Well, this is it! Kirby's Insane Halloween is surely drawing to a close with the final numbered chapter. Will the conflict be resolved, or will Marth's body become the permanent host of Niles Worthington? Only one more update to go after this!
Chapter 6: Redemption for the Father
The door swung open and everyone poured out into a clumsy heap. Zelda was the first to get back onto her feet.
"We can't let him get away! There's no telling what he'll do to Yoshi!" The princess led the charge after Niles, and prepared to summon Din's Fire out of habit. She stopped when she realized that she did not want to harm Marth's body, and even if she had decided to go through with it, the explosive properties of the spell would put Yoshi in danger too.
Niles cast a glance back at his pursuers beyond his flapping cape and showed no surprise. He adjusted his altitude a bit and soared over a mass of redead that infested the hallway.
"I'll handle this!" Samus declared. She picked up the speed and her armor took on a neon blue glow; the Speed Booster had been activated. A trail of afterimages followed her as she plowed through the horde. Redead exploded into fiery ash upon touch, and Zelda cleared whatever was left over when she leapt forward, engulfed in the green twister of Farore's Wind.
Niles glanced back once more, realizing that he had lost them. He touched down on the ground once again, dragging Yoshi behind him as he opened the door to a bedroom and tossed him inside.
Yoshi was still stunned from the sudden flight, but as he recovered, he realized that the room was covered from the floor to the ceiling in red glyphs. He had little experience with magic, so he didn't recognize any of them.
"I may not be able to use this man's sword, but," Niles began, striding across the room to a fireplace, "there are alternatives here." He brandished an ashen fire poker and Yoshi's eyes widened in horror.
"Tell me, are you really my wife, or was this just a misguided attempt to lure me out?" He took slow, agonizing steps forward while sweeping the poker from side to side. Yoshi tried to crawl away, but the task was nearly impossible since he was still wearing Alana's dress.
"Please, Niles! We can repair our marriage!"
"Shut your damn mouth!" Niles snapped. "If there's one thing I hate more than Alana, it's people that mock my situation!"
"That's not what I was doing!" Yoshi pleaded.
"It's a little late for that!" He raised the fire poker, but an orange blast sent it spinning out of his hand.
He only glared at Samus for a moment before he approached her at inhuman speeds and, with incredible strength, threw her to the ground.
"PIRATE...PAWWWNCH!" Captain Falcon slid forward, his fist engulfed in flames. Niles ducked low to the ground and grabbed Falcon's free arm, tossing him over his shoulder.
With no time to react, Link rammed him from behind with the Hylian Shield and followed it up by hurling his boomerang. Niles swatted it aside, but it was enough of a distraction for Samus to unleash the Ice Beam on his legs. Ice quickly encapsulated his boots, freezing his feet to the floor.
More people poured into the room, and he reacted by creating a gust of wind in hopes of pushing them back out. Zelda countered by summoning an invisible, magical wall that canceled out the wind burst.
"It's over, Niles," the princess proclaimed, her gloved hand still fizzling with magical power.
"Give Marth back his body!" Kirby demanded with an angry leap.
"So...annoying," Niles muttered through gritted teeth. "I gave you the chance to live earlier. Clearly that was a mistake on my part!"
"You should be thanking us! We're only here to help," said Young Link, and his older counterpart nodded.
"Besides, it's not like we came here to get caught up in this mess," Claude noted. "But two important people asked us to help you."
The two Worthington children entered through the wall, hand in hand, and cast solemn looks upon their father.
"My children are DEAD!" screamed Niles, tugging at his frozen restraints.
"So are you!" Kirby retorted, suddenly pointing at the man. "You have been for the past fifty years!"
"But they weren't subjected to this cursed existence. My children were innocent, they passed on after their deaths...only myself and that evil wench reside here!"
"You're wrong," Marth stated, entering the room and standing behind the Worthington children for support. "Your children have stayed here all of these years in an attempt to save your soul."
Niles narrowed his eyes, but Marth did not falter upon seeing the glare from his own face. "You!" he hissed at the prince. "This is an illusion! You did this as revenge for me taking over your body!"
"That's not true!" Julia protested. "We're right here! We're real! Why won't you pay attention to us, daddy?"
"Don't you dare call me that! You don't have the right!"
Tears burned Julia's eyes and Dale tried to console her. Marth stepped forward, closed his eyes and held a hand to where his heart would have been. Ever since he had been ejected from his own body, he felt a perplexing inner peace. While he was never one to be overwhelmed with inner turmoil, this was a more absolute peace than he had known. He wanted to pass it on to Niles, and so he spoke as he felt.
"I must ask you a question, Niles," Marth said. When the man didn't protest, he took it as consent. "You are in my body. Do you not have access to my memories?"
"...Yes, I do."
"Then you know that I have also experienced loss. Those memories do not lie."
"And that is why it's infuriating that you don't see my side! You got vengeance for your father! Why won't you allow me to have mine!?"
"My quest was righteous," Marth corrected him sternly. "In no way did I harm innocents! If you activate this spell, not only will you destroy your wife, but your children and myself as well! If you go through with this, you will be submitting to the rage within and hurting others in the crossfire. If there is truly a good man beneath that wrath, the consequences could destroy you!
"I admit that I was angry beyond words when my father was murdered, but I did not allow my emotions to consume me, and I refused to allow my personal tragedy hurt those that did not deserve it!"
"You're so high on your own concept of justice," Niles spat, his fury overtaking the usually soft features of the prince's face. "Where is the justice here!? What do you intend to do about my family's murder!? Who is going to give Alana what she deserves? Will it be you? I don't think so!"
"She was similarly betrayed and murdered," Samus answered. "I would say that she already paid for her crimes with her life."
Niles had not been deterred in the least. "And what about Raymour? His role in this was never exposed! If I keep this body, I can leave these halls and finally give him the punishment he truly deserves!"
"It's been fifty years," Claude said. "If the man ain't dead now, he will be soon enough."
"But my reputation! People believe that I was the one responsible for the murders!"
"When we leave here, I'll spread the word throughout Hyrule," Zelda tried to assure him. "The people will learn what really happened in the Worthington Manor and who was responsible for it all. My words have a lot of power, so this is something I can guarantee. I promise you this."
Niles denied all attempts to win him over. "Words mean nothing to me! Only actions! My wife...she said she loved my family and me. We saw how much truth was behind those words!"
"Perhaps you are right," Marth agreed, and all eyes fell upon him. "It seems that no words can help you with your ordeal. I will have to take this a step further."
The spirit of Marth leapt forward and entered the body that once belonged to him. Convulsions soon followed, representing the inner struggle of two souls for control of the single body.
Zelda gasped and ran forward to help. Marth lurched forward and screamed, grabbing at his chest plate. It sounded so terrible, there had to be something she could do to ease his suffering!
"Let Marth handle this!" Kirby demanded, blocking her way. "I don't think there's anything we can do for him in this state! Just let him do this!"
Marth's suffering came to an abrupt end when he stood rigid. The conflict was over, and this was made apparent when one of the warring spirits willingly stepped out of the body. The bespectacled, dark haired man stood before them in a black suit. He resembled the man in the picture back in the foyer. This was no doubt the soul of Niles Worthington, and he appeared a little younger than any of them would have imagined. Whether he chose this appearance or this was what he looked like at the time of his murder was anyone's guess.
Niles knelt down, tears already streaming down his face. "Julia. Dale. Come here." The children obliged, running into an embrace they longed for, for half a century.
Niles Worthington openly sobbed. These were not the tears of a defeated man, but of a man granted his greatest salvation.
"Is it over?" Captain Falcon asked.
Marth nodded slowly. "When I was...ejected from my own body, the first beings I met were these two children. They explained my situation to me, and then told me of their own plight before eventually helping me reunite with you all.
"When Niles said that our words were not helping him, I took the next logical step. While attempting to reclaim my body, we shared memories. He experienced my new memories, and relived that moment where I first met his children. For him, it was like seeing them for the first time since their murders, as if they had never died. He could deny words, but he could not deny a firsthand experience. My memories were not fabricated."
The prince ended his explanation there as Zelda hugged him. Despite appearing all right, he still felt the aftereffects of the war for his body, but he did not want to alarm the princess and so he remained silent. He eventually broke it off when he felt the piercing glare of Link. This was a different kind of conflict he didn't feel like exploring at the moment.
Claude helped Yoshi get back to his feet. "You okay?"
"He got my dress dirty!" Yoshi complained, wiping dust and dirt away from the dress.
"Your dress...?"
"You know what I mean!"
"I really don't," Claude said, backing away with a disturbed look.
"I'm sorry," Niles apologized weakly, holding his children tightly as he gazed at Marth. "All of you. I think I'm ready to accept the terms of reality. I...don't know what will become of Alana, but that doesn't really matter. What matters is that I'm back with my family again." He stood up, holding the hands of his kin.
"Can we go now, dad?" Dale asked impulsively.
"Don't you want to see your new friends off?"
"Okay..."
"There's nothing keeping you here anymore," Niles informed everyone. "You're free to go. Please, follow me."
Everyone obliged as the reunited Worthington family led them out of the room; no one had any intention of staying in the manor any longer than they needed to. The tense atmosphere that engulfed the halls and lonely rooms had vanished, as did the redead, but it was still a large, empty mansion occupied by the souls of the deceased. Dimly lit, dead silent, and a little chilly. There were much more comfortable places to be than here.
"I'm afraid that this is where we part ways," Niles began as they entered the foyer once again. "I can tell from our brief encounters that you are special people. Each one of you are good...in your own way," he added, eying Yoshi apprehensively.
"It's a shame that I'm not alive so that we could become properly acquainted. The burden you've lifted from my shoulders...what you've done for me, I'm not sure I could ever be able to repay you for in any way."
"All you have to do is make your children happy and pass on with them," Samus replied. "That's the reason behind it all. That's repayment." She felt awkward. She wanted to do more to send the family off: a hug, maybe even a handshake, but they were ghosts after all; the gesture would have been pointless, she felt.
Niles nodded. "This house, it's been this way because of my unresolved feelings over my death. It's been preserved in this state ever since. When we leave, this most likely won't be the case anymore, so I suggest that you also leave quickly."
Captain Falcon found himself more interested than he had been before. "When you say that, do you mean that it's going to turn into a broken down house like it should be, or is it going to disappear into thin air?"
Yoshi prodded him sharply in the side. "You wanna stick around to find out?"
"No!" Falcon shook his head frantically.
"Dad, look!" Dale shouted, pointing at an adjacent wall. There was nothing of interest there beyond a couch, but the light reflected in the boy's eyes told a different tale.
Niles looked on in wonder, his jaw agape. "All of these years I've lurked these halls, and never could I see what was right before my eyes."
The Smashers traded a couple of nervous glances, but the family took a few steps towards what many often referred to as "the light."
"Come on," Niles whispered to his children. "I'm sure your mother is waiting for us there."
Julia looked back with a forlorn expression before breaking contact with her father. She ran over to Young Link, an experience he found surreal as her footsteps made no sound, her movement carried no weight and she was slightly transparent. This only heightened his surprised when she leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek.
"Thank you," she told him, smiling. He absently rubbed the side of his face as he watched her run back to her father and brother; despite her being a ghost, he clearly and surely felt her lips pressed on his face for just a brief moment. And that moment was all it took to turn him completely red.
Julia locked hands with her father again and the trio walked towards the wall. They never reached it, for their bodies had dispersed into tiny light fragments, as if they were composed of a hundred fireflies that all took flight at once.
The onlookers watched the light show in silence, each contemplating the outcome of the night's events. What started as a fun romp through Hyrule's Poe Festival ended in the resolution of a fifty-year conflict and the reunion of a wronged family. There wasn't much more to say on the subject. Well, unless you were Yoshi.
"Aww, your only girlfriend and now she's gone!" he teased the youngest Link.
"At least my girlfriend wasn't ax crazy!" Young Link retorted, unfazed by Yoshi's taunting.
"Shyla isn't my girlfriend!" Yoshi growled.
Young Link smirked. "How did you know I was talking about her?"
"Don't try to twist this in my face! Who else could you have been talking about?"
Young Link pointed at him accusingly. "At least I'm not wearing a dress!"
"You're right. You're wearing something more like a skirt."
The spat brought liveliness to everyone that had been missing since they entered the old manor. What would usually be considered annoying antics was much welcome after what everyone had been through. The moment was cut short with a freakish change in temperature. A chill took the air in an instant, and a familiar woman appeared smack in the middle of their ranks.
"I guess I should thank you," came her dull, bored voice.
Zelda narrowed her eyes. "No need. We didn't do this for you."
Alana ignored the princess's tone for the most part. "Either way, I might be gone right now if you hadn't stopped Niles."
"Lady, what do you want from us?" Claude asked. "You know this whole thing was your fault."
"So what, Niles told you everything? Let me guess, this is the part where each one of you lecture me. 'Oh, how could you do that! He's you're husband! You're supposed to love your family!' Please, I was surrounded by you preachy types when I was alive. Don't waste my time!"
Link gave the front door a hard pull and nearly lost his balance due to how easily it opened. He made an ushering gesture as his friends filed out, one by one.
Alana's expression changed rapidly. "Wait, where are you going?"
"We're taking your advice," Kirby said. "We're not wasting your time. Or ours. We're leaving."
"You're just going to walk out and leave me in here all alone!?"
"What did you expect? Our job here is done. You can't hurt the Worthingtons any further," Samus stated, taking leave without giving the ghost another glance.
"You're not getting this back!" Yoshi announced, hiking up the dress and strutting past Alana.
A vacant stare occupied Alana's pale face. The thought of being alone had never occurred to her. She had been hunted down by the spirit of her husband since her own demise, and maybe even secretly enjoyed the chase. But with no one to interact with, she would be left to ponder and accept the fate she carved for herself. That realization racked her soul with more fear than she had ever felt during her time alive.
"What will happen to me?" she whispered.
"Well, only you will find that out," Zelda replied. She was the last to leave and slowly began closing the door behind her. She saw no reaction from Alana even as her view was reduced to a crack. When the door finally shut with an audible 'clunk,' it echoed throughout the corridors of the Worthington home, and for a time it was the only sound heard in those halls. Until...
"What will happen to me?" Alana repeated mournfully.
The fog outdoors choked the lawn of the manor. Too dense to see through, the Smashers had no choice but to stick closely together, following the path by only what little they could see before their feet. That, and nobody wanted to venture too far out just in case Resident Evil-reject Petri was still hanging around and in the mood for chewing limbs off.
Just as they left the grounds, most of the fog was cut off like an invisible wall keeping it restrained from pouring too far out into the world. In fact, this area was clearer than they remembered when they first came here.
"Was it scary?" Iris asked, nearly startling the whole group. The foxes were still huddled on the bench.
"More than you can imagine," Marth replied. "We are sorry for the delay, but we did run into some...unforeseen circumstances inside of the house."
"It wasn't that long," Fox said, holding Iris tight. "Barely an hour. I wouldn't complain if you stayed in there longer."
"Huh? What are you talking about?" Captain Falcon scratched the side of his helmet with his fake pincers in bafflement. "We were in there for hours!"
Fox rolled his eyes. "I see all that candy skipped your teeth and went straight to rotting your brain. Or what little there was to rot, at least."
Captain Falcon frowned but didn't say anything. He was use to the insults.
"Time flows differently in there," Samus deduced. "That's interesting..."
Young Link's face lit up. "If that time discrepancy phenomenon is true, that means we have more time to enjoy the festival!" Everyone knew that by 'enjoy the festival,' it most likely meant him wreaking as much havoc as he could.
Iris secured James in the stroller. It was time to find their way back to the festivities. "Time discrepancy? Just what exactly happened in there?" the fox inquired.
"Long story," Claude told her. It didn't discourage her, not that he wanted it to.
"Not a problem for me. I don't like being left out of the loop!"
Even in the cover of night and fog, Fox could make out the dress on Yoshi. "Do I even want to know?"
Yoshi was quick to defend himself. "They made me wear this!"
"No one is making you keep it on," Samus swiftly pointed out.
"I don't like stripping down in front of other people."
Claude gave him a look that was a cross between skepticism and outrage. "You don't even wear clothes!"
"I'm guessing the dress is part of the story?" Iris asked as they started the trek down the two-way path. "I'm really hoping it is."
"It was a plan to lure out Marth," Zelda said, the moment when she and Samus ambushed Yoshi with the dress still vivid. She stifled a laugh as she continued, "well, not Marth, but the angry soul that stole his body."
Fox raised his brows at the outlandish premise. "Wait, start from the beginning. Who stole what now?"
"Oh," Zelda murmured, feeling a bit silly when she realized how that must have sounded to someone that wasn't there. "When we separated from you, we were locked inside of the mansion..."
"After we were chased inside by the House Pet from Hell," Samus added on.
"We split up and many peculiar things happened in there," Zelda said. Seeing the look on Iris's face, she knew that the vixen wanted all the details she could get. The princess smiled; why not? It was a tale worth telling.
Kirby zoned out as their recent escapades were recited. He glanced back up the path where the Worthington manor stood. The blanket of fog made it impossible to see the house. A sudden chill made him wonder if it was even still there, but a new warmth replaced that thought with one of the Worthingtons and their newfound eternal happiness.
He smiled and picked up his pace to keep up with his friends.
The deed was done.
Stop right there! This may be the last numbered chapter, but the next and final update, the epilogue, will bring the story to its conclusion. In it, the Smashers return to the Poe Festival and attempt to pick up where they left off while enjoying the festivities, but there's still one final piece of the Worthington puzzle that Zelda finds herself strangely drawn to, and she will discover a truth that will bring the story full circle.
Not only will there be some hints in the epilogue, but I will also take some time to detail the upcoming sequel.