Zelda felt heat rush by her head before she felt the explosion that threw her to the ground. Ears ringing, she was dutifully scooped up by a pair of strong arms and set right again. She knew well enough to shake off the shock of the explosion and continue running. The rain pelted her head and made the path soft and difficult to run on, but the hand that held hers compelled her to move forward. Her lungs burned and her vision blurred as mud and water began to run down her forehead and into her eyes. Then the voice pierced her consciousness, "I killed the dumb rock first, Princess," it said. She shuddered and gasped, stumbling slightly, but the strong hand held her up. "Blew him into a thousand pieces."

The voice, deep and malevolent, cackled, "Then I killed the bird. He bragged about how he was going to end me all the way up until I crushed his skull."

The tears began to roll down Zelda's face mixing with the rain and mud, but she continued on, still guided by the strong hand that held onto hers. The voice pierced her mind again, "The fish girl was especially feisty," it said, and the tone of perverted sadism and the sound of the voice licking his lips caused Zelda's stomach to turn. Her legs gave out and she fell in the mud, slipping from the grip of the one who led her on. She sobbed into the mud as the evil voice went on, "she held on as long as she could, but was no match for me. And then the Gerudo, one of my own, heh heh heh. So strong, yet so stupid. I fried her to a crisp."

"No!" Zelda wailed as the strong arms once again attempted to lift her off the ground, but she didn't want to move anymore. The clanks and whirrs of mechanical legs quickly approaching, and the incessant beeping that she knew was a portent of a quick death finally broke her from her despair and she attempted to rise once again. But she felt the heat again, and then was thrown through the air by another explosion and landed hard on a warm body.

"Link, no!" she said as she looked down at the man who had become her only hope and who had just broken her fall. He had landed on a rock and looked to have broken his shield arm. The sword that seals the darkness was his only means of propping himself up as he rose to a knee and attempted to stand to confront the mechanical monsters that now surrounded them. Zelda suddenly realized that it was all over.

"They're all dead, Link," Zelda said hoarsely, "he killed everyone. He killed our friends. It's over."

Link vigorously shook his head as multiple red beams of light lit up his chest as he finally stood. Her knight would fight to the end. He would die defying the darkness. She couldn't bear the thought. They didn't deserve to die. Her friends, they fought to the end for her; a failure. They suffered in despair because she couldn't do what her predecessors had done. She failed, and so they died. And soon, the whole world would die. Link would…die.

She looked up as a guardian slowly stepped up to them, its red eye aimed straight at her knight's chest. It was ready to fire, and it would incinerate her knight, her friend, her Link.

"NO!" she screamed as she stepped in front of the battered young man as the machine fired. She caught the beam with her hand and repelled it with an amazing flash of light that emanated from her hand and arm. A familiar symbol lit up on the back of her hand as she extended the power forward and destroyed the guardian with ease. The rest of the guardians began to fire, and as if she'd had the power her entire life, she threw up a barrier of light around the two of them and held off the blasts. But then a sudden fatigue began to set in, and she realized she wouldn't be able to continue to hold the beasts back.

"What am I to do!?" she yelled, at whom she did not know. She was desperate for an answer. Why would she just now achieve what she hadn't been able to for years at a moment when it would do her no good? But just as suddenly as she asked, it was as if a new understanding dawned on her. An understanding from someone much like herself, but from a long time ago.

She quickly turned to Link, who had once again fallen to his knees and was looking at the spectacle with awe, and aimed her free hand toward him. A bubble that distorted space and time formed around him and she yelled, "tell them what happened Link! We can't let this happen! We can't let Ganon kill everyone!"

The bubble began to close around him and her shield finally failed. To Zelda's dismay, and in what seemed like slow motion, the bubble did not close around Link quickly enough to prevent his arm from being blown off by a blast from one of the guardians. In shock she watched as the severed limb fell to the ground, its owner now gone. All that remained was her, the arm, and the sword that seals the darkness.

Her mood instantly shifted from hope to intense anger, and she picked up the sword that seals the darkness. It lit up in a brilliant light. She drew from its power and destroyed the entire area around her.