I've been reading a lot of fanfics lately and ignoring my own stories. -_- Ideas are hard to come by when you're reading a completely unrelated fanfic. Buuuuuut! I found this really awesome cover of my favorite zelda dungeon theme and it's been bugging me to write a chapter about it!
Funny thing is, while I have played Majora's Mask, I've never been gotten past Lakebed temple. Sad, I know. It never crossed my mind to use ice arrows on the octoroks and I feel so stupid for not thinking of that. Despite having never played through the Stone Tower Temple I can't help but absolutely love it, even though it's probably going to piss me off when I finally get to play it.
Thank the french cover of Stone Tower for this chapter because my god, It is freaking EPIC!
"Why are we here again?" Kevin grumbled, pushing back branches and harshly forcing bushes and vines from his path through the thick forest cover. This forest was not unlike the one where the Temple of Time now slumbers and held a mystic aura that Kevin was beginning to associate with the his friend's past existence.
Somehow this forest felt almost dark, the feeling being magnified by the early morning twilight. The darkness was tiny, almost non-existent and slowly fading away. This was the only reason why the Osmosian permitted his team entrance into the ancient woods regardless of what he let the others believe.
He looked back to see Damian frown, shifting his attention to Ben. "An excellent question for once Emo. What the hell are we doing here? This isn't even part of the old Hyrule kingdom. Soooooo please enlighten us dear hero, why we are treading through a god-damned forest at 3 in the morning!" He hissed, red eyes glowing almost demonically in the shadows of the trees. Damian, as Ben found out, was not a morning person. The former shadow did not appreciate being awoken from his peaceful slumber earlier than he had to and hell would be paid for those foolish enough to try.
"T's you're own fault." Ben said, rolling his eyes at his shadow's fiery explosion, "You're the one who demanded I come and tell you the next time I got a 'call.' Or am I not recalling you said to 'freakin inform you before gallivanting off regardless of what time it is.'Hm?"
"Not at 3 in the morning! You couldn't wait a few more hours to explore a forest? It's a forest! Haven't we had enough of these things?! Once you've seen one, you've seen them all!"
"You know as well as I do that's a load of-"
"Guys!" Gwen cut in, moving directly between the two in an effect to cease the fighting. One swift chop to the head certainly helped. "Knock it off!"
"Ow!"
"Dammit woman don't hit me!"
Gwen glared at Damian, who was all to happy to glower back at her while rubbing his forehead where she whacked him.
Kevin could be heard snickering in the background, which the rest's attention to him who they shifted their glares at.
"What?" Kevin asked, a smirk on his face, "Don't mind me here."
Sighing, Gwen turned towards her cousin, "Honestly Ben, Damian does raise a point. Why couldn't this wait until morning?"
Ben raised an eyebrow almost accusingly, as if he couldn't believe the sheer idiocy of the question. It wasn't a look he got to send Gwen's way and he was loving every minute. He snorted, "Cuz it wouldn't be there in the morning." He said it so simply as if they were idiots for not thinking of that.
"Huh?" Kevin said intelligently, glancing at Damian and Gwen to see if they knew what the hell Ben was saying. Apparently not.
"Are we going to see someone?" Gwen asked.
"And who the hell do we know that would only appear at this ungodly hour?" The shadow grumbled, taking on a thoughtful expression. Who indeed?
Ben sighed, "No one Dam. I should hope that nobody is still there."
"Ugh! Then why the hell are we going!"
The hero rolled his eyes at his shadows whiny attitude, "Think about it Dam. What place would only show up around 3 outside Hyrule?"
Kevin and Gwen glanced at each other, wondering if Ben had finally lost with all this talk of places appearing out of nowhere and stuff.
Damian glared at his light before wandering back into his memories trying to sort out the answer to Ben's annoying riddle. It took an infuriating long time before he realized what his other half was speaking of.
Hey, give him a break, he's got like 13 sets of memories spread across three timelines! Geeze, how does that work exactly?
"Oh dear goddesses not that place! Why the hell are we going there of all places!" Damian angrily shrieked (he denies all accounts of this ever happening.).
"And what place is this~" Kevin was grinning evilly, "That Damy is all but crying like a baby over?"
"I am not crying you bastard! And if you tried climbing that...that thing you wouldn't be grinning like an idiot either!"
Gwen watched with a curious gaze as Damian became more and more agitated and...was that a hint of fear hidden in all of that anger? She noticed Ben shudder at the mere mention of this 'thing' and for a brief moment she was worried. What could possible be so bad that Ben, her foolishly courageous and determined cousin would fear?
"Hey I'm not happy about going anywhere near that place again, but this is the only chance I'll get to see if everyone was able to pass on safely, okay? Besides, we're just going Ikana Castle so you don't have to set a foot in that tower alright?" Ben insisted, which seemed to calm Damian knowing he wouldn't have to climb that god-forsaken tower again.
The first time was bad enough who the hell would go again simply for no reason?
"And what's this about a tower Ben?" She asked him, noting that the upper half of Damian's face was shadowed by his bangs as Ben grimaced.
"Oh wow. You've been traveling around and rescuing princesses locked in towers now? Geeze, can this get any more like a fairy tale?" Kevin laughed just imaging the tale.
"Shut up Emo! I would have been glad to do something as cliche as that if it meant I could avoid that hellhole altogether!" A shudder ran up his spin, "Man, I had nightmares for weeks."
"YOU had nightmares? I was the one who did everything!" Ben argued, glaring at his shadow.
"Yeah, you and your damn hero complex."
"Oh really? And what was I supposed to do? Just leave and let everyone die? How? For your information we were stuck there with no way of getting back home if I didn't step up to help!"
Gwen and Kevin sighed, this was becoming far too common. When Ben and Damian started arguing about events long past and they were just left wondering in the foreground unable to fully understand their words.
"Uh hello? People here who don't know what the hell you're talking about. Mind filling us in?" Kevin yelled loudly in hopes of getting the two heroes' attention. Snapping to the older male, the two finally ceased their verbal assault on each other and continued walking, albeit with some distance between each other.
"At the end of my quest to save Hyrule, one of my friends, a fairy named Navi, left with really no explanation as to why she had to leave." Ben began, face falling in sadness, "I was only ten at the time so losing her was a real blow when she had been there with me since the beginning.
Damian sighed as Ben continued with the story, "I looked everywhere for her but had no such luck. I had thought she would return to her home forest, so after a few years of searching Hyrule, I left."
A look of anger crossed Damian's face, "We were ambushed by that little bastard and the freaky mask who were playing a nasty prank on us." Gwen and Kevin shared a look of confusion at the harsh and extremely rude words the shadow threw at a mask of all things. "The little monster thought it'd be funny to inflict a curse on us that transformed us into a deku and left us stranded with no idea how to control our new form." The others had been briefed on what a Deku was earlier by Ben when they had run into one with the kokiri.
Ben gazed upward towards the sky in deep thought, "The place we ended up in...I don't even know how to describe it. It could have been a parallel world or something else entirely." He sighed, "Regardless, we found out that the skull kid who had cursed us was angry at his old friends and was using the dark magic inside the mask he was wearing the to crash the moon into Termina, the place we found ourselves in."
"Whoa whoa whoa! Reincarnations I can take, but you mean to tell me that a mask had the power to pull the moon from it's orbit around the earth to have a full on collision with the earth?!" Gwen nearly screamed, even with aliens an increasingly normal factor in her life, this was getting to be too much.
"Uh yeah?"
If this were an anime, Gwen would have face-planted right there as a response to her cousin and his shadow's blatant answer.
Shacking his head, Ben quickly snapped back into the conversation, "I'll explain it to you later. Anyway, the only way to stop the moon was to free the four gods surrounding Clocktown. The first three weren't so bad...the fourth one on the other hand..." Both he and Damian shuddered, his voice quiet and they had to strain in order to hear his next words, "Stone Tower Temple."
Before either one had a chance to continue, the forest broke off into a wide valley. The ground was still littered with grass, bushes and tiny tree growing here and there. A small river broke apart the greenery where a tall cliff side stood on the opposite end.
Free of obscurities, the group was finally able to see three towers rising above the cliff. Even from their distance, they could see the crumbling fortress just beyond the stone walls of an ancient castle.
For the first time since they set off on this little night-time adventure, Ben smiled, "That's a good sign."
Damian snorted, "You think they'll let me take a few crates of TNT up there?"
The once dark and imposing pillar of evil has overrun with green, cracks filled with vines and large chunks that various trees and other plants have slowly chipped away revealing parts of the vast interior. With the darkness dispelled, the stone towers were finally at rest.
If it weren't for the fact that the Omitrix was still slightly fissing out over the large quantity of magic, Ben could have transformed into Jetray and flown to the castle. To his surprise, it seems like the alien watch is slowly adjusting itself to operate in areas where magic literally seeps from the ground below and that fills the boy with a sense of ease, knowing he'll have his alien forms for backup should anything too tough decide to show itself.
For now, using Gwen's magic to create a platform across the river and past the cliff was just as good. Instructing her to stop in front of a pair of stone doors that, much like the tower, were rotting and falling to pieces. Thankfully, the door now sported a rather large hole for easy access into the palace walls.
The entrance he used his first time around wasn't really that far out of the way but this was a much appreciated short-cut to check in and leave.
"You think the redeads are still there?" Ben questioned his shadow, quietly praying they weren't. Redeads were not pleasant to deal with even with the gibdo mask that he no longer carried in his possession.
"Good god I hope not. What makes you think Iges di or whatever his name is, will still be here?" Damian shot back, still grumpy about his lack of sleep.
"If he's not, then everyone has passed on and we can leave. Simple as that." Ben said, not sparing a look and simply walking through the open the open archway. He stopped and quickly studied the area. Finding nothing of interest, he continued walking forward towards what would have been a rather grand looking door.
"So far so good." He said quietly, mostly to himself. Even with the curse lifted, this castle still held an eerie atmosphere. The deafening silence only broken with the sounds of their footsteps.
Passing through many halls, they finally reached a large, open room. The ceiling and the right wall had collapsed, permitting the light to finally illuminate the darkened halls when the sun rises in just a few hours.
No one was there, nothing accompanied the silence in the early morning.
Damian tsked, "Looks like he isn't here. Dammit Link, I'm gonna-"
"It seems you have returned, child of light."
In a blaze of purple flames there stood a figure, tattered and decayed robes clothed every little. Dull bones showed through, gaining a more decayed appearance since the last time either hero had seen him.
Ben smiled, giving a slight bow, "Yes we have your majesty. I had sensed Ikana's reappearance and came to determine the state of the valley and to see myself wither or not everyone has departed."
Everyone, excluding Damian, stared at Ben, questioning wither this was the same person as the one who was just arguing with himself not two minutes ago. It took them a while to realize this was Link they were seeing and not the boy they were just talking with. He had a strong, confident aura about him, eyes hard with years of hardship and a respectful tone of voice towards the undead king.
The skeletal king gave a slight nod, "I'm afraid not everyone has gone. There are still a few trapped within the walls of the Stone Tower. The tower may no longer be cursed, but the few who are left still have strong ties to this valley and fear the journey to the next life."
"But fear not child, their time is approaching. Soon the Kingdom of Ikana can truly rest. When that day comes, the tower will remain within this realm and all doors will be open."
Ben gave a small, content smile, his eyes closed and cast downward, "That's good."
The undead ruler gave one final glance towards the hero and his companions before disappearing in the same fashion in which he appeared in. "It's be best to return now, the door to this valley remains open for so long before it shuts tight, and that time is approaching. Farewell, Hero of Light."
Was that a good place to stop? IDK, but I'm really tired and I just want to go to sleep. -_-
I left in the basis explanation of Majora's mask's plot because it didn't really feel right to just have that skip some authors due to not have to explain something-I might have done it once, can't remember. I've been listening to three songs the entire time I've been writing this and they had zero play times, two of them are now at 14 plays while the other is 13 plays. That stone tower cover is really awesome! You guys should go listen to it! Just simply put 'Stone Tower French' and it'll be the first video on the list. Voyage au Centre de la Toile- the girl who sings it, is absolutely amazing (and don't worry, there's english subtitles. XD)
As for Navi, I'm basing their relationship from the Manga by Akira Himekawa so she wasn't nearly the annoyance she's known for in the game. XD
Longest chapter for this story! YAY!
If you liked this (Or have a question on how I screwed this up) leave a review, kay?