Legacies
A Sequel to Crossing of the Paths

By MMM/AJ

A/N: Oh. My. God. I hope that you folks have quite a lot of coffee and free time readily available, because this final chunk is a record-annihilating 64 pages long! That includes the last few regular chapters, the 3 conclusion chapters, and the extended edition of the epilogue, all of which are hefty in of themselves. So now I proudly give to you, the final installment of Legacies!

Part II - Resurrection

Chapter XXIII – S5

Ares yawned tiredly and sat back in the soft padded couch next to Shakara.

"It was quite ingenious of you, dressing an Acolyte up like you and sending him to his death in the Dantunian War like that father, I'm impressed." Shakara said.

Ares grinned. "It was a good opportunity to get rid of that whelp Anmor too, and the fake Triforce was just as easily concocted."

Ares yawned tiredly and laid back further into the soft padded couch after he spoke. "It's getting awfully late now, do you suppose we could talk some more tomorrow morning?" He asked.

"Sounds like a good idea dad, I'm tired after the day I've had." Shakara replied, standing and stretching.

Ares stood and nuzzled her gently. "I'm sorry about everything that's happened to you. I just don't understand why you won't let me link minds with you."

"Listen Dad, it's not like I don't love you, I just believe that it's important to have a precedent of privacy between us. It's a matter of mutual respect." Shakara said.

Ares sighed in resignation and walked to the door. "I'll see you tomorrow." He said, and smiled again.

"Sleep well." Shakara said as he closed the door.

Shakara laid down on the couch and waited an hour in the main hall, pretending to be asleep. A room hadn't been built here for her yet, and she wasn't actually tired, nor did she plan on sleeping. No acolytes entered the room upon her orders, and she waited until she was sure her father was asleep. She then crept out of the great hall and into the corridors of her base, though there was no point since she didn't need to go unseen. She ran headfirst into an Acolyte on patrol and decided to ask him for directions.

"You there! Direct me to the Network Control Hub!" Shakara ordered harshly.

The Acolyte saw Ares' symbol on her forehead and bowed politely. "It is on the second floor, four chambers on the left from Lift B Milady." He said.

Shakara left the Acolyte behind without so much as a 'thank you', not realizing that she was about to pass through the room where Tanis and Ashley were being held. When she entered, the Acolytes guarding all the imprisonment bubbles bowed to her. She was extremely shocked to see Ashley among the bowing guards. Ashley was standing in front of Tanis' cell, holding a laser rifle and bearing a control collar on her neck.

"So, my father selected you for service eh?" Shakara asked, walking up to Ashley.

"Yes milady." Ashley replied obediently.

"Would you come with me please?" Shakara said, phrasing it more like an order than a question.

"This is a Class A prisoner milady, he cannot be left without a guard by regulations."

Shakara glanced at Tanis, who was wearing one of those awful inhibitor collars on his back. He was weeping softly in the back of his cell, his face hidden in his paws.

"The prisoner is psychically disabled, and there are at least ten other Acolytes in the room. His chances of escape are infinitesimal. I can make this judgment and this order, and I want you to come with me!" Shakara said harshly, taking the moment to enjoy being able to boss Ashley around for once.

"Yes milady." Ashley said, still without emotion, and they turned and walked toward the door.

When they reached the door, Shakara took a moment to look back at Tanis, who was now looking up at her. She winked at him, and his bleary, tear-washed demeanor brightened dramatically. She silently mouthed to him to keep acting sorrowful, and he grinned widely for a moment before returning to his weeping.

Ashley and Shakara made their way through the darkened halls, up the lift, and down to a door covered with authorization warnings splashed all over it. A small red beam of light projected from above the door and scanned the symbols on Ashley and Shakara's foreheads, and then the door beeped and swished open. The room inside was filled with the massive bulk of the Nexus machine and all its associated equipment. The device itself was composed of a huge, dark steel orb with spines on the bottom on top that it sat on. It was basically the same shape as the symbol on Shakara's forehead. Hundreds of cables of various widths were connected to its sides, and they cobwebbed outward to connect with the walls and other nearby computer banks. The space above it was occupied by a massive network of heat exchangers and coolant pipes. Two Acolytes, who were covered heavily with glistening implants, were standing guard, and bowed as they entered.

"Ashley, I need-" Shakara began.

"My new designation is Agent A, milady." The mindless human girl interrupted.

"Well Agent A, you will do well to remember not to interrupt me again. Now my father has requested that I be trained with all his technology, including the devices contained in this room. So I want you to show me the procedure for an emergency shutdown of the entire electropsionic matrix." Shakara said.

"Of course milady." Agent A said, and walked over to the main terminal.

"In order to activate the main shutdown switch, you must first input the thirty digit authorization code into the console. Once authorized, there are three different options available. If the emergency is an overheat or a fire in the core, you must first pump the cable ejection primer here and then hit the disconnect button. The central computer core will detach from the rest of the system and the entire chamber will flood with flame retardant and coolants. If the emergency is digitally contained within the network itself, such as a fatal cascade overload, simply pull the deactivation switch and the system will directly shutdown. If the emergency is an external environmental issue, such as volcanic activity or an earthquake, first you must pump the primer and disengage the computer as before, and then use the backup system to enter code 307A. This code will encase the core in a heatproof, impact-proof alloy container and move it into a designated shelter via emergency tubes run by the backup system."

"My father sure trains his new agents quickly!" Shakara exclaimed.

"Simple psychic data transfer milady. Everything I needed to know he told me in a few seconds across a mental link."

"How do I disable the emergency backup system?" Shakara asked.

"The secondary electropsionic core is only active during an emergency situation. Should there be a need to deactivate it, then you must proceed to the secondary terminal to your left and follow the same procedure. Note that option C, involving environmental emergencies, is not available for the secondary core. Should any of the recognized environmental emergencies occur, that core will be inevitably lost."

Shakara really didn't pay too much attention to Agent A's words, instead she was intruding on her mind to get the Authorization codes for shutdown. She succeeded, and then began entering them into the console.

"I am just testing confirmation." Shakara said when she saw Agent A giving her a funny look.

"There are no scheduled tests for this system for another ten years milady!" Agent A said loudly.

When the words 'Code Confirmed' flashed on the console's screen, Shakara slammed her paws on the deactivation switch as hard as she could. Agent A and both Acolytes in the room instantly collapsed onto the floor unconscious, and Shakara swiftly reached down to grab the laser rifle that Agent A had been carrying. She fired a continuous beam from it into the cables connecting the core with the rest of the computer network, slicing and melting right through them. She wanted to make sure that nobody reactivated it anytime soon. For good measure, she pumped the primer and ejected what was left of the molten cables from the core's input sockets. The fried stumps popped out like corks from a wine bottle and jets of hot gas violently erupted out of the core itself. She followed the same procedure on the emergency backup core, shutting it down and melting its cables as well. Then Shakara reared back and kicked the screen of the nearest computer console, caving it in completely, and then followed that up by slicing its cables as well with her tail blade. It would be a very long time before any of the Acolytes got up again, and now Ares wouldn't be able to escape into one of their bodies.

Shakara heard a groan and turned to see the human girl sitting up, although she wasn't sure if it were Ashley or Agent A who had gotten up.

"Agent A?" Shakara asked.

"What the hell are you talking about Shakara?" Ashley snapped, wobbling to her feet.

Shakara sighed in relief and walked over to Ashley. "Hold still and let me cut that collar off of you."

Ashley suddenly turned and swung a right hook at Shakara's skull, and Shakara blocked it with her right arm.

"I'll have your head on a spear you traitor!" Ashley ranted, taking another swing.

Shakara firmly grabbed both of Ashley's arms and spoke, "Listen! That was all an act! I'm sorry for putting you through all that, but my father had already detected your presence on the gunship and I needed a convincing explanation!"

Ashley looked dumbstruck for a moment as her shocked mind processed this new information. Soon afterwards, a flood of the purest and most indescribable relief poured out of her expression and blood rushed to her cheeks with happiness. What Ashley did next shocked Shakara, but not in a negative way, the shorter human girl embraced her for a short yet meaningful moment.

"You don't know how relieved I am!" Ashley said, nearly crying from joy.

"Alright, I'm glad for you, but you need to listen. We don't have time to dawdle. I have just shut down the Electropsionic core as per our plans, and now we need to rendezvous with Tanis and get his collar off of him as well. If we hurry, we might have a chance to regroup and prepare ourselves before my father senses what has happened and awakens. Now come on, we need to move fast!"

The two of them sprinted back through the halls together, jumping over the scattered bodies of the unconscious Acolytes. No alarms were going off since the whole system had been reset, and all the doors had opened to their default positions. Reaching the imprisonment chamber, Shakara saw that all the energy bubbles that had held prisoners had faded away, and all of them had been freed. Tanis stood among a motley gang of scarred, abused people that had all equally felt the wrath of Ares' torture artists. They were milling amongst themselves when she first stumbled in, and many of them were breaking into the storage lockers next to their cells to retrieve their weapons and belongings. One of them, a dark-skinned woman, was cutting the collar off of Tanis with some sort of bladed weapon when one of the others caught sight of Shakara and panicked.

"Look, there's one of them!" A brown haired man shouted and pointed at Shakara.

"Get her!" another member of the mob shouted.

Tanis sprinted up in front of the angry prisoners before they could rush at Shakara. "Wait!" he shouted. "She's on our side, she's the one who shut down Ares' psychic network and set us free!"

The crowd looked ruthlessly skeptical, but none of them spoke a word out to protest directly. Shakara saw that she needed to put her own word in to prove what Tanis had said.

"Listen to me, I don't have time to explain everything with words, and I especially don't have the time to do so in a way that will expel all of your doubts and suspicions. So I am going to project everything that you need to know directly into your minds. Don't be alarmed when you hear my voice in your head, and don't worry about being mentally attacked."

Shakara was happy to find no direct resistance when she psychically linked up with everyone in the room. She quickly introduced herself, explained her past, and gave them a brief synopsis of her newly revised plan. She found that the whole assortment of those in the room consisted of people from here in this dimension where Hyrule existed, and a number of others from a land called Weyard in another, completely separate dimension. They all came from different parts of their respective worlds and spanned different social classes, and yet they now stood before her together in equality in the face of the threat of Ares. From here in Hyrule came two Gerudo siblings by the names of Kalana and Ruru, two Zora siblings by the names of Onta and Iona, and a Dantunian named Aquel. From Weyard came a group of warriors and a scholar, all of whom had been traveling together long before any of these events had come to pass. And to add to that was Tanis and Shakara herself from back home at Earth. Altogether, this was a substantial force to fight Ares with, even though most of them used primitive solid metal swords for weapons. Shakara could sense that they all had the skills to use energy-type attacks of some form of another, though they called these energies by different names. All of their energy could be pooled and used to fight against Ares. With this, Shakara could feel that their chances for victory were growing significantly, and all that was missing was a way to unify them all into an effective fighting force, and Shakara knew that she held that key.

- - - CONVERGENCE - - -

Chapter XXIV

Ares was sitting in his room dictating another one of his journal entries into his personal computer terminal. The red velvet splendors of his domain were veiled in the shadows of the night, and he kept the main light off to calm him as he softly spoke his words into the microphone. All of his empire was quiet this night, every single one of his goals had been accomplished now and peace dominated the lands under his control. Ares himself was unable to sleep for the while due to sheer excitement. Tomorrow was going to be a big day, he would re-unite all three pieces of the Triforce and finally put them into the Resurrector machine to proceed with his plans. Not only that, but his daughter had turned out not to be dead after all as well! He spent almost half an hour gleefully relaying all these events into his log before he began to feel sleepy. After finishing the retelling, he ended the recording session and laid back in his chair to recline and relax. His mind, which had been agonized for weeks now, was finally getting some rest.

Ever since that day when he believed Shakara had died, Ares' emotions had been thrown into turmoil. He was conflicted and ripped by different feelings to the point where many of his political advisors became worried about his sanity. On one day, he would be stricken with grief, unable to cope with any of the issues that laid at hand, and he would spend hours locked alone in his room lamenting for Shakara. On another day he would be gripped by a savage rage, unwilling to believe that he had let himself be caught by that despicable trap that humans called friendship. He would tell himself over and over again that Shakara wasn't actually worth anything anyway, since she had turned out so rebellious, and that he had let himself become emotionally weak. On a third given day he would be sick and tired of everything in the world, and nearly became suicidal. Every day was an appalling streak of depression for him, and even during his fits of rage he still felt a biting loneliness. And on all of his days, he was confounded by the fact that despite his power and wealth, he was still feeling a gaping hole in his life that could not be filled.

Now that Shakara had returned, and the final third of the Triforce had been captured, this hole had been instantly filled. As Ares laid back in his chair, thinking, he finally began to realize that, perhaps it was the companionship that made his life complete? The time he had spent connecting with Shakara that night had been one of the happiest nights he had known, and perhaps his greedier, colder self was wrong in the end? As he comprehended this, the warm comfort of his now-perfect life finally lulled him into a deep, restful sleep. He left his terminal on, and its cool white and red light bathed him as he dozed off in his chair. Life was good.

It took a long while, but something wrong in the atmosphere began to pry into Ares' restful state. It was a vague feeling of something amiss that crept into his dreams and haunted his relaxation. It disturbed him and caused him to slowly drift into wakefulness. He gradually opened his eyes, and his vision was blurred at first from the sleep in them. He saw something blinking urgently on the terminal's holo screen and sat up. He rubbed his eyes and looked again, and saw dire words flashing on the readout: "Fatal System Crash, Psionic Network Disabled, Main Computer Network Down"

Ares stood straight up like he had been lying on a hot plate. He tried to psychically contact any of his Acolytes to find out what was going on, but there was no response. His entire empire had suddenly been crippled in his sleep, and the first thing that crossed his mind was if Shakara was ok. Stress coursed through him as he was abruptly kicked into full alarm from his restful state, and he teleported straight into his HQ's main hall to find Shakara.

The main hall was nearly pitch black when Ares arrived, and the couch where Shakara had been sleeping was empty. He glanced around wildly as a sense of panic rose up in his throat. He felt a rush of relief when he finally saw her standing in front of the door to the labs, facing away from him.

"Shakara, are you alright?" Ares shouted to her.

"Yes father, I'm fine." Shakara replied impassively.

"What's going on! The system crashed, and I…" Ares lost his train of thought before he could finish.

An icy drop of water landed squarely on Ares' head, and he looked up to see the overhead dome had been opened up. The Hylian sky loomed above them, filled with angry boiling clouds that churned violently in the night's darkness. Not a single bolt of lightning flashed, giving an ominous feeling of suppressed fury.

"I want to ask you something father…what is your definition of glory?" Shakara asked coldly.

Ares was utterly silent as his mind roiled in confusion.

"Is it this?" Shakara boomed, and psychically projected the images of a gruesome pile of dead bodies into his mind.

Ares was caught completely off guard and unawares by Shakara's sudden onslaught. Mounds upon mounds of decaying bodies of Hylians, Iresians, humans, Acolytes, an unrecognizable others festered in a dump-like trench, and Ares could even smell the decay. He cringed like a frightened puppy and the images faded from his mind as Shakara relented.

"That is what your wars do, father. Endless, pointless waste that knows no bounds. I will have no part in it!" Shakara said, shouting the last part as she turned to face her father.

Ares faltered for a moment, and then his strength returned to him. "I don't need you judging my actions! You should obey me!" he boomed back at her.

Shakara's demeanor calmed again, it was almost as if her intensity was coming in waves. "Do you know what your first and biggest mistake was father?" she asked.

Ares was silent again, he fumed and tried to think of something to say.

"Thinking that everyone, including me, would bow down and obey you without question. Do you know what your second mistake was? Complacency. You never sat down and thought out every possible way your empire could be brought down, and you never took any of your enemies seriously. And worst of all, you thought that you could quell my spirit with simple words. I'm more than that father, and now all of these mistakes have come back to haunt you, embodied within me and my friends."

Ares tried to ask her what she meant by her friends, but she closed her eyes before he could say anything. He suddenly sensed an enormous amount of energy beginning to collect in and behind her, like a great tidal wave. When she opened her eyes, they were glowing in a multitude of shifting colors, and her posture and demeanor seemed to shift. She held herself differently, a lot more purposeful and dangerous looking. As the collecting energy continued to steadily rise, Ares decided it was the best idea to raise his shield and ready himself for an attack. The two Triforce pieces in his hand glowed brightly as he drew on their power, and his shield glowed gold and red. Since all his Acolytes were out cold and unable to send him his energy, he only had the Triforce left to support him now. His arrogance told him it should still be more than enough, but his entire belief system had now been shaken by Shakara's speech.

Shakara grinned and grabbed the door to the science room behind her to throw it open. Standing in the room behind her was a crowd of high security prisoners that Ares recognized from the special imprisonment chamber. Kalana, Ruru, Onta, Iona, Aquel, Isaac, Felix, Garet, Jenna, Sheba, Ivan, Mia, Piers, and Tanis all stood arrayed behind Shakara with their weapons at the ready, and all their eyes glowed in the same mysterious manner. They all began to move to surround him in unison, and he frowned in bitter acceptance of the fact that his daughter was in fact going to have to be a loss to him after all.

When Shakara's entire group evenly spread out around Ares, he reminded himself that almost none of them outside of Tanis and Shakara had any means of protecting themselves from a mental attack. He reached out with his mind in attempt to take control over several of them, but was met with a collective mental barrier that Shakara had put around all of their minds. Ares concentrated on just one person next, pushing more and more energy into the assault in an attempt to break their mental wall, but to no avail. He backed off then, realizing that this fight would be a lot more difficult than he thought. He suddenly grinned in spite of himself as his more destructive side gained control.

"You wanted to know what my definition of glory was Shakara? It's overcoming adversity to achieve victory!" Ares said. All present in the room smiled subtly in unison.

Dozens of cripplingly powerful blows struck Ares' shield at once, each of which would have normally been enough to disable him if he had not been in possession of the Triforce. Each member of Isaac's party unleashed a Djinn upon him, their combined force enough to turn an average Acolyte into a puddle of biomass. The power of the Triforce flowed into the shield and it held, but more attacks followed in rapid succession. A triple-blow from Kalana's scimitar was followed by tandem water spells from Iona and Onta. The powerful jets of highly pressurized water struck the shield and threw it against the wall as if Ares inside weighed nothing. He had barely come to a stop when Tanis and Shakara landed on top of his shield and began stabbing their energy swords into it. Their first series of blows was ineffective, so they answered with more and more, mixing in powerful blows from orbs of psychic energy. Isaac and Felix raced forward to unleash more Djinni.

Ares waved his arms and unleashed a colossal circular psywave that tossed all his attackers away like bowling pins. The psywave traveled past them as they were tossed away and went on to part the clouds in the darkened sky and travel off into space. Ares was denied his chance to continue on the offensive however, his shield was suddenly encased in a massive ice prison. The cold bit his skin as the concurrent spells from Onta, Iona, Mia, and Piers all formed a massive iceberg nearly two feet thick around him. The massive lattice of ice crystals then shattered with such an incredible physical force that it burst multiple gaping holes in his shield. Had it not taken the impact for him, he would have been shredded beyond recognition.

Ares' foes didn't hesitate in the flawless execution of their tandem attacks. Before the clouds of ice shards even had time to fall to the ground, a massive, dragon-shaped pillar of flames melted right through the ice, passed through a hole in Ares' shield, and struck his body, charring him black and baking his insides to well-done status. That attack was only barely dissipating when Tanis and Shakara's energy swords caught on the edges of the hole in the shield and pried it open further until the whole thing gave way and shattered.

Ares called on the power of the Triforce and fired a massive beam of golden energy at Tanis and Shakara. It struck their shields and flung them away like dolls, and then soared on past them to blast a series of molten holes through the rest of his base. He also took the chance to heal those of his internal organs which had been destroyed by the heat of the fire dragon in order to remove the immediate danger of his death. He turned towards where Tanis had landed, and then was interrupted by an icy cold lance of pain in his abdomen. He looked down to see a gore soaked sword protruding from his stomach, and he then wrapped his tail around the ankles of his assailant and threw him across the room violently. He re-raised his shield just in time to block another flurry of sword and scimitar blows and began healing himself again. He was interrupted when a series of flashes of light and deafening bangs filled the air, and his shield bent like a balloon being poked inwards. He saw through the flash that multiple bolts of lightning had struck it, and Ivan and Sheba's weapons were sizzling and smoking. More repeated lightning strikes followed, and Ares' energy consumption doubled as he tried to defend and heal himself both at the same time. The two Triforce pieces in his hand were beginning to sting and burn, and he decided to change his strategy quickly, since this one obviously wasn't working.

Ares teleported in a small golden flash and reappeared behind Kalana's back, holding onto an energy sword. He drew back and prepared to behead the Gerudo woman, but dual energy beams from Tanis and Shakara threw him across the room and bent his shield wildly again. He teleported a second time to reappear behind Tanis, but another combined Djinn blast from Isaac's crew sent him reeling before he could even rear back to strike. It was as if they were somehow tracking his teleportation co-ordinates to anticipate all his attacks, and he decided that yet another tactic change was in order. He quickly flew high up into the air above everyone's heads where no-one could reach him who couldn't psychically fly. He raised his arms and pulled every last ounce of energy out of the Triforce that he possibly could, forming it into one end-all, planet-destroying doomsday orb. The Triforce burned like someone had taken a branding iron to his hand, straight out of the bellows, but he ignored the pain and concentrated at finishing his monstrosity of an attack.

"Come forth Iris, I summon you!" Jenna's voice called brilliantly over the crackling hiss of the collecting energy above.

Ares swiveled his head around curiously, expecting some kind of attack, but the storms in the Hylian sky roiled on uninterrupted. He shrugged it off and returned to the task at hand.

"Behold, your doom has come!" Ares shouted, and then waved his arms downward to fire his attack down at his foes.

High above them all, a new light began to emerge from the wrathful clouds. The glow intensified and began to push through the clouds, and suddenly Ares craned his neck upward when he sensed something massive approaching. Beams of reddish light shot downward like lightning, they surrounded and encased Ares before anyone could blink. Similar energy collected around Ares' massive doomsday attack and stopped it in its tracks. The beams then began pulling upward, like giant glowing ropes of steel, and Ares felt confused and frightened.

"What kind of trick is this?" Ares psychically bellowed as he was pulled to higher and higher altitudes.

"Have a nice flight!" Tanis' psychic voice replied simply.

Passing through the upper limits of the storm clouds and into the calmer night sky above, Ares caught a glimpse of a rapidly ascending Goddess who was pulling on the beams of light which held him prisoner. She rapidly disappeared into the distance and he began violently accelerating up towards space. Feeling the air thinning, Ares formed an air bubble around himself and continued to resist. He was continually pulled like this until the planet fell away below him and he was surrounded by the dark abyss of space on all sides. He struggled fruitlessly for minutes on end, and with every passing moment he became more frantic to escape and much more enraged. His rage was cooled with icy cold terror when he realized where he was being taken, right towards this solar system's star.

Ares became blindly desperate, he fired energy attacks into the beams that imprisoned him, but to no avail. He attempted teleportation numerous times but the energy of the beam blocked him. His skin began to sizzle and burn as he rapidly approached the star, both from the heat and the concentrated light. He did manage to successfully raise a heat shield to protect himself, but it was soon overpowered. He turned this shield opaque to protect from the intense light and triple-reinforced it to try and insulate against the heat, but for every passing second the burning became more intense. He writhed and twitched in agony as his skin slowly char-broiled, and he began to lose his mental focus as the rest of his body was affected. He cried out in defiance, trying to form words to rebuke the grim reaper, but his muscles were being cooked and he could not control their movements any longer. In that moment, Ares was as close to hell as any still-living mortal could get.

With one monstrous crash, the heat shields collided with the star's outer gas layers, causing a spectacular display of blinding orange and yellow fireworks. At that very moment, death should have come to the tyrant inside, but the Triforce interrupted at the last moment. The cracking and failing shields were reinforced by its golden energy, and the imprisoning beams from Jenna's summon reversed direction and pulled Ares away from the star.

Ares regained consciousness minutes later as the Triforce's healing energies filled his body. He slowly realized that the star was fading in the distance, and that the only thing that had stood between him and death were the two golden triangles in his hand. As his mind returned to normal, he couldn't help but chuckle.

"Fickle little artifact." He said half joyously. "You'll save my life, but you won't let me use your full powers against my foes. How altruistic."

The calming blues and greens of the Hylian planet returned to Ares' view as he was rapidly carried back. He didn't realize that he was still under the grip of Jenna's summon, so he didn't bother trying to slow down until he was about to enter the atmosphere. By the time he had reached the planet he was fully healed and mentally acute once more, so when he tried to slow down and failed, he realized that something was still terribly wrong. The planet's atmosphere blasted his shield violently and bright tongues of orange flames curled around it in an almost artful pattern. He passed through the upper atmosphere, storm clouds, and towards his HQ in a matter of seconds, his rate of speeding blurring out his vision. Normally, the computers in the buildings of his HQ would have registered him as a dangerous comet or asteroid and fired several volleys of plasma to destroy him, but since the network was down, none of those automated functions remained online. The plasma bolts could have struck his shield to slow him down, but instead he flew unimpeded right into the steel flooring of the base.

The rules of summoning prevented the ensuing blast from harming Jenna or anyone else in her party, but all of Ares' base was nearly obliterated from the impact. The impact-resistant alloys that Ares had designed himself withstood most of the collision, but all of the unshielded, sensitive equipment in the entire building was torn loose and tossed several miles away. The entire building sank under the force of the collision, and the soft earth sank and buckled like sand. The tremors that blasted through the earth all around caused houses in distant villages to collapse, and the towers of Hyrule Castle tilted and swayed.

Ares himself was saved from most of the impact by his shields, but the energy drain on the Triforce this caused made his entire hand explode in excruciating pain before going totally numb. Even with the cushioning his shields provided, Ares struck the floor with enough force to break multiple bones throughout his body, he felt his jaw splinter and his knees shatter, and again he took another close step towards the agony of hell before the Triforce saved him. When the dust cleared and the warped and mangled walls of his base came into his blurred vision, his opponents still stood there above him, stronger than ever. It was at this point that he realized that he was not going to win this fight. The Triforce may have saved his life multiple times, but it was not going to be enough to kill these enemies.

As the bones in his body quickly mended by the Triforce's command, Ares looked over at his right hand, only to see a ghastly, shriveled gray piece of flesh. The Triforce had turned his once vibrant and healthy hand into the picture of decay, it looked like his arm from the elbow down should have belonged to some kind of shambling undead beast. It was completely numb and limp as well, he could not get it to respond, and he knew that the Triforce had drained all the life force out of it. He stood, and in an instant his foes were right in front of him again.

Ares tried to strike first again, but by now he was incredibly weakened. When he lunged at Isaac with an energy sword, Isaac simply dodged to the side and landed a devastating right hook to the side of his head. Ares was sent tumbling through the air, his body spinning twice before grinding into the burning hot dirt that had settled after the impact. He kept pushing himself to fight, despite his rapidly waning energy, and flipped over onto his feet to attack Kalana. Kalana dipped under his attack and bashed his jaw with the hilt of her scimitar, breaking his jawbone a second time and sending him violently up into the air. Tanis appeared above him, and plunged both of his feet into Ares' stomach in a flawless double kick that sent him right back into the dirt again. His intestines were brutally bruised by the kick and he landed on top of his tail, sending an even brighter lightning bolt of pain up and down his back. The Triforce tried to heal him again, but now there was hardly any life left in him and it had little effect. His battered and ruined body now lay still on the wreckage of his once glorious base. The air suddenly stood silent for a moment.

Shakara walked up to her father, and added final insult to injury by plunging an energy sword into his second neck, sealing his defeat. She held this sword to his other neck, threatening to totally sever his head.

"Game's up father." She said softly.

Ares looked up at his daughter, her eyes were still glowing, and he could see in their emotion that all love had been lost. At that moment, all of Ares' other injuries; his severed second neck, multiple bruises, broken bones, dead arm, were nothing compared to the pain that Shakara's stare gave him. The cold, almost dead glint that she gave him cut his heart better than any energy blade could have, and his resolve quivered and faded away.

"Shakara...I'm...sorry." Ares stuttered, his psychic voice barely transmitting properly due to his drained power.

Shakara did not strike the final blow, but instead stopped to listen to him.

"For everything I've done wrong…even if I'm still not aware of all of it." Ares paused for a moment, and then spoke again. "Do you…remember the time when we played laser tag, you and I? That time that we spent together then, it meant more to me than any other time in my life. I didn't know it until now, but that was more important than any of the times I spent performing my conquests. And now that all time is about to fall out of my grasp…it saddens me that we won't ever play games like that together again."

Shakara closed her eyes for a moment, and her energy sword began to shiver and fade. A small droplet of water formed below each eyelid, and all was still for a moment.

"Don't hesitate!" Tanis called, and several of his party members rushed forward to finish the job.

Ares noticed something odd, the glow had vanished from the eyes of his attackers, and he rolled to the side to dodge Tanis's energy sword attack. This time, it seemed that Tanis was moving much slower. A new theory formed inside his head, and he decided to keep resisting just a little more to see if his theory was true. Ares jumped backwards and landed on top of his old Resurrector machine, which had been thankfully bolted down and was not damaged by the explosion when he landed after Jenna's summon. In it were the six elemental gems, and the third and final piece of the Triforce, all of which were being held in containment fields slotted into the machine. Tanis was charging toward him, so Ares grabbed as many of the Gems as he could get all at once, and used their energy to heal his wounds and regenerate himself. He felt extremely lucky that he had been given a chance to get back into the game.

Ares teleported again, wanting to see if there was any significance to the loss of the glowing eyes in his opponents. He was correct, none of them anticipated his move like before, and he caught the Zora Queen Iona utterly off guard. He lopped the Queen's right arm off solidly and was about to strike her neck, but Jenna saw him and launched a beam of fire at him. He raised a new shield, which took the impact easily, and returned fire with his own orb of red energy. Jenna's leg was blown clean off by the blast, and she fell to the ground unconscious almost instantly.

Ares knew that whatever psychic link that Shakara had developed was now gone, so he intruded on the minds of all in the room who not gifted with their own psychic abilities and sent them drifting off into the deepest slumber. All that remained now were Tanis and his own daughter.

Tanis came charging towards Ares, this time dual wielding energy swords with a look of desperation in his eyes. Ares dipped under the blades, kicked Tanis squarely in the stomach, and then twirled around and stabbed through his second neck. Tanis stumbled to the ground and clenched his belly, the wind had been knocked out of him and he could no longer use his powers. Ares kicked him in the sides a few more times to make sure he stayed down, and then walked over to Shakara. He didn't attack her, but he kept his shield up just in case. Shakara simply stood there, refusing to even look at him.

"Whatever it is that caused this mutiny, please tell me! I need to know everything I did to you so that I won't repeat it again! I cannot blame you for betraying me anymore, just please help me to help myself!"

"I should hope that you have a pen and some paper ready…the list is quite long." Shakara said, almost a whisper.

Suddenly, Shakara fell to her knees. Ares suddenly felt a wave of fear wash over him, he ran over to her and caught her as she toppled.

"What's wrong? Are you ill?" Ares asked.

Shakara silently pointed at her back, and Ares sat her up and looked. Originating at her implant plug and at the burned triple swords on Shakara's back were numerous cancerous masses, every single one of them visible lumps under her skin. They had spread over her like some kind of plague, and a few of them were open sores, leaking clear fluid out of her skin. Ares examined them psychically to find that they were extraordinarily malignant, and had already fanned out into numerous other parts of her body.

"Shakara…I…I don't understand! Why didn't you-"

"Heal myself with my psychic abilities? Trust me, I tried. Whenever I channeled the restorative energies into the tumors, they fed on it and grew instead of shrinking. There's no way for me, you, Tanis, or anyone to cure them."

"But…I should have known! I have to be able to fix this!"

"Face it dad, even you aren't good enough at genetic engineering to create a perfect being. Even if you made one, single, miniscule mistake, it could have lead to this. And every time I felt my anger for you, the cancer grew a little more inside me by feeding off of my emotions. Whenever I was happy it would stop, but that wasn't often enough."

"No! I won't let you slip away from me like this! I'll cut all of them out, even if it takes me twenty more years! I have the technology damnit!"

"I'm sorry father, but this is something you must accept. If you won't learn this lesson for yourself, then learn it for all the people you've subjugated. You can't keep deluding yourself any longer, it's time to live on and let life take you where it will."

Something inside Ares snapped, and he rose and walked over towards his Resurrector machine. This was the final straw that broke his conqueror's complex, and he was ready to give up his dreams pf conquest for Shakara know. He lowered the containment field around the final piece of the Triforce, knowing full well that he would only receive one wish, and if he gave it to Shakara then he would never have its power again.

The Triforce of Wisdom hovered free from its imprisonment, and the other two pieces tore loose from Ares' hand. The three reunited in a brilliant flare of gold, and the completed artifact drifted just above Ares' head.

"Unworthy one!" The voice of the Triforce boomed, nearly deafening all in the room. "Your black heart and corrupted mind are unfit to wield the complete power of the Triforce! You shall never again use our power to commit your heinous deeds, and we shall once again split into three-"

"Wait! Please, hear me out!" Ares interrupted. "I'm done with infinite power now. Please, I beg of you, just spare my daughter and give your power to her so she might live!"

The three Triangles hovered in utter silence for a moment. "Only an act of utter selflessness such as this could ever have redeemed you in our eyes, and thus it has been shown before us. Shakara will live."

The Triforce descended until it was just a few inches above Shakara's limp form. It cast a golden glow upon her, and for a few seconds she remained still. Then, she clambered to her knees and stood. She reached around and felt her back, the sores were gone and the lumps were shrinking and disappearing.

"Shakara et Benca, your father has given you a great gift. He has given up his ambitions of power, sacrificed his wish so that you might live. Is there any wish that you might have of the Gods?"

"I never want to have any of this happen to me ever again. I want to be free of all the negativity on my heart. I want to purge all the darkness that brought upon that sickness, and to be free to be happy again." Shakara replied.

"What you ask has dire consequences that you may not fully comprehend. It would be wise for you to reconsider." The voice of the Triforce said in return.

"No! This is what I want! I'm sick of living a life clouded by shame, regret, and sorrow! No more shall I carry this burden of blackness, it is rotting me away at the inside! Take it from me now!" Shakara cried.

"Very well, the wish is granted." The booming voice said, in an almost sad tone.

A muffled, percussive thud like that of a drum echoed from the Triforce, and Shakara closed her eyes. A bubble of golden energy projected from the three triangles and encased Shakara, and both of them began to fly up into the air through the twisted skylight. As Shakara and the Triforce were carried up into the night sky, they left a towering column of golden light below them, one which reached above them as well as they came to a stop halfway between the ground and the clouds. The column of light parted a hole in the clouds, which began to twist and twirl upon contact. The winds at every altitude began to pick up around this massive pillar to the sky in a spinning motion, picking up dust and debris as their speeds increased. When the winds got strong enough, the dust formed up into a giant tornado-like funnel cloud, which was radiating golden light from the center. This sight was so breathtaking to behold that many Hylians rose from their beds to stand and stare. The golden light shone brightest from the pseudo-tornado's epicenter where Shakara was, right in the very middle of the entire spectacle.

"No! This isn't right! I won't let it happen!" Ares bellowed and kicked off of the ground to fly towards Shakara in the center.

When he found her, incased in a blinding cocoon of light, he formed an energy sword and stabbed at it, trying to free her. He was utterly unsuccessful at even making a ripple in the orb that held his daughter, and in response he put all his energy and concentration into a rapid succession of blows. This lead him to unconsciously release the paralysis on all of the members of Tanis' party below, and they began to heal each other and recover their strength while he was distracted. Before Ares knew it, the entire team was up on their feet and ready for another round of combat, and Tanis rocketed up through the air towards him.

"Don't interfere Tanis! I'm trying to save my daughter and this has nothing to do with you!" Ares yelled belligerently.

"Despite whether you or I like it or not, we'll need to work together in order to save her!" Tanis yelled in reply.

Ares felt Tanis try to psychically link up to him, but it wasn't some form of attack. It felt like Tanis wanted to co-ordinate their movements, just as he and Shakara had done against him in the battle before. Ares was shocked, nay stunned to think that Tanis would be willing to take such a risk for the sake of Shakara, and he realized he had something in common he shared with Tanis, they both deeply cared about what happened to Shakara. He decided to accept Tanis' proposal and not to betray him, Shakara was now ultimately his number one priority.

When Ares did link minds with Tanis, he felt himself bathed in the warm glow of Tanis' emotions. There was a great shining positivity in Tanis that Ares could never have even dreamed of, its soothing purity calmed his mind and made him feel like everything was going to be alright. He also felt Tanis was indeed just as concerned about Shakara as he was, and he felt like, perhaps, he could share some sort of bond with Tanis should everything turn out alright? The irony bitterly stung at his pride that such thoughts could ring true, and he decided that it was indeed time for him to reorganize his life goals to include his family more than his ambition, that is, if given the chance.

Ares and Tanis began flying in perfect unison around Shakara's glowing form. They accelerated until glowing contrails followed behind them, forming an orange and red ring around the nucleus of the pseudo-tornado, making the whole assembly look like a massive atom. Ares' vision began to fade out as the G forces drained the blood from his head, and just as he was about to black out completely, he and Tanis broke off from their spin and soared directly away from Shakara at breakneck speed. They then curved around in beautifully synchronized arcs, retaining their momentum, to fly directly towards Shakara inside the imprisoning orb. Both Tanis and Ares formed spikes of energy on their feet and landed feet-first onto the orb, pushing all of their psychic power and physical momentum into the dual impact. But it was not enough, the sphere held.

Worse came to worse in fact, the power from these blows simply slid off of the barrier that the Triforce had created, and Ares and Tanis received the full force of each other's attacks. Ares felt his bones crush and his organs collapse when the blow struck him directly in his stomach, and he thought to himself how annoying it was that this kind of crap was happening to him so much tonight. The mental link that connected him to Tanis allowed them both to share each others' pain, so Ares had the privilege of feeling his own pain on top of the pain that Tanis was feeling from his injury as well, making his vision blur in danger of passing out. But the link allowed them both to share energy, and they pooled what was left after the failed attack to heal each other and keep from falling to their deaths. All in all, that attempt had been an utter waste of time and energy, and by now it was too late to prevent Shakara's separation. With another flash, this one not as bright, the bubble that had encased Shakara began to fade. The wind came to a screeching halt, and all the dust and debris that had been picked up by the pseudo-tornado suddenly began to fall. The clouds stopped spinning, the world grew silent, and two emerged from where there once was one.

Chapter XXV

"It was never supposed to be like this!" Ares lamented, hear heart writhing.

The Triforce had done its job well, an Angelic and a Demonic half of Shakara had been created, each opposed to the other in every way. Hardly anyone in the room except Tanis and Ares understood the significance of this event, nor its grave nature, and chills continually ran up and down Tanis' spine as the two opposing halves began to battle with each other. Nobody seemed to notice that the Triforce seemed to have disappeared, all of their attention was focused on the fantastic lightshow playing out in the skies above Hyrule. The Hylian people watched even more intently now, the bright flashes of energy were a spectacle none of them had ever beheld in their lives, and it seemed to flow in cycles of stalemate, neither side gaining any ground for nearly ten minutes.

Ares was paralyzed with confusion and grief, he knew that if either half killed the other, then both would die and he would lose his daughter forever, so he needed to act in some way. But he couldn't just pick a side and fight against the other, both of them were Shakara and he could not forgive himself if his actions lead to her death. Then, amidst the fighting, there was another golden flash, and the voice of the Triforce spoke again.

"Your heart is unbalanced between the Three Holy Attributes, and thus we shall split!"

Ares squinted to see what was happening, and he saw that two of the pieces of the Triforce were speeding away from the two combatants, one directly down towards the opened roof of the base. The Triforce of Courage, leaving a slightly blew trail of light, flew down and struck Kalana on the head, this time it had chosen the sister of its last recipient. Kalana fell to her knees and collapsed, and Ruru rushed to her side. The other piece of the Triforce speed off in an Easterly direction, and Ares lost sight of it quickly. When he turned back towards the battle, he saw that one of the combatants was plummeting like a stone, and was about to come to a bone crunching landing on the base's warped steel floors. Ares created a soft, cushioning psychic bubble to catch her, and saw that it was the bat-winged demonic version of Shakara, who was now unconscious and had the mark of the Triforce of Power on her forehead. The angel-winged half rocketed downward in pursuit, bearing two shining energy blades in her paws.

"Wait, stop!" Ares shouted, jumping in front of the blades.

"Move father! She stands for everything I hated about myself, and I must destroy her!"

"No! If you kill her, you will die yourself as well!" Ares shouted in reply, as small tears began to trickle from his eyes.

"I don't care, I cannot let her escape and perform the dark deeds that she so desperately craves!"

Ares lunged forward at his daughter's light side, and their energy shields clashed violently. He tried desperately to weaken or break her shield so he could paralyze her and re-merge them, but to no avail. Tanis and the others watched in awe, none of them knowing quite sure what to do.

"I'm going to re-merge you with her, and we'll be a happy family again!" Ares babbled hysterically as he pushed more and more energy into his attacks.

"Get real father, we never were a happy family in the first place and we never will be!"

"I won't let you die!" Ares bellowed in return.

Suddenly, a great bolt of dark energy collided with the light one's shield. The combined force of this strike and Ares' attacks burst the shield and tossed her end-over-end until the cracked her skull against the steel wall and fell unconscious to the ground. Ares whirled around to see the dark one standing victorious, a huge, vicious grin on her face.

"Well father, am I everything you hoped I would be?" the dark one hissed.

Ares stuttered for a moment before finding his voice. "No, and you must stop! I want my old daughter back!"

"Aww, but isn't this new form what you really wanted, a fellow conqueror to stand by your side on the brink of a new era of dominance?"

Ares was cut to the bone, the dark one's words were utterly true. But he also knew what he wanted now, and he knew that he had left that part of himself behind.

"No, I truly wanted a friend!" he yelled defiantly.

"Well, we can be great friends, you and I! Just make sure to give me final control of all the worlds we conquer together, and we'll be the perfect team!"

"No, I want my old daughter back! You must re-merge and go back to how you were!"

A look of annoyance played across the dark one's face. "The old Shakara is dead and gone now father, and you need to stop living in the past! I'm not called Darkess, and I plan on re-tracing my grandfather's footsteps into darkness!"

The angelic one's eyes flittered open, and a fraction of a second later a bolt of brilliant white energy pierced through Darkess' abdomen and exploded against the far wall.

"Then I will call myself Lightess, and I will dedicate myself to stopping you!"

Darkess gasped in surprise for a moment, but grinned again as energy from the Triforce of power healed her wound. "How rude of you to interrupt, you were going to get some speech time of your own too!"

Darkess and Lightess flew at each other and began battling again, but this time Tanis jumped off of his feet and flew in to intervene. He took Lightess' side and began to fire multiple energy beams at Darkess, but they had little effect on their own. Ares stood and watched again, still paralyzed by indecision, until a thought struck him. Should Darkess escape into space and hide, it would make finding her to re-merge with Lightess nearly impossible, so he finally decided to pick Lightess' side as well and join the fray.

Ares noticed right away how badly diminished his powers were without the Triforce, his power pool had been reduced to nearly a third of its size before he had started battling that night, and it showed significantly when he fought against Darkess. She blocked all of his attacks deftly and dealt out vicious blows with her own energy sword, and Tanis wondered if this was how Tanis had felt before they had become allies. He was forced to take up a co-operative strategy with Tanis and Lightess, and he wondered briefly if Tanis would offer to link their minds again for coordinating their attacks.

After only a few minutes of intense swordplay, Darkess halted her assault for a moment and looked at each of her opponents in turn. She let her energy sword fade, and then grinned maliciously. "You all make a good team, and I must say that this has been interesting. But I have far much to do to play around here, so I'm going to have to end this now."

Darkess flew up above her three opponents and collected as much energy out of her piece of the Triforce as she could, adding her own energy to it. When Ares sensed how much energy was gathering, he felt a cold, shivering blast of fear run up and down his spine. He could tell that even with Tanis and Lightess alongside him, he could still never block Darkess' attack. He wanted to run away, to teleport to another place on this planet and hide, but he knew that Darkess would eventually find him. He resigned himself to keep fighting anyway; he was too dedicated to bringing Shakara back to flee.

Darkess fired a beam of energy nearly five feet in diameter down at the three of them, composed of an unholy mix of Triforce energy and dark energy. Ares and his team raised a shield to block, but when the dark beam struck it, it bent inward and began to collapse. Ares felt himself turn cold as the shield drew on his life force, and his knees gave way. He fell to his knees and looked up to see the shield beginning to buckle, and said sorry to Shakara in his mind one final time.

When the shield didn't collapse and death didn't come, Ares opened his eyes and saw one of the Weyardians that he had held prisoner now standing beside him, sending her own energy. The red haired girl named Jenna had joined up with him, despite all the hours of torture she had endured by his command. Suddenly, three more of her companions stepped in and contributed, and the shield began to brighten and expand against Darkess' attack. Then, all of them followed, as well as the Hylians and Zoras, and Ares climbed back to his feet. Warmth crawled back into his body again, and he smiled in wonderment at the selflessness of those he had subjugated before. He felt their emotions and their energy as they grouped behind him, and decided that he would give them all their freedom should he ever get the chance.

The shield that Ares' team had raised changed, it expanded and grew into a great orb of energy, pushing Darkess' beam back in her face. Darkess' expression changed from one of smug superiority to terror and panic. She tried to pull even more energy from the Triforce, but instead was met with only a burning pain in her right arm. She kept trying over and over again, expecting a last minute save, until the energy from Ares' team broke through her attack and blasted the entire lower half of her body into oblivion.

Darkess began to fall out of the sky like a warplane that had been hit by flak, and Ares saw her lower half begin to re-grow and regenerate. He flew up to catch her, and then severed her second neck with an energy sword to put an end to the healing process. He then flew back down victorious, and the Weyardians cheered.

Ares set Darkess' charred form down and turned to launch a surprise attack at Lightess. Lightess had not expected such backstabbing, and fell to the floor paralyzed by Ares' energy. He then picked her up and carried her towards Darkess, preparing to re-merge the two of them back into his daughter again. A sudden shriek pierced the air, followed by many shuffling footsteps, and Ares felt burning agony skewer his stomach. He dropped Lightess and turned to see one of his own Acolytes, Agryn no less, holding the energy blade that had stabbed him. Agryn's normally purple eyes were slowly turning a deep, bloody red. The implant on Agryn's head was beeping wildly, and the symbol on his forehead had simply fallen off. Other Acolytes, previously unconscious after the system crash, had gotten to their feet and taken the Weyardians prisoner with paralyzing attacks. Hundreds more of them emerged out of every corridor, surrounding them in a huge circle.

"Checkmate!" Darkess cackled, now free from Ares' psychic grip.

Agryn yanked the sword out of Ares' stomach, and Ares topped over onto his side. He tried to heal himself again, but his energy stores were low again already, and Agryn hit him with a paralyzing attack. "How?" he managed to sputter.

"I saw an opportunity and I took it!" Darkess laughed as her legs regrew. "Your Acolytes were lying leaderless on the ground, their minds easily accessible and controlled. I'm surprised you didn't try this yourself, so I picked the slack for you by conquering and restructuring your entire psionic network with my mind, and now every one of your Acolytes bows to my command!"

"Then I have no choice!" Lightess shouted, and then raised an energy sword, preparing to stab herself in the head. She knew that if she died, Darkess also died.

The Acolytes all moved in unison, they easily overwhelmed Lightess with their collective power and paralyzed her too, and she fell on the floor just the same as Ares. Now the entire group was on the ground in this manner, and Darkess held all the cards. Ares' mind reeled with fear as he tried to predict what Darkess would do with all of them.

Darkess stood there, thinking for a moment, and then walked over to Kalana, who was still out cold after receiving the Triforce of Wisdom. Darkess created an energy sword and sliced Kalana's entire right arm off to take the Triforce, and then frowned when it prepared to fly at her skull,

"There has to be a better way to do this than the skull-bashing method!" Darkess said, and then dodged to the side.

When the second piece of the Triforce missed her head, Darkess then jumped to her feet and grabbed it with her right hand. She squeezed it as hard as she could, and forced it to enter her hand directly. It burrowed into the skin next to its counterpart, and Darkess cringed, then smiled.

"Perfect." Darkess said, and turned towards Ares. "Now all that's left is for me to find the final piece, and I'll be able to live out your dreams father!"

"It's right here!" a human voice shouted, and Darkess whirled around to see the dark haired girl Ashley standing in a doorway.

Ashley whipped off her trainer's fingerless glove, revealing the Triforce of Courage in the back of her hand. "Plus, I don't think that you're ready to receive it just yet anyway!"

Darkess was taken aback for a moment, and then grinned again. "Well well well, if it isn't my least favorite human on Earth! My, I'm going to enjoy killing you! But why is it that you think I'm not ready to receive the Triforce yet?"

"Watch this. Merge!" She shouted, and suddenly the Triforce pieces in Darkess' hand ripped free. The piece in Ashley's hand pulled free as well, and all three re-united for the second time that night.

"Hey, that's mine!" Darkess shouted angrily.

Ashley jumped up into the air to touch the Triforce first, hoping to gain its power instead of letting it fall into Darkess' hands. But Darkess simply teleported in between Ashley and the golden artifact, and smashed her away with her tail. Ashley tumbled to the ground, rolling like a stuffed dummy. Darkess laughed, and then touched the Triforce greedily, thinking of all the things she would do with its power.

"Away with you!" The voice of the Triforce bellowed, now in a tone of unsuppressed rage. "You are more than unworthy of the complete power of the Triforce!"

"Unworthy, am I? I'll show you how unworthy I am!" Darkess laughed.

From the thunder torn night sky descended thousands of glimmering lights, each one converging above Ares' base. As they grew in the distance, Ares saw them to be nearly all of his old warships, now flying under Darkess' control instead of his. Battlecruisers, Destroyers, Carriers, and every other class of ship descended to hover over Hyrule, their hulls reflected the flashes of lightning in the night sky. Darkess commanded the hundreds of thousands of Acolytes aboard them to send her their energy, and they obeyed. A flaming black aura of power surrounded Darkess' body as she absorbed the collective energy from all of Ares' empire. She waved her hands and encased the completed Triforce with a dark bubble of energy, holding the pieces together to prevent them from splitting again. The Triforce reacted with a supernova-like blast of golden energy within this imprisoning shield, thinning it and distending it considerably. Ruru and Onta gasped in awe and terror when that shield held however, they were shocked and amazed to see that the power of the Triforce had been matched. The bubble shrank down again, until it encapsulated each triangle in an aura of darkness.

"Ha! Behold the power of the Gods contained!" Darkess laughed.

Darkess grabbed the Triforce out of the air like Christmas ornaments suspended by fishing line, it no longer resisted her control. She turned it over a couple of times in her hands, and then snapped her fingers when an idea came to her. She walked over to the Resurrector machine, which had been bolted to the floor and had not been blown away when Jenna's summon smashed Ares into the base. She placed the Triforce into its intended slot on the machine, causing it to hum to life with power. She teleported all six of the Elemental Gems into her hands, and then placed them too into their slots in the machine.

"What are you going to do with my machine?" Ares asked feebly.

"I need a new body, father, one that won't die when Lightess dies, and one that you won't be able to re-merge with Lightess. I'm going to use this amazing piece of machinery of yours to grow myself a new body with just those requirements, and then I'll transfer my mind into that body, kill Lightess, and proceed to conquer the galaxy!"

"It'll take years to grow a full body though, are you really that patient?" Ares asked.

Darkess tilted her head and thought for a moment, and then smiled and bent over to open a panel on the side of the machine. She tinkered with the device's innards for several innards before closing it up and wiping the dust off of her paws. She walked over to the line of paralyzed prisoners and smiled.

"Would any of you like to volunteer for a job of utmost importance to me?" she asked, a look of malevolent mischief on her face.

None of those who were still conscious among the group responded, and Darkess walked over to stand before Tanis. "How about you, my old friend?"

Tanis looked up at her with a woeful gaze, saying nothing. Darkess grinned and decided to use him; she picked him up with her mind and stood him up on top of the Resurrector, which had lost its glass top during Jenna's summon. Wires and electrodes floated up and stuck to his body in various places, making him look like an experiment from some freakish horror movie.

"Now for the proper settings…" Darkess said, and began removing Elemental Gems from the machine. She removed every single one except for the Darkness Gem. Her hand hovered over the activation button for a moment, and then she stepped back and rubbed her chin.

"Everything needs to be absolutely perfect before I proceed…" Darkess said, thinking and looking around the room. "Oh, I've got it!"

Darkess turned toward one of the Acolytes under her control. "Red is nice, but I like char black better." She said.

Every single Acolyte in the room twitched for a moment and stood up straighter. Their skin and fur slowly darkened from red to black, and their horns curved to points.

"That's better, now you're truly my Centurions!" Darkess said, grinning broadly.

Next, the hulls of all of Ares' red-painted warships darkened to black, and his symbol was stricken from them, as well as from the halls of the base. The Centurions all began to line up neatly as if attention.

"Now for the final touch, my witnesses!" Darkess said, and lined up all the paralyzed prisoners to face the Resurrector. Those that were injured or unconscious she healed and revived so that they could watch with full attention.

All of the Centurions in the room began to chant in a low, ominous tone, speaking Hylian words for an ancient dark ritual.

"I don't know what it is you're going to do, but I've hope that somebody someday finds away to stop you." Ashley said venomously as she was made to kneel like all the others.

"…Ashley?" Tanis groaned, trying to lift his head.

Darkess reached around and slammed her paw against the activation button. Electric jolts rocked Tanis' body, causing him to have several seizures before standing rigid. The machine hummed loudly, almost as an accompaniment to the Centurions' chanting, and Tanis' body began to morph. The skin where the electrodes were attached to him began to darken, and the dark spots grew and spread. Tanis began to gain muscle mass, and he hunched forward and bellowed at the top of his lungs as he was wracked with pain. It looked like plague spots were fanning out all over his body. Claws suddenly pushed their way up through the skin on Tanis' fingertips, causing blood to trickle forth from the wounds they opened as they emerged. The same process occurred on Tanis' feet as well. When the spreading Darkness covered Tanis' head, his golden forehead symbol began to twist and sprout spines. The normally smooth gold darkened into some sort of blackened metal, and it caused rivulets of blood to drip down Tanis' face as it sprouted numerous barbs and etched its new form into his head. He let another pained howl, and the pupils slowly faded from his eyes, causing the blood to run cold in the paralyzed witnesses. Two pairs of parallel bat wings, the same as Darkess', sprouted from his back, both dripping the same cloudy black blood. His horns curled up and bent into spines, and more spines sprouted from his back in a line down his spinal cord and down both sides of his tail. When the transformation was completed, he let out an ear shattering, primal roar like some angered beat, and broke through the psychic bubble that Darkess had held him with. The wires of the machine all fell off at once, and he stepped down from the machine, leaving a trail of black blood behind him.

"Do you know what it is that you've done, you fool?" Ruru cried out suddenly.

"Yes! I've created my ultimate form, 'Damnation'!" Darkess said victoriously, and then turned towards her creation. "Now I will transfer my mind into him and destroy this old body."

Darkess spread her arms wide and closed her eyes, then stood there for several moments. Damnation grunted once, and then picked her up in his massive paws. She opened her eyes and blinked for a moment in confusion, and then Damnation gripped her and pulled her body in half, unleashing a splash of blood and letting the organs dump out. Darkess screamed in horror, but was silenced quickly when Damnation threw her like a baseball against the wall, knocking her out in an instant. He then crouched down and began to feast on the other half of Darkess like a lion at the kill, and all the psychic bubbles holding onto the witnesses faded away and they were free from their paralysis.

Ares saw his opportunity, he flew over towards Darkess, who was now barely clinging to life. He picked her up and began to heal her, letting her remain unconscious. Once she was mostly restored, he threw her on top of Lightess and surrounded them both in a psychic bubble. He used all that was left of his energy to re-merge them, and they were blocked out of sight behind the glowing red bubble. Ares hurried as fast as he could with the process, knowing that Damnation could finish with his meal at any moment, and when the bubble faded, Shakara's original form slowly emerged. She groggily opened her eyes and looked up at him.

"Father….I..." She said quietly.

"As long as you're alive, I'm happy." Ares said, smiling warmly at her.

Ares suddenly gasped, and blood began spurting out of his mouth. Shakara reeled back in terror as his blood splashed her face, and she looked up to see that one of Damnation's tail spines had ripped through his back. He collapsed on the blood soaked floor, and Damnation raised his massive foot and brought it down on Ares' head, crushing his skull and permanently extinguishing his life.

"Father! No!" Shakara cried in anguish. She began to sob, and her tears washed his blood from her face.

Damnation walked over Ares' bloody remains and picked Shakara up, preparing to pull her in half yet again.

"Not this time, pal!" Shakara suddenly bellowed, and she sent psychic fire into Damnation's paws. He roared angrily and dropped her like a hot potato.

Damnation created a massive orb of psychic energy and prepared to lob it at Shakara, but she teleported behind his back and swung an energy sword at his second neck. But he raised his wings to shield himself and she chopped right through one of them instead. Black blood poured out like water from a garden hose, and his tail flicked up and batted her away, its spines puncturing her in numerous places. A surge of energy filled Shakara, healing her wounds and powering her up, and she looked to see that the Centurions in the room had aided her. She realized that she had still retained their allegiance, even though Darkess was now long gone. The whole of her father's empire was at her command now, and she rushed to implement it.

The power from every single Centurion in ever single ship rushed through Shakara's veins, and the world seemed to slow down around her. There were no words to describe the scale of the power she felt, energy from three whole worlds was at her fingertips now, and she shone a brilliant red. As she prepared to decimate the monster that had killed her father, Shakara heard a lone voice call out to her.

"Don't kill him! Somewhere behind him Tanis still exists!" Ashley called out.

Shakara nodded, and then rushed forward with a new plan in mind. This time she moved much too fast for Damnation to react, she sliced off every single spine on his body, topping it off by taking off his remaining wings as well. Damnation howled in rage and surrounded himself with a maelstrom of dark energy, but Shakara teleported out of the way. She took the moment to teleport the rest of her friends to safety as well, moving Ashley, the Weyardians, and the Hylians to safety outside the base. When the energy storm faded and Shakara reappeared, she now faced him alone.

"I'm sorry for everything I'm about to do, Tanis." She whispered, closing here eyes for a moment.

Shakara created a swarm of smaller-sized energy spheres and dispersed them throughout the room evenly. Beams of light less than an inch in diameter shot out from these orbs, connecting them together and forming a huge lattice of burning lasers throughout the room. Shakara then drew them all together towards Damnation, who raised his own shield to block them. The beams collided with the shield with tremendous force, each carrying the energy from all the Centurions under Shakara's control. Damnation's shield didn't break, but the beams bent it into numerous hemispheres, which bulged and quivered under the force of Shakara's attacks. Shakara formed another group of these orbs, but instead of linking them together, she fired them directly at Damnation's shield, targeting the weakest regions of each hemisphere. When each hit his shield, they bent it inward and weakened it even further, and she formed more as fast as they were used. In this manner she created a rapid-fire barrage that chipped away slowly at Damnation's energy until at last his shield gave way and shattered into pieces from each hemisphere.

Shakara sped forward to attack the moment the shield fell, and Damnation reached a massive paw up to catch her like a speeding baseball. His claws raked across her body, rending her skin off and tearing the muscles underneath. She responded by forming two energy swords and slicing them both through damnation's wrist like a pair of scissors, totally severing his hand. Damnation bellowed so loudly that Shakara's ears rang loudly, and she used the Centurions' energy to heal the gashes that his claws had created. Damnation stopped his bellow halfway through and fired a gigantic beam of dark energy from his mouth, an attack that made Darkess' previous beam attack look like a pittance. Shakara barely had time to raise her shield, and the beam struck it and propelled her straight into the ground. The power of the Centurions held her shield together even as the beam continued on behind her, blasting a tunnel into the Earth several miles long. Shakara emerged unharmed from the cloud of dust and smoke. She mirrored Damnation's last attack, firing a beam of her own that blasted a smoking, circular hole through his stomach. It began to close up immediately as Damnation used his recover ability, and new spines and wings began growing. Shakara wouldn't allow him to heal however, she formed a shield around herself and flew directly inside the hole in Damnation's stomach and used it to prop his wound open. She forced it open even further by expanding her shield, applying pressure against his other organs, until he was broken entirely in half. A part of Shakara smiled at her ironic revenge.

Shakara stood over Damnation, who was now finally quiet in the grip of unconsciousness. She pondered on how to bring Tanis back, and quietly came to terms with the prospect of never seeing him again. An idea flashed to life in her head, and she looked back toward the Resurrector machine. But she frowned and became crestfallen again, realizing that she needed some trace of Tanis' old self in order to reverse the transformation. Such an object had not been needed to create Damnation since the Darkness Gem had been used as the sole basis for self, and for it to be reversed, the machine needed something else to use as a reference for creation. She then bent over Damnation's dying form in order to say Tanis' last rites.

As Shakara whispered her words for Tanis' words, her eyes caught a tiny glimpse of gold. She looked closer and saw that there was still a trace of gold left in Damnation's forehead crest, gold that had used to be a part of Tanis's own crest. Her heart pounded with excitement, and she pried out the tiny speck of gold with one of her claws. It was barely smaller than a pebble and had very little shine or luster left, but it was a brilliant nugget of hope for Shakara, and she carried it over to the Resurrector machine and put it in a slot. She took quick action by picking up Damnation and healing his vital organs so he wouldn't die, but left him unconscious. She set him back onto the Resurrector and hooked him up to all the wires once more. She reinserted all the other Elemental Gems, double checked to see that the Triforce was still in place, and pushed the activation switch.

"Come on Tanis, I know you're still in there!" Shakara urged quietly as the machine hummed to life.

Damnation's slumped body began to quiver, and then started to shrink. The spines and claws all fell out at once, replaced by regular skin, and the wings shriveled and fell off. The spined horns slowly receded back to Tanis' normal horns, and his skin began to lighten back into its original orange color. The forehead crest was the last to change, it slowly smoothed out, losing its barbs, and returned to its original shape and golden sheen. But it didn't stop there, the golden crest spread across his head like a great royal crown, and more lines of gold crept down Tanis' body, one for each limb and one on his tail. His entire body was adorned in this manner, making him take on a spectacular air of some kind of king or god, and the machine finally fell silent. Shakara pulled him down and removed all the wires, admiring the new additions to his appearance. She saw that the implant plug which Agryn had put in him had also fallen out, and not even a scar was leftover. He groaned and opened his eyes, and Shakara sighed in relief when she saw that his deep purple pupils had returned.

"Hey, how are you feeling?" She asked of him, cradling him in her arms like a child.

"Horrible…you're not going to shove a bag of food over my head are you?" Tanis asked weakly, with a smile touching his mouth.

Shakara blinked once, then remembered and smiled.

Chapter XXVI

Explosions shook Hyrule as Ares' ships fired their plasma turrets down at several ground-based targets. But this time the plasma bolts weren't aimed at rebels or Hylian citizens, but directly at Ares' old HQ and several of his other installations. Not half an hour before, the mines and cities on the sides of Death Mountain had been abuzz with Goron slave laborers, but now they stood evacuated and were slowly blown into oblivion at Shakara's command. The mines closed up and melted together and under the superheated salvo, and the dirty industrial towers fell in on themselves, leaving nothing but a molten slag pile. Ares' HQ soon joined them until nothing was left to evidence Ares' rule except molten scars upon the land.

Several miles away Shakara and Tanis stood at the head of a huge crowd of cheering Hylian people. Though Tanis couldn't understand a word of the Hylian word, he did understand the universal sentiment that they were displaying, and he watched the ships finish their job with a smile in his eyes.

Ashley finally pushed her way through the last parts of the crowd and suddenly clung to Tanis like a lamprey. "I'm so glad you changed back!" She said, bordering on tears of joy.

"Hey, you know I wouldn't give up, even if I was already on the brink of death!" Tanis sais, tousling Ashley's hair again.

Ashley slowly let go of him, and then looked at him slowly. "I like the new getup." She said, looking down at the new lines of gold that had trailed down his body.

Tanis smiled for a moment. "You know, to be honest, I don't have the foggiest memory of what happened to me after I was strapped into that machine."

"Let's just say that while you were out, I got knocked around quite a bit, my father was killed, and I inherited his empire. All that, in a nutshell anyway." Shakara said.

"I assumed as much, since the ships were destroying the base." Tanis said.

"It's my first and only act as the ruler of this world, to throw down the mantle of control itself. It's time that these people thought for themselves." Shakara said.

When the final plasma shot was fired and the explosions slowly fell silent, an extraordinary thing happened. The Black River, which had been partially powered by the emotional energy of the subjugated peoples, began to change color. No-one could see it from the ground because of the thick layer of clouds in the sky, but the Black River was now turning from the black of sorrow to the blue of joy. As ships flying over Weyard and Earth also completed their tasks of liberation, the Black Rivers over those worlds also changed the same bright, cheerful blue. Somewhere, deep underground back at Earth, the Acolytes had just stopped their gory task of destroying the rebel colony, and suddenly turned to leave. The last haggard battalion of defenders there, led by the brown haired Major named John, erupted in cheers that paralleled those of the Hylians.

Shakara's ships now descended up into the sky, leaving deep red contrails behind them before breaking holes through the clouds and disappearing. With the end of the spectacle, the people of Hyrule gathered in the streets of Hyrule Castle City and began a wild party in celebration of their freedom. The crowd that had gathered around Tanis rushed forward towards the City gates to join in the revelries. Tanis, Ashley and Shakara stayed behind however, they felt that it wasn't their place to stop the Hylians from celebrating since they had lived so long under oppression. In fact, Shakara was about to summon a dropship to carry them home when someone else approached them from behind. Kalana, the Gerudo Elder, patted Tanis on the shoulder. Behind and around her were everyone else who had fought against Ares and then Darkess back in the base.

"Tanis, Shakara, we all have something we want to say to you." Kalana said, smiling at him.

Tanis and Shakara looked at each other for a moment, and then back at the crowd of their companions. Kalana took their silence as an acceptance and began.

"I think I speak for all of us when I say that you have done great deeds here tonight."

"Here here!" Jenna interrupted enthusiastically.

Kalana rolled her eyes ever-so-slightly, and continued. "You defeated overwhelming odds, brought us all together, and most importantly, brought hope to three different worlds."

"Sheesh, even the good guys are full of clichés tonight!" Ashley quipped, and Tanis jokingly slugged her on the shoulder.

"At any rate, Hyrule and its people owe you a great debt of gratitude to you." Kalana finished.

"Weyard as well!" Felix added, striding up to stand next to Kalana.

"Hey listen, I only did what I felt was right, and I never would have done any less. You owe me nothing. As I told Ashley here once, I never keep tabs for friends." Tanis said, returning their smiles.

"Oh come now, you must let us do something for you!" Aquel insisted, standing slightly behind Kalana.

"Well…you could throw us our own private party, one that would put that one to shame." Tanis said, pointing to Hyrule Castle City, where numerous fireworks were now exploding.

"Now that's what I'm talking about!" Ashley exclaimed, jumping into the air excitedly.

"That's an excellent idea! We'll host it at the Gerudo Palace!" Ruru said enthusiastically.

"Alright, but next time we're having it at the Zora's Domain!" Iona said.

"Come on, I want to see that famous Gerudo hospitality you promised me!" Aquel said excitedly.

The party turned out to be everything that Kalana promised. Every Gerudo in Hyrule that had not already fled was celebrating, but Kalana managed to get them their own private room in the Palace along with a large table full of food. Tanis and Shakara were the guests of honor, but in truth the party celebrated the heroic deeds of everyone who had participated in the battle, even Ashley. They all greatly enjoyed each others' company, and laughed and talked into the wee hours of the morning and beyond. Ashley, Kalana and Jenna even developed their own secret handshake. When they all finally began to grow tired, Shakara stepped up behind a small podium to give a speech.

"My friends, please listen to me for a moment." Shakara began, and the room quickly fell quiet. "I know we all have gone through quite an ordeal tonight, and that we all want to put it behind us as quickly as possible. But with our victory, some new issues have arisen."

"Now that Hyrule has been liberated, the question arises of how we should proceed in the reconstruction of all the nations that my father devastated. And not just physical destruction either, he wiped out all the social and governmental structures of every society he touched, and replaced them with one that favored his rule. Now that he has been toppled, all of the nations of these worlds are stranded in a great power vacuum with no-one to lead them. Undoubtedly after the celebrating is over, the people will be confused as to who to follow and will eventually descend into wars over dominance. We need a solution to this problem immediately."

"Dantun has already chosen her new king!" Aquel piped up proudly.

"I am the next in the line of succession for the Zora Royal Family, I will take up that crown." Onta said in turn.

"And my sister has agreed that I am ready to take up Eldership of the Gerudos." Ruru added.

"That's good, but the greater Hylian Throne still sits empty!" Tanis said.

Everyone in the room exchanged glances, but nobody blurted out any ideas. Ever since Ares had executed Sirpala, the Hylian bloodline seemed to have been exterminated.

"That's alright, I didn't expect anyone to come up with one magic solution right off of the top of their head." Shakara said reassuringly.

"We can always bring back the old Hylian Unity Council, and use it to decide who will next inherit the throne!" Kalana suggested.

An excited murmur flowed through the partygoers, and Shakara nodded in approval. "That's an excellent idea." She said.

"What are you going to do with your father's ships?" Ashley asked.

"I'm going to use them in a peacekeeping and protective force. They will be put on indefinite hold in orbit around the three worlds, only to be called on again to stop any future attempts at conquest. I'm also going to keep the Black River active as well, but this time not as a tool of empire, but of communication and commerce." Shakara said.

Everyone in the room seemed to forget how tired they were feeling, and applauded loudly as Shakara stepped down from the podium. Card games suddenly broke out, and everyone either didn't care about the time or just forgot completely. Kalana and Ruru taught everyone how to play "Keese & Leevers", and soon they were all absorbed in this addictive Hylian game.

"So, do you want Tanis and I to fly you home via the Black River tomorrow?" Shakara asked Jenna as they looked over their hands of cards.

Jenna set her hand down and conversed with Felix for a moment. The whole group mulled it over for a moment, and then Jenna spoke. "Kalana's given us a very generous offer to stay for a week or two here in Hyrule, and we've agreed. We want to take a tour of this place and relax for awhile.

"We're going to have to give her a tour of Angara once we get back home to Weyard!" Mia said, and everyone nodded in agreement.

By the time the sun rose again over Hyrule, everyone had reached their physical limit and were more than ready to hit the sack. Kalana and Ruru found them rooms to sleep in, and they finally took full rests for the first time in many days.

Conclusion I
A

The Gerudo Palace was alive with activity, and the lively sounds of hammers and grinding saws filled the air. Beams of sunlight fell from the holes in the Palace roof, only to be blocked off as the Gerudos worked diligently to patch and repair the glorious structure. Tanis, Shakara, Ashley, and even the Weyardians were all there helping with the reconstruction, and over the course of three days the Palace was restored to its former beauty. The tiling was painted, new layers of paint added, holes were filled, and broken windows were replaced until it was even more beautiful than before.

It was now almost two weeks after the fall of Ares, and now most of the Gerudos that had fled as refugees had returned to their home here the plains. Reconstruction had began in other places across Hyrule as well, and Shakara's ships flew down one by one, carrying building materials and Centurions to help with the rebuilding. In the midst of all this, a new meeting of the Hylian Unity Council was finally arranged. Tanis and Shakara were invited to sit alongside Ruru and Kalana as honorary council members for this meeting, and it took several minutes of urging from Ashley for Tanis to reluctantly agree to attend. When it was time for them to leave for the meeting, Felix and his party decided the stay back at the palace, they didn't want to interfere with the governing of Hyrule.

Tanis flew his companions across Hyrule field from the Palace, partially because they needed to get there quickly, and partly because he wanted to share the joyous experience of flight with them. Ruru laughed in glee as the fields rolled past underneath them, and Kalana stared up at the sky in silent appreciation. It didn't take long for them to arrive, and when they did the Castle was also alive with activity. The people were busy scrubbing Ares' symbols off of the walls and taking down the signs and edicts he had posted.

The four of them rushed into the Castle, and found that once again, they were the last to arrive, and all the other delegates had been sitting there waiting for them. Since the Hylians and the Gorons no longer had leaders to sit in on the council, it had been agreed on that they should send in their wisest scholars to take their place until new leaders were chosen. Shakara, Tanis, Kalana and Ruru took their seats on the left of Iona and the session began.

"This emergency meeting of the new Hylian Unity Council will come to order." The Hylian scholar said, and all the members bowed respectfully.

"The first matter before this council is the choice of a new leader for the Hylian state. This issue is critical for the future of every other sub-kingdom in Hyrule, since this leader will speaker for all the peoples who live in Hyrule. The candidates are numerous and the time is short, as we need to choose one tonight before the end of this meeting." Kalana said.

Kalana produced a list of candidates and began to read aloud their names and qualifications. Tanis laid back in his seat and sighed heavily, boredom quickly descending on him. The name reading lasted for nearly twenty minutes, and none of those mentioned really seemed to stand out in any way. One or two of them has some impressive scholastic achievements, but none of them seemed to fit the role of leader.

"Well none of those seem any good, so I nominate Lord Tanis!" Iona said, breaking the tedium quite abruptly.

The council members were surprised by Iona's outburst, but none of them rejected her proposal outright.

"I second the nomination!" Kalana added, and the other council members nodded.

"Now hold on a second here!" Tanis said, blushing from the flattery. "There is much more to consider here before making such a snap judgment!"

"All in favor?" Iona asked heartily.

"I!" Cried everyone except Shakara and Tanis himself.

"Against?" Iona asked.

"Nay!" said Tanis alone. "Now listen! I refuse to accept such a position from the sheer fact that I'm not even from Hyrule, and I'm not even of the same species!"

"We still vote for a Hylian King or queen, even though they are not the same species as us!" Onta said, and Iona nodded.

Tanis shook his head and marveled at the tenacity and stubbornness that these people were showing. He knew he didn't want any kind of position of power, it wasn't something he had ever strived for in his life. But the idea occurred to him, perhaps if he were king, he could ensure that the people always lived in a peaceful way?

At the precise moment that Tanis thought this, the doors to the council chamber were thrown open, and a cloaked stranger came barging into the room. The cloak was a grubby, stained green with multiple holes and patches, giving the intruder the appearance of a peasant or pauper.

"What in Farore's name do you think you're doing? This is a closed session, and nobody outside of the Unity Council is allowed in!" The Goron scholar bellowed angrily.

The intruder pulled off her cloak, revealing the Lost Golden Tiara of the Hylian Queen resting upon her head. It was the very same circlet that Sirpala had worn, and Zelda many generations had worn before. It glinted jovially on the dusty, middle-aged woman's face. There was a shocked, unbelieving silence in the room as all the council members realized the significance of this event.

"I am Ilana, daughter of Sirpala and rightful heir to the Hylian throne. I have been in hiding from the Iresian tyranny for forty-three long years, and now I have returned to assume my duty of leadership."

The council members sat there and gawked for a moment, and Tanis stood straight up out of his seat and looked Ilana in the eye. He looked into her mind and read her memories, finding nothing but truth within them. He saw images of her fleeing from Hyrule under the cover of night, her mother whisking her out through the back door of the Castle just as the Iresians took control. He saw her taking up the role of a Dantunian farmer peasant and toiling endlessly for the many years of her banishment, wearing the rags of the less fortunate. He sensed that her mind was filled with love and sympathy for the poor, and realized that she would be just as good of a protector for them as he would have been. He then decided he would staunchly support her and refuse to take the throne no matter how much the council begged him to.

"She speaks the truth!" Tanis declared. "I looked into her mind and saw it myself, she is sincere and trustworthy."

There was murmuring amongst the council, and the Hylian scholar stood and protested. "So your lineage is proven, but what of your skills as a leader?"

"Indeed, if you took the throne today, what would your plan be for Hyrule's future?"

Ilana sighed. "I am not fully aware of the scope or breadth of the destruction to Hyrule since I have only recently traveled in from Dantun, so I cannot form a clear and complete plan here as I stand. But what I will do is provide shelter and relief for all the destitute and homeless created by Ares' regime."

Many of the council members smiled and nodded approvingly.

"That's precisely the kind of answer I was looking for." Kalana said, "You didn't try to give me one great, impossible, all-encompassing solution, but you did make sure to propose a compassionate solution to help those in need. That was indeed a wise statement."

"You have the lineage, the wisdom, and the Tiara, but do you have the strength of will to hold the throne during trying times of hunger and hardship?" Iona asked.

"Look upon these scars on my arms, these calluses on my hands, and this tanned face, and you will see the strength in me that kept me working as a peasant throughout my entire life since my banishment. I will work this land into new glory, just as I wrought life from the barren soil of the Dantunian plains." Ilana said.

Everyone in the room was equally impressed with Ilana's speech, even Shakara.

"All in favor of Ilana's ascension?" Kalana asked.

The voting was close, but Ilana won in the end thanks to Tanis' one vote. Tanis felt a hint of self doubt about helping to elect her, but he decided not to do any more than just say a few words.

"In all honesty, I'd have preferred to have seen some form of democratic government installed here, but I also know that it takes a strong leader to rebuild a nation, and I still feel that I don't have a place to meddle too deeply here in a government that is not my own. I've already done far more than I have a right to by sitting in on this council." Tanis said.

"Nonsense! You have more than earned your seat on this council! Your opinions are just as valid as any of ours." Iona said.

"You have no need to worry about my reign becoming oppressive, Liberator Tanis. I have lived my life among the common people, and I will always act in their interest."


B

Ashley lowered the final piece of colored glass into place and stepped back to admire her work. Tanis' victorious form stood proudly immortalized in the medium of a stained glass window.

"It's ready!" Ashley called, and Shakara descended from where she had been working on an empty window well.

Shakara waved her paw once over the window, and the grey substance between each piece of glass hardened instantly. She then picked the entire pane up with her mind, flew up to the empty window well, and fused the new window into place.

"Well, what do you think?" Ashley asked of Tanis, who had been standing behind her and observing the whole thing.

Tanis didn't speak, and Ashley turned around to see him blushing up a storm again.

"Oh come on, Mr.-I-can't-take-a-compliment! It was their choice to honor you, and besides, you truly deserve credit for going through what you did!" Ashley said, slapping him on the back.

"Still, I wish that the Hylians would stop treating my like I was some kind of god. I just want to be treated like everyone else." Tanis said, taking a moment to appreciate Ashley's craftsmanship.

Shakara flew around the entire structure a few times, and then through its inner halls to check and ensure that everything was perfect. She emerged alongside Felix and his crew and sighed in relief. They all looked up at the product of their hard work and smiled.

"It's finally done, I've finished rebuilding all six of Hyrule's Elemental Temples." Shakara said in great relief.

"You mean WE rebuilt them." Ashley corrected, and Shakara smiled briefly.

The ships that were resting on the plains nearby roared to life, their engines flared blue and their jet black hulls kicked off of the ground. They ascended rapidly into the sky and faded into the clear blue at Shakara's command. They had finished they task of assisting in the reconstruction, and were returning to orbit where they would remain for an untold number of years.

"Well, are you guys ready to go home now?" Tanis asked, turning towards the group of Weyardians. "You've had your tour of Hyrule and helped rebuild several major structures here, you should feel proud of everything that you've accomplished."

"I think that I'm ready to head back now, I'm starting to worry about things are faring back on Angara." Felix said.

"No need to, I've been having my people rebuild over there at the same time we've been helping over here, the same can be said about the ships back in my own home world." Shakara said.

"I am starting to feel homesick…" Mia said, wiping the dust off of her dress.

The same, battered old gunship which had carried Tanis and his friends to Hyrule for the first time slowly descended from the sky. It was still partially melted in one spot from where lasers had hit it, and it landed gently and opened its doors to them. Before they could step inside, Kalana and Ruru came rushing up from behind. Tanis wondered just where they had come from.

"Now don't tell me that you guys were about to leave without saying goodbye!" Kalana said almost as an admonishment.

Shakara pointed at Tanis and tried to look innocent. "It was his idea!" she said.

Kalana half smiled and half frowned. "Come on, why don't you guys stay just a little bit longer, at least until we've dedicated the new Spirit Temple! You did go to a lot of trouble to finish building it."

Felix shook his head. "I'm afraid we can't really afford to stay here any longer. We've been away from our home for a very, very long time and its time we return there once again. Even with Shakara sending her people to aid, that doesn't change the fact that our families could still be alive out there, and we need to go and find them." He said.

"I understand." Kalana said sadly. "It was great to get to know you."

"Hey, don't think that this goodbye is permanent or anything!" Jenna said. "Sure there are things we need to do in Weyard, but that doesn't mean we won't meet again! In fact, I think that we should get together again to have another party just as soon as we're sure we've resolved all our matters back at home!"

Kalana smiled. "I think that would be a wonderful idea."

The group then climbed into the gunship, and Tanis stood in the door, regarding Kalana. "We'll be back, good luck."

Conclusion II
A

"My life has changed quite a lot since this all started." Isaac said.

Tanis listened to Isaac intently as his food cooled on his plate. Shakara and Ashley sat to his left eating greedily, but still listening. Isaac, Felix, Jenna and Garet were sitting on the opposite side of the Table, while Mia, Ivan, and Sheba were on couches nearby. It was a familiar scenario, the group was eating dinner around the main table of the Madran Inn just as the rest of the city was going to bed. The rest of the party had already gone to bed, it had been a rough day sailing through a rather nasty thunderstorm.

"From the time the Triforce of Power first came to me, all the way up to the day our time overthrew Ares, I've seen and done quite a lot. I'm certainly not proud of much of what I've done, but I know that I've definitely learned a lot from it all." Isaac continued.

"I'm still extremely happy to have you back and back to normal!" Jenna said, smiling happily.

"Yeah, you guys thought I was dead after that battle with Ares, didn't you?" Isaac said. He grinned as if to say 'it takes more than that to kill me!'

"I've battled far worse than Ares with you guys. Remember Deadbeard?"

"Do I?" Mia exclaimed.

The group spent hours talking in this manner, sharing their experiences and harrowing tales of battles past. Any ordinary passers-by wouldn't have believed two-thirds of what was said, but the grizzled Innkeep sitting watch at the counter knew Jenna and her group. He had lodged them many times before and listened in, seen their battle scars, and taken money from them that couldn't have been earned any other way. He knew knew how much that his little Inn and all of Weyard owed to them, but they were still ordinary folk deep down inside with no need for the limelight, and he respected that. He'd keep on humbly accepting their money and providing them with a quiet place to rest as long as they stayed in Madra.

Into the wee hours of the morning the conversation began to die down, and Tanis decided to get down to business. "Well, I'm sorry we couldn't help you find your families, it was wonderful seeing the sights of Weyard with you. The company we've had during the trip was wonderful and the landscape breathtaking, but I'm sad to say that it's about time that Shakara and I return to our own home soon. Out of the three worlds Ares conquered, ours was the most devastated and Weyard the least."

"How soon will you depart?" Jenna asked, a twinge of sadness welling up in her.

"We should probably leave tomorrow, the humans back at home, though safe from starvation thanks to my people, will probably need direction and guidance." Shakara said.

"Will your people be alright here after we leave?" Tanis asked.

"Don't worry, the people of Weyard weren't exactly government-dependant before Ares came. Living without any form of empire to watch over us won't be a problem." Felix said.

"If only it could be that easy back home." Tanis said woefully.

"What's going to happen to your group after we're gone?" Ashley asked.

"Well, most of us come from the same area, so we'll probably stay together. Isaac, Jenna, Garet, Kraden and I are from the same town in fact, so we're definitely going to stay together. Mia, Sheba and Ivan will probably all leave, but I don't know about Piers. He doesn't have a home to go back to after his banishment from Lemuria." Felix said.

"He's like us in a way. After Vale was destroyed, our families had to move to Vault. Now that we've been gone for song long and Ares has destroyed that town, we're not sure if we'll ever have a home to go back to again, and our families might be gone forever.

"I hope they managed to get away and hide somewhere…" Jenna said sadly.

"If they did find a place to hide, it sure is a good one to elude is for all these weeks! Ares can't have found them." Isaac said reassuringly.


B

The next morning, all nine of Isaac's party turned out to say goodbye to Tanis, Ashley and Shakara. That same gunship flew down once again, and Tanis felt a sad feeling of deja-vu.

I'll say the same thing we said to Kalana back in Hyrule, don't think that this will be the last time we see each other. We'll come by to visit many times in the future, and there's still that party to look forward to! It may not be for a good while, but I promise you we'll do it." Tanis said.

Tanis turned toward the gunship to depart, but Felix spoke and interrupted.

"Wait! Before you go, I want to give something to you.."

Felix fiddled with his equipment for a moment before presenting Tanis with his sword.

"This is the Sol Blade. Its burning power will aid you in any future battles you may have to fight. It will summon the power of the sun should you ever face great peril."

Piers approached Shakara with his sword as well. "I have a gift as well. The Excalibur Sword has been my protector and ally ever since I unearthed it while traveling with Isaac's group. Now I hope it will give these same gifts to you. It will summon the power of legends when your life is in danger."

Then Jenna stepped toward Ashley, holding her sword out as well. "My gift to you is the Masamune Sword. I have grown unworthy to hold it over my years of idleness, and now I believe I've found someone who is worthy of its power. You have the same passionate, fiery soul that I have, and I'm sure you can bring this sword to even greater heights of glory." Jenna said.

"But, how can we take your weapons? These gifts are much too lavish for me." Tanis said.

"Hey now! If you let the Hylians build your visage into a stained glass window, then surely you can take a few swords!" Jenna said, grinning at Tanis.

Tanis sighed, knowing he needed to let himself be rewarded.

"I don't even know how to use a blade properly though!" Ashley said.

"I can teach you." Shakara suddenly said, strapping the Excalibur to her back. "I've got them all over my body you know!"

"Well, I guess I'll take it then. But you'd better know that we'll be back with even greater gifts for you next time!" Tanis said, suddenly smiling mischievously.

"Oh, you wouldn't!" Isaac laughed.

"You'll see, we'll put your swords to shame!" Tanis said, now figuring out what he would do every time somebody got him a gift. He laughed merrily as Ashley and Shakara climbed into the gunship behind him.

"Come on you maniac!" Ashley said jokingly, and grabbed Tanis' shoulder to pull him inside.

"See you again!" Tanis said, and the door to the gunship closed as it lifted off of the ground.

As the gunship slowly disappeared into the sky, Isaac turned to face his party. "Well everyone, it looks like this could be it for our little adventuring party. We've finished saving Weyard again, and now all that's left is to go home. Felix, Jenna, Garet, Kraden and I are going to Angara to search for our families, but we'll give anyone a ride home who doesn't want to join us."

Piers walked up to Isaac and patted him on the back. "I might as well stay with you Isaac. Everyone knows that my banishment from Lemuria is permanent, so there's nowhere else for me to go. I see no reason to leave this party, especially since I have found so many friends here in it."

Isaac had expected Piers to stick with them, but he was surprised when everyone else gathered around in support as well.

"I'm with you, Isaac." Ivan said.

"As am I." Mia added.

"Me too." Sheba said.

Isaac was nearly overcome by the warmth of his friends, and he grabbed their hands and smiled broadly.

Jenna interrupted Isaac's heartwarming moment by tapping him on the shoulder. He turned to see her gesturing toward their winged Lemurian ship with one of her characteristic wry smiles.

"Well, if we've got everyone in order, what are we waiting for?"

Isaac returned Jenna's smile. "Alrighty then, let's go."

Conclusion III
A

"There it is, hurry!" Ashley said, pointing at a scarred hole in the Earth on the gunship's view screen.

Tanis steered them down towards the ground at breakneck speed, and when they approached the hole, they saw it was big enough to fly the gunship through with many feet of extra clearance. In the charred Earth around it were the silent, blackened remains of what used to be a small town. Tanis sensed nobody alive in the wreckage of the town, so he took them down into the hole and shadow filled the screen. They soon emerged into a large, smoke-filled cave below, and hundreds of small lights and fires twinkled on the screen.

"Come on, hurry up and land!" Ashley said, a hint of terror in their voice.

As they neared the cave floor, more wreckage was barely visible in the darkness. Great grey buildings lay in smoking pieces on the ground, and charred bodies laid here and there across the scarred ground. Ashley covered her eyes and stifled a short sob when she saw the extent of the destruction, and Tanis turned deathly pale. Everywhere he saw evidence of Ares' doing, the bodies of humans and acolytes were scattered alike on the stone floor, all nearly burned beyond recognition. The smell of scorched flesh began to seep through the gunship's air rotation system, and Shakara held a paw up to her mouth in disgust.

"Can you sense anyone alive?" Ashley asked quietly.

"I'm searching…" Tanis said, and flew them slowly over the scarred landscape.

More and more destruction awaited them as they slowly surveyed what had been the rebels' city, and Tanis couldn't sense a single survivor no matter how hard he tried. He was about to give up the search when he saw a small, undamaged sector of the city flash by quickly on the screen. He turned and flew over to it, and turned on the floodlights on the gunship's nose. There was a large concrete barrier and many trenches built hastily around the last undamaged part of the city, as if the humans had taken up one last stand there. He didn't see or feel any signs of life, but kept on shining the floodlights over the region, knowing something was amiss. He finally caught sight of movement with the lights, someone had ducked for cover inside what appeared to be an apartment building. All at once several laser beams fired out of the windows of the building, and the gunship's shields sizzled and drained rapidly.

"Wait, don't shoot!" Tanis cried psychically, but they still kept firing.

Tanis flew them higher to get out of the range of the laser fire and clicked on the loudspeaker and picked up the mic. He realized that the humans in this colony used psychic blocking helmets, so they probably couldn't hear his psychic voice. He spoke into the microphone. "It's Tanis and Shakara, don't fire on us!"

Tanis flew them back down toward the humans' stronghold, and this time they didn't fire. He touched down on the ground and Ashley leapt out of her seat and opened the door in an eye blink. Shakara unbuckled herself and followed, though at a more leisurely pace, and Tanis followed her after shutting down the gunship's engines.

Outside of the gunship the smell of death was much, much heavier on the air. Waves of nausea nearly caused Tanis to fall forward and vomit, he had never smelled anything more putrid. The human rebels approached them quickly, and the leader pulled off her helmet first. It was the dark skinned woman on the council which had rebuked Shakara's plan.

"How nice of you to come back, just in time to see how badly we've been defeated!" The council woman said.

Behind her another man removed his helmet, revealing John, and stepped up behind her. He grabbed her by the shoulders, twisted her around forcefully, and slapped her across the cheek. The other human soldiers behind them suddenly gasped in shock.

"How can you talk like that to those who stopped Ares before he could finish us off? These three saved our lives!" John said angrily.

Tanis was silent in shock, neither he nor Shakara or Ashley had said a word and they had already caused a fight among the humans.

"How dare you strike a council member! Men, arrest him!" the dark skinned woman said.

"I'm sorry Ms. Sasha, but your authority is no good here anymore." Another of the human soldiers said, approaching the council leader with a pair of cuffs. "We've co-operated with you up until now because you're in control of the food locker. But now that the Mewtwo rebels have returned just as Major Morrison predicted, we will no longer tolerate your absurdly conservative rule."

A deadly look suddenly played across Shakara's face. "So, are you saying that this woman is the one who is responsible for starving your colony?" she asked.

"Oh yes. Ms. Sasha knew from the start that we had enough food to feed our people, but she always kept it locked away, saying that we needed to save it in case of an emergency." John spat. "Anyone of us could have stopped her, but we never had the courage to do it. She ruled the council with an iron fist. She even intimidated the General, may he rest in peace."

Tanis looked down at the ground in silence, in respect for the late General. But Shakara went right up to Ms. Sasha and looked her in the face.

"Your eyes are just like my father's." She said.

Sasha's face darkened several shades of rage, and she would have taken a swing at Shakara if she hadn't been cuffed.

"I would kill you from utter contempt, but I think that it would be much more suiting to give you over to the people that you starved for so many years." Shakara said, savoring every word.

"Take her away, we'll deal with her later!" John said to the soldier who had cuffed Sasha.

As the irate tyrant was lead away at gunpoint, Ashley finally ran up and gave John a crushing hug. "I'm so glad you're alive!" She said gleefully.

John smiled as she let go, and regarded Tanis and Shakara. "You stopped Ares just in time to save the last few of us." He said. "We fought them ferociously for hours, block by block through the city streets, and never once let them get close to where we had hidden the psionic blockers. It was nothing but a vicious gunfight without their powers interfering, but they still outnumbered us and droves us back continuously. By the time we were pushed back to this last fortified sector of the city, the Acolytes all collapsed unconscious as if they had been struck by hammers from the heavens. We took the chance to kill as many of them as we could before they awoke and resumed the attack, and not to long later started to transform. They all just turned black and got these terrifying demon horns on their heads, and began attacking even more ferociously than before. We shored up this city block with the walls and trenches and kept fighting until it looked like they were about to win, when they suddenly just turned around, went back to their ships and left." John said.

Shakara smiled and tapped her head. "I control them now, I called them off the moment I gained control." She said.

John smiled. "Though it is sad that most of the city has been destroyed, I'm glad you managed to stop them just in time to save the last few of us.

A thought struck Ashley and she broke out in cold sweat. "What about the Pokemon Sanctuary? Did it survive?" She asked frantically. "I left my Pokemon in there in our rush to escape?"

John turned several shades paler and frowned sorrowfully. "No, I'm sorry. Ms. Sasha didn't consider it a tactically vital building to defend, and it didn't survive the attack."

Ashley blinked a few times, and then hunger her head. "I understand." She said quietly. She began to walk slowly towards the gunship.

"Where are you going?" John asked.

"I'm going to find their bodies so I can give them a proper burial." Ashley said.

Tanis frowned and turned away from John, knowing that Ashley needed him to fly her over to the ruins. John shrugged sadly and turned to congratulate his troops and tell them that victory had indeed arrived.

Ashley found very little left of the old Pokemon Sanctuary. The glass walls of the greenhouse had simply vanished, and the once lush green ground was now blackened and pockmarked by laser impacts. Carbonized Pokemon corpses littered the ground, but Ashley knew that none of them were hers. All she could find were the few average common types that had lived there before, there was no trace of her team anywhere in sight. She wondered if they had been hauled off by the Acolytes and killed elsewhere, or if they had tried to flee and ended up dead in a different part of the city. It was a further blow to Ashley. The death of all six of her team was terrible enough for her, but to not even be able to see them buried properly was like the icing on a terrible, terrible cake. She fell to her knees and wept on the scorched earth, which was still warm from the laser strikes it had endured.

"I'm so sorry I left you." She cried incoherently. "It's all my fault. I betrayed all of you as a trainer. I'm a failure."

Tanis stood a few feet away, trying to decide if it would have been better to let her have a needed time alone or to go over and comfort her. He felt stupid and worthless in his inability to help her.

"I'll miss you all so much…Megawatt's tenacity, Midnight's pranks…" Ashley cried.

Ashley felt a sharp poke on her back, and she jumped up in surprise. When she turned around to see that Midnight had teleported behind her again, she suddenly grabbed it up into her arms and gave it the same noogies she always used to.

"You little asshole." She said, now crying for joy. "You know I hate it when you do that."


B

"There's Purity Canyon, let's land now." Ashley said, and Tanis nodded and put them into a leisurely descent.

Megawatt gave Ashley another annoying little zap to her ears again, and she smiled and ruffled its fur. "You're still crazy even in the face of all this. I wish I was as strong as you. I wouldn't be able to play around like that if my best friends had died."

The gunship touched down next to the shores of Purity Lake, and Ashley sighed solemnly as Tanis and Shakara unbuckled themselves from their seats. She returned to her pall of gloom as Tanis lifted the coffins out of the back of the troop compartment and carried them out of the door of the Gunship. She followed them out into the clear moonlight and found a suitable burial spot where the sands of the beach met with the grasses of the inlands. Since the Pokemon Tower had been destroyed by Ares during his rule, this place was good enough as any other for a Pokemon burial. Tanis lifted six feet of dirt out of the ground with his mind and placed the three coffins inside.

"Goodbye Ifrit, Mach 5, Moonshine. Though I will miss you for many years to come, I am glad that you all died nobly to save the lives of the others. If it weren't for all your sacrifices, Megawatt, Shiannah and Midnight would not have been able to escape to the caverns around the city. Yours were deaths beyond what I could ever have hoped for, and I know that you did more than your share to fight alongside the human rebels against the Acolytes."

Ashley took a handful of dirt and tossed it on top of Ifrit's coffin first.

"Ifrit, you were the strongest of my team, the most independent, and the most loving, even though you didn't show it that much. Words cannot describe how proud of you I am."

Ashley took another handful of dirt and threw it on top of Mach 5's coffin.

"Mach 5, you were the smartest and most dutiful member of the team. Your wisdom and responsibility helped make you into one of the best fighters and companions that the Pokemon League ever saw. In the end, I'm sure that acting as decoys for Megawatt and Shiannah's sakes was your idea, and I am in awe of your nobility."

Ashley took one final handful of dirt and threw it upon Moonshine's coffin.

"Moonshine, you were the most affectionate and motherly of the team. You were there to act as a surrogate mom for Megawatt and Shiannah when I first found them as a pair of baby Eevees, and I'm sure that even now you're still watching over them from somewhere. Life without your help and guidance will be difficult, but I will continue on."

Ashley bowed her head in silence for several moments of silence to respect her fallen companions, and Tanis, Shakara, Megawatt, Shiannah, and even Midnight followed her example.

"Ashes to ashes…dust to dust." Tanis said quietly, and then lifted the dirt again and placed it back into the hole solemnly. Ashley wept silently as he slowly flattened out the dirt and placed headstones on top of the graves.

When their task was completed, Tanis walked over to Ashley and put his hand on her shoulder. He let her cry for a few more moments until she turned to look up into his eyes.

"Are you ready for the cheerful part of our trip here?" Tanis asked, smiling supportively.

Ashley's face lit up dramatically. "Don't you know it! Let's do it!" She said.

Tanis nodded and stepped back away from her. He formed an air bubble around himself and took off into the air, then dove straight into purity lake.

"What's going on?" Shakara asked confusedly.

"Wait!" Ashley said, holding a finger to her lips and gesturing for Shakara to stand still.

The ripples on the water's surface calmed down and disappeared as time passed after Tanis' dive, and Ashley stood there eagerly, wringing her hands in anticipation. Several more minutes passed, almost enough to make Ashley start to worry, but then the surface of the water bulged and spewed forth Tanis, who was carrying three metallic pods with him. He let his air bubble fade and set the pods onto the ground with utmost care.

"I'm sorry it took me so long, the water was murky and hard to see through, and these guys were hard to sense because of the stasis." Tanis said, wiping the dirt and plant material off of the pods. Ashley ran over and started helping him.

"I don't get it, what stasis?" Shakara asked.

Tanis and Ashley simply ignored her, they kept of cleaning off the surface of the pods until Ashley cried out, "Found it!"

Ashley pressed a few buttons that had been covered with aquatic ooze, and mechanisms on the back of the pod suddenly hissed and spewed forth jets of gas. The whole thing chugged for a few moments, and then the lid came loose with a pronounced click. Ashley threw the lid open carelessly, and Shakara walked around to see who or what was inside. She saw a middle aged man with spiky black hair and a Pokemon League hat lying inside the tube, his skin was slightly blue from the stasis and his eyes were starting to flicker open. Ashley waved her hands in front of his face a few times and snapped her fingers next to his ears.

"Daaad…come on dad, rise and shine! Time to wakey wakey!" Ashley said, now smiling again for the first time since she had discovered the deaths of her Pokemon.

"Uhhn…wha-happen?" Ashley's father said groggily, raising his arms to rub his eyes. "Ashley?"

"It's not a Saturday Dad, you're not supposed to be sleeping in!" Ashley said happily, and then embraced her father.

"I don't wanna go to work…" Ash moaned, but he returned her hug nonetheless. "At least I can count on you to keep me punctual Ashley."

Epilogue

A black haired woman, appearing in her thirties, swiftly walked down a forested pathway, leading a procession of her relatives behind her. Her once scraggly and unkempt black hair was now pristine, and it reached down past her knees nearly to her ankles. Behind her followed a little girl, her daughter of 6 years, her parents, who were now grey and wrinkled but still as lively and boisterous as ever, her black haired brother, and her husband, who had commanding green eyes and short brown hair.

"Come on now guys, we're not too far now." The woman said as she forged ahead along the dusty path.

"You said that nearly forty minutes ago Ashley. You know I'm not the young Pokemon Master I used to be." The old man said, grasping his back as cramps began to twitch there.

"Hee hee, Mommy's getting scolded by grandpa!" the child said, greatly amused by the spectacle.

"Yeah, do you wanna be next in line?" Ashley asked, ruffling her daughter's hair, which only made her giggle even louder.

A big wet splat hit Ashley squarely on her head, and she looked up through the thick canopy to see that the clouds overhead were beginning to darken.

"Great, now it's starting to rain! I wore my best cloths at your request for this occasion Ashley, and now it's starting to rain! That's just wonderful." Ash muttered.

"Oh hush up you old cook! You oughta love the rain after living with someone who used to train water Pokemon for so many years!" Misty said, and pulled on his ear sharply.

The little girl began outright laughing now, she loved spending time with her grandparents because they were always so silly. Her dad patted her on the shoulder gently to stop her.

"Come now Asha, it isn't polite to laugh at Grandma and Grandpa." The brown haired father said gently.

"But grandpa says he loves it when I laugh. He says he thinks I have a great laugh!" Asha said innocently.

"Oh let her have her fun John, it's not like they mind. They're too busy squabbling to even notice!" Ashley said, smiling over at her eccentric parents.

"It's not the water I mind, it's the fact that these expensive clothes are gonna get ruined! We're on a fixed income now and I can't afford to buy a new set!" Ash groaned.

"Yeah well, I still have my family's money you know. I had to use part of it to pay for that bike you broke, so it won't be an issue to use more of it to buy you new clothes." Misty said.

Asha was set into another fit of laughing, and Ashley couldn't help but chuckle under her breath. Every time Misty brought up the subject of that old bike Ash turned the brightest red of frustration because Misty always successfully trumped his arguments with it.

Ashley's laughter was interrupted as they turned around a corner in the path, her foot sank into a soft part of the ground, causing her to tumble forward and land face-first in a huge mud pit.

"Oh great, now look what's happened!" Ash said as John scrabbled to pull Ashley up out of the mud. "I bet her clothes are even more expensive!"

"Oh will you forget about the clothes already?" Misty said, and pulled Ash's ear again. Asha laughed even harder this time.

"Are you alright?" John asked as he helped his wife up out of the mud.

Ashley spat a few times and wiped the mud away from her eyes. "I'm fine but…my dad has a point you know. And I had just cleaned my hair too."

"Ah, you see!" Ash said, and pulled Misty's hand off of his ear.

"Oh you can always harp on things like this whenever you're right, but whenever I mention the bike you suddenly go quiet." Misty scolded. Asha was practically rolling on the ground laughing.

Ashley paused for a moment and looked at the mud pit she had fallen into, and something clicked in her mind. "Waitaminute…this place looks familiar."

The entire family paused from what they were doing and watched as Ashley stood there and thought.

"That's it!" Ashley said, and then turned toward the foliage on the left side of the trail. "Come on guys, we're almost there! Follow me!" She said, and then pushed her way into the brush.

"What is she up to now?" Ash wondered aloud, and reluctantly followed her into the trees. The rest of the troop followed behind.

"Just where are you leading us now?" Ash inquired loudly as they all shoved their way through the dense greenery.

"Don't worry, we're still on course! No need to worry!" Ashley replied.

"Well, seeing as we've strayed from the beaten path…" Ash said.

They continued pushing and shoving past the thick branches and brambles for several more minutes with Ashley tentatively leading the way. She could barely even see any traces of the old side-path that she had followed so many years ago, it had been almost completely reclaimed by the forest since the last time she traversed it. But she managed to keep on it right up until the point where the forest gave way and opened up to the cliff face where the old cave used to be. Ashley felt suddenly confused and worried when she saw that the cave was no longer there, it had been closed up with solid rock in a shape that suggested that molten lava had poured out of the cave and then turned to stone long ago. She then saw that near the sealed entrance of the cave a small placard had been set upon a pillar of marble.

"Oh yes, this looks exactly like your friend's place." Ash said sarcastically, and this time Misty slapped him on the back of his head. Asha laughed from her daddy's arms, since had had carried her through the dense thicket.

"In dedication to Mewtwo. Father, Mentor, Hero." Ashley read aloud from the placard.

"Hold on, what?" Ash suddenly said and rushed up to look at the small monument.

The marble pillar was a stoic mix of deep grays and blacks, and the metal that the inscription had been stamped on was pure gold with lamination to prevent the elements from corroding it. Set in the gold, just above the inscription and underneath the laminate was a glimmering purple gemstone, Mewtwo's Amethyst. Ash stared at it alongside of Ashley for many minutes in awe and wonderment.

"He was a hero, you know." Ash said quietly. "I know, because I met him myself."

"Who's Mewtwo?" Asha suddenly asked.

Ashley turned around and smiled at her daughter. "He was the daddy of a good friend of mine." She said respectfully.

They all stood there silent for a moment, before Ash broke in and asked, "What now?"

"Well, the invitation told me to 'Come through the forest, just the same way as you did before.'" Ashley said, pulling out the piece of paper she had gotten in her mail box. "There's nothing else written on it, not a map or any other kind of hint."

"Well, by process of elimination, maybe we should go that way." John said, pointing to their left. The direction in which he had pointed was a clear path between the cliff face and the trees, and was the only option available since the trees came right up against the cliff face to their right. Thusly it was the only logical path in front of them.

"Makes sense I guess. Let's go." Ashley said, and the troop moved on.

The path between the trees and the cliff face had a slight incline, so that when everyone walked on it, it gave them slight aches in their feet. It was another ten minutes of walking before the trees finally opened up, revealing a sight that made Ashley gape in surprise. Just tucked away in the thickets stood a huge stone and steel house, roughly three stories high and surrounded by numerous other buildings. Upon further inspection one could see that at least three of these buildings were massive greenhouses, and one other some kind of machine hut. The architecture of the house was unlike anything she had ever seen, it was made of solid stone and metal but had luxurious curved forms and numerous turrets and large windows.

"Wow, this place is cool!" Asha marveled.

"Well, this has to be it! Let's go!" Ashley said, grinning in eager anticipation. They all walked toward the house.

The front door to the house opened just as soon as Ashley's troop began ascending the porch steps, and Ashley was greeted with the familiar sight of Tanis, who had hardly aged a day since they had last seen each other.

"It's great to see you again." Ashley said, giving Tanis his favorite crushing hug.

"My, look how much taller you've gotten!" Tanis exclaimed as he let go of her and stood back. "What's with the mud?"

Ashley grinned and blushed a little with embarrassment. "I had a little incident with a surprise mud pit on the way. I'm sorry if I track the mud in."

"Oh it's no problem let me fix it!" Tanis said, and psychically removed the mud from Ashley's body and clothes.

"Whoa, cool!" Asha yelled loudly, watching the mud disintegrate in mid air.

Ashley took that interruption as the signal to introduce the newest member of her family to Tanis.

"Tanis, this is my daughter, Asha. You've met my mom and dad, my brother Ashton, and John here."

"Hey there, are you going to be just as stubborn and unpredictable as your mom?" Tanis asked, smiling.

"You mean, you're my mom's friend Tanis? I didn't know you were a Pokemon! Your nose looks funny." Asha said, grabbing Tanis's nose and squeezing it in her fingers.

"Remember the personal space rule Asha!" Ashley scolded, but Tanis laid his hand on Ashley.

"Don't worry, I don't mind." He said, smiling.

Tanis turned to John. "Ashley picked a good man to marry." Tanis said, regarding the green-eyed Major. "I'm kinda sad you guys didn't invite me to the wedding!"

"Well you had to find such a secluded place to hide yourself away, it's not like we had time to come trawling out into the thickets back then when there was wedding planning to do!" Ashley said, and playfully slugged Tanis on the shoulder. "Now are you going to invite us into your home or what?"

Tanis blushed a bit for a moment. "Well you're the one who couldn't wait to get inside before starting introductions! He said and laughed.

Ashley was even more impressed by the interior of Tanis' abode. Marble, River Rock, and Oak paneling constituted the interior structure of the house, and the decoration was a veritable smorgasbord of artifacts from both Hyrule and Weyard. Though the décor had an aged feeling to it, there were still evidences of modern technology throughout, including one of the largest holo-TV screens Ashley had ever seen in the living room.

"Tanis, your place is fabulous! I didn't know you had an inclination towards interior design!" Ashley exclaimed.

"Well, Shakara gets most of the credit. She designs everything, and I'm the one who fetches the materials and builds it." Tanis said.

"You mean, she's living here with you?" Ashley asked.

"Of course, it's not like she wanted to live amongst humans. Hmm, I wonder where she went off to anyways, I did tell her that you all were on your way." Tanis said.

"Daaad!" a young voice cried, and Ashley felt herself twitch in surprise. The voice she had heard was a boy's, so it couldn't have been Asha's, but she didn't know of any other children here.

What almost looked like a small child version of Tanis came loping into the living room from a back hallway, a look of frustration on his face. He was different from Tanis in the fact that his fur color was a much more reddish shade of orange, and it grew long and spiky on his shoulders and tail, and grew on the tip of his horns. He came to a halt and an extremely timid and shy look played across his small face when he caught sight of Ashley and her family.

"Oh, Ashley, I should have told you, the introductions aren't over yet. This is one of my sons, his name is Cygnus." Tanis said, patting his son on the head. "He's only five and a half years old."

"Wow, that's the same age as my Asha!" Ashley said, and walked up to little Cygnus. "Boy you're a cute one, you look like you've got fire on your shoulders and tail!"

"Who's the scary human lady daddy?" Cygnus asked, trying to crawl out of Ashley's reach behind his dad's back.

"Why this is Ashley, the good old friend of mine that I always tell you stories about!" Tanis said and pushed Cygnus out from hiding.

"You mean, she's a human?" Cygnus said in amazement. "Her nose looks funny." He said, and grabbed Ashley's nose in his tiny paw.

Ashley laughed, half in sheer delight and half in amazement. "He sure is amazing!" Ashley said.

"That's not all, hold on a moment!" Tanis said. He looked up into the air silently for a moment, psychically beckoning someone.

In a few seconds three other children of Tanis' came running into the room.

"We're here dad, you can stop calling now!" One of them said in a frustrated tone.

Ashley nearly squealed in delight when she saw Tanis' other three sons, the cute factor was overwhelming her.

"Ashley, I want you to meet my three other sons, Nolus, Venius, and Opulous." Tanis said. "Sons, this is my old friend, Ashley."

"Pleasure to meet you, ma'am." Opulous said, nodding to her. Ashley admired his deep blue fur, it had very small white spots in it, almost looking like twinkling white stars in a deep blue night sky.

"Wow, you're Ashley? Cool!" Nolus exclaimed, and ran up to Ashley to touch her pantlegs. He had dark green fur with even darker stripes in it all over his body. He had spiky patches in his fur just like his brother Cygnus'.

Venius was the only one who didn't greet Ashley in any way. He stood there, staring at her fearfully and holding onto his own tail like a security blanket. His fur was a shade slightly brighter than Tanis' almost yellowing, and his horns sloped backwards like spoilers.

Ashley laughed and squatted down on her knees to look the children in their faces, and they looked back in awe and appreciation. "What a delightful little team of kids you have here Tanis!" she said.

"Oh just wait, they're polite and cheerful now. Once they start playing their rowdy games of 'Swordfight', then you'll see how much of a handful they can be." Tanis said like a true father.

"Dad I'm hungry and tired, I wanna go out to the greenhouse and take a nap." Venius said, tugging on Tanis' leg.

"Aww, but don't you want to stay and meet Ashley's family." Tanis asked.

"I don't wanna, they're creepy! And I feel sick too! I wanna go to sleep!" Venius said.

"Alright, but if you see Shakara on your way, then tell her the guests have arrived!"

"Alright." Venius said, his voice low with irritation.

"I'm here." Shakara said, walking through the same hall from where the children had emerged.

"It's about time, they've been here for nearly ten minutes!" Tanis said.

Shakara nodded as if to say. 'Yeah, I know, you can stop the scolding already.'.

Behind Shakara marched yet another troop of children, these ones obviously hers. Shakara nodded to Ashley, feeling that no words were needed.

"Well, aren't you going to introduce me to the new additions?" Ashley asked.

"These are the twins, Tamista and Satoria, and this is Melicia." Shakara said.

Tamista and Satoria were identical twins, both the same color of fur as their mother except they had red stripes on their arms, legs, and tail, and their horns weren't curved back like their mother's. They didn't have any blades like their mother either. Melicia had her mother's curved horns and a single tail blade, but her fur was a brighter color, almost grey. She seemed to carry herself with a respectable air, despite her childish stature.

The twins bowed slightly and gave a sparse greeting, but Melicia ran over to join Tanis's sons in the curious inspection of the visitors. Not long after the intermingling had started, Tanis twitched and suddenly smiled with excitement.

"The Weyardians are here! I'll be right back!" Tanis said, rushing toward the door.

Within a few moments Isaac and his entire group had poured through the door, and numerous other introductions filled the air. Ashley and Jenna greeted each other with the secret handshake, and soon all the kids were running about the room underneath the adults' feet yelling and laughing.

"Sorry we're a bit late, the ship you sent to pick us up was stuck in a traffic jam at the Blue River." Felix said, shaking hand with Tanis.

"Well you're not the last one to arrive, so forget about it." Tanis said, patting him on the back.

Tanis perked up again. "Well at least the others weren't too far behind you!" He said, and ran towards the door.

Kalana, Ruru, Onta and Aquel were the final guests to arrive, and Tanis' humble abode was now becoming quite crowded. But despite the closed quarters and the sudden rise of temperature in the house, everyone was splendidly joyous and happy to see each other again. More introductions had to be made, and someone almost stepped on Asha by accident when she went chasing after Cygnus in a game of tag.

"Can I have your attention please everyone?" Tanis' psychic voice asked loudly, and the room fell quiet in a heartbeat. The impromptu tag game suddenly froze. "Thanks. Now I know that it's been way too long, almost fourteen years, but I've finally gotten off of my lazy rear to organize the party!"

Everyone let out a yell of approval, and Tanis had to ask them to be quiet again to continue. "Now as you may have noticed, it's kind of cramped in here, so I've arranged to have us all go out in the back yard, where there are drinks and enough food for at least twice as many people. So let's all head out there and have a blast!"

"Why don't you stay with Asha and the rest of the kids in here for awhile?" Ashley asked John as all the adults began to filter out of the room.

"No problem, I was just thinking that they needed someone to watch them in here." John said.

Ashley planted a small kiss on his forehead. "Thanks dear, you're wonderful."

Outside Ashley found that Tanis had set up a huge sound system on the patio, and there were numerous coolers full of both alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks. There were foods and games brought in from Earth, Hyrule, and Weyard, and the guests soon divided up into various groups for chatting, eating and playing these games. Ashley found herself trying a taste of Hylian Rum and playing another game of Keese and Leevers with Kalana, Ruru, Aquel and Jenna.

"I don't know what it is you put in these drinks, Kalana, but I'm finding them to be quite amazing." Ashley said, laughing despite the fact that she was getting beaten horribly by the more experienced players.

Kalana laughed heartily. "All I know is that it was a poor choice for a drink for playing a game of mental agility!"

Back inside the house, Asha was fitting in perfectly with Tanis' sons and Shakara's daughters. John watched from the sidelines, letting them have their fun uninterrupted unless they did something unsafe. He marveled at how well behaved Tanis and Shakara had raised them to be, for the most part they were polite and careful about not becoming too rowdy. That only lasted until an idea hit Cygnus though, and he grinned with mischief.

"Hey guys, let's play swordfight!" He said excitedly.

John didn't protest, since he didn't know what that game entailed just yet.

"Aww, do we hafta?" Melicia whined. "I always lose!"

"Hey, you might stand a chance since there's a human playing now!" Nolus said, laughing and pointing at Asha.

"Oh yeah, well I'll kick your butt!" Asha said, stomping. "Just tell me how to play!"

"Can she even play at all, since she doesn't have powers?" Tamista asked, her voice almost a bit superior.

"Don't worry, I'll give her a sword and numbers, since I never play anyway." Opulous said, sitting in a chair and watching.

"Alright, here's how it works." Satoria said, walking over to Ashley.

"These glowing numbers that appear over your head, those are your health points. If they go down to zero, you lose. Every time someone hits you with their sword, you lose health points. You gotta try and hit them and bring their points down to zero so that you're the last one standing.

Asha looked up at the glowing numbers that had been psychically projected over her head. "Hey, hoe come I only get thrity when he gets fifty?" Asha protested, pointing to the hit points over Nolus' head.

"Because he's a dirty stinkin cheater!" Tamista said, and smacked Nolus over the side of his head. The numbers went back down to thirty and Nolus snickered.

A little glowing energy sword appeared in Asha's right hand, and she looked at it in wonderment. "Is this even safe?" she asked.

"Of course it is, daddy wouldn't let us play it if it weren't! You don't feel a thing when a swords hits you, your points just go down, like this." Cygnus said, and hit Tamista with his sword. Her number dropped from thirty to twenty-nine.

"Hey, you better reset that before we start!" Tamista protested.

"Yeah we will, you stupid!" Nolus said. The number went back up to thirty again.

"You got it all?" Cygnus asked.

"Yeah, now let's go so I can kick some butts!" Asha said excitedly.

The moment the game began things in the house quickly went into chaos. The kids ran around the room willy-nilly, and soon the carpets were all ruffled and out of place and a lamp was knocked over. John ran after them, trying to stop them, but he didn't make any progress whatsoever. Whenever he caught one of them, they teleported out of his hands and kept playing the game.

"Jeez, how does Tanis keep a hold on these kids?" John asked, now panting and sweating. He heard something shatter, and he ran into the hallway to find that Tamista had knocked down a glass Triforce sculpture that had been sitting on an end table.

"Oh great, what am I going to do about this?" John lamented.

The quiet and reserved Opulous came up behind John. "Not a problem." He said.

Opulous pointed his paw at the sculpture and the pieces slowly fused back together again until it looked just like it had before. He set it back onto the table again, grinning. "I've covered for them like this plenty of times." He said.

"Thanks brother!" Cygnus yelled, running past trying to escape Satoria's sword.

Back outside, the game of Keese and Leevers was going even worse for Ashley than before, and she was slowly becoming more and more tipsy as the game went on. Her hand of cards was getting saturated with Keese, and if she didn't find a way to dump them soon she would get disqualified and have to watch from the sidelines.

"You know…I had bats in my house's attic once, boy they smelled bad." Ashley mused, beginning to stutter.

"Well you're gonna have a whole nother batch. Enjoy!" Aqeul laughed, and played several more Keese onto Ashley's pile.

"Aww damn, I lose." She said, and dropped her hand.

"That's seven wins for me!" Aquel laughed. "And I'm not even from Hyrule."

"I'm content in my status as champion of five player Weyardian Chess." Jenna said, dropping her hand and revealing that she had been one card away from losing as well.

"We should play that next, I think the game of it that Felix started awhile back is over now." Ruru said, pointing to where Tanis was gripping his head in frustration.

They walked over and found that Felix had indeed just wrapped the game up beautifully, his forces had already captured Tanis, Isaac, and Mia's kings, and Onta had thrown in the towel.

"Wanna try your mind against the master again Felix?" Jenna said, and grinned when he saw a twinge of fear on Felix's face.

"Hold on guys, I'm just about to make an announcement, so don't start anything." Tanis said, standing up.

"Not a problem, I'm a bit soused for chess anyways." Ashley said, holding onto the ground firmly.

"Allright everybody, we're about to start the Holoball game, anyone interested in playing?" Tanis shouted.

Ashley's ears perked up. "Holoball? That's my favorite game ever! I didn't know you had a court here!"

Tanis grinned. "I've been teaching the boys to play, and they're getting quite good. Are you going to play?"

"Well, I don't think I'd do well with this rum dulling my reflexes." Ashley said, now slurring several words at once.

"Haha, no problem, I'll fix that." Tanis said, and waved his hand over Ashley's head. In an instant all the alcohol was cleared out of her system.

"You know, you're really handy." She said, grinning.

"Did I hear somebody say Holoball?" Cygnus called, opening the patio door.

"You're just in time!" Tanis replied.

If Ashley had been impressed with Tanis' handiwork before when she first arrived, then she was amazed now. He had built a full size concrete Holoball dome underground, nearby the greenhouses. By now everyone had filled into the audience seating sections, and those who were going to play had entered the court.

"Alright, since a couple of you haven't played before, I'll explain the rules. Basically, it's like a game of soccer, only in zero gravity and with a holographic ball instead of a solid one. Knock the ball into your opponent's goal to score, and guard your own goal. The thing that makes it tricky is that you can't actually affect the ball with your body, you have to use these pads." Tanis said, opening a locker.

He pulled out handfuls of little black Velcro straps that had little glass eyes on top. He strapped one onto his hand, pressed a button, and a little holographic shield formed in his palm.

"Only these pads can hit the ball, if the ball hits your arm or any other place where there isn't a pad, it'll pass right through you as if you were a ghost. You'll all wear these pads on your hands, feet, shins, and knees." Tanis said, and passed out the straps to everyone there. It looked like Ashley would be teamed up with Shakara against Tanis and Kalana, so it would be a two on two match.

"You be goalie, I'll go on the offense" Shakara's psychic voice whispered to her.

Ashley wanted to protest and argue, but she also didn't want to make a scene in front of her friends, so she rolled with it.

"Alright, I'm going to turn on the antigrav field, so brace your stomachs!" Tanis said, and pulled a switch next to the lockers. The contestants in the court slowly floated up into the air.

"Look, mommy's flying!" Asha's voice called from the seats, and Ashley grinned.

The holographic ball popped into view in the center of the court, and the game timer started. It was unusually small, only about an inch and a half in diameter, making it much more difficult to hit than a regulation sized ball. Ashley realized that Tanis was probably training his sons in a much harder difficulty so that they could develop their skills quicker.

The game proved to be incredibly one sided, even though Tanis had an inexperienced player on his team. He dominated Ashley and Shakara that round, scoring thirteen to four and outdoing them with every manner of sly tricks. Every time Kalana became disoriented and confused by the lack of gravity, he was there to catch the ball after it whizzed past her. The kids cheered from the sidelines for their parents, and John tried in futility to keep them quiet. He might as well have been trying to tell plants not to be green.

The second round Ashley got warmed up, she hadn't played the game in neary nine years and so was understandably rusty when compared to Tanis. But after ten minutes of playing, she managed to come back into her skills and even out the playing field. Since she had switched places with Shakara and gone on offense, their team caught up considerably until they were trailing 22 to 25.

The third and final round was the most exciting, because Shakara was now getting well warmed up, and Kalana had finally acclimated to the zero gravity. All four of them played furiously for the final ten minutes, and when the buzzer rang to end the game, Ashley's team prevailed 39 to 38. This time the children weren't the only ones who cheered, all of Ashley's family stood up and gave a victory cry.

"Can we do a kids game now dad, please?" Cygnus begged as Tanis turned off the antigrav and began removing the pads.

"Alright, but you'll have to pick somebody to be the ref for you since there's always a squabble when you play against your brothers!" Tanis said.

"Yes! Hey guys, come on!" Cygnus said, and ran over to gather his siblings.

Ashley wiped the sweat off of her face as she and the others left the court. "You still play a furious game of Holoball, Tanis." She said.

"I could say the same for you, that last goal was amazing! The projectors painted the ball with little holographic flames to show how fast the shot was." Tanis marveled. "I've only ever seen a shot that fast a few times before.

Ash climbed down from the seats and patted his daughter on the back. "Why didn't you tell me you were so good at that game?" He asked.

"Life's busy, you know. Come on, I need another drink!" Ashley said.

John ended up staying behind to be the referee for the children's game while everyone else went back out onto the patio to continue with the party. By now the sun was starting to set, and Tanis flipped on large white lights all around the yard to light it up. Ashley proceeded to drink more Hylian Rum again, and went to play a more luck-based game this time. She still ended up losing again, but she held onto her victory in the Holoball game as real win that night.

By the time the wee hours of the morning rolled around again, everyone was either severely drunk or very sleepy, so Tanis decided to let the party come to a close. Felix and his group were first to leave, since they had to be leaving on another trip in Weyard by the next day. He wished them luck as they climbed into the dropship that Shakara called for them, and then turned to see that Kalana and the others were ready to leave as well. Apparently there was some kind of Royal Banquet being held in Dantun, and all of them needed to attend. Aquel extended an invitation to Tanis, but he politely declined, seeing as how he disliked political events. He told Kalana that he would love to come to another private party at her Palace though, should she host one, and invited her to come to his house again in the future. Soon the house was much quieter without as many guests present. Then the time came that Ashley had to leave as well, she had her own responsibilities as well.

"We need to go soon Ashley, your father needs his medicine and Asha has school tomorrow." John said softly. "She's already half asleep now."

"Alright, you take her and my parents ahead, I'll catch up." Ashley said, and John nodded.

"It was nice to see you all again!" Misty said, and the family turned to leave.

Ashley watched them leave and then turned back to Tanis. She ruffled through her knapsack until her hands felt the smooth glass surface of the gift that she had brought for him.

"Tanis, I want you to have this." She said, pulling out what turned out to be a small square hand-mirror.

"Oh my, what's this?" Tanis asked, taking it from her carefully.

"It's an old family heirloom of mine, it was passed down from my grandmother to my mother, and my mother gave it to me last year. I want you to have it." Ashley said.

"Oh, now come on Ashley! Remember what I always say?"

"I know you never keep tabs for friends, but this has nothing to do with tabs. You've been a genuinely good friend to me for as long as I've known you, and I think that you more than deserve this."

"No, you know I can't accept something so valuable to your family!" Tanis protested.

"Now listen you! I'm the one who convinced you to let the Hylians build you into a stained glass window for god's sake, so the least you can do is take a smaller little piece of glass!" Ashley said. "Besides, it's my choice whether or not I give it away and who I give it to, and I've chosen to give it to you! You can at least respect my wish can't you?"

"Oh alright, but only if you take a gift from me!" Tanis said.

"Hit me with it!" Ashley said, glad she had convinced him.

Tanis concentrated for a moment to teleport the object he desired to himself, and a little golden pendant on a silver chain appeared in his hands. It was a ring of gold with a symbol inside it that resembled Mewtwo's head.

"Shakara made this for me, she molded the gold and silver herself. And I'll be damned if you don't take it!" Tanis said, smiling mischeviously at Ashley.

Ashley took it without a fuss and put the chain around her neck. "Thanks Tanis, it's wonderful."

They stood there silently for a moment, neither having words to say.

"So, are we going to see each other again soon?" Tanis asked tentatively.

"Oh, of course you silly Pokemon! The only reason I haven't been to visit before is because you've found such a ridiculously good place to hide yourself away! Now that I know where you live, you won't be able to beat me away with a baseball bat!" Ashley said.

"Now that's more like it!" Tanis said jovially.

Ashley walked into the doorframe and turned around to look at him one more time. "How about next week?" she asked.

"I would love it." Tanis said.

Ashley gave him a wave and then ran off along the trail to catch up with the rest of her family, and Tanis watched her until she turned the corner around the trees and passed out of view, and was about to close the door when he saw her running back to tell him something.

"I just about forgot to tell you Tanis…" Ashley panted, "Be careful with that mirror. It's got a family history of being haunted!"

Tanis chuckled. "Alright alright, whatever you say. Now get going before your father gets stuck in those thickets!" he said.

Ashley laughed, and then turned and left once more. Tanis closed the door and walked over to the living room. He approached the mantle above the fireplace where the Sol Blade had been set in a case, and he put Ashley's mirror in a prominent spot right next to it.

"You have really great friends, Dad." Opulous said suddenly behind Tanis.

Tanis jumped a little. "Oh jeez, don't sneak up on my like that you little scamp!" he said.

Shakara walked around the corner, wiping dirt and dust off of her paws. "I've finished cleaning up the back yard."

"Already? That was fast!" Tanis exclaimed.

"Well it helps when you can carry all those lights at once with your mind!" Shakara reminded him.

Tanis sighed again, then looked out the window. "You know Shakara, sometimes I think we need to go out there and get more involved in the human world."

"Why would we do that? It's not like we'd fit in." Shakara said.

"Well, you never know. They're not all bad, and Ashley's more than enough proof of that then I ever would need."

END

A/N: As the sequel to Crossing of the Paths draws to a close, I find that despite how draining it was to both write on this and work on classwork, I still cannot stop myself. Some of my friends already know about this, but I have decided to keep writing on this series, and make one more installation before letting it come to a close. So if you're still with me now even after countless years of my writing and griping about reviews and schoolwork, then you're going to see me write one last large Fanfiction before retiring from fanfics altogether. This Fanfiction will be the sequel to Legacies, and it will be called "The Four Mirrors", so keep your sharp reading eyes on the look out for the first chapter of this final Fanfiction, and I'll keep my fingers limber and writing until then. See you then!