Episode 2: The Bridging of Worlds Part 2
IT LIIIIIIVES!!!! I am so so sorry I kept you guys waiting for so long, but since it's been a whole year and the song I commissioned is still not done, I decided I was done waiting, and so we have our new chapter, finally! Anyways, when you get to the part with the song, just imagine the words going alongside the lyric-less song.
On a last note, to ensure you get the maximum amount of enjoyment and anticipation out of this, I will upload one chapter each week until we are up-to-date.
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Episode Two: The Bridging of Worlds Part 2 – A Not-So-Warm Reception
No one spoke for several tense minutes. Daphnes’s jaw was hanging open in utter shock, while Zelda went rigid in her seat, her eyes wide. Slowly, carefully, Impa’s hand drifted closer towards her sheathed dagger. Vaati knew things were going to get worse no matter what happened, so he allowed himself one moment to amuse himself by smirking as he said to the king, “What? Did you really think I was that gigantic eyeball all the time?”
This managed to snap Daphnes out of his surprise, and the aging King of Hyrule sprang from his seat and pointed a finger at the Wind Mage. “Guards! Seize that man at once! Zelda, stun him before he can attack!”
Twilight and her friends gasped at this. Maulgrim and Nigellas were about to leap to Vaati’s defense, but Celestia held them back with a hoof. “That will only worsen matters. Let us deal with this.”
Daphnes turned to see that Zelda was still gawking at Vaati. “Zelda! For Din’s sake!”
Zelda’s eyes darted between her father and the sorcerer as the castle guards began to pour into the throne room, spears brandished. Inwardly, Vaati contemplated whether or not he should defend himself. He of course had no doubts he could easily deal with the guards. The two Sheikah might be a little more of a problem, and Zelda, with her Triforce of Wisdom, would prove to be the biggest concern. But Celestia had insisted he come here for the sake of improving his image, and of course, the predictable happened. He turned towards his friends, giving them his best “I Told You So” look. Goddesses, Celestia, you’re such an idiot.
And then suddenly his world went white as white-hot agony ripped through his being, involuntarily sending him to his knees. He vaguely heard shouting, but they were drowned out by his own screams. Within an instant, the pain became too much, and the Wind Mage blacked out, collapsing in a heap as Zelda lowered her bow.
“Vaati! VAATI!” Luna and all of the Mane Six cried, but before they could rush to his side, the castle guards forced themselves between the Equestrians and the sorcerer, crossing their spears to block the way. Luna glared daggers at the stern-faced Hylian soldiers. “You hath ten seconds to stand aside before I make thee move,” she growled, slipping into her old dialect in her fury.
“Luna, stand down!” Celestia hissed, stepping forward and unfurling a wing to gently push her younger sister back.
“I don’t know what reason you had for coming here,” Daphnes began, reminding them all of his presence, “but you have all done the Kingdom of Hyrule a great service by delivering the most wanted man in Hyrule to our doorstep.”
The king then turned towards Impa. “Impa, go to Ordon Village. Tell Link I need him and the Master Sword tomorrow morning. We may need him if we are to execute the infamous Sorcerer of Winds.”
The Mane Six and Luna collectively gasped in horror. But Celestia, ever the diplomat, took another step forward, flaring out both her wings to make sure everyone’s attention was centered fully on her. “King of Hyrule, you have made a mistake. Vaati is no longer the villain you once knew. When he disappeared from Hyrule, you doubtlessly thought him to be dead. But it is not so; through unknown circumstances, he came to our realm, Equestria. There, he turned away from his former life of villainy to live out the rest of his days in peace amongst my people. He has defended us from multiple threats, and he…”
“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard!” Daphnes abruptly shouted over her. He turned towards Zelda again. “Zelda, it’s clear the Wind Mage cast some kind of spell over these poor souls to make them subservient. Now’s the time to lift the veil of his lies from their sight.”
Understanding what her father meant, Zelda held up a gloved hand, and a wave of cleansing light poured forth from her being. It washed over everyone in the room, and everyone was temporarily blinded by the magnificent display of holy magic. Eventually the light faded, and Zelda lowered her hand as everyone shook their heads to clear their vision. The princess immediately noted with surprise that the Wizzrobe and Darknut were unaffected by her spell, which normally would have banished those tainted by darkness. Something strange was going on here.
The only one who appeared to be unfazed by the bright light was, unsurprisingly, Princess Celestia, who affixed the King of Hyrule with a steely gaze. “Your Majesty, I can assure you that none of us are under any spell of coercion,” she proclaimed. “I stand by what I said before; Vaati is a changed man, and is no longer a threat to your kingdom or its people.”
Daphnes was shocked by this. “Impossible…that spell should have worked! Vaati’s magic can’t be so powerful that it can withstand the Triforce of Wisdom, can it?!”
Zelda said nothing, staring at the Equestrians with wide, confused eyes. That spell would have cleared their minds of any manipulation, she thought to herself. Either Vaati’s magic has gotten even stronger since last we met or…
…or these people are telling the truth.
Suddenly, her mind was assaulted by memories of that fateful meeting between them. Had it only been seven years? It seemed almost an eternity ago that he had kidnapped her and taken her to his Palace of Winds, only for her to find that one of the greatest enemies Hyrule had ever known was losing interest in being that enemy.
Do you ever feel like your life has become redundant? Like your whole existence is just a broken record?
I suppose. No help to you, that is.
You know very well it’s not my fault alone. This cycle we find ourselves trapped in…it’s almost the same thing, isn’t it?
She shook herself out of her thoughts in time to hear her father say, “This is madness. I refuse to believe these lies! Out with you! All of you! Once the Wind Mage is dealt with, I shall send for you again, and then we can conduct royal business without fear of that monster’s meddling ways.”
It was easy to see that Celestia was trying to hold back her anger. The solar alicorn inwardly cursed at herself. She had been foolish; Vaati had been absolutely right, but yet again she naively decided to put her faith in people’s better halves. She should have listened to him. But there was no way she was going to let the King of Hyrule execute Vaati, and she knew that her sister, her student, and her friends would not allow it either. But how could they stay this undeserved sentence?
“King Daphnes has spoken!” one of the guards obstinately declared. “Begone until he summons you again!”
“This isn’t right!” Twilight shouted angrily. “You can’t do this!”
“Twilight, we have been asked to leave,” Celestia said with a heavy heart. “So leave we must.”
Twilight rounded on her teacher, horrorstruck. “P-Princess, we can’t just leave him!”
For a brief moment, Celestia’s gaze darted towards Zelda, and the two princesses locked eyes. Though but a blink of an eye in the eyes of others, Zelda felt she had been caught in that pleading, knowing gaze for an eternity. And then the staring contest was broken, and Celestia bowed her head. “I hope we can discuss this matter further before anyone does anything rash,” she said in an even tone.
But to Zelda, the message was clear; don’t try to hurt Vaati or else.
As she watched the Equestrian dignitaries reluctantly depart, each of them watching the guards unceremoniously drag the unconscious Vaati to his feet with the most pained, heartbroken looks on their faces, Zelda mulled over what she had just heard. The Equestrians presented her with a challenging riddle, one that she needed to find the answer to quickly. Without a word, Zelda headed towards the exit. “Where are you going, my child?” Daphnes asked worriedly.
Casting a cursory glance over her shoulder, Zelda replied, “I need time to think on this matter. There’s more to this situation than any of us are seeing, and I need to figure out what that is.”
And with that, Zelda left, leaving Daphnes alone with the two stonily silent Sheikah. “Well this day turned out to be the daftest I’ve seen in a while,” the king muttered out loud. “Vaati reforming, ha! That’s about as likely as Ganon handing me flowers!”
But Agahnim and Impa did not reply. The wizard turned to the ninja, and they then engaged in the ancient Sheikah art of telepathy.
The princess is right, Impa declared. There’s more to this situation than meets the eye.
And who better to seek out that hidden truth than us? Agahnim replied, smirking under his cloth.
XXXXXX
Hyrule Castle Town Square, that evening…
Twilight and her friends stood by the fountain that decorated the middle of the town square, the light from the nearby torches casting long, flickering shadows across the ground and their faces. “This isn’t right!” Twilight cried in frustration. “They can’t do this! He’s not evil anymore!”
“This is awful!” Fluttershy agreed. “Poor Vaati…he must be all alone in that dungeon!”
“There must be something we can do!” Rarity voiced. “But we don’t have long; that hero Vaati always talked about will be here tomorrow, and he’ll kill him if we don’t do something!”
“I say we go in there and bust him out, right now!” Rainbow declared, smacking her hooves together. “These Hyrule guys are jerks! Let’s go get Vaati back, go back to Equestria, and let Hyrule fight Majora without us!”
Applejack sighed. “That won’t help us none, Dash. Bustin’ Vaati out’s guaranteed to send us right to the top’a Hyrule’s most wanted list, and it could even get ‘em to declare war on Equestria. The last thing we all need is for Hyrule ‘n Equestria to be fightin’ each other, because then that’ll just make things easier for Majora.”
“So then what’re we supposed to do, huh?” Rainbow snapped. “Let that hero guy cut off Vaati’s head right in front of us?! Or worse yet, hang him in front of the whole town?!”
“There has to be a way…” Twilight groused. “Maybe if we convince the king to give Vaati a trial…”
“Everyone in Hyrule’s convinced Vaati is still a villain, dear,” Rarity answered grimly. “Any trial would just be for show.”
“UGH!” Twilight groaned, stomping her hooves against the ground in frustration. “I don’t know what we can do! The king won’t listen to us! He thinks we’re all under some kind of spell! And I thought that Princess Zelda might help us, but thanks to her, Vaati’s now rotting in a dungeon cell, waiting to be executed!”
“I’m sure Princess Celestia will think of something,” Fluttershy offered in an attempt to placate her friend. “She’s really good at this diplomatic stuff. I’m confident she can get the king to see reason and this will all sort itself out.”
“I wish I shared your confidence, Fluttershy, I really do,” Twilight sighed. “But you saw what happened too. The king blew her off like he did the rest of us!”
As her friends continued to debate, Applejack’s ears abruptly pricked. She hadn’t heard anything, but something deep within the very core of her being was calling out to her, and it told her something alarming. She looked over her shoulder and peered into the darkness of the night, her eyes narrowing in suspicion.
“Hang on, y’all,” she finally spoke up, catching their attention. “Call me crazy, but…Ah think we’re bein’ watched.”
Unbeknownst to them all, two figures hidden in shadow flinched in surprise. As the other Mane Six looked around nervously, Twilight called out, “Hello? Come on out! We know you’re there!”
A heavy silence followed, until a smooth, masculine voice broke it from the darkness. “Commendable indeed. There are not many in Hyrule who can tell when a Sheikah is watching them.”
Soon after the voice had spoken, two individuals slowly emerged from the shadows, causing the ponies to gasp in surprise as they recognized them. The one on the left was dressed in flowing blood-red robes, with a turban on his head and a red cloth concealing his mouth so that only his eyes could be seen. The one on the right was definitely female, tall and thin, with strong muscles. She was clad in a dark blue jumpsuit, with a steel breastplate tightly hugging her chest and belly. She looked deceptively young, but her eyes betrayed the wisdom in her years, and her silver hair was tied up in a bun. Both their outfits were adorned with a red eye with a single teardrop falling from its center.
“You!” Twilight breathed. “You were both in the throne room!”
The figure clad in red robes nodded in reply. “Yes. We come on behalf of the Kingdom of Hyrule’s best interests. My name is Agahnim, King Daphnes’s royal advisor, and this is Impa, Princess Zelda’s retainer and personal bodyguard, and my wife. We are two of the last remaining members of the Sheikah tribe in service to Hyrule’s royal family. We serve as their caretakers, guardians, spies, and where necessary, their assassins.”
The Mane Six collectively gasped in fear, but Impa raised her hand in a gesture of peace. “Fear not; we sense no ill will in you. We cannot sense any sort of mental influence that has corrupted your thoughts. Your minds are clearly your own, and thus this makes the matter of the infamous Wind Mage even more confusing. Why, then, are you willingly coming to the defense of a being that has menaced Hyrule and its people for generations?”
“Because he’s our friend!” Twilight immediately replied hotly.
Agahnim quirked an eyebrow at this. “You freely call the Sorcerer of Winds your friend? Are you even aware of the things he has done in the past?”
“Yes, we are. And we’re also aware of the things he’s done since he came to Equestria.”
“And that is…?” Impa pressed. “I, for one, am most interested to hear under what circumstances you came to call Vaati your friend.”
Twilight sighed, and then she began. “I’ll start at the beginning. One day, I was collecting plants in the Everfree Forest for use in magical research. Suddenly I saw a flash of light out of the corner of my eye, and when I went to investigate, I found Vaati, bruised, bleeding, and half-dead, thanks to that hero of yours. I immediately went to my friend Fluttershy for help, hoping she might be able to do something. But when she said that he needed medical attention she couldn’t provide, we brought him to our town hospital, and we nursed him back to health. When he came to, he told us who he was, but he was pretty guarded about his past. We didn’t want to seem rude, so we didn’t press him over it. Princess Celestia allowed him to settle in my home in Ponyville, and from there on, we got to know him better and better over time. Since he came to Equestria, he helped us defeat, and then reform the spirit of chaos and disharmony, Discord, as well as liberate the cursed Crystal Empire from the grip of its former tyrannical ruler King Sombra. He and his monsters saved Canterlot from a Changeling invasion, and when he found out that a young filly named Scootaloo was living with an abusive father, he took her in as his own, and he raised her into a fine young mare who is now the captain of Princess Luna’s royal guards. And most importantly, he helped us defeat an evil your world is pretty familiar with. For good.”
“What evil is this?” Agahnim asked.
Twilight took a deep breath. “Ganon.”
Agahnim and Impa’s eyebrows simultaneously shot up in surprise. “He helped you defeat Ganon?! Without Link or the Master Sword?!” Impa cried in shock.
“How did Ganon even make it to your realm?” Agahnim inquired.
“I’ll tell you that in a bit, but first I want to reiterate that together, we destroyed Ganon for good.”
“Impossible,” Agahnim interrupted. “The hatred of Demise is everlasting. Ganon is destined to plague us forever.”
“No he’s not. Because we resurrected Demise, and then we destroyed him again, which not only freed Ganondorf from the curse keeping him alive and committing acts of evil, but it freed all the monsters that had been cursed by him in ages past to be forced to do the bad guys’ bidding. The Darknuts, Wizzrobes, Moblins, Keatons, and Lizalfos all live freely in Equestria, and we share friendly relations with all of them.”
“I would say this is absurd,” Impa spoke. “But…I cannot sense any deception in your hearts. You truly ended the legacy of Demise?”
Twilight and the others all nodded their heads.
“And what of the Triforce of Power?” Agahnim asked.
“Vaati has it now,” Twilight answered.
Agahnim’s eyes widened. “Vaati has the Triforce of Power in his possession?!”
Impa’s expression, on the other hand, became pensive. This new information just brought her one step closer to solving the riddle of Princess Zelda’s prophetic dream.
“As to how Ganon got to Equestria,” Twilight continued. “Well…let’s just say it has to do with why we’re here now.”
“You mentioned the name of our greatest evil,” Agahnim spoke. “How do you know of Majora?”
At this, the faces of the Mane Six collectively became grim. “We don’t know precisely when, but Majora gained an interest in our world sometime after Vaati arrived. The first effect of that we felt was the resurrection of King Sombra. Majora freed him from his imprisonment under the ice of the frozen north and sent monsters to help him reclaim the Crystal Empire. We managed to defeat him, though. Just one month after that, Ganon came. We didn’t know how he had come then, and he even admitted he didn’t know either, but as we focused on fighting him, Majora began sinking his claws deeper and deeper into Equestria’s shadows. We think it was ultimately Majora who brought Ganon to Equestria, in order to distract us from his own activities. He even tried to turn Scootaloo against Vaati, but when he failed to break her resolve, he tried to kill her with one of his Avatars, which she managed to destroy with the help of her friends and Discord. That was when we first learned that Majora had become interested in Equestria. We later found out his servants even established a church somewhere in the Tenochtitlan Basin not far from the Crystal Empire, and we’ve never been able to find it. But we defeated Ganon five years ago, and even then, Majora’s servants have antagonized us on numerous occasions. Ponyville was attacked by the Gohma, somepony tried to threaten the Griffon Kingdom into breaking their treaty with us, a bunch of the Canterlot nobility almost incited a rebellion, a magical fire burned down nearly half of Manehattan, a deadly plague of magical origin swept through our nation, and the entire population of the town of Hollow Shades disappeared in a single night, and none of them were ever found. That’s why we’re here now. We don’t know how or why, but a portal between our worlds opened up in the Everfree Forest, and we went through it in order to warn you that Majora hasn’t forgotten about Hyrule either, and we think that the war your Goddesses decreed would happen again one day is about to begin, and like it or not, Majora’s decided to draw our world into it.”
Agahnim and Impa were deathly silent as they each took in this information. “So…the Demon Wars are about to begin again,” Agahnim breathed.
“This explains a great deal,” Impa cryptically added, rubbing her chin.
“What do you mean?” Twilight asked.
“The Princess is possessed of the gift of foresight,” Impa replied. “Lately she has been having dreams involving the destruction of the Triforce. But the night before you came, the dream changed; six orbs of light shielded the Triforce from the power of darkness, and together they drove it back. Those six lights then transformed into the very symbols that adorn your bodies.”
The Mane Six collectively looked at their flanks before looking back at their Sheikah visitors. “Please,” Twilight pleaded, her big eyes watering. It was the look that Vaati had so much trouble resisting. “Can you help us? Vaati is one of the best friends I have, a-and I don’t know what I’d do if we lost him…”
Pinkie, who had been oddly quiet the whole conversation, put a comforting hoof on Twilight’s shoulder, eliciting a weary smile from the unicorn mare. Impa and Agahnim observed this, and they knew that these ponies spoke the truth. They also knew that King Daphnes would never believe such a tale. There was only one thing they could do now.
“I believe we can make an…arrangement,” Agahnim suggested conspiratorially.
A hopeful look crossed everypony’s faces, especially Twilight’s. “Please! Anything!”
“Perhaps we can facilitate an unofficial meeting between your princess and ours,” Impa said. “Zelda is much more understanding than her father, sadly an uncomfortably common trend amongst the royal family. Perhaps if we can help Princess Zelda see the full picture, she can convince the king to allow Vaati a trial. A fair trial.”
“But how could a trial possibly be fair for Vaati?” Rarity asked. “Everyone in Hyrule is against him!”
“And yet everyone in your realm is behind him,” Agahnim responded. “All of you have amazing stories to tell about him. As I am the judge of the royal tribunal, I can see to it that each of you is able to tell your own accounts of Vaati’s time in your world. It is then that the people of Hyrule can make an honest, nonbiased judgment.”
“Oh, thank you thank you thank you!” Twilight outright bawled happily, and before Agahnim could do anything, Twilight hugged his legs in sheer gratitude.
Agahnim failed to suppress an indignant stutter as Impa shot him a knowing smirk. Noticing his wife’s look, Agahnim glared back and muttered, “Not a word of this to Agitha.”
“I would be more concerned about her finding out about the one who calls herself Queen Chrysalis,” Impa remarked. “You know how she is about bugs.”
XXXXXX
The next morning, Telma’s Bar and Inn…
In the room Celestia and Luna had taken for themselves, the two sisters were seated at the wooden table in the middle of their room. Luna was fidgeting anxiously, while Celestia’s face was that ever present mask of calm serenity. “Are you certain she will be here, sister?” Luna asked again for what was probably the eighth time in ten minutes.
“I know you’re anxious, Luna,” Celestia replied ever-so-calmly. “But those royal attendants insisted that they would make this work. And they are the only ones we can trust right now.”
Luna bowed her head. “’Tis not right, what they have done to him. Regardless of the things he did in this world, he more than made up for them in Equestria.”
“I know, Luna dear. We simply have to trust that everything will turn out…”
There was a sudden knock at the door, light and dainty, and the two alicorns fell silent. They both shared a single, knowing glance before Celestia declared, “Enter.”
The door slowly opened, allowing a hooded figure to duck into the room, gently shutting the door behind them. With their privacy assured, the figure turned towards the waiting alicorns and drew back their hood.
“Princess Zelda of Hyrule,” Celestia greeted with a nod. “I am pleased that you could join us.”
“Forgive me for my lateness,” Zelda apologized, taking a seat in the one remaining empty chair at the table. “I needed an excuse to leave my father’s side, and I also had to ensure that none of the castle guards tried to follow me. Now, onto the matter at hand…the Wind Mage.”
“Your attendants told you of their meeting with my student and her friends?” Celestia asked.
“Yes,” Zelda answered. “And…I believe you.”
Luna could not hide her surprise at this, but Celestia’s expression remained neutral.
“When last I met Vaati, he had just escaped from the Four Sword,” Zelda began. “The first thing he did upon his release was capture me and bring me to the Palace of Winds. At first I was naturally angry and afraid, but as time went on, I began to notice a change in him. Instead of bragging about defeating Link and conquering Hyrule, he would stare out the window of the chamber he kept me prisoner in, as though he were lost in thought. Eventually he finally spoke to me, asking about whether I knew what it felt like for my life to be on constant repeat, and he ultimately admitted that he had grown weary of his life as a villain, and had merely kidnapped me out of a force of habit. I…found myself sympathizing with him, against my better judgment. And then Link came, and they fought, and…I thought when that teleportation spell of his clashed with the Light Arrow…well, I thought it had killed him. Link rescued me, and everything more or less returned to normal. But to know that he not only survived, but also found that new life he had admitted to have sometimes wished for…it’s thrown everything into chaos all over again. And yet…everything makes sense now.”
“How so?” Celestia asked.
“Well…I, like my ancestors before me, am possessed of the gift of foresight. Before times of darkness enshroud Hyrule, I experience prophetic dreams. But they are often difficult to interpret. For the last month, I experienced the same dream, in which the Triforce was overwhelmed by hands of darkness. Demons spewed from the earth, and all that is green and good in our world was laid to ruin. And yet, the very night before you came, the dream changed. Six orbs of light protected the Triforce from the darkness, strengthening it, and together, their light drove the darkness back. Then I saw the orbs of light condense into jewels in the shapes of the marks that adorn the flanks of your student and her friends. Their appearance, coupled with the knowledge that Vaati now possesses the Triforce of Power, meaning its bearers at last have the potential to work together, can only mean that the Goddesses themselves have ordained that your people are key to stopping the evil that threatens both our worlds.”
“Yes,” Celestia agreed. “You know of what evil that stands opposed to us, correct?”
Zelda nodded grimly. “Our ultimate enemy. I am told Majora is about to return.” She sighed wearily. “Though it only makes sense. Over the last few centuries, the blood of the Six Sages has thinned, and so has their power. The temples are now overrun with all manner of foul things. And not only that, evil times have befallen all the peoples of Hyrule. The Gorons and Zoras are on the verge of all-out war with one another, we have lost all contact with the Kokiri in the Lost Woods, the Deku Kingdom has started becoming violent towards the Skull Kids, and we have even discovered that several Fairy Fountains have been completely destroyed, and their owners absent, causing a critical shortage of fairies. If Majora is truly behind this, then it means he has been planning our downfall for some time now, and has been working in the shadows while we remained blind and ignorant. We cannot remain blind to this evil any longer. I will convince my father to give Vaati a trial, and you and your people can be called upon as witnesses to his defense. I only hope that my people can look past their prejudices and see that he truly has changed. My dreams say that he too has a pivotal role to play in Hyrule’s final battle.”
“You promise this?” Luna asked, a desperate gleam in her eye.
“I will do what I can,” Zelda replied. “But I can truly promise nothing. My father may listen to me more often than most others, but even I cannot convince him of all issues I bring to his attention. I can only hope Agahnim and Impa can lend enough support to sway him.”
“Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated,” Celestia said. “You truly are wise beyond your years, Zelda. After all this is over, I would greatly enjoy getting to know you better.”
Zelda smiled. “Agreed. But for now, we must focus on exonerating Vaati before Link arrives to carry out my father’s orders.”
At that moment, the door suddenly opened, and the three princesses turned to see the intruder reveal themselves as a worried-looking Rarity. “Princess Celestia!” the fashionista said urgently. “The Hero has arrived in the city! As soon as Twilight heard, she rushed off towards the castle! I’m worried she might do something rash! Can you find her before something terrible happens?”
Celestia, Luna, and Zelda all shared glances. “We’ve no time to waste, then,” Celestia proclaimed then, standing up. “Let us hurry to the castle before the situation gets any more out of hoof.”
XXXXXX
Hyrule Castle, Throne Room…
Daphnes sat in his throne, having just finished reviewing a set of documents which he handed to his scribe. As the scribe left the room with the documents in hand, a new individual entered, and Daphnes recognized her immediately as one of the Equestrians, the one with the purple coat and hair an even darker shade of purple with a pink streak through it.
“King Daphnes!” Twilight declared angrily. “I demand you release Vaati at once!”
Daphnes straightened up in his seat, half-tempted to have his guards throw this impudent pack animal out of the castle, but for the sake of politics, he refrained from such an act and instead scoffed, “Why? So he can menace the kingdom yet again?”
“I told you already!” Twilight shot back. “Vaati’s not a villain anymore! He doesn’t deserve to be thrown in prison like a common criminal!”
“This is outrageous!” Daphnes shouted. “The Wind Mage has been a thorn in Hyrule’s side for generations! I refuse to believe that one of the greatest forces of evil Hyrule has ever known has suddenly chosen to reform!” As the king ranted, the magic of Equestria slowly began the process of bleeding into the fabric of Hyrule’s reality as disembodied music began to fade into hearing. “You must either be insane or under a particularly potent spell to be vouching for him so! I demand an answer!”
And then the King of Hyrule became the first in his world to succumb to an Equestrian musical number as he sang:
“Why are you defending him?
He’s nothing but a criminal!
Soon the people will decide
His fate is terminal!
String him up and hang him high
For all in Hyrule to behold,
Let his body rot in sun
To feed the crows and mold!”
In response, Twilight sang:
“Sir, I beg you!
Please see reason!”
“I’ll not hear this!
There’s no reason!” Daphnes sang.
And together they sang:
“His fate is in my/your hands!”
And then Daphnes sang:
“Vaati’s put a spell on you,
I will not put faith in your lies,
I’ve already sealed his fate,
Tomorrow Vaati dies!”
And then Twilight sang:
“It’s not fair, this isn’t right!
I’m telling you that he has changed!
You judge him without knowing him,
You simply are deranged!”
And together they sang:
“So ruled by hate, (How dare you!)
You want to sate
Your lust for death,
His final breath!
He is a father (He’s a monster!)
And a friend, I
Won’t let you bring
Out his end!
You’re blinded by (He’s fooling you!)
Your hate for him!
This isn’t how
A king should rule!
Why can’t you see (Deceiving you!)
My words are true!
I’m telling you
That he’s not cruel!
Father, hero, (Why can’t you see reason?)
Lover, friend,
He’s all these things,
So why can’t you see reason?”
And then Twilight sang:
“Vaati is my truest friend,
I will not simply let him die!
Your edict’s unjustified,
His fate I will deny!
Yes I know how bad he was,
I know what things are in his past.
He let friendship warm his heart,
His evil didn’t last!”
And then Daphnes sang:
“He’s a villain!”
“He’s a hero!” Twilight sang back.
“He’s a monster!” Daphnes countered.
“He’s a father!” Twilight sang.
And then they sang together:
“How can you call him friend? (And he’s also my friend)!”
And then Daphnes sang:
“Why are you defending him?
I told you he deserves his end!”
And then Twilight sang in reply:
“Why am I defending him?
Because he is my friend!”
And then the music was silenced as the throne room doors slammed open, catching Twilight and Daphnes’s attention. The two of them turned to see Zelda, Agahnim, and Impa stride purposefully into the room. Standing before her father, Zelda declared, “Father, I want you to give Vaati the Wind Mage a trial.”
Daphnes spluttered at this. “Wha…not you too! How could he have cursed you?!”
Zelda groaned. “Father, I’m not cursed! I have spoken to all the Equestrian dignitaries, as have Agahnim and Impa, and we all agree that Vaati, like any suspect accused of a crime, deserves a fair trial, regardless of guilt.”
“This is nonsense!” Daphnes shot back. “Vaati is guilty! Everyone knows it!”
“The question should not be whether he is guilty of the things he has done in the past,” Zelda responded, “but whether his acts of repentance warrant exoneration. Each of the Equestrian dignitaries has their own stories to tell about him. They each deserve to be heard before the courts! Please, father! If anything, do it to preserve the rule of law for everyone. No one should be treated differently beneath it.”
Daphnes’s eyes darted between Zelda, Impa, Twilight, and Agahnim, before he finally let loose a heavy sigh. “Fine. You win. But you’re merely wasting everyone’s time! I assure you he will be found guilty, and Link will either behead him with the Master Sword or he will hang from the gallows for everyone to see!”
“That will be for the people to decide themselves, Your Majesty,” Agahnim reminded Daphnes. “And because I am the one in charge of the courts, I will be the one to administer justice, whatever it may be. Your duty is merely to spectate and decide on a punishment, if any.”
Daphnes rolled his eyes. “Fine. Do what you will. We will set this absurd trial for tomorrow morning at eight am sharp!”
XXXXXX
Darkness.
That was all Vaati could hear, see, or even feel. There was an overwhelming sense of nothingness around him that threatened to swallow the Wind Mage.
Vaati shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. The last thing he remembered had been the familiar, agonizing pain of a Light Arrow before he had lost consciousness.
“Gwo hoh hoh hoh hoh…”
Vaati’s head shot up, his eyes darting about as they tried to pierce the veil of darkness clouding his vision. “W-who’s there?” the sorcerer demanded, but his voice felt so far away. “Show yourself!”
“Geheheheheheh…how the mighty have indeed fallen. The great Sorcerer of Winds, locked up and chained against the wall in a dungeon cell like a common criminal.” As the unsettling, multilayered voice spoke, Vaati whipped his head around, trying to find the source of the voice. “Oh, the irony is simply delicious. In Equestria you have been hailed as a great hero…” The last word was spoken with such utter contempt that Vaati involuntarily flinched. “…and yet, it will not save you from your ultimate fate, for you are destined to die as the villain Hyrule knows, at the hands of Oni’s wretched legacy. You should have known that in the end, there was no avoiding who and what you really are. You are a demon, a servant of evil. We made you to be a weapon, and now you are suffering the consequences for trying to defy your destiny.”
Vaati gritted his teeth in anger. “What do you know of my destiny?!”
“Everything, boy,” the disembodied voice hissed menacingly. “You owe it, your powers, and indeed your very existence to us.”
“What are you talking about?!” Vaati demanded.
“Gwo hoh hoh…stupid child. Have you never wondered why you were always different from the other Minish? Why you were born with the appearance of one touched by demonic powers? You are not a full-blooded Minish, child. You never were. You’re a half-breed, destined from the beginning to embrace your inherent darkness and become our weapon of vengeance against the meddlesome Picori for their interference in the War of the Bound Chest. In your veins flows the blood of a demon. Your father’s blood.”
And then, the darkness peeled back just a bit, enough for Vaati to make out an outline of a spherical body with two long arms and glowing red palms. In the middle of the body, a single eye opened up, sickly pale green in color and glittering with unfathomable malice and cruelty. Vaati’s breath left his body as he beheld the shape of a creature that, apart from the lack of horns, wings, and distinctive features, along with the different eye color, looked like a shadowy version of his own demon form.
“Our blood,” the demon finished triumphantly.
Vaati was stunned into silence. No…no, it can’t be…!
Suddenly, he heard the familiar, hateful voice of his childhood tormenter whisper in his ear from beyond the grave, “You’re one to talk, since either your mommy or daddy was a monster!”
“Oh, but it is, son,” the demon hissed with sadistic relish, having read his mind. “When the Picori granted the Hylians the White Sword and the Light Force, driving back our armies and sealing them within the Bound Chest, we swore vengeance. But that vengeance would not come at our hands. No, we needed something that would not only destroy the Picori, but stain their wretched legacy forever, and that…was you, Vaati. And you passed your trial run with flying colors! The Minish withdrew from Hyrule, ashamed of having begot a true horror like you. We even found ourselves impressed by the level of power you managed to attain. Indeed we hoped that you would one day supplant Ganon as the holder of the Triforce of Power, thereby securing it for our purposes. But you disappointed us by turning away from your true calling. Making friends, starting a family. You were made to destroy friendships! Your purpose was to tear families apart! To deny your legacy was a mistake that shall cost you every miserable thing you have unwisely come to cherish, mark our words.”
At this, Vaati managed to snap himself out of his shock. “You…my childhood. You were responsible. The whole time, you were responsible for the suffering I endured!”
The demon laughed mockingly. “GAHAHA! You know, we were there when your mother spawned you. The moment she looked into your eyes, she cast you aside in disgust and died of grief for having produced such a hideous creature! The doctors cried demon and refused to hold you! You are not meant to be loved, brat! You were meant to be despised, and you were supposed to feed off that hatred until you became the ultimate weapon for the forces of darkness. But it no longer matters. Even now, the ever-so-dutiful Hero of Legend is on his way with the Master Sword. Once the people of Hyrule have properly condemned you, if they’re feeling merciful, the cursed brat will publicly behead you. Otherwise, you’ll hang from the town gallows, for the guays to pick away your skin and eyes and the sun to bleach your bones! And the minute the life leaves your body, we will sweep in to claim the power of the Triforce for ourselves. We will succeed where that wretch Demise could not! Imagine how your beloved friends will react… Oh, there will surely be war between Equestria and Hyrule with your death. They care too much for you to let such a grievance slide. By the time some measure of sense returns to their heads it will already be too late. Hyrule will burn. Equestria will burn. Majora will rule, and your friends will die!”
Vaati’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “Not if I have anything to say about it!”
Vaati hunched forward, allowing the change to overtake him that would unleash his most powerful form.
Only…it didn’t. Nothing happened.
As Vaati’s eyes widened in shock and mounting horror, the demon snickered ominously.
“You do not know who we are, do you, boy? What power we wield over dreams? Of course, Hylia’s meddlesome little incarnation helped by binding you in chains strengthened by light magic to suppress your powers in the waking world, making it easier for us to suppress them in your dreams. Gwoh hoh hoh hoh hoh hoh…mm, your helplessness is…tempting, admittedly. The irony of you dying at the hands of the Hero despite your ‘reformation’ is so satisfying, and yet…why should we let him have the honor of dispatching you? We brought you into this world; we should be the one to take you out for the disappointment you caused us, and the trouble you caused our master. But we will take our time. The Hero would do it too quickly. There would not be enough suffering on your end. Yes…we have time. And perhaps the Hero will even thank us for doing the work for him!”
Before Vaati could even do anything to defend himself, he felt an invisible force sweep him off his feet and slam him onto his back, and in the blink of an eye, he found that he was pinned to a stone slab that looked like one meant for primitive sacrifices inside a dark room. Though there were no bindings, Vaati could not move his arms or legs, no matter how fiercely he struggled. He whipped his head back and forth as he struggled, and then he stopped as he saw who else was in the room with him, and it was enough to make him retch, and tears sprang to his eyes at the gruesome sight.
Hanging from the ceiling on bloody meathooks like slabs of beef, arranged around the sacrificial table, were all of Vaati’s friends and family. Twilight, Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Scootaloo, and Luna all swung limply on their chains upside down, their hooves tied together, their bellies slit open, their mouths hanging open slightly, and their eyes gazing emptily into his own. Vaati unleashed a strangled gasp at the sight of their mangled, defiled corpses displayed mockingly around him, frozen stiff in his horror. And then, directly over his head, the single green eye of the Demon King of Nightmares emerged from the darkness, glaring evilly down at him.
“Gwoh hoh hoh hoh…welcome, our son, to the nightmare from which you will never wake! The torment we inflicted upon your friends all those years ago will pale before what we shall do upon you!”
Vaati’s eyes widened in realization. “Good Goddesses…i-it was you…you were the one who gave Twilight and the others those nightmares during our search for the Elements!”
The demon rolled its ponderous eye. “Only now are you figuring this out? Fool.”
The nightmare entity chuckled deeply, its evil intentions clear. “We were the one who brought back King Sombra and sent him the Hounds of Majora to aid his reconquest of the Crystal Empire. It was we who possessed that miserable little wretch Diamond Tiara and used her to try and kill that disgusting little piece of filth you call your daughter and then freed her from Tartarus as a monster to try again. Ganon’s arrival in Equestria? Us too. And the one who put that teensy little child your sweetheart doted so much on and the cousin of that pigheaded peasant Applejack in their graves, just to make that loathsome moon witch suffer for standing in our way. All us!”
Rage clouded Vaati’s mind as the long-unsolved riddle was answered at last. “You…! Murderer! BASTARD! I’LL KILL YOU! I SWEAR BY DIN’S FIRE I’LL KILL YOU!”
Vaati screamed as he tried to pull himself free of whatever force was holding him down, but then, from out of the surrounding shadows, a tendril of deepest-black darkness emerged and smashed into Vaati’s gut, knocking the wind out of him and stunning him with a grunt of pain.
“That’s better,” the demon hissed. “We’re afraid you’ve got that backwards, Wind Mage. You see…we are the one who’s going to kill you. And we’re going to do it slowly, and painfully. And in the midst of your agony, take a moment to appreciate your surroundings, because this is how you will see your beloved friends for the last time! As slabs of meat to feed our dogs of war!”
The demon’s eye narrowed as more dark tendrils appeared from the shadows, surrounding Vaati like a horde of black snakes. As they slithered over his body, they felt ice-cold to the touch, making the sorcerer shiver involuntarily. And then the tendrils latched onto his tunic, and with a resounding rip, they tore open his clothing, exposing his chest and belly. Over the last few years, a little more muscle had made its way into Vaati’s frame, but his abs were only just barely noticeable as his stomach undulated with each desperate, fearful breath Vaati took.
“Geheheheheheheheheheheheheheheh…” the demon hissed, anticipation bleeding into its chorused voice. “Oh, how we will enjoy this. Such fear, boy…you’re afraid to die. You’re afraid of the pain you know is coming. Oh…and of course, you’re afraid that we will do the same to your friends.” The demon’s eye emerged a little further from the dark ceiling, leering maliciously over Vaati’s helpless body. “You are right to be afraid. One by one, we will hunt them down, and only after we have grown bored with their suffering will we snuff out their pathetic lives. Now, onto business…”
As the nightmare demon’s eye eased back into its place in the middle of the ceiling, all of the other tendrils withdrew save one, which arched back like an angry cobra, its tip hovering over the stone slab holding Vaati captive, slowly pointing downwards towards Vaati’s helpless body.
Vaati’s fear-stricken eyes darted between the looming tendril and the eye of his monstrous father watching over the procedure like some scientist observing a particularly sadistic experiment. He was going to die, and no matter how he tried to rationalize it, to steel himself, his fear could not be hidden. He wanted to stare death in the face defiantly, to not give his enemy the satisfaction, but he failed miserably. His eyes darted between the hanging bodies of the most important people in his life before he finally allowed himself a brief glare at the omnipresent eye, silently begging it to just get this over with.
And then, as though triggered by his last thought, the tendril plunged downward, and there was a sickening, brief ‘splurk’ as solidified shadow pierced through skin and flesh, burrowing deep into the center of his navel.
The pain was unlike anything he had ever felt before in his life. Not even the Light Arrow could compare to this magnitude of sheer agony. It started in his gut, where the spear of shadow had made contact, and as though it were pumping some sort of dark poison into his system, quickly began spreading throughout his body, seeping into his innards, penetrating his every muscle, and pulsing through his veins with enough force to begin pushing out his own blood. His body spasmed intensely as a bloodcurdling scream tore from his throat. He screamed so loud and so long that his throat quickly became raw, but he still kept going, for the pain was unimaginable. Vaati writhed and twitched as he howled in agony, but the tendril in his belly held fast, pumping the very force of Dethl’s hatred and sadistic lust for torture into his body.
The Nightmare King laughed over Vaati’s agonized screams, that giant, single eye now wide open, a wild, almost insane glint in it. “Gwoh hoh hoh hoh hoh hoh! Now we find ourselves wondering what will happen first. Will you suffocate from all the screaming? Or will your heart give out from all the strain being forced upon it?” Vaati’s only reply was to scream even louder, causing the demon to chortle in sadistic amusement once more. “Yes! YES! Weep! Howl! Declare your agony to the Goddesses above! No one will save you! Die! Die in pain! Die, die, DIE!”
And then, with blood dripping from their wounds, the hanging bodies of Vaati’s friends began to laugh at him. An empty laugh, devoid of soul, that could only come from the voices of the dead. They joined the demon’s own mocking cackles to create a cacophony of madness as Vaati slowly began to feel himself slipping away…
XXXXXX
The lone guard on duty still standing motionlessly outside the door of Vaati’s cell could hear the prisoner muttering weakly inside. He forced himself to not turn around, for he feared that the Wind Mage might try to cast some sort of spell on him too like he had those strange, talking ponies with wings and horns. And speak of the devil, the door to the dungeons opened with an ominous, echoing creak. The guard stood up straight as he saw Princess Zelda enter. Alongside her were Impa and one of the ponies in question, a purple one with a horn.
Zelda cleared her throat and declared, “We have come to see the prisoner. We require only a few minutes of privacy, so if you would kindly wait outside until we finish, I would much appreciate it.”
The guard, a little suspicious, stammered, “U-uh, Princess? Are you sure i-it would be w-wise to be alone w-with that…that thing in there?”
“I’m not alone,” Zelda reminded the man. “I have Impa and Miss Twilight Sparkle here with me as well. Now please…”
The soldier sighed. “Alright, Your Highness. If you insist.”
With that, the guard handed Zelda the keys to the cell and left the dungeon to wait outside. Standing outside the heavy oak door, Zelda called out, “Vaati? It’s me, Zelda. I’m here with Twilight Sparkle.”
Strangely, there was no response. Furrowing her brows in suspicion, Zelda stuck the key in the door and unlocked it, slowly pushing it open as Impa slowly rested her hand over her dagger. But to their surprise, Vaati was still in there, slumped against the wall with his arms and legs restrained by enchanted shackles that suppressed his magic. His head was bowed, his hair falling over his face and hiding it. Other than some spastic twitching, Vaati did not move.
“V-Vaati?” Twilight called out, trotting gingerly towards him. “It’s me, Twilight. A-are you okay?”
Vaati did not reply. The three visitors glanced worriedly at each other before Twilight took another hesitant step forward. “Vaa…?”
However, before she could finish, Vaati’s head snapped up, his unseeing eyes as wide as dinner plates. He let out a loud, strangled gasp.
And then the screaming began.
XXXXXX
Telma’s Inn…
Luna was sitting alone in the room she and her sister shared. Celestia had gone out to attempt to mingle with the townsfolk, to learn a little more about them, but Luna didn’t feel like socializing. Though she was relieved at the news that Vaati would indeed be getting a trial, deep down, she still feared that the people of Hyrule would refuse to see the Equestrians’ side of the story, and all would be for naught.
And then, like a dagger in her heart, she felt it. That familiar violation of the world of dreams she had come to know, fear, and despise in equal measure. And it was coming from the dungeons of Hyrule Castle. Luna’s eyes widened. “NO! VAATI!”
XXXXXX
Vaati was screaming and writhing in his shackles as though he were in indescribable pain. Gasping in horror, Twilight screamed, “W-what’s going on?! What have you done to him?!”
Zelda’s eyes were just as wide with horror and confusion. “I-I don’t know! Impa! Twilight! Hold him down!”
The Sheikah and unicorn did so, latching onto each of Vaati’s arms and pinning him back against the wall. Trying to get his attention, Zelda got in his face and cried, “Vaati! Vaati, look at me! What’s happening to you?!”
And then, to her shock, blood began to pour from Vaati’s nose, and then his mouth, and even his tears were starting to turn red. Zelda recoiled, her hand flying to her mouth in horror. “W-what…?”
“OUT OF MY WAY! NOW!”
The three of them turned around in time to see Princess Luna barrel past them, her horn already glowing as she aimed for Vaati’s forehead. “Grab onto me!” Luna demanded. “We will confront this twisted evil together!”
Deciding to trust Luna in this, Twilight, Zelda, and Impa all grabbed onto Luna’s wing as she tapped her glowing horn against Vaati’s forehead.
XXXXXX
Luna, Twilight, Zelda, and Impa opened their eyes to find themselves in a dark room with featureless stone walls hidden mostly in shadow. However, their attention was almost immediately captured by the sounds of Vaati continuing to scream his throat raw just ahead of them. Twilight and Luna fought back a horrified retching fit as they saw their own mangled bodies displayed alongside the bodies of their friends over a sacrificial stone slab to which Vaati was magically pinned. The sorcerer’s shirt had been ripped open, and a tendril of solid darkness had pierced him through his belly button, seemingly pumping some sort of poison into the mage’s system, if the multitude of black veins spider-webbing out under his skin from where the tendril had impaled him was any indication. Luna could also sense the fringes of the dreamscape beginning to fade and break down, which meant that if Vaati endured much more of this, it would kill him.
However, their entrance did not go unnoticed. Up on the ceiling, a large, pale green eye snapped towards them, widening in shock, as it had not expected to be interrupted.
“What?! You…how?!” Dethl roared.
Luna acted first, firing an intense beam of energy right at the tendril, severing it. While one severed half retreated back into the shadows, the other half still stuck in Vaati writhed like an agitated snake, spewing a hideous-smelling black ichor. Dethl bellowed in anger as the monstrous demon detached itself from the ceiling, taking its true form before them. It towered over the four dream intruders, glaring with unfathomable hatred through its predominant eye.
“RRRRAAAAGH! Equestrian wretch! YOU HAVE MEDDLED IN OUR AFFAIRS FOR THE LAST TIME!” Dethl outright howled with fury.
“YOU HAVE THREATENED THE DREAMS OF THE INNOCENT FOR THE LAST TIME!” Luna bellowed right back in the Royal Canterlot Voice, her eyes glowing pure white. “NOW YOU DIE!”
Dethl thrust one mighty arm at Luna, who threw up a powerful shield and deflected it with a resounding crash. Impa leapt into the air, unsheathing her dagger and raising it high. Dethl saw her coming and ducked its head down, and Impa’s dagger drove through its body all the way to the hilt. Snarling in anger, Dethl bucked and swung at Impa, even as it tried to block Luna’s continuous salvos of energy blasts. “Princess, Twilight, hurry! Get to Vaati!” Luna commanded in a tone that brooked no argument.
By this time, Dethl thrust its head back with enough force to throw Impa off, taking her dagger with her. But the Sheikah warrior nimbly landed on her feet next to Luna, crouching into a fighting position. Dethl howled with rage as its eye glowed a bright whitish-green. Impa leapt aside and Luna teleported out of harm’s way right before a huge burst of energy incinerated the spot they had been standing in a split-second before. Luna reappeared over Dethl’s head and sent a salvo of piercing stars raining down from the sky. Dethl raised a single arm, blocking its face as the stars sliced into its shadowy skin. However, they failed to do much harm, as Dethl’s body was made of shadow energy, and thus not entirely tangible. Impa seized this moment to leap forward and plunge her dagger into the glowing palm of Dethl’s left hand. This time it elicited more of a response from the enraged Demon King, as it whipped around and tried to bludgeon the Sheikah with its other arm. Impa, however, strafed aside yet again, too quick for the giant demon to hit.
Meanwhile, Zelda and Twilight rushed over to the stone slab holding Vaati, trying to ignore the bodies of Twilight herself and her friends hanging limply above them. Vaati was twitching spastically, no longer having the strength to scream. “Ggh…gnngh…” we weakly uttered, his gaze distressingly far-off.
Glaring in determination, Zelda seized hold of the still-flailing severed tendril and tore it out of Vaati’s navel. Strangely, there was no blood, as though the wound hadn’t been truly physical. But its effects were very real: the poison-filled veins spider-webbing away from the cursed injury were not fading fast enough. Zelda threw the tendril to the ground and blasted it to nothingness with a well-placed beam of holy Triforce energy. Twilight jumped onto the table and inspected the hideous wound with a critical eye, her heart pounding against her ribcage as she ran a hoof over the blackened veins. “I-I’ve never seen anything like this before!” Twilight whimpered frantically. “Princess Zelda, can’t you do something?!”
However, the moment Twilight said this, the bodies hanging above them collectively twitched once, the clinking of their chains noticeable even above the din of Luna and Impa’s battle with Dethl in the background. The princess and the pony looked up to see the once-dead faces contort into expressions of pure, mindless fury. Their eyes went pale white, and their bodies began to slowly turn pitch-black like Dethl’s body as they began writhing furiously. Drawing upon a long-buried memory as the Goddess Hylia, Zelda breathed in horrified realization, “Shadow Nightmares…”
Zelda suddenly threw up a shield of light just as the Shadow Nightmares leapt down from the ceiling and attacked, erecting it around herself and the table to which Vaati lay gasping feebly. Some had taken the appearance of dog-sized, inky bats, while others took on the appearance of two-legged chameleon-like beasts. Two became clouds of darkness with tendrils trailing out from behind, and the largest, formerly Luna’s body, became a human-sized beast with two arms that had large, shadowy hooks in place of hands, and floated in the air without any legs. All glared with white, pupil-less eyes gleaming with malice.
Dethl drew back, hissing angrily as Luna and Impa got back into their fighting stances. “Wretched curs,” it snarled hatefully. “This is not the last you have seen of us! We will pay you back ten-fold for this embarrassment!”
And then Dethl swept its arms out, and a massive explosion knocked everyone off their feet, blinding them as they were collectively forced back into the waking world.
XXXXXX
Luna, Twilight, Zelda, and Impa stumbled backwards, disoriented, as they collectively came to. Luna recovered first, just in time to see that they were not alone.
“NO!” she roared, blasting the largest Shadow Nightmare into the wall of the prison cell before it could skewer the unmoving Vaati, momentarily stunning it.
Meanwhile, the Shadow Bats, Shadow Crawlers, and two Shadow Flayers descended upon them, ready to slaughter in their master’s name. Zelda sent them all flying back with a burst of Farore’s Wind before crying out, “Guards! GUARDS! Quickly! Monsters are in the castle!”
Within moments, several Hylian guards burst into the room, spears and swords brandished, just in time to see the Shadow Nightmares recovering. Hissing and snarling in rage, the Shadow Nightmares descended upon the guards and Zelda’s entourage, and a fierce fight broke out in the dungeons. One guard managed to successfully skewer a Shadow Bat on the end of his spear, but he was quickly seized from behind by a Shadow Flayer, its tendrils wrapping around the unfortunate man’s neck and snapping it like a twig.
A Shadow Crawler viciously tried to get past one guard’s upraised shield, growling nastily. The guard was forced on the defensive, but just as the Crawler’s claws finally rent his shield asunder, Zelda blasted it to smithereens from where she was standing.
The Shadow Soldier directed its attention on Luna, swinging with its hooked arms. Luna conjured her sword and blocked its strike, and with a roar of anger, she swung her sword in a wide arc, splitting the Shadow Soldier in half and dispatching it.
Another Shadow Crawler came barreling towards Twilight, who let out a cry as he knocked it back with an energy beam, slamming it against the wall. Before it could recover, Twilight seized its flailing body in her magical grip and smashed it repeatedly against the wall, a mask of cold fury on her face. Eventually she pummeled the monster virtually to shadow dust, and as its body dissipated, she hissed between heavy breaths, “That…was for Vaati.”
The noises of the fighting eventually drew the attention of more castle guards, which poured into the dungeon and immediately did battle with the remaining Shadow Nightmares. Forged steel defended against dark claws and shadowy teeth. Trusting her guards and the others to hold off the remaining demons, Zelda rushed to Vaati’s side. The sorcerer was still twitching feebly, and his eyes were staring at nothing. His breathing was shallowed, and the look of pain and primal terror in Vaati’s eyes was enough to break the princess’s heart. Reaching under her dress, she withdrew a knife she always kept concealed in her boot just in case and quickly but gently ripped Vaati’s tunic open. As she had suspected, the wound he had suffered in the dream world had carried over into the waking world. Countless black veins spreading outward across the length of his torso from his belly button, discoloring the skin to a dead, ashy grey. Placing her hands over Vaati’s wound, Zelda began to chant under her breath. Her Triforce mark lit up on her wrist, and a weak, golden light sprang from her fingers as she desperately tried to purge Vaati’s body of Dethl’s enchanted venom. She could sense, however, that the Demon King’s magic was resisting her attempts, fighting back in order to maintain its cruel hold over him. She even swore she was starting to feel a nauseating, corrupting pain within her own gut, but she forced herself past this and concentrated on healing the Wind Mage who was teetering dangerously close to death’s door.
However, she was shaken from this as she heard a piercing, high-pitched shriek assault her ears. She snapped her head up, the magic in her fingers fading as she beheld a Shadow Bat coming right towards her, a mouth lined with razor sharp teeth opening up to greet her.
Zelda only had time to gasp.
And then the demon’s body was rent in two by a mighty sword swing from behind, the Shadow Bat’s dying screams drowned out by the sounds of the last few Shadow Nightmares fighting the castle guards nearby. Zelda blinked in shock as she recognized her savior, who was regarding her with an indignant expression.
“Now is someone gonna tell me what in the Dark World’s going on?!” Link demanded with an annoyed huff.
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7983980 wow really, felt longer
"Insert obligatory Frankenstien reference here"
IT'S ALIIIIIIIIIVE
Happy to see the story is back up and running.
WOW, now THIS was one heck of a chapter! While it's unfortunate you never got that music commission up, the song itself is mildly impressive, almost orchestral even. The imagery within Vaati's nightmare is hauntingly astounding, the emotions are tense, and I've finally concluded we're in the Twilight Princess Era of Legend of Zelda (second favorite game of the bunch, woo!). Fantastic work, chief. Incredible job.
Really? That's a thing?
Celestia did not warrant a mention, I see...
"Link, you idiot! What took you so long?! We could have died!"
"Well, EXCUUUUUUSSSEEEE ME, PRINCESS!"
Now to re-read the whole series from the beginning so I can remember what's going on.
7984288
Bwah, I love comments like these! I really love writing Dethl in particular because it basically embodies my own dark side, so it serves a bit as an outlet while maintaining just how much of an utter monster Dethl is. I'll admit, I consider Dethl to be even more evil than Majora, because Dethl gets much more personal with its enemies and victims.
However, we are not in a specific game era. This timeline is totally different from the mind-fucky one Hyrule Historia gave us because most of it makes no bloody sense. So there is no Child or Adult Timeline here. As far as we're concerned, the "Adult" Timeline collapsed and ceased to exist in this continuity, so this time's closest equivalent is Child, but calling it that is inaccurate, because this is a 100% custom timeline, but one that's friendlier towards the source material than Hyrule Total War is.
Well... this story is back! Huzzah! Although now we have Link... who wants to know what the heck's going on now, especially since he's probably gonna see his foe that he THOUGHT he killed...
This is gonna be one heck of an explanation... and then if anything, link should not kill him because if Vatii has the triforce and is on their side... Untill then, I'll just have to see.
Celestia, while I find such actions admirable, appealing to their better nature does not mean you have to appeal to their virtues. But there are some people who cannot be reasoned with in such a manner.
7984636 Well, you've certainly done Dethl justice. Not even Mr. Krueger could pull of nightmare tortures like that... At least without the one-liners. As for my statement on the Timelines/Eras, I was just making a simple guess, but thanks for clearing it up. Once more, I look forward to what lay in the future. Now if you'll excuse me, that Meeting Song is now stuck in my head and I need to remedy that situation.
wryyy...
BRILLIANT!
Now your Goddess demandeth another chapter, Lord Sirvant.
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Eheheheh, just as planned. Still, glad that I succeeded in making Dethl an even better source of literal Nightmare Fuel than Freddy...
Gasp! An update? Yay!
Also, damn it, Dethil!
Also also, I'm curious. Did you already write the various chapters, and were you just waiting for the song to be up to post them? Or do you have insane-enough writing skills to get the chapters posted every week? Either way, you are Mr. Awesome, and accept my mustache tribute!
Oh man, a new Wind Mage chapter, weekly updates for the near future, less than 4 days from the Switch...Life is good.
Oh god. Link is a sassy one, isn't he?
That was awesome, Link showing up in the nick of time, now all three pieces of the triforce are united and the king will learn of Demises fall. and the on coming storm
IT LIVES!
Seriously though awesome chapter, and it's great to see you back.
looking forward to the more frequent updates
It has returned!! Yay welcome back dude, man was this a year ago wow I never realized that. Can't wait for the next update
Damn, Vaati was put through the wringer here, and not just from King Daphnes' douchebaggery...At least he isn't dead.
Still hard to deal with Link being able to speak in this
Twilight and King Daphnes's spat reminds me of this:
2 things:
1)
2)
About Goddam time the green elf showed up!
Link: I AIN'T AN ELF!!!!!!!
Later green cap!
Quick question: are you quitting 2.5?
Cancel that question; I just remembered the last update on 2.5.
Aw darn link can speak
Annoyed with some of the "i'm your father!" cliche. It's kinda off-putting, and it feels a bit out of place.
Why not just stick with his picori background?
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Because this has been a headcanon of mine ever since I knew the existence of the two of them.
He just couldn't wait to bomb sone dodongos.
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Which is a rather interesting head canon.