Chapter 11

I would never get over how weird it felt to be ripped into a large amount of small black squares, moved a long distance, then rematerialized in not but a few seconds. The light in this area was a lot less concentrated and I only felt a slight burning now, but I could see strong beams of the suns light peeking through the shadow of the trees in a few areas. Midna helped me to my feet using her large hair hand, I was still unsure of exactly what that was. I motioned to move forward and we went onward very near to the temple where Link had befriended the monkeys. We were very near the temple when suddenly one of the monkeys, it looked like the same one that was caged up with Talo. It had a few strange evil looking puppets following it however. Link ran over as I supported myself on one knee and quickly finished off the puppets. The monkey told him there was a beautiful forest just across the gap. "Do you think you can jump that Chris," Midna asked and I nodded. She showed Link the way to sure footing and I followed closely, wincing slightly as I had to jump through direct sunlight a few times.

Midna looked at me with great concern as we reached the other side but I motioned to move onwards. We crossed another gap, using some bridges that change their facing when the wind blows, and dodging some swinging logs. Link howled for one of the "howl stones" to bring out one of those wolves that gave him training with his sword skills. I sat in the shadows of the tunnel ahead while he disappeared. Midna had jumped off his back before he vanished and now floated over to me. As she approached I leaned my head back and tilted it towards her. "You've changed so much," she said confusing me slightly.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean your eyes used to be a brown colour, like a lot of the humans, but now their green, but your eyes are getting darker. And I mean look at all that armor, new boots, and your helmet," she said reaching out to touch the strange protrusions on my head I could not see.

"So I changed on the outside, I don't feel my personality has changed much on the inside really... do you?" I asked and Midna stopped to think for a second. However our moment to talk ended as Link came back.

"Let's go," Midna said helping me to my feet again. We ran ahead into the woods, the trees here covered much of the sun, and there was another howl stone but this one whistled a tune I felt was so familiar. I hummed along with the tune in my head and realized it was one of Zelda's themes. Unfortunately the tune ended up calling down a strange little gremlin or something, whatever he was he had a horn he used to call down those puppets. We were forced to pursue him through the woods since he knew the way and he was attacking us anyways. I tried to avoid any bright beams of sunlight until we finally trapped the little guy in a small clearing with some ruins. "Wait up here, we'll call you down once we finish him off," Midna said almost forcing me to sit down.

"I- I feel... tired, please hurry" I said to both of them hiding behind a stone wall, hoping the sun would not sneak around and continue burning me. I heard them fighting the thing and wished I could help in some way, but the sun was blocking me from even looking down there. After a minute or two Midna called out to me and I pushed myself to my feet. I stumbled quickly across the area covered in sunlight and stopped right at the edge above the clearing. My eyes suddenly felt heavy and I felt myself falling forwards, after a second I realized falling forwards was into the clearing and I opened my eyes wide to see Midna's giant hand holding me about a foot away from the ground.

"That thing opened another path for us," Midna said jerking her head towards the path.

"All right, put me down and let's go" I said and Midna shook her head.

"Your eyes have grown so dark... I think it's my turn to carry you for a while," she said encircling me with her hand. I had some major objections to this but did not have the energy so I simply relaxed. This was far more a burden on Midna then she had been on me, I mean the armor I wore, considering my increased strength in this world, probably added about 100 pounds in my normal light form. In my shadow form this armor probably doubled or possibly tripled in weight making me weigh anywhere from about 370-470 pounds. Midna weighed at best fifty pounds, probably less. Suddenly Midna put me down and floated over to where I was. Link had to solve some sort of puzzle in order to proceed to the Master Sword. Midna's hand went back behind her and returned to being her strange orange and yellow mix hair.

We watched briefly as Link attempted several times to get the two statues to stand in the correct spots but got confused when they both got moving. He stopped the next time the statues let him reset the puzzle and drew out a pattern in the sand planning his route. "He's getting smarter," I said only to Midna.

"Can he hear you?"

"Nah, I can focus my telepathy onto one person, lucky me." I said pausing briefly. "Oh, Midna... do you remember what you said to me before?"

"Your going to have to be a bit more specific, I do say quite a bit you know,"Midna said smiling at me.

"I meant what you said at Zelda's tower," I said and her face had a look of deep thought for a moment then suddenly turned crimson red, "I'll take that as a yes." She bit her lip in a way that made it look like she had no mouth. "You look cute like that," I said and I don't think she could have turned any redder.

"I think your exhaustion is starting to make you delusional!"

My eyes lit up slightly with happiness, "Midna, the reason I bring up what you said, is because, well... let's be honest I'm in a very similar situation to that which you were in. And just in case, I wanted to tell you... I feel the same way..." Midna looked about as shocked as I felt back at the tower. "Haha, and to think, this all started when we bumped faces in Faron Woods and wow did you ever have an attitude back then!"

"I still don't know if you were trying to mock or compliment me back then either," she let out a small gentle laugh and we looked over to see Link finally solve the puzzle.

"Eh, good job... finally," I said aloud, clapping my claw and the blade together. Midna told me to wait here and they would bring the Master Sword back. I saw them run into the grove and I grew impatient and shakily got to my feet. Seeing how much sun was between me and them made me rethink it but only for a moment, then I ran as fast as my burning legs would carry me across the sun lit grass, through the dimly lit arch and into the slightly foggy clearing where the pedestal that held the Master Sword sat. I stumbled in just in time to see Link swinging around his new sword.

"The sword, accepted you as it's master," Midna said astonished that Link had drawn the blade. Suddenly there were five Links, and five Master Swords, not to mention five Midnas.

"Whoa, I'm seeing fives, that can't be-" I started but my vision flashed black and I stumbled forward turning slightly as I fell ending up landing on my back. The loud clank of my armor hitting the ground sent Midna and Link running towards me. I layed there clutching my chest, I could feel my heart beating frantically now, everything seemed to be in slow motion. Great... I get to die again...I thought unable to even keep my arm off the ground any more. Midna yelled something at Link at this point but my state of mind garbled it into a mess of nonsense sounds that I could not even hope to understand. I looked up to see Link with his sword raised high above me. What the-I started to think but Link plunged the sword down into my chest. To my surprise it stopped before even penetrating half way through the armor and the large dark magic crystal Zant stuck in my chest slowly drew itself out. As it drew out I could feel my armor receding back into the chest plate. When it had all gone I still felt exhausted but the crystal feel beside me and exploded into nothingness.

At the exact moment that happened however I heard a voice loud and clearly in my head, "FOUND YOU!" I got to my feet and looked around unable to see the owner of the voice.

"Come on Chris, let's go," Midna said pointing back in the direction we had come from and jumping back into Link's shadow.

"Yea, go ahead, I can keep up," I said as Link ran off to where the two statues were. As I walked forward I noticed a barrier had formed around Link and Midna. "What the hell," I said running forward.

"Chris stop!" Midna yelled and to my great relief I stopped. Looking down right where I was about to step, there was a dark portal right in the ground. I caught my balance and planted both my feet on the solid ground I was standing on.

"That was close, thanks Midna," I yelled and saw a look of horror in both Link and her eyes. They weren't looking at me, they were looking beyond me. I quickly whirled around to see a shadow beast mid-lunge heading straight for me. I'm too weak, I can't get out of the way, I thought bracing myself for the tackle. It shoved me back and I tried digging in the claws of my boots. I stopped about an inch from the edge of the ground's end. Link and Midna both were trying to break the barrier that surrounded them. The beast put it's head up against my ribs and then reared its head back, lifting me off my grip on te ground and even right off my feet. It had me over it's head, ready to throw me down into the hole. It hurled me downward towards the hole, and I latched onto its right arm with my hand pulling it down with me. All I could hear as I struggled with the creature was Midna yelling at the top of her lungs, I could not make out what it was she was yelling however.

The portal above me and the shadow beast closed and we continued to struggle. It punched me square in the jaw and I spun in mid-air as it moved in to attack again. "Eat spinning death kick ugly!" I yelled using my momentum to hit the beast right on the top of the head, sending it hurdling straight downwards and out the opposite end of the portal. I soon fell out the opposite end as well and was astonished by what I saw. It was a giant room, huge, bigger than any empty room I had ever seen. You could take a large school gym and probably fit at least twenty or more in this single room. I had thought it was empty at first anyways, I took a second look down and realized the floor was at least a few feet lower then it looked, because the entire floor was coated, with shadow beasts. "Oh sh-" I started but was cut off when something hit me hard in the back of the skull. I went flying down, skidding along the floor, shadow beasts moving as I flew by. Near the end my skid I grabbed onto the floor, spun and threw myself to my feet. I could not see what hit me, but I could feel my power returning extremely quickly now. I looked down and my armor had returned. This is the work of Zant then, I thought to myself looking up in time to see at least ten shadow beasts all in mid-lunge.

Time to try something new, I thought clenching my right hand into a fist and charging it with as much fire as I could muster in the short amount of time I had. I then slammed it down hard sending out a short range shock wave and a larger wave of flame all around me. It knocked back all the shadow beasts and none of the ones hit got back up. I realized something however, none of them disappeared either. "Oh crap, this is not good," I thought aloud hoping it would draw Zant out. All I heard however was a demented hiss. The beasts continued attacking, forcing me to jump, slash, impale, duck and shoot without end. My arrows were significantly damaging due to how many beasts were forced to crowd together. There were now thousands of their corpses around me and maybe about thirty left. It was odd but during the short breaks, and whenever I impaled or slashed one I felt small bursts of energy return to me. I wonder, I thought as eight shadow beasts all rushed me head on.

I ran forwards and slid, sticking out my hands and to my slight surprise my claws extended, impaling all of the shadow beasts at once. I felt a huge surge of power run through me and then all the shadow beasts I had impaled collapsed. My eyes glowed brightly now. "Zant you are a fool," I said making sure if he was anywhere even near this room he would have heard me. I killed twenty-one of the remaining shadow beasts, leaving only one. "As I already know, one shadow beast and thousands of corpses leads too..." I said waiting for what I knew was to come next. Right according to my plan the beast roared and all of the corpses began to rise. I jumped towards the middle of the room, kicking away a few shadow beasts as I landed. "Now," I yelled causing my claws to extended impaling hundreds of shadow beasts in every direction. I felt each claw hit a wall and stop, then an enormous blast of energy surged into me. My eyes were glowing brightly enough to illuminate half the room. I ran to one far end of the room, where most of the shadow beasts near the wall had been eliminated. I charged as much energy as I could into my bow, a huge orb now floating over my stiff left arm. I reached out adn the string came to me. I pulled it back and the ball of energy focused into one semi-large arrow.

I released the arrow and it was more like unleashing a river into the room. The blast spread wide and nearly reached the ceiling. I dug in my claws to stop the blast from pushing me backwards. When the light from the blast cleared I looked around and could not see any more corpses. Then the smoke slowly began to dissipate. I extended my one claw and swung it like a whip at the figure I could see walking towards me through the smoke. It vanished and I quickly retracted the claw. Just as it fully retracted however I heard a noise behind me and two blades appeared crossing my neck. "Very impressive, but do you realize what you just did," Zant familiar disgusting voice rang out from behind me.

"What the hell are you talking about you psychopath," I said shoving away both blades and leaping away from the creep. He laughed and put his blades away now.

"Come now can't two Twili speak frankly for a moment," he asked and I shot an arrow at his head. He easily dodged it and laughed.

"I thought you told Midna I was one of the "light dwellers." Now suddenly I'm one of your kind?"

"While it is true, you were one of those light dwelling traitors when I killed Midna," he said causing me to smirk inwardly. He thinks he finished off Midna, idiot,I thought waiting for him to continue. He laughed, "To put it simply, when you attacked me you started to become one of us Twili, but now you are fully one of us. Now however, you are a murderer of mass proportions. For you see, I intended for you to fight these beasts to the death, and I knew you would win. Now I plan to inform you just what an unspeakable act you have committed."

"Cut to the chase, and spit it out already," I said becoming extremely impatient.

Zant laughed again, "Fine, if you wish so badly to feel as though you cannot live with yourself. Each and every shadow beast, at one time, was any given Twili... soldiers... citizens... men... women... even some children..." He paused as a look of horror entered my eyes.

I thought aloud without care if Zant heard me, "I... I-I killed... so many. All of them were... innocent people of the Twili. No... this isn't my fault, I didn't know, how could I? This... this is all your fault!"

"Now now, let's not forget, I'm sure you could have found an easier way to "defeat" these beasts, a more peaceful way. Oh and in case you thought you had tricked me, I know Midna and that little pest of a hero are still alive, but to think, what will Midna say, when she finds out you murdered so many of our people!"

"HER people, your no king. Your nothing but a conniving evil bas- guh," my thought was cut off when Zant somehow managed to punch me in the gut, through my armor, without breaking it. I fell to my knees and everything turned black.

Just going to end this chapter saying, I didn't get as much homework as I thought so I'll probably get further then I thought too.