Chapter 6: A kingdom in need

Samus Aran's POV

The night passed with little incident. Once the altered zero suit was on the princess I had moved her to a holding cell toward the cargo hull of my ship. The cell was bare. It was five sides of the strongest metals. The sixth side was near indestructible lightly tinted glass. As soon as I had put her in the cell she immediately stood in the center of the room, sat down, and stared at me. Her eyes glared, steady, but not in a challenging way. It was if she was saying 'You may have beat me this time, but I assure you it won't happen again...'. As I thought of this, it came to my mind that, in this same situation, I probably would have thought the same. Through this thought, I felt a little glimmer of respect for the captive alien princess. I walked away from the cell after a while. There was no point in standing there all night. As I returned to my quarters for rest I almost forgot the reason why I was here.

"Ridley..." I said aloud and narrowed my eyes. Would sleep elude me tonight? Just as Ridley had for so long? However I was unable to focus on these thoughts very long, for the princess kept coming back into my mind. She challenged me, as no woman ever had done before. For this reason I found her important, but in what way, I do not know.

As morning came I found myself greeted by the sight of the princess in the process of escaping her cell. However, she hadn't gotten far. She had managed to remove the side paneling on one of the walls and was messing with the wires. She was quite a tangled mess. Still, for an alien of such a primitive seeming race, she was quite intelligent. Again, I was being foolish and underestimating her. She held the strange Tri-force power and had disabled my cannon. A feat I wouldn't have expected possible for most people.

"What are you doing princess?" I asked as she continued sorting through the wires. I glanced at her hand and noticed it was glowing. A small triangle was illuminated on it and her eyes had an almost blank expression on them. As soon as I had called out to her the triangle began to fade and her eyes snapped on to me.

"You have a very strange fortress dark knig- I mean... Samus." She said and began to put the paneling back together. It took her less than a minute to accomplish this, which made me raise my eyebrows. Even with tools and years of experience working on ships, I don't believe anyone could have reassembled it as fast as she.

"You are rather curious..." I said looking at her calmly. She met me with a level gaze. It was as if the fight that occurred yesterday, never happened.

"Curiosity is my nature." She said and walked towards me, "May I speak plainly Samus Aran?" She asked becoming serious.

"Yes," I said slowly.

"I find all of this fighting unnecessary and must do my duties as princess of Hyrule." She took a breath, "The evil god, which you claim to know, is terrorizing my kingdom as we speak. I must find a way to destroy it before any more harm comes to my people."

"We share a common goal then." I said watching her, "However you and your people have no way of destroying Ridley and would only get in my way."

"Get in your way?" She snarled, her eyes flashing, "You have already gotten in my way. If you hadn't come along and terrorized my people and captured me I'm sure my people and I could have found a way to defeat that evil god by now!" I slammed my fist against the glass separating us.

"You'd be dead! I'm still surprised you aren't dead now! Only I can kill Ridley. You and your people would have no chance." I said raising my voice, "And let's face facts, princess, you can't even beat me." I began to pace back and forth and put my hand to my chin in mock thought, "Now let's think shall we? I mean, you appear to be somewhat clever, maybe you can understand my point. I beat you, quite frankly, without trying. Now see, I held back, took pity and mercy on you during our fight. Ridley wouldn't give you the same opportunity. When I've fought him I didn't hold back at all. I had to give it everything I had. Are you with me so far?"

"Yes," She said , "You are using childish reasoning. You're trying to make sense of a simplified over generalization. You think, that because you bested me in an unfair duel that you are more powerful."

"Excuse m-" I started but she interrupted and continued.

"Your reasoning, if you could even call it that, is that because I can't beat you I can't beat the god Ridley. It seems you have a silly equation going on in that head of your's. You fight Ridley, you win, I fight you, I lose, therefore I fight Ridley I lose. That is where you were going with this weren't you?" She said and raised her eyebrows and looked at me in such a way as if she were addressing a child.

"Well, I guess you were smart enough to figure that out, however that doesn't change my point-"

"I held back in that duel we had as well. You have yet to see the full power of the Triforce. I could have easily destroyed you, had my life depended on it."

"And how are you so sure it didn't?" I questioned, "I could have killed you. Such terrible judgment would get you killed in a fight against Ridley within a heartbeat. Not to mention your primitive race."

Princess Zelda's POV

"I've had enough of your talk. I demand you release me," I said and turned my back on her. I looked at the Triforce glowing on my hand, "Then we will see who can destroy Ridley."

"I will and you won't be involved. You're more of a burden if you're free. You'd probably-" She started again. Was she really incapable of thinking more open minded? I whirled around and raised my right palm. The Triforce burned hot on the back of my hand. As I began to summon the energy needed to break from my imprisonment I noticed the strange suit drain it away. However, I could summon faster than it could drain. Soon I had enough energy and sent a powerful spell at the glass barrier. When the magic struck the glass glowed brightly but then faded. It appeared completely intact. The dark knight Samus frowned and then grinned.

"Seems your power isn't that strong. Yet another reason why you should-," I cut off her words again as I punched the weakened glass. It shattered into dust. As my fist broke through the glass it collided with the knight's smug face. She hit the ground and began to spit out blood. I felt the Triforce begin to leave my body. Breaking through the barrier was no easy task.

"I demand you heed my words." I said walked over the her body lying on the floor. She looked up at me with such intensity. Suddenly the fortress shook violently. Samus leapt to her feet and ran out of the room. I followed suit. The room we ran into was glowing red and strange sounds were shrieking from the walls.

"Damn!" She cursed as she looked at one of the magic mirrors in her fortress. She ran around and began pushing buttons and turning knobs. I stood out of the way and considered escape, however as the ground shook once more the idea left mind. The dark god was visible through one of the windows. His giant claws scraped at it and he lowered his head to look through. Again, I saw that nasty penetrating yellow eye.

"Samus Aran!" It hissed and shook the fortress. I raised my glowing palm to face the beast's eye but Samus grabbed my arm and forced it down.

"Don't go breaking anything else in my ship!" She said angrily, "I'll take care of this." She ran to a seat facing the window and began pressing even more buttons before jamming a lever forward. I nearly fell backward. Were we moving? Teleporting perhaps? Clearly some sort of magic was being enacted. I walked to the window and peered out. Ridley was gone and we appeared to be flying. The knight was using some powerful kind of magic to make a small castle move. All of a sudden we stopped moving and Samus rand out of the room again. The fortress had stopped moving and was somehow floating in midair without the slightest breeze to rock it. After a moment I followed her. She was climbing up a ladder and forced open a door in the ceiling. I hurried after her but stopped at the top of the ladder and stuck my head out. We were outside, and by the looks of it, in a sea of clouds. She held an orange and green glowing ball in her hand.

"Come and get me Ridley you son of a b-" She growled as the strange orange ball unfolded and began to cover her body in the shape of armor. She put a hand to the newly formed cannon around her arm and took aim at a rather large cloud. Sure enough, the beast erupted from the cloud she was aiming at and dived towards us. She fired several shots and he dove back into the clouds. All was quiet. The fortress lurched to one side as the beast sprung from the clouds surrounding the northern side of the fortress. Samus turned around and fired again. But again the beast dodged and hid in the clouds. I could sense the frustration coming from her. I pulled myself out of the fortress and onto the roof beside her.

"What are you doing? Get back inside!" She barked. I sensed something and crouched low. The beast struck again. She prepared to fire as he prepared to hide once more. He wouldn't get to this time. This would be the last time he hid in the clouds, I was sure of it. As she fired at him again, I studied his flight path. He would dive right-

"There!" I shouted and fired a spell at him. It stuck him dead on and he fell straight through the clouds with a deafening screech.

"You hit him..." Samus said surprised as she took off her helmet.

"You seem surprised." I frowned and collapsed. She instantly knelt by my side and held me. She used one arm to keep my head supported while her free hand rested lightly on mine. Using the Triforce had taken it's toll. All the energy required to do what I'd done alone would have been taxing enough, but I had summoned nearly twice as much because of the accursed suit, "You should have learned by now to quit underestimating me."

"Yeah, I keep forgetting," She said and picked me up. Once we were back inside my consciousness was beginning to fade. However I was determined not to show any weakness to my captor. I sat down and closed my eyes. When I opened them again I was in a different room. A door was open and a forest lay just outside. I wandered cautiously out the door and stepped lightly onto the cool glass. Moonlight illuminated the forest before me. Could I really escape this easily? Probably not. But what if-

"You're awake I see." Said a familiar voice. I turned around to see Samus standing by a tree with one hand to it. I turned my attention to the night sky and at the millions of stars that filled it. "Beautiful isn't it?" She said as she walked up to me.

"Quite." I said and glanced at her. Her face was truly beautiful, fierce for sure, but beautiful. Every detail of her past seemed etched upon it. She had faced difficult times, no doubt, for lines were beginning to form under her eyes. It seemed only seriousness lay behind her eyes now. Not the faintest glimmer of childish joy sparkled in those cold blue eyes. They had not always been cold I suspected, but changed through the course of battles, horrors and wars. I saw the same empty frigidness in the eyes of my soldiers when they returned from war. They were broken. A part of their human nature ripped out of them and replaced with an unfeeling machine. Her facial expressions were completely controlled. It was as If I was looking at her cold metal helmet rather than a woman's face. I continued to examine each feature of her face until finally I reached the strange rounded ears. Them, I could not understand. Perhaps they were cropped? Forced into being rounded, though they seemed quite natural.

"Where you come from, do most people have rounded ears like yours?" I asked as I returned my attention to the stars.

"The humans all do, yes, but I don't hang around them often enough to call them most people. I was partially raised and trained by another race, not my own."

"You were raised by another race? Is that traditional?"

"Tragic is more like it." She walked passed me, "My colony, my family, were slaughtered. I was the only survivor. The others... They took pity on me. They trained me and gave me all the tools I needed to hunt down the murderer of my people. That's why I must be the one to kill Ridley."