CHAPTER 34

14 Hours Remain…

"We're in!" Daisy shouts.

The rainbow alliance bursts through the doors of the tower. They find themselves in a long hallway lined with statues of Moblins and Toads holding different weapons.

"Be careful," Zelda says. "You have no idea what kind of traps could be in this place."

Suddenly, the statue of a Toad speaks.

"You have done well to reach this far, but you are not ready for the challenge ahead. No mortal can defeat Ganon!"

"What the?! It talks?!" Zelda yells. Launching a magical blast at the Toad, making the statue explode.

"Yay! We won!" Maxil cheers.

"Hold on Zel, we need to make sure we aren't being led on a path that leads nowhere." Peach says.

"You are correct" Another Toad Statue says. "This hallway was created by King Bowser Koopa himself!"

"I should've known!" Peach says. "Bowser has a knack for building infinite hallways!" She approaches the Toad Statue. "How do we break the cycle of this hallway?"

"To end this maze you must face our master! Only when you face him can you complete the cycle!" The Toad Statue explains.

"Sounds easy enough." Burnscar says. "We've taken on worse storms!"

"It's not so easy" a Moblin Statue says. "Our master only wants to fight the large one and the brown haired Princess!" The statue points to Link and Zelda.

"Why does he want to fight them?" Daisy asks.

"Because you two are the most powerful wielders of the Triforce! I want the Triforce for myself!" Another familiar voice declares. Suddenly a wall of light separates Link and Zelda from the others in the hallway. Burnscar tries slashing at the wall, but it seems impenetrable. A door appears in the wall before Link and Zelda.

"You should be honored. You two will be the first to come through this door" the voice answers. "This door links to my home world. A world where I live anytime I am defeated. Even when you think you kill me, I just keep coming back." The voice mocks Link and Zelda. "I will never die! I will haunt you! Your children! Your children's children! I have haunted you for centuries and do not plan on stopping now!"

"Ganon, NO!" Zelda cries.

"What? No! I'm not Ganon!" The voice says rather annoyed. "I'm your other worst enemy who has haunted your families for generations upon generations!"

"Phantom Ganon!" Zelda gasps. "You are the evil spirit of Ganon reincarnated!"

"No! Not Phantom Ganon either!" The voice says hurt and upset. "You think I wanna play volleyball with a magical spell or something?! No! Third wrong guess and I'm not going to even fight you!" The voice vocally calms down. "Think. I constantly have battles with you two, we even fought once before, twice before even. Who am I?"

"I already told you!" Zelda yells. "We don't know who you are!"

"Right!" The voice retorts exasperated. "You're not supposed to know who I am yet! Think! I fought Link before! It was the final encounter before he saved Zelda! We battled in a temple! I once tried to bring Ganon back from the dead! Does this ring any bells in those thick skulls of yours?!"

"Wait...you're the demon king!?"

"No! I'm not Demise!" The voice says, utterly done with these two, the door disappears. "You know what? You don't even deserve a rematch against me. Here, fight my stupid ghost buddy who we let out after we killed Luigi. I'm getting a shadow drink to forget this conversation even happened."

"...Oh it be Dark Mario" Burnscar says on his first guess.

The voice doesn't respond, instead several Boos emerge from the Toad and Moblin statues and merge to form Boolossus once again! Link and Zelda ready themselves to fight him.

"I'm not going to hold back this time!" Boolossus warns.

"Don't expect us to hold back either!" Zelda says as she fires her light arrow at Boolossus.

Boolossus quickly dodges the attack by spinning around, charging towards them. They both dodge out of the way.

"You're going to want to be more careful about dodging this time!" Boolossus says as he charges towards them again! Both Link and Zelda jump out of the way once again.

"I'm not going to give you the chance to escape again!" he roars.

"Same goes for you!" Zelda says firing another light arrow at him. Boolossus once again dodges the arrow by jumping backwards. Boolossus laughs as he charges at them. Link and Zelda dodge again, but this time Boolossus runs into a spear held by a Moblin Statue. He pops into several smaller Boos.

"Get away from my friends!" Zelda yells.

"You think you can defeat us?" The Boos shout back.

"I'm going to beat you the same way Luigi beat you!" She declares, using ice magic to make all the Boos freeze. They all fall to the ground, unable to move, unable to speak. They soon warm up and flee the hallway.

"We give! We give!" one of them declares. "Here! We'll fix the hallway for you!" The boo fades into the wall, a large KA-CHUNK is heard down the hallway. The wall fades away revealing a tunnel leading to some stairs that ascend the tower.

"Well that was easy!" Maxil laughs.

"Try being on the other side of the wall, kid." Zelda rolls her eyes.

The Rainbow Alliance heads down the tunnel and up the staircase to the second floor. The last to climb the stairs is Yashil. However, when he's halfway up the stairs, they turn into a giant slide and have Yashil slide down. A trap door opens up and forces Yashil into a dark abyss.

"Yaaaaaaahhhhhhh!" Yashil screams as he slides down.

There are no lights, just darkness.

"What is going on?!" Yashil yells as he tries to feel his way around the area.

Suddenly the torches magically light up, Yashil seems to be in some sort of Dungeon Arena surrounded by Green Toads. Sitting on a dilapidated throne is Birdo.

"What're you doing here, "Honey"?!" Birdo mockingly screeches at him.

"My Quee...I mean...Birdo!" Yashil says, his eyes getting narrow at Birdo as he remembers what they did to him back at the first raid against Bowser and Ganon. "Why'd you betray us?! Why'd you willingly hand over the Green Toads to those tyrants?! I thought we were lovers!"

"Love means nothing to me, "Honey Bunches"" Birdo laughs. "I don't love anyone, because the world never loved me. They called me "ugly", they called me "creepy", they called me every terrible word in the dictionary!"

"That's not true! There are people that love you!" Yashil retorts. "I know I did, at least before you revealed your true colors!"

"How dare you!" Birdo screams in fury. "If you knew how much pain I went through, you would know I was never worthy of love! You want to know the truth? The truth is I only love one thing! Power! The power to tell people what to do! The power to tell people what to say! The power to have people love me because, if they don't, I'll have them executed." Birdo laughs as they lounge in their throne. "Speaking of executions...Toads! Have that big tub of lard killed for me! I want his head on a platter for dinner!" They cackle as the Green Toads pull out their spears and step closer to Yashil.