Can't believe it's been over half a year since the last update. Real life has not gotten less busy at all.
HUGE THANKS to grandshadowseal, Kira Akuma, and The Whimsical Ermine for reviewing!
To Kira Akuma: Ah, sorry! I think, given the nature of my ANs from the last, like, five chapters, it's probably best to just assume that updates will be very infrequent. Real life is extremely busy and is not looking like it's going to let up anytime soon. My apologies, and thanks for waiting!
Disclaimer: don't own LoZ, etc.
Thanks for reading, and please feel free to leave a review or PM with any thoughts or constructive criticism!
"Safe travels," Link said, clasping Shaide's shoulder. "Thank you all again for your help."
"May Farore put the winds at your back," Vaati added, giving the Sheikah a wave of farewell. "After everything is over, you should come back to visit sometime. The Palace doors are always open."
The Sheikah dipped their heads in acknowledgement, shouldering their travel packs. "And good luck to you as well," Shaide replied with a smile in his eyes.
Without any further ceremony, the Sheikah turned away and seemed to vanish into the snow. I could still see flickers of movement as they loped away in long, easy strides, but soon enough even those faded. A gust of wind kicked up a flurry of white powder, briefly obscuring our vision before it died back down– and they were gone.
"Well," I sighed, "I guess that's that." I turned to Midna, already thinking about the next part of our quest. "So, what's the Twilight Realm like?"
"You know," Midna said, almost pensive as she floated in front of the Mirror of Twilight's stand in Arbiter's Grounds, the Sages having just faded away, "this is proof that Zant is a false king."
Link cast her an odd look. "Huh?"
Midna smirked, vicious and smug. "Only the true ruler of the Twili can destroy the Mirror of Twilight. Zant could only break the Mirror of Twilight into shards, but he couldn't utterly
shatter it." She gestured to the Mirror, whole and unbroken once more. "Soon, I can take back my throne. And he will pay."
Midna made another gesture, and the Mirror glowed silver-white. Then, with a bright flash–
Runes and symbols in an infinitely rotating loop of concentric circles, the hulking black slab that sat before the Mirror overlaid with the symbols of the Twili. A tunnel with the etching of the triforce at the end of it seemed to go straight through solid stone, but never came out the other side.
Vaati let out a long, low whistle. "Now, that," he said, with great appreciation, "is some powerful portal magic."
"You have no idea," Midna sighed, looking at it with longing. She floated a bit closer, expression close to entranced. "My ancestors built the Mirror in cooperation with the Hyrulian royal family many generations ago. Our histories say that it took seven each of our respective Realms' most powerful magic-users to create."
"Great Farore," Vaati said. "You tryin' to show off or something?"
She smirked. "Maybe a little bit."
Dark snorted. "Whatever, we get it. Now, are we going in or what? I wanna get out of his heat before I melt." He took off his hat and brushed sand out of his hair, then shook it out of his clothes. It was a futile gesture, though, since within seconds it was only replaced with even more sand. Eventually, he gave up and simply floated, intangible, and let the sand pass through him.
Midna giggled. "Fine, fine. Come on, then!" And, with an abrupt flick of her wrist, we were tugged by an invisible force and all but tossed into the portal.
Some warning would've been nice! I wanted to yell, but by then the world had spun away in a dizzying vortex of black and white.
"This place is way too quiet."
Lurking in Link's shadow, Midna bared her teeth in a silent snarl. "This is wrong," she hissed. "It shouldn't be like this. Where is all the life?"
In the distance, a lone twilit kargarok winged across the sky. The palace loomed before us, a fortress of dark stone all but dripping with magic. I surveyed the area, trying to pick up something– anything –that would speak of something in this world besides us and the monsters.
We didn't look at the deformed creatures that were once Midna's people. It was horrific, what Zant had done. But… he couldn't have gotten all of them, could he? It didn't make sense. At least a few could have escaped.
How could one man so utterly subjugate a kingdom like this?
"We have to find the Sols," Midna growled. "They're the source of all life in this world. We can use those to save my people."
"Okay." Link frowned, twirling his sword. "Where are they?"
Midna gestured to the two enormous halls flanking the palace. "In there, guarded by all sorts of traps. I can help with most of them, but I don't know what Zant might have added or changed."
"Traps," Dark sighed. "Of course there are traps. Which basically means we think of this as another dungeon?"
"...Pretty much, yeah," Midna agreed..
Link took a few steps forward. "Well, we should get started, then." He paused. "Wait. Does it matter which one we start with?"
"Left," Midna instructed. "That'll be easier."
Link changed course for the hall on the left. "Alright, then. What kind of traps will there be?"
"The usual, probably." In the distance, a twilit kargarok trumpeted. "Monsters, puzzles, that sort of thing. Who knows what Zant might have changed, though."
When we stepped through the doors, we immediately ducked a swarm of keese that shrieked and tumbled down from the ceiling to attack us. Following that were multiple deku baba, who were somehow managing to grow out of solid stone.
This time, though, the monsters didn't stop there. What looked like a giant, floating, autonomous version of Zant's mask appeared– literally appeared out of thin air. When Link took a swing at it, it vanished– and returned just behind him, blasting out a fireball that Link barely managed to roll under.
Dark swore. "Oh, great. A teleporter. I hate teleporters."
I leapt up to the ceiling to get a better vantage point, trying to discern a pattern. If I could anticipate its next move, I could blow it to pieces before the fight drew out for too long.
Vaati, however, was faster.
The mask appeared behind him, spewing flames. Whirling, Vaati dropped to one knee and slammed his palms into the ground. A glowing barrier lit up around the mask, blocking the fireball. If I didn't know better, I could've sworn I saw it visibly panic when it tried to teleport out and failed.
With the mask trapped, it was the work of a few seconds to dispatch it. "Huh," Link said as it crumbled to dust. "That wasn't so bad."
Vaati snorted, straightening up. "Of course not. I developed that barrier specifically for teleporters."
I huffed a laugh. Somehow, I wasn't surprised.
We continued on until the floor began to slope down and, at the bottom, was filled with some sort of odd black fog. Glowing orange lights like embers blinked in and out within it, utterly silent as it somehow radiated a sense of… unease. Not malevolence, not fear, but unease. Just looking at it made all the hairs on the back of my neck stand straight up.
"Midna?" Link asked, sword at the ready. "What's this?"
Midna frowned, flicking her fingers. A bubble of green magic drifted over, falling into the fog. It immediately burst, but then Midna pulled her hand back with a twist and the bubble reformed, a bit of the fog trapped inside of it. Midna guided the bubble back and made it hover between her palms, scrutinizing the fog that swirled within.
"It reminds me of those crystals," she said at length. "You know, the ones that turn you into beasts. If those crystals were turned into fog, at any rate."
Vaati blinked. "Then, you think it'll have a similar effect?"
She shrugged. "Perhaps. I wouldn't go walking in before we make sure there wouldn't be any side effects, though."
Link grimaced. "We don't have that kind of time. Vaati, can you fly me across?"
Vaati grinned. "I have a better idea."
Without further ado, he grabbed Link's arm and the two of them disappeared in a swirl of wind, reappearing on the other side of the fog. The rest of us flew to join them, laughing as Link cursed Vaati for not warning him.
"Hey," Vaati snickered, "if it works, don't complain."
Link glared at him and pointedly turned away, though it was more for show than anything else.
We went through a couple more rooms, defeating enemies and finding items as we went. It really wasn't all that different from other dungeons, right up until we finally found what Midna told us was the Sol. Unfortunately, it was covered by what appeared to be a massive, disembodied hand.
Weird. And kind of creepy. Twili sure had a bizarre way of setting up their security.
Midna swore when she saw the hand. "He made one of those? Ugh, how am I not surprised."
"What is it?" I asked. "Some kind of Wallmaster thing?"
Midna shook her head. "No, not really. It's… well, we just call them Hands, and they are incredibly annoying to fight. If you remove what they hold, they will follow you relentlessly until either they retrieve their guarded object or they reach the reach the boundary of the spell that fuels them."
Dark groaned. "And what's the boundary, usually?"
Midna narrowed her eyes at the Hand. "Knowing Zant? It could be anywhere from the perimeter of this building to the entire island."
Well, that was just great.
Link studied the hand, none of us moving from our spot by the door. "Vaati, what's your range on your teleportation?"
"I could take it all the way out to the plaza," Vaati replied, catching on right away. "Bringing everyone with me would be pretty draining, though."
"We can backtrack on our own," Dark pointed out. "All things considered, this dungeon was pretty tame."
"But what about that fog?" Vaati pursed his lips. "You two can fly, but Link can't."
...Ah. We hadn't thought of that.
Link hesitated, then shook his head. "I'll figure something out. But if what Midna says is right, we don't exactly want to be sprinting back through the dungeon lugging that thing around."
"No," Midna agreed. "You definitely don't. It would probably be doable, but it wouldn't be fun." Her lips twitched. "I stole from one once, on a dare. It wasn't an experience I'd like to repeat or see repeated."
I snickered at the mental images that evoked. A smaller Midna, sprinting through the dungeon with the Hand chasing her, was a remarkably hilarious picture.
Link laughed. "Yeah, hopefully we'll avoid that." He flipped his sword in his hand, advancing a few steps. "Come on, we can figure out how to deal with the fog when we come to it."
Except, before he got much further, two twilit walls sprang up, and a phantom image of Zant appeared. Vaati threw a dagger that passed right through the phantom without any sort of effect, and couldn't stop it from summoning a portal that called down a whole slew of monsters.
"Aw, come on," Dark groaned as he bisected one of them. "Now he can make– what are those, ghost puppets?"
"Don't know, don't care as long as we can kill it," Vaati snapped through gritted teeth. Shrieking winds shredded two monsters to pieces, even as a dagger buried itself in another's neck. "Ugh, it teleports."
The image of Zant flickered out of existence, reappearing in a far corner of the room. Link pulled out his bow and shot at it, cursing when the phantom vanished before the shot could connect.
"Vaati," Link said, "any chance you can trap it like you did to that mask back there?"
"Give me a minute," Vaati tossed back, wind cutting through the twilit vermin that a second portal had dropped. Phantom Zant blinked out, flickering back behind him, and that was Vaati's moment to strike. He spun, palms hitting the floor as another barrier sprang up. Wasting no time, the rest of us dove in with simultaneous strikes. It fell back, dissolving for good with a screech.
Problem was, it seemed as if its defeat had been some sort of trigger, as the room immediately filled with the black fog from before.
"F***," Dark swore when we were waist-deep in it, knees buckling.
I gritted my teeth against the pain as it forced a transformation, leaving us all collapsed in our beast forms on the ground. Panting, I realized that I hadn't had a transformation quite that painful since the very first time, all those months ago in Castle Town. I supposed I should have been grateful that there didn't seem to be any other side effects.
Link struggled to his paws, shaking out his fur. "Well, that could have gone worse."
Midna poked her head out of his shadow. "Looks like we got lucky this time."
Vaati groaned. "Ow. It's been a long time since a shapeshift hurt this much." The gem on his head flashed, making him wince. "And I can't transform back."
Ugh. That was less than ideal.
By mutual agreement, we climbed out of the fog as quickly as possible in hopes that its effects would wear off. In a stroke of luck, it did, and we were able to resume hylian forms once we were clear. Which was good, since it would have been rather difficult for Vaati to grab the Sol if he didn't have hands.
"Alright," Vaati sighed, reaching for the Sol. "Let's hope this works." He grasped it with both hands, tugged it free, and vanished in a swirl of wind.
The Hand twitched, fingers uncurling. The rest of us backed away as a bad feeling curdled in my gut.
"Um," Link gulped, "I don't think this is going as planned."
The Hand rose into the air, fingers opening and closing as if it was trying to grasp something that wasn't there. The markings on it glowed, flaring bright– and then it lunged, slamming down to where we would have been if we hadn't scattered.
I tossed a bomb at it. The Hand reeled, stunned, but the effect only lasted a few moments before it recovered and began gliding at a deceptively fast speed towards us.
"You know," Dark said, "I think running would be a good idea right about now."
As one, we turned tail, sprinting back through the dungeon. Even at top speed, the gap between us and the Hand was far too close for comfort. After clearing what appeared to be a bottomless pit with his clawshot, Link shifted to wolf form for greater speed while Dark and I flew as fast as we could. I risked a glance back and saw that the Hand still hadn't slowed down in the least, which was more than a little unnerving.
Link skidded around a corner, claws scrabbling on stone. I tossed another bomb over my shoulder to stall the Hand, but the moment of distraction almost cost me as I narrowly avoided a flock of keese. Magic sparked at my fingertips, ready and waiting to fight, but soon enough the door was in sight and then–
Black stone slammed shut behind us, and the Hand didn't follow.
"So," Vaati spoke up, "I'm guessing that things didn't quite follow the plan."
Panting, Link shifted back to hylian form. "Huh, ya think?" He straightened up with a wince, looking around. The Sol was resting in a circular divot offset from the center of the plaza, surrounded by…
Midna sucked in a sharp breath. "You– my people are–"
Vaati grinned, crooked and slightly roguish. "Yeah, so, turns out that if that Sol gets close enough to any of them, they turn back into themselves. Can't say I understand a word they've been saying, but they seemed pretty happy about it."
"Goddesses, thank you," Midna breathed, immediately rushing to the nearest Twili. They exchanged a series of words in the low, lilting tones that made up their language, Midna's expression shifting from relief to anger to fear and back again like quicksilver. The Twili didn't seem to recognize her at first, reacting in startled confusion when she said her name– one of the only words that we could understand. It sounded almost as if she was interrogating them, of a sort, eventually concluding the conversation with a bow and another short burst of chatter.
The Twili, as soon as Midna had turned her back, rushed over to the others. The small crowd dissolved into a flurry of exclamations and wild gesturing, most of them turning to look out way with gaping expressions.
Midna drifted back over to us, looking as if she'd had a great weight lifted off her shoulders. "My people are safe," she said, eyes flicking towards the yellow-black horizon. "The ones here, they were examples. Zant did this to them deliberately, but the rest– they're still out there. Hiding, yes, but they're alive. I–" she cut herself off with a shake of her head. "Well. They're as safe as they can be, considering that it sounds like Zant's gone off the deep end, but it's far better than I feared."
"Good." Link's smile was genuine, but there was an edge to it that all wolf-teeth. "We can go after Zant without any interference?"
Midna laughed. "Oh, yes. The Palace is empty except for Zant and some monsters; everyone escaped before he could impress them into service." She paused. "First, though, we need to find the second Sol."
"Ah," Link said, expression falling a bit at the prospect of facing another Hand. "Right."
Vaati thrust his hands out, wind knifing across the room. Twilit deku babas collapsed in pieces. A moment later, Phantom Zant teleported in front of us, was promptly trapped in another barrier, and dispatched.
"...Huh." Dark pretended to open a nonexistent watch. "By my estimate, that took less than a minute. We're getting pretty efficient."
"I'd hope so, after this long." I flicked a cherry bomb at a couple of keese, watching them screech as they fell out of the air. Part of me still ached a bit for the team that I was never a part of but had always longed to join, four teens working in sync to take down even the self-proclaimed King of Darkness, but… what I had here, now, with my brothers…
This was just as good. Maybe even better.
Vaati smirked as he shook out his hands. "Let's be honest, though. Without me, you guys would be going at half the speed." He turned to the Sol, which was in the grasp of another Hand. "Same thing as last time, I suppose?"
"Wait, let us get a head start first," Link said, backtracking for the door. "You might be able to teleport right out of here, but the rest of us have to run like normal people."
"You mean, you have to run," I corrected, snickering.
Link rolled his eyes. "Fine, yes, I have to run. Either way, I still want that head start."
"Fair enough," Vaati agreed. He waited for Link to get almost to the door before gave us a jaunty wave, grabbed the Sol, and vanished.
The Hand shuddered, markings lighting up crimson. I stayed just long enough to throw a few explosives at it before I beat a hasty retreat after Dark and Link, slipping through the door right before it closed. Link had shifted to his wolf form, leaping across platforms and diving straight into the crystal fog with no regard for any of the monsters. Dark materialized long enough to hold the doors open for him, while I threw bombs over my shoulder to keep the Hand from getting too close.
Seriously, though. That thing was creepy. And how in the world was it phasing right through the doors?
Well. It didn't matter much, I supposed, as long as it didn't catch us.
We all tumbled outside, heaving identical sighs of relief. The second Sol, I saw, was already next to the first and surrounded by glowing blue runes. From the plaza, Vaati waved.
Midna's people were all huddled together nearby, watching us with interest. Our arrival prompted another flurry of hushed whispers, and, as Link stepped off the platform that bridged the islands, one of them broke away to meet us. The Twili stopped a few feet away and said something too quickly for us to figure out. We could only shrug, as Midna had never actually gotten around to teaching us more than the bare bones of her language.
Midna emerged from Link's shadow. The Twili made a noise of what sounded vaguely like excitement. In the background, the other Twili shuffled forward a couple steps, not even pretending that they weren't listening in. Unfortunately, none of us could understand a word they were saying, as the conversation was too fast-paced. Losing interest, I juggled a couple of unlit cherry bombs and tried to decide if I could hit that kargarok in the distance. Vaati appeared to be staring out into the horizon, frowning to himself, and Dark took the time to clean the worst of the grime off of his sword.
(We… didn't have very long attention spans, in all honestly. At least, not on things that held no interest for us.)
Link, meanwhile, had wandered over to the Sols. He crouched in front of the first one, poking it curiously, then circled around to look at the other side. The moment he stepped into the space between the Sols, though–
"Um." Link held up the Master Sword, squinting at it. "Why is it… glowing? Midna? Is that normal? I'm pretty sure the Sols aren't supposed to do that."
Vaati whipped around. "What the–"
Midna gasped. "Oh! The Sols… Link, the guardian deities of this world are on our side!"
Link tilted his head, still confused. "Huh?"
"It's a sign of their blessing," she explained, floating over. "The sword has been gifted with the power of the Sols, repelling all evil and tainted darkness. In essence, it's become more powerful and will even more greatly damage monsters."
"...Wow." Link ran a finger down the flat of the blade. "It feels kind of warm, actually. Like sunlight in spring."
"Mm, it would. The Sols were created by our sun god, after all," Midna said with a nod. "This is an incredibly auspicious sign." She bared her teeth, lone eye bright and gleaming. "Zant doesn't stand a chance."
