Sorry this is so late, but real life made itself known in a not-so-subtle way and yanked my attention towards it for a while. In other words, I got really busy really fast. Again, sorry for the wait. Hope you like this chapter, even it it's mostly filler! Slight omake-ish bit near the end, too.

HUGE THANKS to HyruleHearts1123, Kerriss-Singer-of-Light, Lime Gap, WolfenAmpithere, ultima-owner, silver fire wolf, and Fyrusfairy for reviewing!

By the way, on a completely unrelated note, if anyone wants to write the scene/omake where the FS Links from the manga come to the Honor Among Thieves world, feel free to do so! Just drop me a line letting me know when you've posted it, please, since with my schedule right now I'll only have time to do it in about six months.


The fight with Stallord was, by far, the most fun and exhilarating boss battle I've had so far. After all, what's not to love about flying around a giant skeleton throwing bombs into an army of the undead? Oh, the sheer majesty of the explosions, bits and pieces of sand, bone, and armor flying into the air…

Why do I have the sudden urge to say "Art is a bang"?

Link, meanwhile, was circling the room on his spinner, leaping off to ride across the sand to ram into a segment of Stallord's spine once he got up enough speed. My brothers and I kept the giant fossil's seemingly endless army of animated skeletons distracted as he repeated the gesture, clearing a path for the blond hylian to zip down the slope without getting knocked off by a skeleton minion.

This first stage of the battle was fairly simple, even with the poisonous gas that the enormous skeleton began to spew later on. One highlight was when I threw a giant bomb at the monster's head, blowing off one of its horns before cackling like a madman as it roared in pain and chased me around the room with a stream of fire. Another was when Vaati created a large ball of wind and threw it into one of Stallord's fireballs, the wind enhancing the fire and sending it ricocheting into the undead army, incinerating at least a fourth of them in one blow and even creating a small circle of glass where the sand had melted on the impact area. Other than that, the first part was fairly easy.

Then the second stage came. Once Link knocked out Stallord's spine for the third time, it roared again and collapsed, sinking beneath the sand while taking the remains of its skeleton army with it. The sand then receded from the room, leaving only a giant fossil right in the center. For the first time since the fight started I floated down and landed on the floor, still staring at its remains suspiciously.

"Is it just me, or was that too easy?" Vaati asked warily, crouched on the floor with a dagger in each hand. I nodded and pulled out a small bomb just in case snuffing out the fuse before it went off in my hand. A talent I'd discovered recently was the ability to create a small flame on the tip of my finger, useful for lighting tinder and bomb fuses but not much else. Still, it did make it easier to pull and save bombs rather than being forced to use them right away.

"Hey, it looks like there's another spinner thing over here, I'm gonna see what it does," Link called from the other side of the giant skull. Then the sound of rapid spinning was heard, and a few seconds later the entire floor began to rumble was a large circular tower began to rise from the floor.

"Whoah… whoever built this place was a pretty dang good engineer," Dark breathed in awe. I could only nod in agreement. Finally, when the giant circular tower was about three-quarters of the room tall, it stopped.

Suddenly, an ominous feeling crept down my spine, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood straight up. A rumbling sound came from behind us, and as we turned, my heart leapt up into my throat.

The giant skull of Stallord was hovering in the air, an eerie red glow coming from its eye sockets, with the sword still stuck in the forehead, completely disconnected from its body. It gave a massive roar before rushing forwards with a surprising speed, knocking Link right off the platform.

"LINK!" all of us cried out in unison. Then we all rushed to the side and leapt off the platform, freefalling until we caught up to where Link was about fifty feet from the ground. I got underneath him and slammed on the brakes, straining against the pull of gravity. Vaati then created a swirling purple tornado beneath us, slowing Link's fall just enough so that he only hit the ground hard instead of smashing into the sand and shattering every one of his bones.

"Thanks," he said breathlessly, staggering slightly on the shifting sands. Then another roar echoed around the room as the disembodied skull floated down, tendrils of fire licking around its bone jaws. Glancing from side to side, I noticed the spinner rails on the sides of the walls and the tower, instantly making the connection. A second later a fireball pulverized the ground we'd been standing on, sending an explosion of superheated sand into the air.

Wasting no time, Link pulled out the spinner and hopped onto the rail, chasing the retreating skull in a circle around the rails. Then some of those spiky rail things came whirring towards the blond, forcing him to jump to the other side. Dark, Vaati, and I followed behind, slowing down the monster when we could.

After one of my extra-special giant bombs caught the monster in the temple, it crashed to the ground and lay there, stunned. The four of us took the opportunity and descended on it, hacking and slashing at the sword which was, most likely, the source of its power. Though demolishing the skull itself probably wasn't a bad idea, either.

By the time the skull was back in the air, chunks of it were cracked or blown apart, and the sword had taken a significant beating.

Link hopped back on the rails and the process was repeated twice more, with either Link ramming it to the ground or one of us knocking it out of the sky. Finally, the skull exploded into black twilight squares, signaling our victory. Link then picked up the heart container that popped out, healing his wounds, as well as the rest of ours. Then we all exited to a large open arena, with a giant statue of what looked like a person (likely one of the Gerudo's desert gods) surrounded by a large spiral railing as the centerpiece.

However, before we got much closer, twilit barriers fell from the sky, encasing us all within a glowing red forcefield. Five more twilight beasts came from the swirling portal that materialized in the sky, two more than the usual three. It seemed that Zant was rather… opposed to us being in this area, more so than usual. It only took a few quick spin attacks to dispatch them, though, since by now were were all used to fighting the monsters that never changed attack patterns. Predictable much?

After we gained a new warp point in what Midna informed us was called the Mirror Chamber, the spinner was once again put to good use as Link spiraled higher and higher into the air, whooping occasionally with exhilaration. Then he worked the mechanism at the top, causing a giant stone slab wrapped in chains to rise from the ground as well as a pedestal with what looked like the remains of a mirror on it. Only one jagged piece was left, however, while rest was only empty space.

Midna popped out of Link's shadow and floated over to the frame, staring at it as her expression got steadily angrier and angrier. Her almost palpable rage filled the air, making us all take a few involuntary steps back. Her tiny hands balled into fists and she began to shake slightly, teeth bared in a terrifying snarl.

"Oh d*** she looks pissed," Vaati muttered quietly. I nodded slightly in agreement.

Then Midna seemed to crumple, collapsing onto her knees at the base of the three-fourths empty frame. The sudden mood swing was completely unexpected, thus, Link was left looking extremely awkward as he tried to decide whether or not he was supposed to comfort her at this point or back away slowly lest she bite his head off for some miniscule thing.

"A dark entity lurks in the twilight… It houses an evil power…"

All five of us looked up in unison, repressing gasps as five silvery shapes looked down on us from high above the arena. They spoke in complete unison, creating an slight creepy ethereal echoey effect. The figures floated above their perches and were slightly opaque, a faint outline of the night sky visible behind them.

These guys… are ghosts. REAL ghosts, not like Dark, I realized.

"You who are guided by fate… You who possess the crest of the goddesses… Hear us."

A pulsing golden light came from underneath Link's glove, and when he took it off, a flashing symbol of the triforce became visible with the bottom right triangle glowing just a little bit brighter than the others. Dark, Shadow, Vaati and I all felt a sudden cold on the backs of our hands as well, only instead of a golden triforce there was a silver, upside-down triforce instead. For me, the top right segment flashed the brightest, while for Dark it was the top left segment and for Vaati the bottom triangle.

I wondered what the three inverted triangles represented, since the triforce meant Courage, Wisdom, and Power. I knew that Link, as the Chosen Hero, most likely possessed the Triforce of Courage, while Princess Zelda most likely held the Triforce of Wisdom as the last of the Royal Family. As for who claimed the Triforce of Power… I preferred not to think about that.

Staring at the pulsing symbol, three words were suddenly whispered into my ear, but when I turned around, there was nothing. Strange…

Cunning, Strength, and Deceit, the voice whispered. Counterparts to the triforce. Cunning and Wisdom, Strength and Power, Courage and Deceit. But what was the meaning of the Inverted Triforce?

The five ghosts began to speak again, cutting off my train of thought. "At the command of the goddesses, we sages have guarded the Mirror of Twilight since ancient times. You seek it… but the Mirror of Twilight has been fragmented by mighty magic. That magic is a dark power that only he possesses… His name is… Ganondorf."

Suddenly everything went black, and only the sound of the sages' voices echoing from the darkness let me know I hadn't been knocked unconscious.

"He was the leader of a band of thieves who invaded Hyrule in the hopes of establishing dominion over the Sacred Realm."

An image of a sinister figure on horseback against a background of flames, the sight looking eerily familiar…

"He was known as a demon thief, an evil-magic wielder renowned for his ruthlessness…"

The scene faded away as the sound of whinnying horse cut through, surrendering to the darkness.

"But he was blind… In all of his fury and might, he was blind to any danger, and thus was he exposed, subdued, and brought to justice."

Now I saw the six sages (why were there only five now? What happened to the last one?) standing before Ganondorf, the demon thief chained to the very same slab of rock that had risen from the ground right in front of us. I saw as he was executed, a shining white sword of light piercing his gut.

"Yet…"

The symbol of the triforce flashed on the back of his hand, the top triangle glowing brightest to signify the presence of the Triforce of Power.

Oh crud, this was not good…

"By some divine prank, he, too, had been blessed with the chosen power of the gods."

Ganondorf broke free of his chains, the sword still embedded in his gut, and promptly killed one of the sages. So that's what happened to the sixth sage…

The scene switched to a view of an ornate mirror, decorated with archaic markings and a triforce symbol right smack in the center, probably the complete Mirror of Twilight. The sages then used this mirror to create some sort of portal, sucking Ganondorf into… well, somewhere, I guess. Though with a name like the Mirror of Twilight, it wasn't hard to figure out where it went. Then vision returned to normal, and we were jolted back to the present.

"His abiding hatred and lust for power turned to purest malice… Perhaps that evil power has been passed on to Zant…"

Well, that would certainly explain where fish-head got his strength from. Midna, however, just looked depressed, like she didn't really care.

"You're just now figuring out where Zant got his power? It's far too late…" she muttered, sitting in the Mirror's somewhat empty frame despondently. The sages continued, seemingly ignoring the imp.

"Only the true leader of the Twili can utterly destroy the Mirror of Twilight… so Zant could merely break it into pieces. Once broken by magic, the Mirror of Twilight became fragments, which even now lie hidden across the land of Hyrule."

At this Midna perked up slightly, her single red eye opening wider in interest.

"One is in the snowy mountain heights…"

I shuddered. Snowpeak Mountains, no doubt. I've heard of it from Ashei, it's supposed to be infested with wolfos and endless snowstorms.

"One is in an ancient grove…"

Now that one I had no idea about. Link, however, whispered under his breath, "The Sacred Grove." Wasn't that where he'd gotten the Master Sword?

"And one is in the heavens…"

Wait, what? As in, Heaven, where the Goddesses dwelled? Or just heavens, as in the sky? I seriously hoped it was the latter and not the former.

"You who have been sent by the goddesses… You should be able to gather the three pieces… But you must be prepared, for a dangerous power resides in those fragments…"

Midna floated over to us and nodded in resolution, steeling her resolve even as the five sages faded to nothing.

"Well, looks like we'll be heading north. Oh joy, snow and ice," I said sarcastically. Vaati snickered.

"Yeah, you've never been to good with the cold, have you?" he teased.

"Heh, like you can talk, girly boy. Scared of the terrifying little spider that's only the size of your finger?" I shot back. Dark just signed in exasperation and turned to Link, a smirk making its way across his lips.

"Eh, guess that means we need to pay a visit to Ashei, then. I'd bet a million rupees that the 'snowy mountain heights' are the Snowpeak Mountain Range, which Ashei is an expert on. I think she's trying to track down a part of yeti right now around that area," he said. Link just looked utterly confused.

"Yeti?"

"Uh huh."

"Seriously?"

"Yup."

"Oookay…"

"Yeah, I know. Don't worry, she's always like that, but you'll get used to it. Now, we gonna leave this place behind or what?"

The last thing I heard before my body dissolved into squares of twilight was Midna's distinctive giggle, then I could only see blackness.


Materializing in front of gates of Castle Town in beast form, which we seemed to always automatically assume whenever we warped, I scented the air and wagged my tail happily at the smell of grass and trees instead of dust, sand, and grit. Sand was everywhere- in my ears in my fur, between the pads of my paws, in my mouth- it was riduculous. And that was just in wolf form. As a hylian, there was sand under my fingernails, sand in my hair, sand in my boots, sand in my cloak, you name it, chances are there would be sant there. Ugh.

"Okay, first order or business: find a stream and get myself sand-free," I said as I transformed back into a world and shook my fur out, leaving a small mound of sand on the ground below. Vaati, now in his panther form, fervently agreed. Dark nodded, and Link was outvoted, so the four of us trooped towards Lake Hylia to wash up.


"Splash fight!"

"Wha- no fair! Using your wind to make a water cyclone is cheating!"

"Oh, and throwing a bomb into the lake isn't?"

"Boys, boys, settle down. We all know who's the real splash king around here anyway."

"Eh? Who's that?"

"Me, of course!"

"Dream on! Come one Vaati, let's get him!"

"Hey! Turning into a ghost is cheating!"

"Well, if it's cheating, then so is using bombs and cyclones."

"..."

"..."

"Actually, he's got a point…"

"Stay out of this, Link."

"Wait, no, come here guys, I just thought of something."

"What are you guys whispering about?"

I smirked and dove under the water, shifting to hylian form and pulling on the zora armor. Then I oriented myself right under Dark, and…

"UNDERWATER SPIN ATTACK!"

"Whoa!"

"Oof!"

"Ha!" Dark landed right on his back, propelled by my underwater spin attack right out of the lake and onto the shore. He sat back up and glared at me, then Link got him right in the face with a strand of wet water-grass, the stuff that grows all over the bottom of Lake Hylia. It slid off his face slowly and comically, none of us moving an inch as it fell to the ground.

"Oh, it is ON now," my big brother cried, leaping up and jumping back in with a cannonball. He landed right in the middle of all of us, creating a massive wave that soaked everything within several feet of the impact point.

Thus, our quick trip to get the sand out evolved into an all-out water fight, the result being that we didn't get back to Castle Town until the next day. Oh well. It was fun, at any rate.


"Waitwaitwaitwait. You said we would be stocking up on supplies. You didn't say we were going to have to go in there to get them!"

"Hey, it's the cheapest place in town! Besides, I've heard it's less traumatizing the second time."

"No. No way. No no no no no."

"Oh come on, it's run by a toddler from your village! You can't avoid it like the plague!"

"I don't see you volunteering to go shop there."

"Well… um… that's because you're the one who comes from the same village as he does, so you gotta support him! Got the supply list? Good. See ya!"

"Dark! Waaaait!"

I sighed and shook my head in sympathy as Link entered the Cave of Doom, also known as Malo Mart- home to the absolute most horrifying music, decoration, and dance in Castle Town. However, it would be a necessary evil to endure, as it was the cheapest place in town as well. I was just glad it wasn't me enduring it. Besides, who was the bearer of the Triforce of Courage- Link or us? He could handle it.

Ten minutes later, Link tore out of the shop with his arms full of merchandise like a darknut was after him, not stopping until he was a full three streets away. Collapsing against a nearby wall, he exhaled slowly in relief.

"Oh, I am never doing that again. Next time, it's Dark's turn!" he muttered.

I made a mental note to stay far, far away from that part of town whenever we needed to restock. I had no intention of ever setting food in that accursed place ever again.

Vaati says I'm just being dramatic. I said that he's was a bigger drama queen than I was, using the fact that he was the one who liked to use bit flashy spells rather than being subtle.

"Oh, like giant bombs are subtle?"

"Shut up."