Chapter 24

As the girl Ganon had acclaimed to be my daughter awoke from her sleep I quickly tossed the hood of my cloak up over my head. "Wh... where am I?" Her hair was long like Minda and Lilith's but the colour never seemed to stay quite the same, when in the darkness it was darker, almost brown, when the light reflected off it just right it looked a brighter almost red like Midna's hair. I hadn't noticed until now but both children were dressed in clearly Twili clothing, and the most odd thing of all, the girl's eyes, were two different colours. Her right eye was a strange dark green and her left was a deep red. Holy crap, she's got Christmas eyes, I thought almost snickering.

"Lana are you all right?" Midna asked the girl and she nodded as Midna grabbed her and held her close. Looking over Lana's shoulder she was staring into my eyes. It was clear she wanted to tell her who I was so I broke eye contact and looked at the ground instead. The boy stirred now and Midna and Lana moved closer to make sure he was in good condition as well. Just as they got close though I heard a low growl come from his general area and loud scrambling. I turned and was met with a blade to my face, the blade itself was actually black in colour and had three jagged "teeth" on one side, with the other being a standard sword edge. "Aidan!" Midna yelled at the boy with a sword to my throat.

"Who are you?" he asked me.

"If you can hit me with that blade I'll tell you." I said chuckling. "And I don't mean tap my foot, I want you to come at me full force boy!"

"Don't call me boy!" Aidan growled lunging in an easily readable manner. I pushed the blade aside with a single finger and ducked down, coming back up to catch Aidan's legs and flip him over me.

"Your not strong enough yet," I said walking over to Lana who did not flinch or even seem to react to me. "Your name... is Lana?" She nodded. "Look me in the eye a minute." she did and a look of familiarity washed over her face. "You are wise beyond your own knowledge... if you figure out who I am, do not tell your brother, for now... you can both call me... sir" I said laughing.

"Got ya!" Aidan yelled his blade stopping an inch from my head.

"Wrong," I said pointing with my head to his hands. He looked and noticed I had grabbed part of the sword and actually stopped his swing. "By the way, you can call me what you wish, sir was a suggestion, keep in mind I won't reply if it's not obvious your addressing me." I said casually pushing Aidan back.

"Wait!" Lana raised her voice louder then I had expected she even could, "How are we safe? I overheard father speaking of a plan to trade mother for us?"

"You can thank him for that." Midna said pointing at me. "He made a copy of me and passed it off for the real deal, luckily... your father, doesn't know all of his powers." She hesitated... her daughter is wise, she'll put two and two together soon enough... I however need to figure out why my brain is getting so loopy, I thought as the others continued discussing what we could do.

"Adonia needs the master sword... and we need to find the princess," I said walking deeper into the woods.

"Wait, how do you know where your going?" Lana asked me.

"And do you know where the master sword is my dear?" I said stopping and gesturing for her to lead the way. No one moved except Midna, who stood up and walked over, shooting me a strange look and continuing on ahead. "Dost the lady need a weapon?" I said jokingly at Midna.

"My magic is plenty enough of a weapon for me... eep," Midna paused then with a small yelp dove into the shadows as a strange noise came from around the corner. Aidan and Lana quickly followed suit and Lilith shortly there after. Adonia was now looking very confused.

"Ah hinga doil, come buy me oil... whozzat!?" an old man stood there holding a lantern carrying several jugs of oil on his back. Wait, is that... "You look like someone I know, knew... used to know... hm the natural oil tastes good and made me healthier but it does funny things with my memory... some say my mind too, but their a bunch of nut balls." Yes, THEIR the nut balls, I thought scratching my head. "I tell you what, if you can show me something beautiful I'll give you a lantern free." I blinked at him, Is this guy for real? I noticed Adonia was walking over.

"What's going on over here?" she said looking around the corner and to my shock the old man screeched dropped his lantern along with 4 bottle of oil and ran off.

"Think he'd care if we took em?" I said chuckling.

"That would be stealing!"

"So?"

"You know," Lilith started finally emerging from the shadows, "Adonia is right, it's not right to steal." Something about her tone while saying this sent a shiver through my body, I looked over and she was making big puppy dog eyes at me.

"I'll have you know I'm one of few men in an elite group of men that immune to puppy dog eyes." I said with an overly serious face. She moved closer, and closer and I could feel sweat building up on my neck. "What you think we should bring it to him? We don't even know where he ran off..." I stopped as Lilith kissed me lightly on the cheek. Midna flew out of the shadows, nearly red with anger. I quickly spoke to try and cool her off, "How about this, we take it with us, I'd like to search a couple places for... some things... if we find the old man we can tell him we could really use the lantern if he doesn't need it?"

"Fine." Lilith seemed upset that I had not done what she wanted. After gathering the lantern and oil we quickly walked through the dark cave that stood between us and the entrance to the temple deep within the forest. The lantern found a use at this point of course. We moved out into another part of the woods now, I remembered this as the location where a deep purple fog once covered the ground, at least it used to, the ground and the trees in the area just seemed dead now. I walked over to one of the tree and knocked on the bark, it felt surprisingly like it was burnt and smelt like it was rotting. All of a sudden there was an ear piercing scream ringing out through the air and when I went to cover my ears I found myself unable to. Just then I noticed the "bark" was moving, but a closer look revealed the bark was not bark, it was the rotting flesh of a re-dead. I struggled hard with my body and finally found myself able to move, just as the zombie was about to bite me I held up my hand and a round bundle of the crystals I had used earlier to copy Midna appeared. They shone brightly in this dank part of the woods. The re-dead seemed extremely put off by the crystals and began to flee. I turned back to see more re-dead approaching Adonia and the group of Twili.

"Damn it!" I yelled firing off a large number of crystals from the cluster on my hand they impacted the ground all around the group and the redead fled. "New plan," I said hopping over to where the others were I held out both hands, firing hundreds of crystals aroudn the woods, each crystal however seemed to drain me quite a lot. After there was easily a safe path to follow I collapsed to the ground, panting for breath, "Quickly, follow... path, crystals... will... explode, if their energy runs out."

"Isn't that kind of a dangerous tool?" Lana asked helping me to stand. I just chuckled as we ran quickly towards the gate blocking our path to the temple. Lana took me off her shoulder and asked Adonia to help me stand. I thanked her as she helped me support myself. Lana struggled with the gate for a minute but it wouldn't move, "It's locked" she said angrily.

"Move!" Aidan ordered his sister and she stepped aside as Aidan swung his sword over and over but it merely bounced off the thick metal of the lock. I let out a sigh as I heard one of the crystals explode and a re-dead screech in pain followed by a small puff, likely the re-dead had gotten itself blown up.

"Move!" I yelled at Aidan and just as he did I stuck out my hand, one of the crystals I had planted nearby suddenly uprooted itself and flew into my hand and I immediately threw it directly into the key hole on the lock and with a large bang the lock shattered. "You've got to use explosive force if you ever hope to break a strong lock like that. Now come on, my energy is returning, which means those crystals will all explode very soon." I said rushing through the gate. We ran past a ruined stall where the strange talking bird used to sell potions and oil, and as I ran out first onto the thick branch bridge leading to the entrance of the temple I heard a loud CRICK under my feet. "Stop!" I halted, planting both my feet firmly on the ground and held both my arms out with my hands facing back. "Even if these wood were in the same condition they had been nearly a century ago I doubt you could trust this branch today, but I'm sure those re-dead have been sucking the life out of these woods for a long while. If we intend to cross this bridge we have to do so carefully and one-by-one. Under normal circumstances I would grant the privilege "ladies first" but I think I'll go first as I'm the heaviest." I said proceeding very slowly testing each step before I took it. Suddenly I heard a puff of smoke up ahead of me and looked up to see a rather peeved looking Ganondorf. "Uh, hey there... no hard feelings about the whole Midna clone, eh?"

"You know... I would say yes, but most people don't enjoy someone exploding in their face!" Ganon yelled angrily. I laughed nervously. "Oh my, are you scared of falling through this old rotting branch?" I shook my head frantically. He walked out onto the branch and I held completely still. "Now that your occupied I think I'll just take Midna and my two prisoners," he cackled moving towards the group waiting at the start of the branch.

"Oh you think so do ya?" I said as he moved about eight feet away from Midna I grew angry and hurled a bolt of lightning at Ganon's back, his whole body jolted as it hit him and hewhirled on his heel. "What? I'm way over here, how could I have done that?" I said holding back a laugh witha huge grin on my face.

"You insignificant worm, do you really think this is a joke!?" he yelled hurling a fireball at my head. I shot out a pulse of electrical energy that casue the fire to disipate in mid-air and the air crackled. with a mighty roar Ganon hurled two more fireballs and I shot out two more disrupting pulses and the air continued to crackle. Ganon began throwing the fireball like cluster bombs but I continued disrupting them. Finally he stopped panting, "Fine, if I can't kill you with magic I'll just have to use brute force."

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," I chuckled. Ganon leapt through the air flying straight towards me. I let out a yawn as he roared then suddenly there was a loud CRACK and everything seemed to freeze. Then as time seemed to slowly resume itself Ganon fell over on the ground and twitched slightly. "I tried to tell him, each of those fireballs I disrupted converted the heat into an electrical charge that stored itself in the air. soon as he crossed the threshold it unleashed the full charge onto him. Ganon struggled to his feet still twitching slightly. "I knew it wouldn't stop you though," I said edging him on. He just sneered at me, lifted his right foot high in the air and with a loud yell smashed it down upon the branch and vanished with a puff of black smoke. I heard the branch crack now. "Run like hell!" I yelled and all of the group at the begining of the branch after taking half a second to perceive what I had said made a mad dash for the entrance, I pushed each of them forward as they passed me, trying to make sure they all made it. Adonia was last in line and as she approached me the branch let out a large snap where Ganon had brought his foot down and Adonia stepped down with one foot much farther down and began to slide towards a large hole in the side of the branch that kept someone from simply walking right off the side. I reached out and grabbed her hand yanking her past and beyond me she quickly proceeded to the other side with Midna and the others. I found myself alone near the middle of the branch which was now shaking me violently and I saw no other option but to run hard and fast and hope he branch held up. Of course my luck didn't hold up and neither did the branch and I now found myself running on air, attempting to propel myself the last couple feet to the solid ground.

I could feel gravity pulling me down and it was clear from the others outstretched hand that I wasn't going to ge close enough so acting quickly I drew the cursed blade from its sheath and held it straight towards the tree above my head and smashed it into the bark as I feel just a few inches out of arms reach below the safety of solid ground. "Ha, cursed sword my ass!" I cheered happily and regretted those words when I felt the sword start to slide out of the bark. "Damn freaking cursed sword!" I now yelled angrily and just as I felt I should have fallen I looked up and saw Midna and Lana holding one hand together and their other hands, palms open were facing me and they were muttering some sort of spell in a language I could not make out a word of. I looked down to see two dark circular platforms had appeared below each of my feet. I yanked the sword the last couple inches out of the tree with a sigh of relief and felt myself float up slightly and heard the strain in Midna and her daughter's voices. I grabbed onto the ledge as soon as it was in arm's reach and Aidan helped me up. As my feet touched the solid ground my eyes widened in shock at what I saw behind the others. They all turned around and now saw it as well. The entrance to the temple was completely blocked, "Nonononono," I repeated the word rapidly as if saying it faster would make the rubble disappear, "This can't be right, all those years ago Link had to go in here and get... something... but it wasn't for himself..."

"It was for me," Midna said out loud, "or did you forget that too?"

"Hey, my mind has been messed with far too much, I'm lucky I remember my own damn name!" I growled angrily.

"Wait, what are you two talking about?" Aidan asked and I grew silent.

"You know what? I think it's time we tell them, don't you?" Midna said.

She turned to her children and opened her mouth to speak but I cut her off, "Midna, can I speak with you for a second?" Frustrated that I had stopped her but compelled to be polite she walked over and gave me a questioning look. "Listen, you know my memory among other parts of my brain are massively scrambled right now," I said in an angry whisper, "Those last two crystals I shattered though, they triggered something in my brain, I saw parts of Link's journey... but not as I had remembered them before I crushed the crystal... there was always something diffrent..."

Midna ran a hand through her hair, clearly lost in thought and after a moment replied with one word, "Fine." With that I closed my eyes and tried to feel something, anything coming from inside the old temple but there was no energy coming from inside, dark or light.

"I can see no point in entering the temple, even if we could move all the rubble." I said turning to look out in the direction Link had gotten the master sword from. "The only thing of importance in this area... would be the Master Sword." I turned around to see everyone staring at me except Aidan who was clearly gawking at Lilith. I cleared my throat loudly to alert him that he had been spotted and Lana giggled at her brother's not unusual lack of self-control. "The issue here is even from this short a range I doubt we could jump the distance, the only option I can see is Midna and Lana attempting to lift us over... but it looked like quite a strain lifting just me so if we can only lift one person it has to be Adonia."

"Why me!?" she said startled.

"You ARE the hero. You should be in all ways capable of obtaining the master sword." I said making sure to look her straight in the eye.

"Do you really think... I'm... the hero?" she asked sounding scared.

She's right something seems off, she turned into a wolf in the Twilight so I just assumed... maybe I'm not the only one who assumed. "Let me see your hands," I said and she held out her hands palms up. I held my forearms out, only bending my arm at the elbow with my hands palms up as well, with a flustered look on my face I flipped my hands over so the palms were facing down and gave Adonia a look that told her to mimic my action and when she did I carefully inspected the backs of her hands for the symbol of the triforce. "What in the..." I said taken completely aback by what I was seeing. "That can't be right."

"What?" Midna, Lilith and Lana all asked in unison.

Ha, you thought I was gonna go further didn't you? But I didn't I tricked you! What, I didn't trick you? Awe :( well now I guess I just won't tell you what happens, and it was gonna get so crazy too :P Yea, you guys have driven me mad with this whole no review deal so I am now speaking with nobody... like what did I piss somebody off? Am I TOO good and u've got all got nothing to say, or is it just not catching enough attention so I get no critique? :S well no biggie, I'll try and update sooner this time around.