Alllll righty, then…
Well, this was making me sick. Not updating this thing for the ridiculous amount of time it's been neglected… And all because I thought I was too lazy to retype it so I could make it into a HTML document…
Now, all of you can enjoy the rest of this fic which has been finished for…checks printed-lovely-finished copy …. Three and a half months? !cowers! There's a fair bit left… SO - I'm gonna update a chapter at a time. Perhaps a week or more in between chapters? If you review? pleads with the readers
Anyway…. More junk! Onward!
It had started one morning while Vaiya, Sheik and the Princess were eating breakfast. Impa was out talking with the Elders, for some obscure reason. It was a nice day out, and nobody quite expected anything to go wrong that day.
That is, until the rumbling started; an ominous trembling throughout the little town that sent dark energy through the small dimension.
"What in the Dark Realm is that!?" Vaiya exclaimed as she ran to a nearby shelf to keep it from collapsing onto the floor.
April attempted not to jump to conclusions too quickly, but the feeling of dread at the pit of her stomach told her that it was, indeed, what she thought it was.
"It's Bongo Bongo. He's escaped."
Panic struck two sets of eyes as the Princess started toward the door.
"Wait a minute! It can't be that monster! It hasn't been seen for centuries!" Vaiya pulled the girl back toward the house and took a breath, seemingly trying to calm her abruptly panicked nerves. "The thing was sealed in the Shadow Temple by the ancient Sages. Even if it did break loose, something would had to have caused it."
Sheik was the one who decided to answer. "I'm taking a wild guess here, but my idea is that with the amount of magic that's been used in Hyrule in the past several years, a certain shadow monster could have gathered enough energy to break out of a certain seal."
April stared at the far wall, dreading what they were going to have to do to seal the monster again.
Vaiya sighed, saying, "Well, if this is the case, we're going to have to go to the Shadow Temple anyway to see exactly what the problem is. With any luck, if the seal is actually broken, we might be able to force it into another one. But…" she shrugged, heading toward the door and grabbing her coat.
"Where are you going?" April asked.
"To get Impa and the Elders. They'll know what we're dealing with, and how we're going to go about stopping it."
April sighed, disgruntled, and muttered, "I know how this is gonna end… And it's not gonna be pretty."
She glanced at her. "Triforce, I'm assuming?"
The Princess just continued staring ahead, as if trying to decide how much she should relay to her trusted companion.
Finally decided, she said, "I guess you're going to find out anyway, from what I've seen. So, here goes." She took a deep breath, and said, "We're going to need the Sage of Shadow to seal this beast, but it won't even be sealed in the Shadow Temple." She shook her head. "However it works, Impa is the person we need. She's that Sage."
Sheik tried to think of why that particular detail didn't surprise him very much.
"Oh," he simply replied.
The Princess got up from the table, heading toward the door to follow Vaiya. "I'm going. I already know what they're going to have to do, so… You know."
"I'm going, too."
She looked at him for a moment before replying. "Then I'm not stopping you." She smirked slightly. "Just don't get in my way."
"Wouldn't dream of it."
"Now," April began, walking out the door and collecting her thoughts. "I'd wondered why, as a kid, Link was able to go into the Bottom of the Well if Bongo Bongo was sealed there. I'd also hoped that it wouldn't be true, but apparently, between that time and the time he waked up is when the shadow monster actually gets put into the well."
"So you're not going to put it back into the Temple?"
She shook her head. "For whatever reason, the seal that's kept it there for however long won't work. I don't know why, but it's going to end up in the well." She rolled her eyes as she continued. "And then it's going to escape again.""Again?" Sheik inquired, slightly worried.
"It's what you might call the "Boss" of the Shadow Temple. The head minion, as it were. I think that when the Hero of Time gets back, Ganon is going to break the seal on the well. Then, bingo. We have ourselves a Temple infested with shadow baddies."
"Do you think that it was Ganondorf who broke the seal this time?"
April snorted. "Unfortunately, I don't think we can blame the pig, this once. The seal's so old that it's no wonder it's been broken. Probably wore down with natural energy flow, and the like."
"And the ridiculously complex web of magical energy and time travel?"
"Huh. Well, that too." Sighing, she voiced, "It's a wonder I didn't realize it before. Of course we can't put Bongo Bongo back into the Temple; there's too much magic there already. A Seal would just mess everything up. And I, personally, don't want to have to deal with that ghost in the closet."
With April's quick pace, they had reached the house of the Elders. The Princess opened the door and walked in, followed closely by Sheik. Irritably, she watched the Elders argue with each other as Impa tried to calm them down. She seemed to be the only one who had her mind still intact, and April was suddenly very glad that her nursemaid was the Sage of Shadow.
"Ahem," declared the young woman, effectively making her presence known.
"Zelda," Vaiya said simply.
"Do you know what's happened, Princess?" Monoka, the only other Elder who didn't seem to be directly involved in some kind of argument, questioned.
"Yeah, I know."
"And you know something we do not," Impa sagely stated. "Otherwise, you wouldn't be here right now."
April nodded, wondering how to begin. It wasn't a question of whether they would believe her or not; after all, she was the Princess of Destiny and the holder of the Triforce of Wisdom. It was question of whether they would think all this knowledge was actually for the best, and if they would be willing to take that chance.
"The seal on the Shadow Temple's monster is gone. Do any of you know what caused that?" she began.
"Most likely… too much stress on the Temple. And, that seal is ancient, after all," one of the Elders, an old man with a big beard, answered.
"True enough," April said. She walked around a bit, as she usually did when she was nervous about something. Sheik was almost tempted to imitate her in her pacing.
"But you all know about the magical mess in the Temple right now. You know, caused by the time travel of the Hero of Time."
All the Elders nodded simultaneously.
April thought for a moment, humorously, that they looked like a room full of bobble heads.
Gathering her wits, the Princess continued. "That is going to present a problem for resealing Bongo Bongo."
"Are you suggesting that we seal the beats somewhere else?" Impa asked slowly.
April nodded. "And I'm also suggesting that you be the one to do it."
A slight whisper ran through the crowd of Elders as Impa looked oddly at the Princess of Hyrule.
"Oh, relax," the girl uttered. "All of you were going to find out sooner or later, so…" Another deep breath. "Impa is the Shadow Sage."
Now there was a bit more noise running through the crowd.
"And with her knowing much more about Sheikah magic and the like than probably any of you," April all but yelled over the din, "… then you know it would make sense that she be the one to seal Bongo Bongo again!"
"But her powers as a Sage will not be fully awakened!" someone supplied in a reasonable tone.
"True enough," April said. "But I already know that Impa is going to be the one to fix this mess, so…" The Princess attempted to find her point once again. "So… there," She finished childishly.
"And I do know of the spell that was used to seal the demon in the long ago," Impa interjected, speaking for the first time. "It was, after all, my ancestors who put the seal on the Temple."
The was a murmur of agreement.
"Then let's get going," Impa said. "We don't' need this monster doing any more damage than it may have done already."
With that, April and Sheik walked toward Impa while the others milled around the room. Vaiya approached them, as well, her eyes betraying the fact that she knew something else that no other was aware of.
"Zelda, Sheik, I want you two to come with Impa and I," the young Seer said purposefully.
Sheik simply blinked, but the Princess managed to say, "Why?"
"Well," Vaiya began. "I Saw this just as I was walking here, but I have a feeling that it's going to work…" She drew in a deep breath, calming her Vision-frayed nerves. "Okay, everyone here is aware that Bongo Bongo is an ancient, tribal monster, correct?"
Impa, Sheik, and April nodded.
"It was created by the Elders of a long extinct tribe that thought it would do more good than harm. Well, obviously, they were wrong. And it was sealed in the Shadow Temple. However, it did remember the people that created it, and the forces that were at work during the time of its sealing. And the one thing it kept from the tribe was the very thing that the beast is most known for. The drum."
April's eyes widened substantially.
"So, if we can get drums, three to be exact, and we can use the particular rhythms that I Heard in the vision, we can lure it to Kakariko, and seal it in the last place people would expect to look for a monster."
"The Well," the Princess concluded.
Vaiya barely blinked in response to this, nodding the affirmative.
"Why bring them into this danger?" Impa, who had previously been oddly silent, asked.
"I need more than one person to put the beast into a kind of trance, to weaken it enough for you to be able to seal it."
"Ah," April accepted.
"So, is everyone up to this?" Vaiya questioned.
Everyone simply nodded.
After looking around for several minutes for three drums, which were surprisingly easily found in the house of the Elders, the four of them stepped in front of the Mirror that would transport them to Hyrule.
In Kakariko, a shadow flitted across a darkened sky.
The Monster was restless, and refused to stay in any one place for longer than a moment. Luckily, it hadn't done much damage yet, though bits of a few red tiled roofs were missing.
The people of the village had wisely decided to stay indoors, and the windows of the city were crowded with the curious faces of children and the morbidly fascinated ones of adults.
"Ready?" called a dark haired young woman from the center of the grassy Town Square to two teenagers standing on either side of her.
The blonde Princess and her Shadow nodded in unison, and the Sheikah Seer began to chant.
It started with a low drum, an easy beat, a constant, steady rhythm. Vaiya, despite shaking hands, dept the beat as another, higher drum filled in the upbeats and quicker, looping rhythm. Sheik kept this cycle in motion as the Princess brought in another on a very high drum. The tapping increased in volume until it was a constant stream of chant-like noise.
The Monster stopped in it's tracks.
It knew these beast, these rhythms. They were calming and alluring, and It could not escape them. It answered the call of the drums with low, resounding beats against the earth. But then, it abruptly remembered that these had been some of the very things that had caused its initial downfall. It hovered toward the two girls and the boy, a shadow of static energy and evil.
It was not about to be sealed again.
Especially not by these pretenders, these children, who thought they knew better.
The call of the chant was so hard to resist, however, that It found Itself pulled in the direction of the calling drums.
And it was at this point that It heard the chanting.
An older woman, with silver hair, stood behind the three young ones, arms spread wide to summon the energy of the lad in an ancient language It didn't recognize. But the Monster known as Bongo Bongo did recognize the scenario anyway. It was the sealing spell.
And yet the Monster still could not stray from it's path.
Know that I will escape again, mortals It hissed in a sound that could not truly pass for a voice.
The four mortals didn't dare answer it, lest they break the web of concentration strung between them.
The blonde one, the little one, however, did look up, seeming to say with her eyes, "I know."
It attempted to scream, but remembered that it had been thousands of years since it had been able to do so. And instead, an unholy noise like the wind through dead trees and leaves against stone pierced the ears of the four. And they still didn't falter, though at this the blonde one almost dropped her drum.
But before the older woman's growing net of glowing magic could enclose the shadow, it swept wildly to the side and knocked the blonde one to the floor.
Impa, the ever protective, almost cried out to the Princess. But, she knew that it would have effectively ended the chant and consequentially the spell, and she managed to put these protective urges aside as the more encouraged magic encased Bongo Bongo the shadow demon, and brought it thrashing toward the well.
When it happened, all was silent for a split second, the drumming suddenly stopped. And then, there was a blast of dark energy, and the three still standing figures were knocked to the floor.
And there was no movement nor sound for another moment.
The Princess was the first one to open her eyes, and she glanced around as she painful sat up. Happily, she noted the distinct lack of a certain shadow beast.
She had bested It, at last.
"Ha, ha," was the only thing April managed before she abruptly collapsed back to the hard ground.
Stupid FF.net is messing up my asterick marks!!! bangs head on desk
Oookay… a short little pointless romp of the Princess's adventures during the Seven Years. But I wanted to give April a chance to defeat Bongo Bongo somewhere in the story. And here, I saw an opportunity.
All right, I KNOW I've promised like a million times that "This fic will get updated, and blah di blah di blah di BLA DI BLA DI BLAH…" But now, as it is finished, I CAN actually promise something. All I need from your end of the bargain is reviews. Really people; it's finished for me. I'm done, and I can read it any time I want. I'm not retyping the who last… oh, twenty pages or so, just for my health. Everything for my lovely readers! And now that it's summer, I actually CAN!
Hehehe?