Chapter five:
Enter twilight
Zant stepped inside the familiar realm.
He took a deep breath.
"It is good to be back." He said as he moved forward.
The darkened realm with black dots floating upwards was all to familiar to him.
Nothing much had changed.
Below the floating platforms was the empty void just as it had always been.
The orange sky was barely illuminating anything.
Luckily the power was on and all the special lines across the platforms, walls and ceilings glowed it's normal blue color.
Zant walked forward and while he did and the twilight people saw him chaos broke loose.
They all still remembered what he did to them, turning them into monsters.
And Zant gladly used his power all round him.
While he did that he also grabbed the light orbs that gave power to the twilight realm.
By doing so he plunged the twilight realm into darkness.
While his magic was taking a hold of the citizens, turning them into monsters of his army.
Meanwhile deep withing the twilight castle it's princess rose.
She walked towards the door and when she saw what was happening outside she was mortified.
"He's back… how?" She asked herself.
She knew that someone had to stop him.
She'd done it once and so she would do it again, or so she thought.
It had been a full hour since Zant had entered the strange portal.
Ghirahim had made himself comfortable laying down in the grass.
He seemed to grow very bored.
Sidon and Zelda were leaning against each other while they fell half asleep in the tree.
Mr. Hawkins kept an eye out just in case.
Meanwhile Skull kid was laying stretched out on a branch still hidden behind the leaves.
He himself had already fallen asleep.
Ever since those 118 years ago he stopped worrying too much since he was pretty powerful himself with the mask.
That doesn't mean he's reckless though, he was very sensitive to sounds while sleeping.
Any sudden moves would cause him to wake up and glace over to see what was going on.
After another twenty minutes something finally happened.
A strange looking woman with red hair and a blue/black skin was thrown out of the portal.
"You can't do this! Not again! How are you even still alive?! And how did you fix the mirror of twilight?" She called out.
"Dear Midna, princess of twilight. I ask of you to join us. I have restored the mirror so I could get this opportunity. And to answer you first question, I did not survive back then. I'm merely brought back." Zant said with an eerie tone.
"Never! I will never join you! Not after what you've done" Midna answered with anger in her voice.
"Such a shame really. You seem like a worthy partner." Ghirahim said while standing back up.
"And who are you?!" Midna said as she jumped back from both of them.
"I am known as demon lord Ghirahim. But I prefer to be called, lord Ghirahim." He said with a smirk.
"Demon? Zant why are you working with a demon?" Midna asked.
"To serve an even stronger one." Zant simply said.
Both looked at Midna's direction.
"So I'll ask once more.. why don't you join us?" Zant said.
"My answer remains the same! I won't! I'd rather die!" Midna answered as she readied her magic.
"Now is not the time to be stubborn friend, but alright I suppose that can be arranged." Ghirahim said as he summoned his black sword and let his cape vanish.
"This ought to be fun." Zant said as he also readied his magic.
Midna was outnumbered two to one.
She knew Zant was powerful but she had no idea what Ghirahim was capable of.
Then not long after Ghirahim attacked first.
He teleported in front of Midna and swung his sword at her.
She had just enough time to block his attack but right when she did Zant shot five magic orbs towards Midna.
She managed to dodge them barely but Ghirahim was right at her throat.
The two gave her a hard time.
Just when Midna was about to attack Ghirahim after launching his sword away Zant had thrown another magic orb.
She got hit by it and was thrown back.
Both Ghirahim and Zant teleported in front of Midna as she got up in pain.
Zant's attack sure did a number on her.
She was wounded on the right side of her waist where she was hit.
It was bleeding pretty badly.
Normally she could take some damage from Zant, was he stronger?
Questions raced through her mind as she got distracted from the battle.
Ghirahim had summoned his sword back to him and Zant had another magic orb at the ready.
Both were ready to attack.
And right when they wanted to they stopped..
The sound of a trumpet was heard seemingly out of no where.
The woods surrounding them made the sound bounce back and forth creating the illusion of the sound being all around them.
Then from out of the ground before where Midna stood rose four wooden puppets.
The puppets started attacking Zant and Ghirahim.
Midna was stunned. "Where did those puppets came from? They're a little creepy not gonna lie."
Mr. Hawkins, Sidon and Zelda were just as surprised.
Then Zelda glanced over at the tree besides theirs as she spotted movement.
She saw Skull kid playfully playing the lost woods song on a wooden trumpet like item.
Zelda glanced back at the battle and then back at Skull kid.
"He's controlling the puppets?" Zelda whispered.
"What?" Sidon asked as both he and Mr. Hawkins looked confused at her.
Then Sidon and Mr. Hawkins first spotted Skull kid.
He was less careful not to be seen when he was playing an instrument.
He then let his trumpet vanish into seemingly nowhere.
Then he jumped down while gesturing to the others to do the same.
Skull kid ran over to Midna and took her hand while running.
Zelda followed Skull kid and so Sidon and Mr. Hawkins did too.
Every time Ghirahim or Zant would defeat a puppet Skull kid would play another quick tune and they'd reappear.
That kept Ghirahim and Zant busy for a while.
Skull kid continued dragging Midna along who had trouble keeping up thanks to her wound.
At one point Skull kid even let her lean on him.
Normally he wouldn't allow it from grown ups but seeing as how she was hurt he had to do something.
He learned in his years of traveling that not all grown ups are that bad.
Still he was weary not to get too close most of the time, just in case.
The five managed to get a good head start at running though.
However Zant and Ghirahim soon grew irritated my the puppets.
Zant called upon his monsters and soon the entire lost woods was swarming with enemies.
Luckily Skull kid knew some short cuts and hidden passages.
There were a couple of close calls where the enemies had almost spotted them.
And in the last straight line out of the woods they just made a sprint for it.
Skull kid unknowingly to the other used some of his magic to make Midna a but stronger.
That was so she could still run the last bit even though he was leaning on him.
Then they got to the horses.
Zelda jumped on her horse as Sidon did on his.
Mr. Hawkins told Midna and Skull kid to take the other two horses that belonged to the soldiers as he jumped on his.
Midna did without further question however Skull kid looked back in worry.
His fairy friends were still in the woods somewhere.
He knew they were good at hiding but they were all he had.
He just had to go back for them.
So he ran back into the forest before any of the others could grab him.
"Hey! Wait! Come back!" Zelda yelled as she wanted to go after him.
But Mr. Hawkins held her back.
"Not now, we'll come back later." He said as he pointed at Midna who was half passing out on the horse.
They didn't have a choice, Midna's wound seemed bad.
So they rode off back towards the castle.
Meanwhile Skull kid flew back into the lost woods and dodged all the henchmen of Zant.
Then he found himself at the base of a large tree.
He climbed up the tree and there an a hidden inside area within the tree were the two fairies.
Tatl and Tael were shivering while hovering very closely to one another.
"Tatl, Tael! Are you two alright?" Skull kid asked.
"Y-Yeah.. but what are those scary black things?" Tael asked.
"They're minions of two guys that mean bad news. We have to leave." Skull kid said.
On which Tatl replied. "We can't! We promised Navi we'd be here.. What if Navi comes here and gets hurt? Or worse?"
Skull kid looked down thinking to himself for a moment.
"Navi might get in trouble if she comes here. Looks like I'm out of choices. I have to chase them away instead of running. But how? Those two men, they might be too powerful for me to defeat two to one. Maybe I can somehow let them split up? No, it's too risky they can teleport.."
"Skull kid?" Tatl asked as she tried to get his attention.
"Oh yeah, sorry I was just thinking. But yeah, we can stay a bit longer." Skull kid finally replied.
"You're not thinking of doing something stupid, right?"Tatl asked.
To which Skull kid didn't answer.
"Don't worry it will be fine." was all he said.
Skull kid waited for the night to come.
He was sitting upright while holding his sleeping fairy friends.
He carefully placed them on a soft patch of mos and quietly climbed out the tree.
If he were to safe Navi he had to first take care of some of those monsters.
There weren't many fairies left and seeing how Skull kid befriended two, that made him feel like he had to safe the ones he could.
No one had any idea why the fairies all vanished without a trace but Skull kid had a suspicion.
The Kokiri had also vanished, so it must have been connected.
Skull kid wondered around until he found a group of five monsters.
In the meantime..
Zelda, Sidon, Mr. Hawkins and passed out Midna finally arrived back at the castle.
There they were greeted by Botrick and Gutter who had made a full recovery and helped to get Midna to the nursery.
"It's good to see you two are well again." Mr. Hawkins said as he patted them on the shoulder.
"Yeah well it takes more than a forest and a child to beat us!" Botrick said while taking an in is eyes brave pose.
"S-So did you.. f-find the child?" Gutter asked.
"As a matter of fact we did!" Sidon answered while both Botrick and Gutter's eye's widened.
Gutter then went hiding behind Botrick.
Both men were tense and both were holding their breaths.
"But he went back into the forest and we couldn't go after him due to the monsters and the wounded person we had to take with us." Sidon continued as he looked down with slight sadness.
Botrick and Gutter let out the breath they were holding in as they became relaxed again.
But that moment of relaxation didn't last long.
"WHAT?! M-MONSTERS?!" Botrick yelled out.
"My goodness! Princes are you unharmed?!" Gutter added.
"Don't worry we got away unharmed but.. this woman.. Midna was her name I think." Mr. Hawkins said as he looked over at Midna.
"They said she was also a princess." Sidon added.
"Really? I have never seen or heard of her." Gutter said.
"They said she was the princess of twilight or something." Sidon added.
Botrick and Gutter looked really confused.
They thought that the twilight realm was just a legend, a cautionary tale about a race of shadow beings descended from the Dark Interlopers that were banished from Hyrule and sent to the Twilight Realm as punishment for their attempted conquest of the Sacred Realm.
Mr. Hawkins brought Zelda and Sidon to their rooms so he could explain everything that had happened to the others.
He called all staff members into the large dining room and they all sat at the table.
There Mr. Hawkins explained what had happened and that the twilight realm is in fact real.
He told them about Zant and Ghirahim.
And about what they had said regarding the king, that they might know where he was.
Mr. Hawkins set up a plan to track those two down and get answers from them.
But for that they needed a powerful mage or someone strong enough to rival with demons.
Vaati was the first name to pop into their minds.
But he had abandoned the light and became a demon himself, so that wasn't a good option.
Koume and Kotake were the second names that came to mind.
However they swore loyal to Ganon.
But since Ganon was long gone they figured that they could give it a shot.
So Mr. Hawkins send out a small group of servants to look for the two witches since they needed the leftover guards at the castle.
Mr. Hawkins himself was planning to go with them however.
He had a pretty good idea of where they might go in a couple of day's when things quiet down.
So he told the servants to get their travel belongings ready, because he did not know exactly when would be the right time to leave.
He also didn't want to leave Zelda and Sidon behind just yet.
He wanted to prepare them first.