soul because I will not." She throws the spear, nearly impaling Zant but he catches it as he is forced into the air and crashing on the wall behind him.
The spear returns to Midna as Zant rises to his feet. "No… no… no no no no… It is not fair!" He begins to jump up and down in fury, stomping his feet like a kid with a tantrum. "I should win! This is my victory! It doesn't belong to you! If the ancestors won't side with me, then they can fall too! You are nothing more than the daughter of a whore, and I will make you suffer like a whore because I am king! I will make you wish I would have killed you, Midna, starting with the deaths of your friends!" Zant contorts his hands in front of his abdomen, forming a ball of magic and firing it out the throne room. Seconds later, she hears (through telepathy) the confusion and cries of her friends while Zant projects the events again. He created a wormhole to suck them into some other dimensional, possibly similar to how Ravio first fought Zant. "Twilit Parasite, Diababa. Twilit Dragon, Argorok. Twilit Arachnid, Armogohma. They will rid us of your friends, if not forever, just long enough for me to deal with you." Zant shoots another orb, this time at Midna. She prepares to block it, but it directs to her feet. The wormhole sucks her through, dropping her through a channel of darkness to a large, empty chamber. With the power of the Fused Shadow gone for now, the fragments split apart and vanish into Midna's psyche. She grabs her sword, searching the chamber for her brother as she rises to her feet. All she sees is a dark sword in the middle of the room, just as large (if not larger) than she is.
"Zant…"
"I think I've changed my mind." Zant appears from behind the large sword, mask on. "Why let you suffer later when you can come so very close to death now? Or why even let you live if you could become a later nuisance? Without you, Hyrule might be doomed, and that helps Vaati too." He takes a scimitar in his hand and clicks it against the larger weapon, causing red highlights to glow upon it. Black mist erupts from where the sword is embedded in the ground before it ejects and rises, along with Zant, in the air. "I, King Zant, declare that your death shall be by the sword, so with Death Sword, my judgment is final. This is our final encounter, Midna. I suggest you fight to your very end…"
