Lance felt his face turn a brilliant shade of magenta. He was in deep trouble, the kind of deep where you fall for about an hour and then land on some kind of sharp rock and you're trapped in the Pit of Despair until you have the strength in your back to climb out.
"What do you think you're doing here!" his father shouted at him. Lance just stood there for a while. He didn't know what to say. He hung his head.
"You should be ashamed! You know you're not allowed on the battlefront!" he rambled. And when he rambled, he seriously rambled. Lance's despair quickly turned to annoyance and boredom as his father went on and on with the biggest guilt trip of Lance's life.
"What do you have to say for yourself?" he asked. "I'd just like to say that if it weren't for me, Kakariko would be a pile of rubble and there'd be a good chance that you'd be dead!" Lance blurted.
"That is beside the point—" "What, so you'd rather die and have Kakariko destroyed than me disobey your orders! That's the most ridiculous pile of rubbish I've ever heard!" Lance interrupted.
There followed an awesome silence. Link knew that his son was right, but he wasn't about to pardon him from his punishment.
Link aimed his last point in Lance's direction with his finger. "Lance, you will march home with us and at our arrival, we will continue this discussion." He then turned on his heel, headed for Epona.
Rachel had been in her bedchamber, combing out her hair after a nice bath, when Lance and Link stormed into the castle and went for her father's bedroom. They slammed the door behind them, but Rachel could still hear every word.
"I don't know how many times I have to tell you this, Lance!" her father shouted. "I don't see why it's such a problem that I saved all of your lives! Is it too embarrassing to have the Prince of Hyrule save the army rather than the king! Is your ego damaged, and you have to repair it by making yourself look good in front of your captains!"
Apparently Lance had taken it too far, because Rachel heard a ringing smack, and Lance went silent. "You know better than to talk like that to your father!" Link bellowed. "It's only because you know it's true!" Lance retorted.
"Lance, I'm about this close to confining you to your bedchamber for the next three months!" cried Link. "In fact, I will. We will be leaving for the Gerudo Fortress tomorrow—"
Suddenly Rachel heard the door burst open. "Your Majesty!" a voice cried. "It's Lake Hylia… they've begun attacking Hylia Village!" Hylia Village… they had recently built a village on the shore of Lake Hylia, and apparently Ganondorf was attacking it.
"What!" her father cried. "Kakariko was a diversion! Muster all soldiers available, whether or not they've settled down to bed!"
"Yes sir, of course!" the captain shouted, and he left the room in a hurry. Link followed shortly, still dressed in his Hylian armor. This was going to be ugly.
Link sat atop Epona, feeling rather sick of fighting. He had just barely gotten out of a battle, it was night, and he was tired. He wanted to sleep, but now was not the time.
Once he saw that all his men were fully armed and ready for battle.
"Soldiers! I understand that we have just emerged from one of the greatest battles in Hyrulean history. But this one we are about to enter will be much greater, so be prepared! Do not let fear and doubt overcome your senses. We must be focused and ready for what lies ahead!"
With that, he led the army forward, and the march began. Lake Hylia was close enough that they could arrive within two hours. Hopefully Hylia Village would still be standing by the time they arrived. There weren't very many defenses there.
They arrived at the ridge leading to Hylia Village within an hour and a half. Link could see the battle below. It was a fierce one, with Ganondorf's forces at the top. That would not last long.
"Charge!" Link cried. His men echoed his cry, and their horses boomed down the ridge and into the battle below.
The natural arch above the entrance was loaded with archers. As soon as they saw the oncoming enemy, they unleashed arrows from their bows, many hitting their targets. Link's men were falling left and right, but he had plenty to spare. Before passing the arch, at least half of the archers above fell to the ground. Those who survived the fall were trampled under the hooves of their horses.
Link lowered his sword as to behead a bokoblin, who was bending over a Hylian soldier with his war hammer, ready to finish him off. Link stopped such a thing and quickly parried the blow of a cavalry swordsman, answering with a jab to the belly.
The battle was ferocious, brutal, and exhausting. Link found himself waving his sword back and forth in order to keep himself alive. The number of soldiers here was far greater than that of the ones at Kakariko.
Link quickly sheathed his sword in order to snatch a bow from a ground archer by him. The bokoblin whined, but Link just jabbed him in the head with the bottom of the bow. Then, quickly drawing an arrow, he flung the projectile forward. It sailed through the air and slammed into a Gerudo's chest, who was standing on top of a house, raising her sword high to attack a Hylian below.
With no more use for the bow, Link flung it in a random direction. The dragon tooth on the bottom collided with a bokoblin's head, and it fell dead.
Link drew his blade from his back, twirled it, and hacked straight through a Gerudo below him. She shrieked loudly, cut off by a horseman nearby, who accidentally trampled her. Link then parried two blows from an oncoming horseman and struck hard enough on the helmet that the sword got caught in the space between the brain and the skull. Link quickly yanked the blade out, sending the horseman sprawling.
Suddenly a loud noise echoed across the small valley, causing everyone to freeze. There was a black portal forming in the sky above the lake. This could only mean one thing.
Ganondorf came sailing out of the portal, riding atop his demonic-looking horse, wielding the same spear as Phantom Ganon had all those years ago. He had a devilish grin on his face, and he was wearing much more black armor than usual.
Without a word, he twirled the spear above his head like a baton and then swung it downward. A black sphere of dark energy hurtled downward and into the water. As soon as it made contact with the lake, it began to twist and rearrange into something monstrous.
Before even waiting for the finished product, Ganondorf laughed maliciously, yelling, "A little gift for the king!"
He then flew back through the portal, and it diminished immediately. But Link's attention wasn't focused on that. It was focused on what had formed in the water.
It was a centapus, a creature similar to an octopus, but at least twenty times bigger and it had one hundred tentacles. This thing was at least the size of the Lake Laboratory!
Instantly, the huge beast whipped out at least half of its tentacles out of the water and began waving them among the ranks of the Hylians. It struck several of its own soldiers, but it probably wouldn't matter due to the fact that the Hylians were greatly outnumbered.
Men were sent sprawling through the air, several still riding their horses. Most of the soldiers landed in the water, where the centapus wrapped a tentacle around them and stuffed them in its mouth, where Link saw thousands of teeth.
This thing was invincible. There was no way of stopping it without something extremely powerful. Something like… the Light Arrow. Link quickly grabbed a fellow archer's bow without his consent (what was he going to do about it?) and conjured the power of light into an arrow as he loaded it into the bow. He took careful aim… and unleashed the holy projectile. It stayed faithful to its mark and planted itself right above one of the centapus's tentacles.
It bellowed one of the most ear-splitting, blood-curdling screeches Link had ever heard. He clenched his hands to his ears, the pain was too excruciating, both for the soldiers and the centapus. But Link realized that was the only way to defeat it, so he drew three arrows at a time and unleashed them, injecting holy magic into them right before they were launched. All three pierced the centapus's grimy skin, but Link was not finished. He would spend his entire quiver before he would stop. The screeching was beginning to make his ears ring, but he would not stop.
Arrow after arrow after arrow was hurled across the lake and into the centapus until its head was riddled with wooden arrows the size of toothpicks compared to that monstrosity.
Finally, Link was down to his last five arrows. He drew them all and put the remainder of his magic power in them, which was a lot. They shone brighter than all the rest that he had fired. Using all the strength he could muster to pull the bow back with all five arrows, he took the most precautious aim he had ever taken and let them fly.
They whistled into the water, jetting forth at thirty miles an hour. The centapus saw them and apparently tried to avoid them, but apparently it was too late. Link clapped his hands over his ears just in time for it to utter its final scream of its very short, artificial life. The centapus exploded in a big ball of light energy, and everyone, including Ganondorf's men, were dazzled by the explosion. But the victory was short-lived. There were still soldiers to defeat.
Link was wrong. The victory was not short-lived. As soon as Ganondorf's soldiers saw their master's precious centapus get blown to smithereens, they fled for their lives, just like they had done at Kakariko Village.
The Hylian soldiers all raised their swords in triumph for the second time in twelve hours. They had won yet another battle, all within the same day. At least, almost the same day. The sun was already beginning to rise, and Link gave the signal for the soldiers to march home. The war was nearly won. There was only one more fateful battle to fight. And it would be the most brutal yet.
A/N
Well, I tried to make it longer, since I don't update often, but I don't think it worked. Oh well, sue me if you must. Thank you all for your reviews (if four to five people can be called "all"), especially BabyGurl278, who supports me in my takes-too-long updates. But it is almost finished! There are only a few chapters left. Take care all!