A/N: Welcome to Page 2 of the contents page in my Word doc!
Bit of a short chapter but at least there's a fight scene! Also some of Link's burning questions can be answered. As a treat.
The Light Invasion
PART II - LIFT THE LIGHT
Region by region, dungeon by dungeon, trial by trial, Link and Midna build a fragile trust.
Chapter 22 - The Climb and the Clobber
Puffing his cheeks, Link hauled himself just enough to hook his ankle on the next ledge. With that, he was able to clamber on and roll onto his back. The thin layer of snow dusted the bulky black furs Nova had given him. "There. That was another hundred metres, right?" Link huffed. He clutched his throbbing wrist to his chest.
Midna hovered over him, arms crossed. "Again, not even close."
"Really? Could've sworn it was."
Midna rolled her eye. "You light dwellers seriously need to drop the imperial system. Really screws with your sense of distance."
"Well, I've climbed all I can for now," he wheezed. "I think that's earned me the right to ask another question."
Midna groaned and slumped against the sedimentary wall by his head, upside-down in his line of sight. "Fine. Ask away, Mr Know-It-None."
Link smiled, or smiled as well as he could through his doggish panting. As he had climbed higher, so too did the intensity of his questions. It began with a few about the vibrant streets of Luce Prima, then he weaselled out an explanation of exams (a barbaric concept), and now it was a toss-up between three of his most burning questions: the fused shadows, her tattoos, or…
"Back in Luce Prima, I heard people gossiping about a missing princess," Link said. "Who is she? Zant's daughter?"
Midna's eyes narrowed, her frown deepened, and the grasp on her biceps tensed. "She was a foolish and naïve girl. Zant was her regent."
"You know her?"
Midna shook her head. "Her mother ruled alone. Conceived her via an anonymous semen donor –that's an explanation for later, Wolfie– and died when she was nine years old. Her last act as queen was to appoint Zant to take care of the realm while her daughter took her time to study and prepare for her ascension."
"Why do you all think so poorly of her?"
"Because as the years wore on, Zant let power seep to his head. The people all witnessed it, felt its impact, but they were patient, biding their time until the daughter of their beloved queen would at last come of age. Then two orbis ago, she did." 'Orbis', as Link had learned from Nova, was approximately one year of Hyrule's time. "But she said she wasn't ready to rule. Said she needed more time to learn discipline and the ins and outs of political theory. It would only be a few more tempres, she said, then an orbis, and then finally, after two sols-damned orbis of Zant leaving reforms and trade agreements on the table, of escalating senate debates into shouting matches, and pointing the finger of blame to anyone but himself for these problems, that damned princess finally found a shred of nerve to ascend to the throne."
"But that's good, right?"
Midna scoffed. "It was, but only for as long as it took the people to breathe a sigh of relief, because you'll never guess what happened next."
"The light invasion?"
"Heh, you're growing some brains, Wolfie. That burning light swept across the realm, scattering everyone into the shadows, and in the weeks since, that cowardly princess never once made herself known."
A princess being scorned for the actions of another? A princess who, just like Link, lost her mother so young? A princess who was hit by the scorching light just as harshly as every other Twili? "I think you're being too hard on her," Link said. "She could have her reasons. You wouldn't judge Queen Zelda for this war when she's too ill to have anything to do with it."
"I can judge her for marrying that stupid prince."
Really? The Fabian discourse still wasn't over? Sure, Fabian, for all his smarts and strategy, had been rash to blame the Twili, just as Zant was rash to blame the Hyruleans, but the prince still had nothing to gain from an eternal night or causing a war… No, it wasn't worth bringing that up again. Link was sick of the arguing, the back-and-forth snarking. For the foreseeable future, he was stuck with this imp, and the better they cooperated, the sooner they could part ways.
He gazed up at the peak only another few hundred 'metres' away, at the only thing in his vision to challenge the bright white sky. His eyes watered as if he was staring at the sun, and he shut them tight and rolled on his side to face the rock.
What an awful tangle this light invasion was. Of course the Twili and Hyruleans would point the finger at each other. Though maybe that was why Link had been chosen to fix this mess. He'd bring back the twilight, bring back the daylight, and be a hero of both realms. Twili and Hyruleans alike would listen to him then, they'd let him talk through this misunderstanding, and they'd help him search for the true culprit who caused this travesty.
And once Link had his legendary battle with this mysterious foe, peace for all would be restored.
After a meal, a nap, and some slightly-better-with-practice drawings (of Luce Prima, Nova, and the mountains in his sketchbook), Link began his final ascent.
The break had caused the stretches and strains on his muscles to settle into a dull ache. This, combined with his throbbing wrist, caused him to grit his teeth so hard that they creaked. But he was close, so close. Close to the peak and its thick layer of snow peaking over that final edge.
There was a boom, and a heavy crumble, as if stone had just been smashed. The snow at the peak rained on Link. He scrunched his eyes and shielded his face. More booms. More snow showered. Rumbling. Tumbling. Shouts of Twilit. A gong ringing. He needed to climb higher, but he couldn't risk an ice shard in his eye.
"Look out!" Midna shouted.
Link snapped up. Midna was above him, a dozen chunks of black rubble were caught in her orange lightning. With a strained yell, she hurled them down the mountain. She spun towards him, panic on her face. "Well? Don't just hang there. Go and help!"
The pain of his wrist mattered even less now. Someone needed saving, and Midna's magic had him covered. He heaved and heaved and heaved himself up the mountain as Midna hurled and hurled every stone that tumbled his way. The gong kept ringing and the Twili kept shouting in strangled, heartbreaking desperation.
After a solid minute of shredding his muscles like cheese on a grater, he clawed the snowy, flat top of the mountain and scrambled onto it. Link shook the snow from his furs, wrung the cold from the fingers, stared at the temple of black obsidian ahead.
It was a stack of three triangle prisms sharp against the sky, being scaled and pounded and ruined by Gorons. Glowing Gorons with pyrite backs, pearly flesh, liquid gold tribal markings, and hollow white eyes. Just like the monkeys back in Silva. They punched at the walls, dug their hands into the cracks, tore chunks free, and sent them careening down the mountain.
Tendrils of shadow clawed at the glowing Goron's –glowgor's?– arms, only to incinerate on constriction. At the temple's peak, a hammer ensnared in orange lightning glinted in the sunlight as it pounded at a gong of smoky silver. A shadowy Twili head periodically emerged from the roof to peer over the edge at the scaling glowgors, and each time, they dipped back into the shadows and the hammer pounded the gong with ever more desperation.
Link scuffled his way up the knee-high snow, furs bouncing and weighing him down. Sure would be great to have a body akin to a white wolfos about now.
Debris tumbled towards him. While Midna kept lobbing away the big chunks as most of the chips stalled in the snow, a few fist-sized, jagged chunks hit just under Link's kneecaps. He bit his lip and kept wading through the snow.
So slow. Plenty of time to think of a plan to take those glowgors on. They said that no weapon could pierce their rocky hide, but Link ought to test it for himself. Failing that, he could somehow get them on their backs, and it would only take an ending blow to finish them off. Right? Maybe.
Link burst free of the snow and scrambled along the slippery, cracked marble plateau towards the glowgor by the entrance, pounding his fist into a pillar like it was a tree he was determined to chop down with his bare hands. Steel sang from Link's sheathe and he stabbed for a divot in the rough back.
Nothing came out of it. Nothing but that hulking, bulking Goron turning around with a sneer on its face. It cracked its knuckles, so loud that it alerted every other glowgor. They stopped their defacing of the temple and rounded towards Link. Each one shook out their arms, closed their fists, and lumbered forth with weighty steps that could crush Link's ribs with no effort at all.
To the leading glowgor's right, the fanged grapple seized his ankle and tugged, but didn't budge him. He merely shook himself free and kept encroaching.
Link slowly backed away. Gods, he was an idiot to throw himself into this with a useless blade and half a plan. His fate of being pounded to a jam, or being thrown off the mountain, had been sealed.
The gong had stopped ringing. When had it stopped ringing? "You, light-dweller!" someone shouted from above. "It is dangerous to fight alone. Take this!"
Link swallowed down his nerves and looked up. Something was spinning through the air, towards the ground, towards Link! He scrambled back, and its landing shook the ground between him and the glowgors. Link shielded his eyes from the spray of marble, then peaked between his fingers at the hammer sitting in a web of cracks with the leatherbound hilt skyward. The head had been shaved of its corners and it glowed with blue runes.
He scrambled forth, reaching for the handle as the glowgor clasped its hands high, intent to smash Link's skull. The moment Link's palm slammed against the handle, the runes flared and it was as if the hammer got 'unstuck' from its own weight. It followed his movement and shattered the glowgor's clasped hands.
The glowgor stumbled back, staring quizzically at its chipped, cracked stumps. All the glowgors stared at their brother. With the same shock.
The hammer was weighty in Link's two-handed grip, and much more top-heavy than a sword. He felt a little off balance, but the weight-alleviating magic of the hammer supported him. Lended him strength. He could do this. He could defend himself if they dared to strike first.
The bravest glowgor stomped forth with a silent roar and a right swing. Link dodged and swung the hammer at its left. A crack split the glowgor through the middle and it fell in two halves, spraying all with snow. The rest of the glowgors wheeled on Link, and their eyes glinted harshly, like fireworks shooting for his heart. As they lumbered in together, Link loosened his feet. Ideally he'd be rooted and steady, but against so many, he needed to dodge swiftly, even if a mistimed swing could throw him off-balance.
Link dodged the first few punches and swung for the rest when he could. First, there were close shaves, then tottering from his overdone swings, but after a few cycles, he had the glowgors' rhythm down pat. Fists, sides, and kneecaps were shattered. Glittering shards flew in every direction. Fractures so bright, so brilliant, that they were lost in the sky and snow.
Out of the four glowgors before Link, one was missing its left hip, one was hopping on one leg with no hands, one had half a head, and the last one was missing an arm. Link was panting like a wolf, but he had all his limbs and all the chunks of his body. He could take them. He could finish this right here, right now.
He charged in at the one with a single leg. A stone grip clamped around his ankle. He fell forward, the hammer flew from his grip, and into the gut of the target, shattering it. The marble floor hit Link's nose. He grimaced and looked back. A broken-off hand had clamped his ankle. And the luminescent 'shadows' of the glowgors were falling over him.
He kicked at the grip. Kicked like it was a snake with its fangs in his ankle. A good thing he glanced up when he did. The first fist hurtled down. It pounded where he was half a second before. He scrambled back from stomps and punches that pounded like boulders spat from Death Mountain, only for an iron grip to lock around his middle, pinning his arms to his sides and robbing him of breath. He kicked and thrashed as another glowgor wound up its fist, prime to put a crater in his stomach.
"Midna! Grapple!" he wheezed.
A viper head launched from Link's shadow and seized the wrist of the shooting fist. A hard tug from Midna yanked the punch off-course, but only just. The glowgor tore away the fangs and stomped at Link's shadow, but with the light of the glowgor not being as blinding and instant as that of a deku nut, his shadow merely morphed and shifted and twisted around it. All the glowgors (aside from the one locking Link) stomped at the shadow, as if trying to squash the same elusive insect. Seemed like these glowgors couldn't pull Twili out of the shadows like the monkeys could, but Link was still trapped. He couldn't breathe.
The glowgor directly in front of Link gave up with the shake of its head. Every eye turned back on Link, and they all raised their fists. This was it. No weapon. No escape. Nothing Midna could do.
The glowgor across from Link hurled his punch, but before contact, the rest of its head exploded into crystals and dust, and it fell stiffly on its side.
"Hey! Rockheads! Over here!"
Midna wasn't in his shadow. She was hovering tall, with the hammer snared in her flickering lightning, twirling with her skyward finger. Her fangs were bared, and her words dripped with venom. "You sure have a lot of nerve smashing this place up." It almost sounded like she was out-of-breath, as if she was holding the weight of a log all on her own but was too stubborn to show the strain.
And yet she sneered all the same.
The first step a glowgor made towards her, she screamed like a poe and hurled the hammer at its chest. The glowgor froze mid-step and fell on its back, a massive crater in its belly. With the snap of her fingers, the hammer appeared above her finger again.
The final glowgor rolled itself into a ball and spun after Midna. She flew high into the sky, so high that her spot shrank into the white. The rolling glowgor proceeded to grind into the temple again, to the point where a foundation broke and the upper levels slanted and the shadows cried out in worry. Link forced his eyes away from the destruction and squinted at the sky. Gods, where was that little imp?
A block of steel hurtled from the heavens. Link screwed his eyes shut, praying on Farore's fortune that it missed where he was clutched. It crashed. Behind him. On the glowgor who held him. Whose head exploded and whose arms crumbled away.
Link hit the ground on all fours and rubbed the spot where a few chunks of glowgor had hit the back of his head. Well, that was the second time Midna nearly took off his head. Water under the bridge now.
"On your left!" Midna shouted.
The glowgor rolled in. Link scrambled back, scraping his fingertips on the broken marble and shards of his captor. The roller kicked dust, gravel, and snow in his face. He screwed his eyes shut, but with his gasp, he choked on dust. So came a coughing fit, and through his haze, the glowgor circled around like a runaway wheel, spraying snow and grinding a track through the marble platform upon which the temple was set. Link twisted behind him. The hammer was a few feet away. Just off the marble. Handle sticking out of the snow. He lunged for it, sliding across marble and snow, just as the glowgor clipped his toes.
He bit his lip and seized the handle. Still sliding, he swung half-a-circle around the hammer and lurched to a stop, stomach-flat in the snow. On his left, the glowgor curved around and ploughed through the snow.
Link pushed himself to his feet, and the glowgor was a second away from crushing him. He swung with no aim, but all his might. And bit out a chunk of its side, glitter trailing behind.
More chunks fell as the glowgor curved around again, particles and pieces falling away. Link planted his feet, readed the hammer, but mere feet before the glowgor reached him, it crumbled apart. A broken off fist tumbled forth and tapped Link's shin.
That was it. That was all. The final adversary was just gravel on the ground and sand on the breeze.
Midna flew over and 'spat' the remains, though no saliva came. It was as if these glowgors had personally insulted her. Called her spiked ponytail 'gaudy' or some other fancy insult.
She turned back to Link with a huff and crossed her arms, floating Link's way. He hefted the hammer up and began wiping off the dust and frost. "You okay?" he asked.
Her frown tugged into a smile. "That felt good."
"Did the glowgors insult your mother or something?"
Her face fell. "The what?"
"Glowgors. Those things we just fought. I called them that because they're glowing Gorons." She blinked at him, confused, so he continued. "Gorons are native to Eldin's province. Usually quite friendly, actually, but very proud. Shame we couldn't challenge them to a wrestling match or something. Earning their respect would've saved us some hassle."
Midna snorted. "I suppose we've got to call them something, but no. If you really want to know why they pissed me off, look over there." She swept an arm at the sorry sight behind him. "Look at what they did to one of the most sacred sights in all of Twilux."
Oh…
Link hadn't thought much of the building. It was placed in a strange location, sure, and it was a standout shape by Twilux standards. Still, even in its cracked, crumbling, off-balance state, it seemed so… bland for a religious building. Link had scrutinised sketches of the ancient Temple of Time in Hyrule, ironically lost to time itself, and they had displayed intricate stained glass windows, glossy floors, intricate statues, grand staircases, gold fences, and legends carved upon its walls. This place was just three dull grey triangle prisms stacked on top of each other, with the only note of grandeur being the gong placed on top. However, the light had stripped Luce Prima of all its colour and beauty, so perhaps there was some unseen beauty outshone by the light here as well.
"Scavenge for the monks," Midna said. "See if anyone needs help, and remember…"
"You'll stay in the shadows, thank-you very much," Link quoted.
Midna smirked and 'pet' him on the head. "Good Wolfie."
Before she could dip into his shade, there came a forced cough. There was no one around, unless they hid within that boulder a few feet away with the shadow as large as Link's chest. As he walked closer, a translucent Twili figure rose. One with a loose top knot, big circle glasses, and some extra pudge on his (or her) chest and chin. They wore a heavy, floor-length robe tied at the front, and wide sleeves covering their hands with tassels at the end, reminiscent of Zant.
On instinct, Link felt around his belt, absent of the deku nuts. A good thing he had surrendered them weeks ago.
Unlike Zant, however, this person didn't wear a mask, so their welcoming smile was on full display. "Sorry. I simply could not allow one of our saviours to hide away before we had the chance to say thank-you."
Midna tensed at Link's side. Silent. Arms crossed.
The stranger didn't seem to mind. "Call me Monk Tuushu, he/they. Those interlopers have been causing us strife ever since this light invasion began. We were able to drive them away at first, but not this time. Had you not shown up when you did, the monastery might not have been standing by the circum's end."
Link only blinked at Tuushu. To most Twili thus far, his light-dweller form was a rarity, a threat, an enigma, but as he stood before this Twili, they simply smiled and chatted with Link as if he were a Twili too.
"Whatever is the matter?" Tuushu asked. "Cat got your throat?"
Link choked. "Throat?"
Tuushu's lamplight eyes widened. "Oh my. Did I get that idiom wrong? Oh, I suppose our Hylian must be a little out of date…"
Out of date? How did so many Twili know Hylian in the first place? Another question he ought to pester Midna about later. "We say 'Cat got your tongue' usually," Link said. "I'm Link, by the way. Call me… uh… he/him please?" He reached out a hand to shake Tuushu's. Wait. Idiot. Shadows can't shake hands.
But Tuushu stared at Link's hand with childlike wonder. Just as Link pulled away, Tuushu exclaimed. "Wait! I know this." He reeled his open palm back, almost twisting themselves perpendicular to Link, then whirled back, hand flying in and phasing through Link's palm. The momentum of the motion made Tuushu totter, but he plucked themselves straight with the brightest smile a shadow could have. "There! A high five. I was not expecting to be offered one so low, but did I do it right?"
Midna burst out laughing beside Link, curled up and clutching her sides. Tempted as Link was to join her, what kind of man would he be to dash the monk's smile? "Close enough," he said.
Tuushu clapped their hands. "Marvellous! Now that we have our greetings out of the way…" He gestured at the crumbling structure behind them. "Care for a tour of our trashed-up temple?"
A/N: Me, rewriting the end of this chapter: "Tuushu you are a character I made up on the spot you weren't supposed to be this precious why are you so precious aaaaaahhhh-"
In the draft of this chapter, Tuushu's first word was actually "technically", said exactly like Mud Briar from Friendship is Magic. Then they became a different personality next chapter so I had to change it.
