A Note from the Author: At last! The final chapter of Fallen Matriarch--and indeed, the grand finale for the Dark Mind series! Wow! I've come a long way from that very first chapter of Phantom Destiny; it's amazing how one little romance story about Link and Saria could plant the seeds for such a great series! Thanks to everybody who's been following the series all this time; this chapter is devoted to you! And especially ThatFanFicGuy, who had requested Phantom Destiny after reading Imposter; if it wasn't for him, none of this would exist. Now sit back, relax, and enjoy. (note: this is the lengthiest chapter in the series, so be sure to have some time on your hands if you want to read it all in one sitting)

Reviews are so appreciated and wanted that you can consider them mandatory. Isn't that wonderful?

Part IV – Phantom's Revenge

Two witches on broomsticks hovered around me. Their hair were tied into a teardrop-shaped bun, their eyes bugging out to a spooky degree. Their dark olive skin was wrinkled, and they had very few teeth left. Atop one's head was a blue crystal; on the other's, an orange one. "So, Hero of Time, we meet at last," said the blue-capped one.

"We've been watching you," added the orange-capped one.

"W-Who are you?" I demanded. "What have you done to Nabooru?"

"We are the twin sisters Twinrova," sneered the blue-capped one, her stare so cold it could freezing my soul.

"Guardians of the Spirit Temple!" added the orange-capped one, her voice burned into my mind.

"Koume and Kotake are our names," the blue-capped one continued.

"And witchcraft is our game," added the orange-capped one.

"I am Kotake," Kotake, the blue-capped one, said.

"And I am Koume," Koume, the orange-capped one, said.

"Together we are one."

"Separate we are two."

"Yet together or separate..."

"...we've had our eyes on you."

They motioned towards the sobbing creature laying on the floor. Nabooru was a wreck. "L-Link..." she cried. "H-Help me! Link!"

"Nabooru is a traitor," Kotake said.

"And traitors should be punished," Koume said.

"We brainwashed her seven years ago in the desert," Kotake cackled.

"But it seems you have broken her spell," Koume growled.

Kotake looked at Koume. "Koume?"

Koume looked at Kotake. "Yes, Koume?"

Kotake pointed a wand at Nabooru, who shrank back. "She must be exterminated," Kotake said, her voice wickedly low.

Koume nodded and pointed her wand at Nabooru. "I know, Kotake," Koume replied.

I could only stand and watch as the evil sisters pulled their wands back and fired a magical blast. Nabooru screamed and ran, but she was not fast enough. The blast struck her, and she let out a blood-curdling shriek. In seconds she collapsed to the floor, dead.

My nightmare, relived. In just a few seconds, I realized why the witches were so familiar. I had dreamed of Nabooru's death years before it even came into fruition. If only I had remembered sooner... "You monsters!" I roared. "I'll have my hands around your necks for this!"

"Will we, Hero?" they cooed at the same time. In a puff of smoke, they vanished.

"Come back!" I cried into the suddenly-silent hall. "Come BAAAAACK!" Almost on cue, torches flashed on in the dark hallway before me. There was a single door at the very end of the hall.

"Enter at your own risk, Hero of Time," the witches' voices cackled. Hesitantly, I walked through the long hall to the door. It was featureless, apart from a large Gerudo symbol painted on it in black. From the look of it, the door hadn't been used in ages. Opening the door greeted me with more darkness, just as the door into the hallway had. I stuck a hand into it. It seemed safe enough. The space before me felt more like a bubble's membrane, though, than an actual space.

"Go on, Link," Navi whispered.

"I don't really have any choice," I sighed. Taking a deep breath, I entered the darkness.

It truly was more of a membrane; on the other side of the doorway I discovered a room, and the hallway I had just been in fell into darkness. As soon as I was fully through the door, it slammed shut. Looking around, the room I stepped into was dimly lit, but irrefutably empty. "Welcome to the Dark Labyrinth," the witches' voices greeted, though they were nowhere to be seen. They sounded quite pleased with my predicament, and were almost proud in the way they declared my location. "It is here that you shall meet your untimely end, cursed to exist in oblivion for eternity."

I searched my surroundings. It was undeniable, though, that they weren't there. "Where are you?" I demanded.

"We are nowhere, and yet we are everywhere," they answered. "You shall answer to the great Madame Dragmire only if you survive our trial. Otherwise, it is your fate to be eliminated."

I stamped my foot. "Quit being cowards and show yourse—"

"Silence! If you would like, we can kill you now and you won't even have a chance! Is that what you want?"

"N-No—"

"Then prove you have some spirit, and haven't been a waste of our time," Kotake growled (her voice was a bit deeper than Koume's, so I was able to figure out who spoke).

"Play the game of despair!" Koume ordered.

I saw no point in arguing. It wasn't too difficult to remember what they did to Nabooru. "...alright," I surrendered, "I'll play your game. What do I have to do?"

"There are three trials in the Dark Labyrinth," Kotake explained.

"The Cavern of Destruction. The Tomb of Sorrow. And the Temple of Despair," Koume clarified.

"We have constructed traps and dangers. If you are truly Hero of Time, we expect you to have little trouble with them. If you are not who you say to be..." Kotake and Koume laughed. "But we are witches, and we play fair. You will not be left to your own devices...completely."

"We will give you three items," Kotake explained. "You may need all of them if you are to win the game."

"We will provide you with a Stalhound Whistle, a bundle of Ice Arrows, and a single Grappling Hook," Kotake continued. On cue, three pedestals rose from the floor until they were shoulder height. On one sat a pale white whistle, shaped in the form of a hound's skull. On the second was a pile of four or five arrows. Though they looked normal, I didn't doubt their magical title. On the third was a long rope with a metal claw on one end. "Feel free to take them." I nodded and slipped the Ice Arrows into my quiver, putting away the other two articles.

"We shall see you at the top," the witches declared in unison. With a laugh, their voices faded away. The dark wall to my left opened up into an atramentous tunnel, beckoning me to enter. I gulped, glanced at Navi for reassurance, and entered.

-

When light returned, it was in the form of torches, hanging against rocky walls on either side of me in neat, evenly spaced rows. The hallway was dark, but I was able to see enough to acknowledge that it was much less of a hallway and much more of a tunnel. The floor, ceiling, and walls were all made of bedrock, and the tunnel dug deeper and deeper into the earth in front of me, neither ascending or descending, but most certainly going deeper into some cavern.

"So this is the Cavern of Destruction," I mumbled under my breath. "What sort of tricks do those witches have planned for me?" Navi shrugged. I advanced slowly and cautiously, checking the floor in front of me for any traps to speak of. To my surprise, however, I didn't encounter a single trap; the tunnel just went on and on, perfectly safe.

The deeper I delved into the cave, though, the more bizarre my environment became. There were childish whispers and giggles, oh so quiet and yet most certainly present, somewhere in the distance both before and behind my adult body. Weird rock formations on the walls formed menacing faces, and every now and then a blurry, shadowed area on the floor in front of me would appear to be a living face, as sentient as I, only to reveal itself as no more alive than the rest of the rock when I came closer. But sure enough, a few more steps and I'd see that threatening smile on the rocks again, grinning at me in the distance. I perceived, therefore, that this was no ordinary cave (surely anything contrived by two evil witches would be anything but the ordinary, but I had had little to eat and was sleep deprived, and so my mind wasn't working as fast as it should have been), and that it would only be a matter of time before the seemingly-harmless surroundings would reveal themselves to me as violent as a crazed Big Octo, like the one I encountered inside the belly of a god seven years ago.

I drove onwards through the never-ending tunnel, groaning as the hours passed and nothing apart from illusory faces turned up. My legs began to ache, my head nodded every few minutes, and my posture was beginning to slouch. Come to think of it, I hadn't slept for any decent amount of time since playing the Prelude of Time in Kakariko Village. Whether or not this would affect my ability to fight remained to be answered, but I seriously hoped I'd be able to stand my ground against whatever was at the end of this tunnel—considering it had an end at all, of course.

And then, when my energy was just about out, evil came out of its hole. A little girl came skipping along towards me through the tunnel; at first I thought it was a hallucination, but as she grew closer I stopped, shook my head ferverously, and looked again. She was truly there, a child in a dark, infinite tunnel—the Cavern of Destruction, no less. I wasn't dumb, and knew any little girl in a Dark Labyrinth was surely an enemy, but I couldn't help but feel like I had seen that girl somewhere before. No matter how close she got, I did not draw my sword.

At last she arrived, and there I saw (believe it or not) Fado, one of the Kokiri that I had grown up with. And then it was certain that I could not and would not down a friend from the past. She didn't say a word, but merely grinned and waved. I was the first to speak; even Navi was spellbound. "F-Fado?" I inquired. "Is that really you?"

She didn't answer. Instead, she silently pointed down the tunnel and gestured for me to follow her. It was a trap, I decided, and it may be best for me to go the other way, if only to trick Fado into vanishing into whatever magic created her. But turning around I got a shocking surprise: a great stone wall, made of the same rock as the rest of the tunnel, blocked my way back no more than three yards away. I could move infinitely forward in the tunnel, and yet I could only move three yards back. I had no choice but to follow Fado further into the tunnel.

We walked for quite some time, Fado never speaking, until another Kokiri showed up: one of the Know-It-All Brothers. The second came shortly after. In fact, after a while I found myself surrounded by every Kokiri I knew, with the notable exception of Saria. Mido led us onward, mute like all the others (and for that I was pleased; a silent Mido seemed like a blessing). We continued and continued, until to my surprise another dead-end began to come forward from the darkness. Our journey ended at another flat wall impeding my progress.

It was here that the sisters Twinrova made their magic known. "Why have we stopped here?" I asked my silent companions. To this they turned around, and I saw the darkness in their eyes, as if something had hollowed them out and removed everything behind them. There was little difference between the eyes of these Kokiri and the eyes of ReDead. I stumbled backwards, taken by surprise by the disturbing sight before me. My friends became my enemies, and had led me to my tomb.

Or so they would have wished. My mind was halfway in a different place, but I was delighted to find my primal side was just waking up. The Kokiri revealed small daggers, Mido a Kokiri Sword, but my hand almost involuntarily moved to my Master Sword's hilt and drew the Sword of Evil's Bane. I was aware from the beginning that the two-timing children were no more than a mirage, and so the only emotional hesistance I experienced was from the fact that they were virtually identical to my friends from seven years ago. I had to close my eyes before swinging the sword, and I tried with all my might as I bloodied the tunnel's floor to cancel out the grotesque sound of snapping bones and necks as I decapitated them all. They didn't stand a chance; I didn't expect them to. Their purpose, I was soon aware, was mere psychological mockery from two wicked hags. These Kokiri were meant to die.

When it was over, I could scarely eye the pile of bodies on the tunnel floor. If anything, I had given the Cavern of Destruction its title—I had destroyed my friends (plus Mido, who was a poor choice on Twinrova's part because I never liked him anyway; had they chosen Saria, I would have been debilitated). I was reminded of the Moblins I slaughtered in my assault on the Sacred Forest Meadow, and how similarly their headless, disfigured bodies stacked upon each other when they died. My adventure in the art museum atop the meadow's cliffs, I realized, was almost a month ago. It felt like I was working by the days, but I had been an adult for more than three weeks. And in those weeks, my sleep had summed up to be very little.

But the tunnel had now ended and there was nowhere to go. As I turned around, though, I was pleased to find that the wall that had constantly lurked behind me had departed, and I could see at the very edge of the farthest visible torch's light, a sort of drop-off. I nearly ran; it was such a relief to find the tunnel's end that I was overcome by joy despite the grim surroundings.

I stepped out onto a ledge overlooking a vast, open expanse. It was a circular cavern, so clear-cut that at a glance I could tell it was the most perfect of circles. Its diameter was enormous—the size of Death Mountain's crater, I'd warrant—though it was only as high as the cliffs surrounding the Kokiri Forest. Holes in the ceiling were all that let light into the grotto, shining down onto the jagged, rocky floor like spotlights. The cavern was obsequiously empty.

"It's a trap," I concluded with a sigh, letting Navi onto my shoulder. My hope to be in the Tomb of Sorrow was crushed; no matter how different the space before me was from the enchanted tunnel of variable length, I was still in a cavern. The trials of the Cavern of Destruction weren't over yet, and big spaces (as I had learned in the Dodongo's Cavern and Shadow Temple) usually meant high-caliber danger.

"Obviously," my tired fairy nodded.

"What do you think is going to attack us?" I mused. "A dragon? Or maybe stalactites will rain down on us from above, like they did in the Dodongo's Cavern? Perhaps we won't fight at all, and will just be crushed from a falling ceiling."

"I really can't tell you, Link," Navi replied, letting out a deep breath. The poor dear, she was truly exhausted. "You'll just have to prepare for anything."

"I wonder what use these items are going to be?" I questioned, pondering the value of the three things given to me by the sisters Twinrova. "I really don't see how any of them would help me escape from a place such as this."

"We'll just have to find out. Do you want me to fly out first?"

"No! I can't bear to think what would happen if you were gobbled up by some invisible monster. Why don't I go first?"

"We'll go together." That was something I could agree on.

Stepping down a small stone staircase, I nearly jumped at the loud echo of my boots arriving on the bumpy floor of the cavern. "Well, I'm here!" I called into the abyss. "If you want to kill me, show yourself now!" My voice radiated for ages, it felt, before I got a reply. It was a reply I never would have expected.

Four flames illuminated themselves in what I guessed was the center of the cavern. One burned the fieriest of orange; another, the coldest of blue; the third, a most hateful of green; the final, a truly evil purple. Though they were far away, I could just make out a black shadow beside every flame, with a gleam of red glow around what must have been slits for eyes. They were, as I recognized rather distastefully, ghosts blacker than midnight and eviller than the most mindless of starving lions. And indeed, that's what they were: lions, or lionesses to be more correct. Starving lionesses on a hunt, a hunt that they inevitably hoped would end with blood. Floating in the center of the cavern was none other than all four of the Poe Sisters, the same quartet that had tortured my beloved Saria to no end, and whom had found glee in tormenting me with images of her death as I slayed them one by one in the Forest Temple. It felt like so long ago, yet the sight of the four hags was enough to give me clear reminders of why I hated them.

The closest of the four wore a purple crown, if you could call it that—surely full of hay, it looked like the sort of headdress a witch would wear during a murderous ceremony. It was of terrible taste in modern fashion, and I doubt even the witches Twinrova would dishonor themselves with a hat as wretched as this. She alone addressed me; it was Meg, the oldest of the Poe Sisters. "Hero of Time, most horrid of Hylians!" she denounced. I couldn't help but notice her voice a little weaker, and her shadowy body a little fainter, than they were when I brought them to an end in the Lost Woods. "You dishonored the House of Cauchemira when you so cruely vanquished my sisters and I. It was foolish to think you'd seen the last of us, though I'm disappointed our second meeting wasn't in the world of the dead as the Lord of the Lost Woods would have hoped. His failure, though, was suitingly punished by the Great Ganondorf." The other sisters nodded. "It was in the world of the dead, though, that we discovered a dark secret about your past, most repulsive of swordsmen."

"A dark secret?" I scoffed. "I don't have anything of the sort!"

"Don't interrupt, darling," snapped Amy, the youngest of the sisters, who hooded her face in a green cloak. She was, at least, the politest and most pleasant of the Poe Sisters, but her undead heart was nonetheless corrupted by the envy she felt towards the living. Though her old voice was softer than her sisters', it was no less commanding.

"Thank you, Amy," Meg nodded to her sister. Turning her crimson eyes back onto me, she continued, "We met somebody, somebody you know very well. Needless to say, it was shocking in the least to hear that such a 'noble' person as yourself brought him his demise."

"Again, I don't know what you're talking about!" I insisted. In my entire life history, I took pride in that I did no wrong.

"Perhaps you need a reminder?" Meg snickered. Mysteroiusly, the Poe Sisters separated, so that they were equidistant from themselves and from the ends of the cavern. "We thought as much. You'll be pleased to know that he, not I, shall be the one to tell you what you've done." I looked at Navi questioningly. She had a confused look on her face, as if neither she nor I could figure out this paradox. I could just barely make out the hand of Meg, who had come closer to me, rise and snap.

Suddenly, the entire cavern seemed to rumble. A bit desperately, I seized the edge of the steps to keep myself from falling over onto the hard floor. In the center of the cavern, something began to raise itself from the earth. At first I saw a single crooked white needle, then some more, and some more, until I realized that leafless branches were revealing themselves and rising towards the ceiling. They were as pale as bones, as if they came from a dried out wasteland. I was certain there was no life remaining in them. Soon, the branches seemed to center into the point where the first had risen—the center of the cavern. There, the trunk of some tree began to rise. Already, the highest of branches had gone back through the ceiling, giving the trunk a very pillared look. It was thick and dry, actually rotting in some places. The bark, though, was dead familiar. I found myself dreading what was to come before it too rose from the ground. I gasped and nearly lost my hold on the stairs. When it finally ended, I found myself looking straight into the eyes of the Great Deku Tree from seven years ago. Or, at least, the dead version of him.

"Link!" the tree boomed in a fashion both sorrowful and furious. "You did this to me!"

"No!" I cried. "It was Gohma!"

"Away with your lies! Why did you do this? Didn't I and the Kokiri raise you? I sheltered you when you needed it, and this is what I got in return?"

"I'm telling you, it was Gohma!" I pleaded.

"Link, I... I can't take this!" Navi looked like she was going to faint. I quickly opened the pocket of my tunic before she plopped in with a light thump.

"DIDN'T I TELL YOU TO STOP LYING!? Link, you and you alone... You MURDERED ME!"

"NO!" I screamed. "IT WASN'T ME!!!"

"You think I don't know who my own killer was!? I wished you to save me, not to be my executioner! You are a MURDERER, Link! A MURDERER!" The ground seemed to shake with his final word. I shook my head, lip trembling, trying to tell myself that somehow, someway, this had to have been an illusion by the sisters. It couldn't possibly really be him, could it? "I demand justice be brought down upon you! JUDGMENT!" The words came from his very own wooden mouth. Now I felt close to fainting. I could hear disturbing laughter echoing from the branches that remained in the cavern. Though the Poe Sisters were up there, I was almost certain the laughs came from something else. "You must DIE for what you've done, Link!"

"You heard him, ladies!" Joelle, the red sister, cheered. "Let's get him!" Overhead, I could see Beth, the blue sister, nod with glee. They cackled and started swooping down at me like Keese, arms spread wide as they glided through the air.

Real Deku Tree or not, I couldn't just stand there—I had to do something! Perhaps the sisters had cursed him; would destroying them work? I fired an arrow at Joelle. She hooted when my air flew right through her without doing a thing.

Navi dazedly peeked her head out from my pocket. "Link," she weakly groaned, "try one of...urp...the three things they gave us..."

I nodded, but I had no time to think which one to take. I just reached into my supplies and pulled out the first one I touched—the Stalhound Whistle. Without a moment to lose, I took a deep breath and blew as hard as I could into the instrument. Not too far in front of me, a lion-sized canine rose from the ground. It had no organs to speak of—like Stalfos, it was only a skeleton. There wasn't much time left. "Can I ride these things?" I demanded.

"I think," Navi squeaked.

I ran forward and swung myself onto the Stalhound. "Uh... Forward, forward!" I cried. The Stalhound broke into a blinding speed, leaving me only enough time to clutch its shoulderblade bones before it erupted forward. I stole a glance behind me and saw Joelle and Beth angrily crash into each other before spinning around and giving chase. The Stalhound began following the wall of the circular cavern, and we began to spin around to the backside of the Deku Tree.

"You can't escape us!" Joelle snickered.

"Revenge shall be our's!" Beth added.

Not if I had anything to say about it, I thought. The question was what running would do for me; all it did was give me time to think. We briefly rushed through one of those spotlights while I was busy looking back, and the reflection off the Mirror Shield almost blinded me. That was enough to give me an idea, though. "Perhaps this will do something?" I asked outloud. Navi only shrugged from my pocket.

Holding on as tight as I could with one arm, I turned my waist around and pointed my Mirror Shield towards the two sisters. We ran through another spotlight, and in that moment the light bounced off of my shield and shined onto the two hags that followed me. In a flash, both of them vanished in a puff of smoke. The Stalhound ran out of the light, and I was able to see the spot where I swore just moments ago they had flown. "Did they turn invisible?" I stuttered. The furious screams overhead told me otherwise. A brief glance up and I saw Meg and Amy were virtually tearing themselves apart in anger. Meg was even pulling dangerously at her hat. Somehow, the light must have disintegrated them! Or worse...

"Inconcievable!!!" screeched the elder sister. "God of Earth, I command you to destroy him!"

"You must pay for your crime, Hero of Time," thundered the Deku Tree, swiveling itself around to face me.

"I'm telling you, I didn't do it!" I insisted. My cry was followed with a woozy groan as the Stalhound lurched forward, jumping over a particularly craggy rock and landing hard on the ground beyond it. Suddenly, the earth before us trembled, and the Stalhound dodged to the left just in time to avoid the tip of a giant root surge forth through the rocks. Not to long after, we had to dodge another one. The Deku Tree continued to follow us around the circle.

My eyebrow rose when I saw frolicking, laughing little imps drop down from the Deku Tree's lowest branches. As merry as they appeared, the spears they brandished told me they were up to no good. They approached me at tottering speeds, and as ineffective as I thought that would be, I was surprised when I looked forward and saw one about to stab me. Fortunately, I had my sword in my hand in time, and I knocked the short wooden creature away. "Navi," I asked, "what are these things?"

"Koroks, Link!" Navi explained. "Or at least zombie ones. They're probably like the Kokiri we saw before; you just can't see their faces!"

Koroks—an interesting adversary. Koroks were the true forms of the Kokiri—it was through the wishes of the Kokiri that they had donned the appearances of Hylian children. I had never seen a Korok before, but could understand how they got to be called forest sprites. They were little more than small logs or tree stumps, configured into the shape of little goblins with leafy masks covering their faces. They reminded me of the Deku.

Things seemed to get increasingly troublesome, however, when Korok zombies began rising from the ground rather than dropping from the Deku Tree (who I was now certain was no more real than the Kokori and Korok zombies). When my Stalhound wasn't sharply dodging the rising roots, I had to busy myself with knocking Koroks away from the sides of the creature.

I was particularly frustrated with one Korok who, despite losing his weapon, decided it would be a hindrance to me if it grabbed onto my leg and just hung there. He was impossible to get off, and with all the bouncing around my mount was doing and the other Koroks I had to worry about, the extra weight on one side was a constant agitation.

Just as I was finally peeling the Korok off, Navi spoke up. "Link!" she reported. "Keep a sharp eye out for trouble; Amy's gone missing!" I looked up; she was right. There was only the violet hag Meg floating in the skeletal canopy.

The moment I lowered my vision to my front, the youngest sister showed herself. In a poof of green fire, the jovial Amy materialized right in the Stalhound's way. She didn't care though, and with a quick sweep of her hand there was a burst of green energy that launched towards us and vaporized the undead hound. I hit the rocky surface with a terrible crash, going from high speed to no speed with all the deceleration coming from my poor body.

"Enough running away, dearie," cooed Amy. "Let's play now!" Just as I was getting to my feet the witch dashed towards me with her flame spinning around her, intent on giving me a burn I'd regret. Recalling the ineffectiveness of my weapons on the two middle sisters, I didn't stand my ground; instead, I ran for my life! Whenever I thought I had lost her, the tricky puzzle-lover appeared out of thin air right in front of me, prepared at the get-go to incinerate me. To my relief, a quick look around showed that the Koroks hadn't realized the Stalhound was gone, and the spot where it had been destroyed was being stamped on by Korok zombies before they were impaled by a root, and then the process would start all over again.

In the corner of my eye I spotted a bit of light not too far away. Amy recognized my sudden burst of courage, and tried emitting green beams at me rather than try to get up close. My Mirror Shield somehow was able to cancel her beams out, and I made a mental note to give the shield a try if I ever ran into a Beamos. To her frustration I made it to the light before she could stop me, and with a sudden movement I flipped around and flashed her green hide with a ray of light. She was gone in mere seconds.

Meg screeched unintelligible words from the Deku Tree's branches. I glanced upwards and saw her flailing in anger. "This can't happen again!" she screamed, collecting herself suddenly and pointing at my accusingly with a crooked black finger. "I won't let it!" I blinked, and suddenly she was in the form of a purple flame with sinister blue eyes, hovering in the air. With a fluid motion she slithered through the air, until finally she shot herself into the Deku Tree, which upon contact she vanished entirely.

"I'm taking matters into my own hands!" roared the Deku Tree. His voice was now scratchy, effeminate, and wicked; it didn't take too much to guess he was being possessed. "You'll die for this outrage!"

"How? By you hiding in a giant dead tree?" I reconciled. "This whole time, you haven't lifted a single finger. You hags could have all ganged up on me; in fact, you could have done so in the Forest Temple, now couldn't you? Instead, you thought it a bright idea to hide in paintings. And now, after sitting back and doing nothing while your sisters were destroyed again, you're hiding yourself in the Deku Tree's dead body! I don't see how you'll spell my end at all; maybe the Deku Tree, but certainly not you! Face it—you're just a coward!"

"How DARE you!?"

"If you're so brave, then quit hiding and let's put an end to this!"

I got no response. The Koroks turned their attention to me, and all at once began teeter-tottering towards me with weapons held high. I grabbed my Master Sword and started hacking at the little nuisances, but they took no damage whatsoever. Instead, they were merely knocked away. "Navi, my sword isn't working!" I related hastily.

"Try your shield! It worked on the sisters, maybe it will work on these too!" Navi answered just as quickly.

I nodded and backed back up into the light. As soon as I directed my Mirror Shield onto a Korok, it collapsed into a heap of sand. "It works!" I cheered. Very quickly, I brought the rest of the Koroks the same sandy fate. Lowering my shield, I unintentionally reflected a bit of light onto one of the raised roots. Shockingly, I caused part of it to disintegrate, leaving a well-defined hole in the shape of my shield's mirror. "Navi," I pondered outloud, "what if..."

With great vigor I turned around and directed my shield at the Deku Tree. The light relayed off of my Mirror Shield and onto the trunk of the dead plant. He didn't disintegrate at first, but instead trembled and screamed. His yells were a strange blend between those of the Deku Tree and those of Meg. Within minutes, the massive zombie began sinking into the cavern floor, melting into sand by the second. When it was all over, light wasn't even necessary. I just watched the last of his branches collapse into a giant pile of sand as the last of his screams died out. When everything was said and done with, the sand erupted into purple fire, and slowly faded away.

"Have a look at that, Navi," I noted, pointing at the center of the spacious cavern. Where the Deku Tree had risen, there was now a gaping black hole. "That must be the way to proceed. Let's get going."

"Fine by me," Navi smiled.

-

At the bottom of a ladder I discovered another small hall lined with fire. This hall, however, apart from being darker was lined with torches of blue fire—not the cold fire, mind you, but it wasn't the hot kind either. It had no feeling. "Welcome to the Tomb of Sorrow," echoed the voice of Kotake. "We are impressed by your performance in the Cavern, but we shall see how you fair in the catacombs of the Twili."

"The Twili..." I repeated. An ancient race, the Twili vanished from Hyrule long before the Civil War. Nobody knew why they vanished, but as it was believed that they were one of the primordial tribes inhabiting the region ages before the Hylians even existed, most believed they went in the same fashion as the Moon People of Headstone Mountain and the Sun People of the Snowpeak Mountains. The three tribes were shrouded in mystery; Impa had been studying them for years before she went to the University, and even then she knew so very little. I had no idea what the Twili's cemetery was doing so deep underground, but I figured this was just a trick of a witch.

At the end of the hall I stepped out into another open cavern, though this time it was rectangular. Though no light seemed to exist this deep beneath the earth, the cavern was illuminated by a faint blue glow that seemed to come from the air itself. Though dark, I could still see. The cavern floor was covered with tombstones, each evenly spaced into a multitude of rows and columns. A slow, silent river flowed in a straight line at the other end of the cavern, resembling little more than a blue band slicing through a blue cave. The cave seemed lifeless in its entirety; but as my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I saw that life was numerous so far below the ground.

Giant Skulltulas, greater in size than I had ever seen in the Lost Woods, tip-toed through the columns and rows like silent sentinels, patrolling the graveyard more efficiently than even Dampé could accomplish. Their ghostly-white backs, virtually identical to the faces of enlarged Hylian skulls, bobbed as they weaved in and out of the rows, and their black head, crowned with hundreds of glossy red eyes, shimmered in the dim glow of the cavern. I had never seen a Skulltula on the ground; I had always thought them tree-dwelling creatures. This was truly a bizarre night to remember. Thinking back, I only had two of the three weapons on hand given to me by Twinrova: the Grappling Hook, and the Ice Arrows. Which would I be using in the tomb?

I hadn't the slightest clue about how I would proceed, but I thought it best first to try taking care of some Skulltulas. Perhaps, I thought, if I were to empty the tomb of the arachnids I would be able to continue. Stepping down another small flight of steps and onto the black, surprisingly sandy surface of the graveyard, I recalled that Skulltulas had very poor eyesight. If anything, I wouldn't have to worry about fighting too many. I could take them out one by one. How I could handle Skulltulas as big as these, though, was the most glaring problem. "We'll just have to cross that bridge when we get there, right Navi?" I shrugged. She nodded silently, then hid back in my pocket.

I tightened my grip on my Master Sword, but eased it directly thereafter. All this stress wasn't good for me; Skulltulas, I was well aware, weren't the worst I'd be fighting tonight. Why should I spend all my energy, of which I was losing by the second, on the appetizers when the main course was still in the distance? Perhaps, I figured, a relaxed, systematic approach would be best for these arachnid underlings.

I took a deep breath as I walked into the path of one of them. They were far bigger up close than they had been at the end of the hall—from there they looked to be about the size of goats, but up close they were surely the size of horses. In any case, it was a little taller than I was. The spider didn't notice me until it was four gravestones away, and then it hissed quietly and reared. "Come on," I baited. "Come and get me." The massive skull back was cumbersome to the giant creature, and its onslaught was slow. I marveled at how its small feet stamped the sand like a broomstick on a wooden floor. It was truly a bizarre creature.

I held up my shield, but seeing that the beast was trying to charge me I sidestepped into a different row, intending for it to run past me. To my surprise, though, it exhibited great maneuverability and made a sharp turn, crawling right over the grave and ramming its head into my Mirror Shield. I squeaked, but held my ground. Its head was as big as my shield was, and its mandibles were long enough that they were merely inches away from my right hand, reaching around the shield and struggling wildly to get further. The impact of the spider's head, together with holding it at bay, brought great stress onto my right arm. I was able to sneak my sword under its pushing head and decapitate it, but when the great beast collapsed I winced as pain shot up my right arm.

"Are you okay, Link?" Navi piped up.

"Yeah," I groaned. "I just don't think I'm going to be able to use my shield arm for a while." Navi returned with a look of sympathy. I sighed in dismay and hung my shield on my back. I'd have to come up with some other method to down any other spider I fought. However, when I saw what came forth from the dead Skulltula, battling arachnids was the least thing on my mind.

In the stump the Skulltula had now for a head, water—rather than blood—poured forth. At first I thought it must have been a trick of my eyes, but it continued to pour and pour, as if the creature was a giant sack of water that I popped the cork from. The water trickling from the beast spread incredibly fast, and before I knew it a thin layer of water covered the graveyard's surface, turning the floor from sandy to being a sort of shallow beach. The layer was only an inch high, more or less, but the fact that it existed was enough to give me apprehension.

At about the same time, I became aware that there was a distinct dripping sound coming from somewhere nearby. At first I thought it was the Skulltula, but when I directed my pointy ears towards it it seemed to be in the wrong direction.

Somebody began to clap. It was a slow clap, as if impressed but believing it could have seen better. I spun around. "Bravo, bravo," cheered a deep, horribly familiar voice. A pair of red eyes twinkled in the blue darkness. The head they existed on quivered, as if no more than a reflection in the water, and flickered like a light bulb going out. "Glad to see you still have that oh-so-special touch, Fairy Boy."

Horrible, dark, bloodstained memories wound themselves over and over again in my mind. Recollections of hatred, revenge, and fear. A dead king, a massacred race... And the murderer's greatest accomplice standing at my doorstep. "What are you doing here?" I growled in a low voice. Dark Link was a being I hated probably more than Ganondorf himself.

"I think the answer is obvious," the doppelganger replied. His answer was in every single way the sort of answer I'd give if asked the same question. The answer was obvious. I had just been hoping for the contrary. "I'm here to kill you. Though I'd prefer to have a chance to talk to you first."

I nodded. "I expect you to tell me why your filthy soul isn't dead yet."

"I expected you to tell me that. Heh heh... Truth be told, I'm not the illusion you battled in the Zora's Domain; though I know all about it, how greatly my former succeeded. The sisters Twinrova were skeptical of Lady Morpha, and they thought it foolish that Ganondorf give her life in the first place. It was clear that a monster of such power and intellect would be traitorous in the very beginning. So the witches hired a sorceress from the darkest corner of the four kingdoms, a black magic expert named Veran, in order to find out how to best conquer Morpha should she get out of hand. Though you certainly did everything for us." Dark Link smiled a very devious smile. "But in her studies, Veran discovered how to replicate the creation of doppelgangers. Lady Morpha's replication of you proved very handy for her; the Gerudo needed a weapon like that. So after a bit of prodding, a bit of money, and a promise of power, Veran created me." Dark Link rotated his body in a complete circle. "What do you think? I don't even need that filthy amoebic juice that my former needed to survive. Just plain, ordinary water."

Actually, when I considered it, I wondered why I hadn't come up with that conclusion sooner. There was no reason why Ganondorf and his minions wouldn't want to know the secret of Morpha's Dark Link. I should have expected this.

Dark Link looked around the Tomb of Sorrow. "It is a pity that your end should come here. We aren't even in the same world as you live in. Your defeat shall never be witnessed by anybody."

"What do you mean, 'not the same world?'" I demanded.

Dark Link shook his head, smiling menacingly. "It's time for you to die."

Dark Link quickly pulled out his sword and thrust it towards me, but I expertly side-stepped it. He may have my appearance, but he was in no way as experienced as I was. My side-step visibly took him by surprise, though that only served to anger him. He swung around again with his sword, which I narrowly ducked. I then brought my own sword up from underneath him, but it merely passed through. "Not again..." I muttered in frustration.

Dark Link vanished all of the sudden, and I only had enough time to jump his low swing as he rose from the water behind me. A dirty trick of Morpha's illusions that I had forgotten—they were made of water, and so no solid object could harm them, and they could sink into and rise from the water as they liked. The only thing I knew was capable of hurting them was electricity, and I didn't have Ruto around this time to release it.

"Wait a second!" I exclaimed, swinging myself around another gravestone to avoid the constant swinging of Dark Link's sword. "He's made of water!"

"Link, try your Ice Arrows!" Navi suggested, though she merely put what I had in my mind into words.

"With pleasure," I grinned. As quickly as I could, I reached into my quiver and pulled out one of the very limited number of Ice Arrows Twinrova had given me. Blessed with icy magic, as I had read once in the Kokiri Forest's library, Ice Arrows could freeze anything their arrowheads touched. I notched the cold arrow in my Fairy Bow, took aim, and fired.

Dark Link had merely expected the arrow to pass through him, but instead it hit his left arm solidly in the underside of his elbow. The watery reflection cried out in pain as sanguine water spouted from the wound, which solidified so that it wasn't transparent any longer. "You'll pay for that," he cried. He snapped his fingers on his right hand.

A Skulltula came plowing through gravestones from our right. With a swift jump, Dark Link landed on the spider's back. "What shall you do now, Hero of Time?" he snickered.

"Uh... Run away!" I answered with a yelp, grabbing Navi from the air and shoving her under my hat before making an about face and running. The Skulltula thundered after me, toppling over gravestones as sand and water was flung into the air by its spindly legs. I could hear the ghosts of whatever bodies lay underneath the tombstones moan in agitation. I had heard legends of strange cyclopian ghosts that lived in tombs such as the one I was in, called Ghinis, but I hoped that this tomb was an exception. From what I had heard, they were worse than Poes.

Dark Link laughed behind me, obviously enjoying my fright as he effortlessly pursued me in the dark blue cave. I tried to shut him up with another arrow over my head, but to my frustration the Skulltula knocked the arrow away with one of its legs and continued to chase me. "I don't think arrows are going to work this time Navi," I groaned as I took a sharp turn to avoid hitting the wall of the cavern, though it was still far away. "And my sword is out of the question..." Forcing my mind to multitask between running and thinking, I thought back to past experience, hoping the secret to Dark Link (or at least the Skulltula's) destruction was there. When had something been impervious to any sort of weapon at all? There wasn't any time I had met something invincible...except twice. It dawned on me that I had faced a monster of such qualifications a little more than a week ago, and that meeting had been a reunion. The dry voice, the dusty claws, the slavish behavior; Dead Hand, spokesman and loyal servant of Bongo Bongo, had resisted my sword and even pulled it into him. In both meetings, I had needed to rely on the magic of the gods to slay the zombie; perhaps that was the key to defeating one of my two adversaries now.

Without stopping my feet for a moment, I thought back, trying to remember what the magic words were. I was beginning to tire (indeed, one cannot run very fast for very long when sleep deprived), and Dark Link's Skulltula was coming closer and closer. My replica's haunting laugh echoed throughout the entire Tomb of Sorrow, and soon the other Skulltulas began to home in on me as well. I was surrounded.

"Flame of my heart, burn... No, that's not it," I tried. "Fires of nature, bring down this creature? No... By Farore's Book, what were those words!?" In moments all of the Skulltulas, Dark Link's included, would be on top of me. I was running out of time. "By the Great Din's Inferno...? That's not even close!"

"Hurry!" Navi cried, peeking out of my hat and witnessing the many spider heads so close we could see each individual eye.

"I'm trying!" I cried.

"There will be dinner tonight, my pets!" Dark Link laughed.

"That's it!" I yelled. "I remember!"

"Then say it already!" Navi pleaded, slamming the rim of my hat back down over her head. I could feel her trembling.

"May the energy of seasons and nature bring me might," I recited as loud and fast as I could, planting my feet in the wet sand and flinging my hands into the air, "bring me a fireball tonight!!!" Just as the mandibles of the Skulltulas were mere feet away from me, opening and preparing to rip me apart, a circle of roaring flames erupted around me and expanded outwards, catching every single spider in its wrath. The Skulltulas cried in pain, but Dark Link's roar of fury was the loudest of them all. I saw he survived the fire, but his Skulltula did not. The flames lasted for a very short time, and when they vanished I was satisfied to see every Skulltula crippled on the floor, burnt such a dark black that I knew they were dead.

"And as for you," I addressed Dark Link, "quit pretending to be me!" I seized another Ice Arrow, notched it in my bow, and fired it at him so quickly that in his confusion and frustration he didn't know what hit him. The arrow nested itself in his chest, and within seconds he froze. Where the wicked illusion once stood there was now only an ice sculpture shaped in my name.

The tomb fell into silence. Navi and I were the only living souls remaining; it was a bit of an eerie feeling, almost as if we were the last beings in the world. I climbed up on top of one of the dead Skulltula carcasses and surveyed the cavern. There didn't seem to be anywhere to go from this point.

Slowly, though, I began to see progress. The back wall, on the other side of the river, began to grudgingly fall back, extending the length of the cavern more and more. As I watched and waited, a statue began to carve itself out of the receding wall. It was in every way identical to the statue of Arbitra that graced the entrance to the temple far above us. Even in the dark blue of the Tomb of Sorrow, I could see every detail of her design. At the base of her coiled body was an ominous doorway, open and beckoning us to enter.

Crossing a bridge over the river, I saw that the opening was no less inky and dark as the entrance to the Dark Labyrinth. "Is this the Temple of Despair?" I whispered, prompting Navi to exit my hat and land on my shoulder to see for herself. "Does this mean we're almost done?"

"Why have the witches been so silent?" Navi asked, looking around and particularly at the bare cavern ceiling. "I haven't heard from them since we entered. I wonder what they're up to?"

"Panicking over my success, I hope," I mused. "Either that, or they're laughing as they think about my demise. I wonder what's in store for us?" Eager to find out and get this long challenge over with, I advanced towards the Temple of Despair.

Stepping into the darkness felt like traveling through a membrane, similar to the feeling I experienced entering the Labyrinth. For a sharp, split second, my breath was taken away, and then it came back again as I appeared on the other side of the darkness. It was nearly taken away again.

I found myself back in the entrance to the Spirit Temple. "What the—?" I gasped, nearly fainting. It was... It couldn't have been... It was the Spirit Temple, and yet it wasn't. The walls were as smooth as a baby's skin, the golden cobra statues were now silver and without tarnish. Instead of a rusty orange hue, the temple was a dark blue—the mere effect of a moonlit sky outside. It was as if everything was new; there wasn't a single crack in the floor, which was graced with the most eloquent of rosy red rugs. Yet looking behind me, I could only see the darkness I had passed through. "Navi, where are we?" I questioned. Truth be told, it looked undeniably like the Spirit Temple, and yet there was something different about it, as if it were all a dream. The walls bent inward at odd angles, the snake statues seemed a bit more ferocious and alive, and there was a bit of a hollow whistling sound that seemed out of this world. It was like turning the Spirit Temple into a book and having somebody rewrite the entire novel, true to the original but with the new author's own flair. The story was even branded a new title: Temple of Despair.

"Link," my fairy murmured, after taking a moment to think, "I think we're in the..."

"But Navi... We can't be!"

"Wait, let me finish! I think...well, I'm just throwing this out, but what if the Spirit Temple we knew was just an illusion—what if this is the real Spirit Temple?"

"Why would that be, though?" Navi was picking for straws, I could tell. But her guess was as good as mine.

"You don't think somebody so rich as Madame Dragmire, or a race so powerful as the Gerudo, would leave their most sacred place in such bad condition, do you?" She landed on my hat and started pacing back and forth. "I've been wondering since we arrived in the Desert Colossus why the Spirit Temple was practically falling apart. But if the real temple was underground... That would be a different story. It would be the ultimate protection!"

I considered it. "So the real Spirit Temple... Is the Temple of Despair?" This sounded ridiculous, and yet it fit...

"That's what it looks like."

"Then we aren't out of the labyrinth after all," I groaned. Making the best of our situation, though, I surveyed the landing, and found both wings were open. "Which way do we go, then? And where to?"

"I'd warrant the witches are here somewhere, Link."

"Then to the statue room!" I decided.

I chose the right wing, and started making my way back to the room with the statue of Arbitra. Before I could even make it past the fork, though, I ran right into a Gerudo guard. Quickly, I made for my Master Sword; Navi stopped me before I could. "Look, Link," she gasped, horror trembling in her voice, "look at her eyes!" I froze. The Gerudo guard, just turning around to face me, didn't have any eyes at all. Where her eyes should have been, the seductive guard had black holes.

"She's a... She's a zombie!" I exclaimed, staggering back.

The guard didn't care whether it was or wasn't, though, and without a word she came at me with her scimitar-topped spear. I stepped out of the way and nailed her in the back with my sword. Before she could even hit the floor, she turned into sand. "This is rather disturbing," I mumbled, staring disdainfully at the pile of sand on the moonlit floor.

"Here's another theory for you," Navi offered. "What if the Spirit Temple wasn't even a real building; the one above ground, I mean. There wasn't any sign of any evil corruption there, like there was in the other temples. Everything seemed...well, normal. I'll bet you this is the true corruption of the Gerudo."

"I'll bet you I would have seen this if I had used my Lens of Truth," I grumbled. "Should have thought of that." I rotated my right shoulder and stretched it. The dull pain had gone away. "Hey, I think my arm's feeling better," I smiled. "Let's keep going. And keep it up with the theories, I'm enjoying them."

I quickly found that I had to blast my way through the whole temple. There was twice as many guards here, it seemed, than in the fake temple; fortunately, though, they seemed quite expendable, and I could disintegrate them with a mere swing of the sword. It disturbed me to no end, however, that they were zombies. Navi was spilling out idea after idea, all of them warranted, and pretty soon I was able to paint a picture of what happened here. The Cave and Tomb had merely been illusions, just like the Spirit Temple; mirages of what truly was. The former two had behaved as a portal, though, into the true temple, the Temple of Despair. Here, I was seeing the Spirit Temple for what it truly was: corrupted and transformed from a glorious palace to a zombie-infested fortress. The Gerudo, for how long I had no idea, had been brainwashed by Madame Dragmire and were serving her without question in her evil campaign. Perhaps that was why the Gerudo in the fake temple didn't seem truly evil—they were unknowingly doing evil, not willingly. What I could only wonder now was what that meant for me.

It seemed like there were zombies in every room. Among them were not-so-statue-like Armos Knights that attacked me as soon as they saw me. My Master Sword couldn't make a dent in them, but I found my bombs worked quite effectively. They exploded with the bombs, turning the zombies around them into dust. As I progressed through the temple, I couldn't help but remark at how enchanting it seemed, graced by moonlight (for I realized now that I wasn't underground anymore) through open windows that pierced the dark blue shadows with pale white light. To my delight as well, the light disintegrated the Gerudo guards just as effectively as my sword did. It was a pity to see them die so pathetically, but it had to be done.

Finally, though, we arrived in the statue room, which was illuminated by a great circular window at the top, through which a full moon shined, as well as by the eyes of the Arbitra statue, which glowed a haunting yellow. The face, I saw, was intact. How I'd get it open, I didn't have the slightest clue. The room was completely silent—as I peeked out from behind a pillar I could see guards, but their brainless-silence brought not a single sound, not even by footstep. The light from the window, as well as from the statue, cast a great spotlight on the center of the open chamber, and to my surprise I saw shadows there on the floor, though not a single body cast them.

Two of the shadows I recognized. They were, to my surprise, the shadows of Shiek and Impa. The other shadows, all of which moving in a great chaos, were overlapping eachother; however, it didn't take Saria to guess that they were the shadows of the Gerudo my friends were fighting. I was surprised that after so much time, they were still in a fierce battle. The Gerudo, I saw, kept coming in droves. I wish I could be there to help them, I thought. It was fantastic the way they battled, though (in truth, I had never seen them fight together before), and I took a moment just to watch. Finally, Navi nudged me into action, and I surveyed the great expanse in front of the statue to plan my strategy.

Looking through the jagged darkness, I saw two unknown figures standing directly in front of the statue. They were dressed in cloaks as dark and blue as the temple, with their hoods up and heads down, and with their hands together but consumed in sleeves, so that I couldn't tell what they were at all. I assumed, though, that they were villainous, and that I'd have to fight them the moment I stepped out of the pillar. It was time to test that theory.

With a deep breath, I stepped out from behind the pillar and walked cautiously towards the center of the room. The guards reacted, though the cloaked figures did not. The zombie guards charged towards me, spears ready, stepping around the light to avoid turning to dust. My sword and shield clanged against one or two scimitar tips, one (to my greatest annoyance) scratching my shield's mirror a little, before I laid the guards to rest in sand. Without even breaking a sweat, I approached the light in the center of the room. A trap, or an ally? I had to figure it out.

As soon as I reached the center of the spotlight, though, it faded; the moon was covered by clouds. The room fell into even darker darkness, though the glowing eyes of Arbitra remained intact. There was a shuffling sound, and I darted my eyes to the two cloaked figures in time to see them move. Their heads rose, revealing themselves to be strange bird-like creatures, with long orange beaks and pitch-black feathers, broken only by glowing eyes as yellow as Arbitra's. Through one sleeve came a scaly, taloned hand; through the other, a long wooden staff. They approached me slowly, hidden taloned feet clicking against the smooth stone floor. "What are these things, Navi?" I inquired hastily.

"I... I don't know. But... I think they might be Wizrobes."

"Wizrobes?"

"I thought the Cult of Wizrobes went extinct ages ago... So I don't know... But Wizrobes are bird people raised in the art of dark magic. They're evil wizards, you could say."

"Great," I groaned, tensing my left hand in preparation for battle, "magic!"

As if on cue, one Wizrobe rose his staff and chanted a few words that I couldn't understand. The staff's tip was consumed by a great ball of fire, which was subsequently thrown in my direction. I quickly sidestepped it, but was shocked to find it still moving in my direction. I ran back towards the other end of the room, by the two great staircases, but it continued to move towards me. Finally, instinct took over and without any other idea, I flung my shield in front of my face.

There was a dull clanking noise, like somebody flicking a metal bowl, and one of the Wizrobes squawked loudly. I looked up to see the Wizrobe's robe on fire, with him desperately trying to put it out. "This shield reflects magic?" I exclaimed.

"You should of seen it," Navi chirped. "Great idea, Link!"

With newfound spirit, I charged towards the Wizrobes with my sword held high, shield in front of me. Before I could reach the wizards, though, the other one chanted something and both of them disappeared. "Where'd they go!?" I demanded.

"There they are," Navi directed, pointing at the tops of the staircases.

"They're sitting ducks!" I grinned. "They've never fought somebody like me before." As quickly as I could, I shot an arrow at each of them. The arrow zoomed right through their fireballs (which I reflected, of course) and pierced each one's heart, the reflected fire dealing the final blow. "That wasn't too hard."

"Don't let your guard down," Navi warned.

"Well, the next thing to do is figure out how to get that to open," I explained, directing my gaze to the ominous face of the Goddess of Sand. "What are you hiding?" I asked her. "You've been watching me all this time; you know what I can do. What is the secret to opening you?"

The light returned, gracing the temple again with the rays of the moon. It was a welcoming sight to see my Mirror Shield reflecting it again. "Hmm," I pondered aloud. "This shield has proven to be helpful again and again. I wonder if it will lend me its assistance again?" I returned my eyes to Arbitra's. They glowed as hauntingly as they had before, but I saw something different in them now. "Are you telling me something?" The statue's shining eyes seemed less like omniscient sentinels and more like end points. I grinned. Perhaps, somehow, Arbitra was on my side. I had never thought about it before, but was it possible that she, like the Goddesses, wanted me to succeed? "I understand."

I directed my Mirror Shield's aim towards the statue's clay face. The light reflecting from the shield connected with the light emitting from the statue's eyes, and to my satisfaction the face began to melt away, as it had done in the ersatz temple when I was brought before it. Behind the face appeared a door identical to the previous one, but this one had a low iron fence in front of it. The perfect thing for my final tool.

"Time to put an end to this, Navi," I beamed, proud of my own intellect. I pulled out the only item remaining from the three given to me by the sisters Twinrova: the grappling hook. "I must admit," I mumbled, examining the iron-tipped rope with a wave of unconfidence, "I don't know how to use this thing."

"How about this, then?" Navi proposed. "I'll fly up to the iron bars with the hook and latch it on for you."

"Could you do that?" I smiled. "That would be a great help."

"No problem, Link!" my fairy chirped. She took the black end of the rope from my hands and I grasped the other end. The iron proved to be heavier than Navi had thought, and it was a pain to see her struggling to lift it all the way to the top of the statue, but she made it in the end. After testing to make sure she hooked the fence tightly enough, I took a deep breath and pulled myself up the statue's front. Letting out a big exhale, I thanked her when I reached the top and flipped myself over the fence.

Before opening the grand double doors, no less glamorous than the pair in the previous temple, I noted that they were silver rather than gold. Despite great similarities, I had an inkling that the door would take me somewhere new. I made sure to get my sword and shield into my hands before pushing the door open.

The hallway where I had fought Nabooru was a grim sight, and brought back those horrible recent memories of her death. However, the hall I stood in was undeniably different from the dark corridor where Nabooru and I dueled. This hall was blanketed with the light of the moon, casting its heavenly glow through rows of stained glass windows. Their vibrant colors, yet the overall pale light shining through them, was a sight to behold. The strange, ethereal beauty of the hall was a surprising contrast to the dark, unfriendly environment of the Cavern and Tomb, and for a moment I forgot I was in the fortress of Ganondorf's own mother, not to mention two horrible witches. The silent peace was welcome. I grew cautious, though, when I saw that under each and every window lurked a Wizrobe, as still as a statue, between the light and the walls of the hallway.

As I passed through the hall towards the pitch black end (which was identical in every way to the pitch-black void at the end of the other hall) I noted the windows with curious interest, keeping watch on the Wizrobes through the corner of my eye. Each row included two windows, one on my left, the other on my right. Each row was different from the rest, and there were eight rows altogether. To my surprise, I recognized the pictures on the stained glass instantly. The very first row bore greens, blues, and purples, and I was understandably awestruck to see the Forest Temple depicted, standing at the top of the Sacred Forest Meadow with a golden full moon behind it. At the center of the window was Phantom Ganon, and three of the four Poe Sister's flames graced the rectangular bottom; at the rounded top was Meg's purple fire. The next row portrayed the crater of Death Mountain, exactly as I had witnessed it, with the Fire Temple ominously in the back, surrounded by the frightening image of the dragon Volvagia. The row after that showed the Water Temple and Lady Morpha, the one after that the dark Shadow Temple and the sanguine eye of Bongo Bongo. The next row depicted what I recognized as the Temple of Time, a shadowy figure similar to Queen Gohma looming in the night sky behind it. Further down were two rows I didn't recognize—one showed a part of the Lost Woods I was unfamiliar with, with a stone temple standing in the shadiest and foggiest spot in the picture and a Poe's lanturn hanging over it; the other depicted a giant windmill in a snow-covered mountain range, a shadowy serpent eclipsing the moon. The final row showed none other than the Spirit Temple itself, but with a column of fire on one side and a column of ice on the other. I didn't know what to make of that; but in terms of the windows in general, I was quite certain that there was more behind the creatures I fought than I had first believed. Was their existence predicted? And if so, by whom?

As soon as I stepped into the darkness at the hall's end, though, they sprung into life. Their hoods uncovered their demented avian heads, and with a gleeful snicker they drew their magic wands and approached me. I was too close to use my shield, though, and drew my sword in preparation for one last battle before the end.

I fought valiantly, and despite the trickery of the Wizrobes' magic I managed to bring them down one by one. I almost chuckled when the last one fell. It was too easy; why would the witches waste my time when they knew I was stronger? What were they up to?

Stained glass windows lit up further down the hall, illuminating a door identical to the very one that brought me into the Dark Labyrinth. With no Wizrobes under them this time, I passed by the windows without hesitation, until I saw that they all depicted the same thing: me. There was a picture of a small child with blond hair, with shadowy figures with pointed ears looking down at him; the next row showed me as I was seven years ago, with the ominous eye of Queen Gohma looming above my head. The final window—though I was certain the dustiness of the windows meant they were at least a few years old—showed myself as I was now, as if I were looking in a shattered mirror. Above my image were two crooked, grey hands—surely Bongo Bongo's—outstretched like a puppeteer's, with threads dangling from their fingers.

As I observed the final row, the door to the labyrinth swung open. Again, I was met with the dark veil. "I hope I'm not going to start all over again at the entrance by doing this," I moaned. I hesitated before crossing it. Whatever laid on the other side, considering it wasn't the Cavern of Destruction, would possibly be my final battle in this long journey. It would be harder than anything I had ever gone up against. "I don't know if I'm ready," I whispered half-heartedly.

"You can do it, Link," Navi reassured. "I know you can. You're the Hero of Time."

"This it it, Navi. Let's do this." With a deep breath, the deepest breath of my life, I stepped into the darkness.

-

I was met with a sharp, cold wind that stung my cheeks without remorse. I was surprised to find myself standing high above the ground, completely exposed to the cloudless night sky of the Haunted Wasteland. The sky was covered in dot-like stars, though the most prominent actor in the globe's theater was the moon, giant and full, shining in the heavens almost like a giant spotlight or star. Far below I could see the top of the walls enclosing the Desert Colossus, and the countless sand dunes beyond that. My feet were planted on a dusty, stone surface that was ancient but not in the least bit cracked. It was smooth and bare, and was as ghostly white as the moon. Peeking over the edge behind my feet (for wherever it was I had stepped out of was now most certainly gone) I could see the scaly top of Arbitra's hood. I was on the roof of the Spirit Temple.

There was a strange, distorted whirling sound, and I turned around only for my eyes to be greeted by the hideously ornamented faces of the Twinrova Sisters. The gems implanted into their foreheads sparkled unnervingly in the moonlight, though they themselves were untouchable by the light. "Congratulations on your victories in the Dark Labyrinth," Kotake applauded mockingly.

"It was a shame we didn't deal more damage than we did," Koume sighed wishingly. "Perhaps we wouldn't need to dirty our hands by clapping."

I gripped my Master Sword's hilt. "I haven't come to be applauded," I stated. "I'm here to kill the two of you, and Madame Dragmire if I ever get my hands on her."

Koume and Kotake looked at each other for a moment and burst into laughter. They hooted away, as if my words were the funniest thing they had ever heard. "You don't get it, do you?" Kotake cackled when their laughing fit was over. "Madame Dragmire is already here!"

"What!?" I gasped. I looked around hastily, but couldn't see anybody other than myself, Navi, and the Twinrova Sisters.

"Silly boy," Koume snickered, "haven't you wondered yet who we are?"

"You think us two crooked old ladies, don't you?" Kotake chuckled.

"But we are merely one in the same!"

"Madame Twinrova Dragmire, at your service!" they declared in unison with a grandiloquent bow.

"You're kidding!" I exclaimed, taking a step back dangerously close to the edge of the roof. "You mean you two are...?"

"That's right," Kotake nodded.

"We're Ganondorf's mother," Koume answered.

"Well then," I announced, albeit gulping, "I declare that it is my destiny as Link, Hero of Time, to slay you two witches in the name of Hyrule!"

To this they laughed again, though it was a much darker laugh. "You don't scare us, boy," Kotake growled.

"We've been waiting for this moment for a very long time," Koume added. "Since before you were born."

"What!?" I gasped. "What's that supposed to mean!?"

"We want nothing less than the world, dearie, and a prophecy said you would be the only one capable of standing in our way," Kotake explained. "Even our son is a puppet of our's; you are the only one who is outside our control, and it is only natural that you should be our number one priority."

"You haven't figured it out yet, have you? We've been hunting you since you were born," Koume sneered. "Your foolish parents thought they could get away from us by hiding near the woods. It was only a matter of time before we found them."

"Your father put up such a fight!" Kotake cackled. "But surely he would have recognized that somebody capable of wiping out an entire race would be capable of such a simple task as setting his body on fire."

"I had great fun in doing it," Koume assured, "but I was most displeased to see your mother got away with you in her arms. I couldn't get to you after you got under those trees, though rest assured I had a great deal of fun when your mother came back out."

"You mean you killed my parents!?" I screamed. A mixture of anguish and rage exploded inside of me. I held my sword out high and ran at them with everything I had in me, ready to spill every ounce of their blood and paint it all over the temple. Before I could even touch them, though, they each revealed a broom.

The two witches took to the air. The night sky erupted into a furious gale storm, white clouds whirling around the temple's roof with such force that they could have plowed straight through a building. A great wind began to blow, and though it didn't pick up any sand it swirled around and around, nearly blowing my water-breathing hat off, and left me with the sense of being in a hurricane cloud. Indeed, such a tempest thundered around us that sparks of lightning flashed out of the clouds now and then. "You're not getting away this time, boy!" the two witches cried in unison. "Will you give up and die now, or will you choose to die with as much pain as possible?"

"You two are the ones who should be choosing!" I roared up at them.

"Temper temper," Kotake laughed, spinning around me from high above. "After I helped you with that little incident in the fortress near the border? You should be thanking me!" I realized our "savior," Syrup, was merely Kotake in disguise. This made me even more angry.

"The entire take-over of Hyrule was our own doing," Koume warned. "Not to mention the Civil War. We were the masterminds behind both. We've killed off an entire race; not to mention we've summoned thousands of powerful monsters. Do you really want to stand up to somebody as mighty as we? Now be sensible and choose!"

"I'm not choosing!" I repeated more forcefully than ever. "It's the two of you who don't get it!" That shut them up. "Real heroes don't give up, no matter how bad it seems! They always have spirit, whether they are on top of the world or are in the pits of Majora's underworld. When you're a hero, you don't just do something because you think you'll benefit. When you decide to be a hero, or when the title is forced onto you like it was onto me, you sacrifice everything to make sure that evil hags like you are brought justice! I haven't come this far just to give up to the two of you after seeing a few fireworks. I mean to end this, as the one and only Hero of Time!"

Staring up at the Twinrova Sisters, the embodiments of unfathomable evil, I tightened my grip around the hilt of the Master Sword. It glowed with the purest of light, casting away shadows with a holy ray. In my right hand I clutched the Mirror Shield, from which one could see the reflections of virtually everything in the room. My fairy clung lovingly to my neck. "This is it, Navi," I stated in a low voice. "The fury of my Sword of Evil's Bane will never rest until these monsters are slain. I will have revenge, or I'll die trying." It was never Ganondorf; he too was a mere puppet in the eyes of his mothers, who swirled around me in the air with menacing faces so ancient and hideous that they were the very statement of what the Twinrova Sisters were: Ultimate Evil.

"How dare you call us hags!" Koume screamed. "You little brat!"

"Perhaps we underestimated you," pondered Kotake aloud from her broom. "But I think I can freeze that notion, ho ho!"

"Indeed, you were more powerful than we thought," concurred Koume from her's. "But perhaps I can send your future aflame, ha ha!"

I stupidly made the first move. With a swift movement of the arms, I had an arrow notched and shot it at Koume. Before the arrow could even touch her, it melted away. "You think you can harm me?" she cackled. "Boy, we are more powerful than mere arrows. Your petty weapons can not harm us!"

"However, for you it is quite the contrary!" Kotake declared. I turned around just in time to see her behind me, raising a crooked wand into the air. I ran out of the way as a powerful blast of blue fire slammed into the temple's roof, leaving a large puddle of ice in its wake. "Dang it, Koume, I missed!" the ice witch scoffed.

"You never were the best shot," Koume growled. "Here, let me show you how it's done!" Now she rose her wand, and from it radiated a beam of yellow fire, just nearly singing my hat as I ducked.

"Well, you're no better," Kotake snapped. "At least the boy's arrow made it to you; you couldn't even touch his hat!"

"This is no time to bicker, sister," Koume snarled. "Kill him!"

"Don't you tell me what to do!" Kotake snarled back as she flung another column of blue fire my way. This time I wasn't so lucky, and was so wound up in the sisters' argument that the blast caught me off-guard. I whipped my Mirror Shield in front of me, praying to the Goddesses that it would be enough to shield me from such a powerful attack. I slammed my eyes shut.

To my surprise, I didn't feel any fire whatsoever. My right hand, however, felt very cold. Peeking my eye open, I saw a miracle; the fire was bouncing off the shield and into the sky! "Link, your shield can reflect their magic!" Navi chirped in relief. I had myself a weapon at last.

"Nooooo!" howled one of the witches, though I couldn't tell who. "He has the shield! The bloody shield!"

"How could we have missed it!?" cried the other. "The outrage!"

"So, you pilfered from our temple twice!" Kotake accused of me, pointing a wrinkled old finger at me angrily. "You rotten little thief! Why weren't we informed!?"

"Oh, did you not get the memo?" I sneered proudly. It was a good idea to kill that guard after all.

"The guards shall pay for this!" Koume roared. "I'll torch a thousand heads!"

"Don't torch them! Torch him!" Kotake corrected. With another wave of her wand, she fired a beam of blue fire at me. Using the skills I had learned all those seven years ago fending off Mad Scrubs and Octoroks, I expertly received the blast with my shield and directed it back at her. Before it could make contact, though, Kotake furiously waved her wand again and disintegrated the fire. "Enough! I won't have you playing tricks on me!" she stated. I stared at Kotake in frustration. If she could just disband the fire, my shield wasn't much of a weapon after all. "What's the matter?" she sneered. "Lost your toy?"

Koume suddenly cried out. "Don't worry Kotake, I've got him!" she cheered. Before I could react (or Kotake could react for that matter), a column of hot fire spiraled towards me. My shield, however, was still up, and in seconds the flames bounced off of it and went straight into Kotake. The ice witch cried and fell to the roof with a thump. I cheered and began to run towards her with my sword, but another blast of fire hit the roof between us, creating a pool of magma where it hit and blocking my path. Kotake regained her senses and took to the air.

"Koume, you idiot!" she screeched, waving her hands in the air furiously. "Think before you cast!"

"I wish your mouth would freeze," her sister grumbled.

I watched the two bicker, but decided it would be best to come up with some solution to my dilemma while they were distracted. It didn't take long to see how they could be foiled. They were, after all, very easy to set off. "Hey fat face!" I yelled to Koume. "You couldn't hit a Dodongo with that aim!"

"Why you!" the fire witch roared.

"Don't shoot!" Kotake warned. "He's just trying to trick you!"

"I've felt colder on Death Mountain, lard-for-eyes!" I taunted at Kotake.

"On second thought!" The witch launched a beam of blue fire at be, but I reflected it onto Koume. Koume collapsed to the roof, and this time I was quick enough on my feet to get to her before Kotake could stop me. Koume was ready, though, and fired a blast of fire before she even left the ground. I reflected this onto Kotake, who also fell out of the sky.

In the moment of shock between the two sisters, I rammed my shield into Koume's face. She was knocked back onto the ground, and I rose my sword to end her once and for all. Kotake was quick to protect her sibling, though, so I found myself having to reflect off another blast of blue fire. That was enough for Koume, though. Their magic was powerful enough to deal great damage to themselves.

Koume knocked me away with her broom. "We can't get on this way, sister!" she cried. "Not with that shield!"

"Much agreed, sister," Kotake groaned from where she sat, wincing at her aching back. "I think it is time we called her."

"Yes, I think she would teach him a lesson," Koume smirked.

As I got myself up from where I had landed, I saw the two hags hobble towards each other. "You thought you won, getting the better of us old ladies?" Kotake accused of me, rubbing her back. "How ungallant of you!"

"I believe it is time for you to meet Madame Dragmire," Koume growled, seizing Kotake's hand.

"Play time's over!" they both cried before the clouds surrounding the temple spiraled inward and engulfed the two witches. I lost sight of them in the clouds and lightning. They were silent for a moment, but then there was a bright flash and I had to shield my eyes. When I was able to uncover them, they were met by somebody new.

A Gerudo woman stood tall above me, with no sign of hobbled bones or decaying joints to speak of. The only indication of age at all were a few wrinkles on her face; compared to the century-old appearance of the Twinrova Sisters, this new person looked between the ages of 50 and 60. She was clad in the most flowing of robes, with sleeves that, though only wrist-length, had such wide holes that their bottom tips touched the roof's surface. Her long, spindly fingers had fingernails as red as fire on one hand and as blue as blue fire on the other—on both hands, the nails were almost as long as Wolfos claws. Her bronze skin seemed even darker in the violet sky. She was slender and nimble, like Nabooru and the other Gerudo soldiers, though her hair was a stark white and tied up into two gigantic buns over her head in the shape of a "V." There was an air of dignity and power in her face, and she boasted an appearance that would make any husband fear to anger. When she spoke, her voice was the same as the voice I had heard prior to fighting Nabooru. "Behold, you pettiful worm," she declared lowly, "Madame Dragmire stands before you."

Before I could react, the newly formed witch lunged towards me and slammed her foot on my chest, knocking me backwards and off the edge of the roof. I grabbed the edge with both of my hands to prevent myself from falling, but in my act of desperation and still in my sleep-deprived state, I made the worst mistake of my life: I let go of my sword and shield. To my horror, the two things I needed the most plummeted down until they landed in the grass of the oasis far, far below. There was no chance I'd be able to get them back.

The witch stepped forward and peered down at me disdainfully, as if I was some ugly mark on a white sheet of paper. "And so it ends, 'Fairy Boy,'" Madame Dragmire sneered. "After all these years, I finally have you."

"Why?" I demanded from where I hung. It was all I could do, after all. "Why so much? Just...to bring me down? You... You don't rule the Gerudo anymore—your son does! Isn't all this...just in vain?" All my muscles were struggling to cling to the roof. I couldn't give up! I just couldn't!

"Ha!" She spat. "My son! You don't realize it yet, do you? Ganondorf was and always will be nothing more than a pawn. Do you think I'd waste my breath raising that brat just to have my power taken away? It was outrageous! My own son, destined to take my crown away from me? I'm the real ruler of the Gerudo, not that kid who thinks he's king. I would have killed him in his crib, but I needed him to kill the Hylian King, seeing as my entire race was incapable of doing so before."

I gasped. "You mean—?"

"That's right, kid. He's just a puppet, and as soon as he's done hunting the Princess of Destiny down for me, I'll kill him too!"

"That's terrible!" I roared. "He's your own son! How could you do such a thing!?"

"What gave him the right to take all that was mine away from me!? A stupid and outdated tradition! When I'm so close to ultimate power, why should a silly tradition stop me?"

"But he's..."

"And what's more, he, just like you, has something I want. You, the princess, my son... You're all connected. And that is why you must all be slain, so that nothing—nothing—gets in my way." Twinrova cackled the most evil of cackles. "And I think your time is up, Hero of Time." She snapped her fingers, and suddenly a swirling black vortex materialized beneath my dangling feet. It enveloped the air around the entire temple, turning the world beneath me an inky black. One of my hands slipped an inch, knocking a small bit of the edge loose. Like a pebble it fell from the temple and into the blackness, where it just fell and fell.

"I believe oblivion has made your acquaintance once before, Hero of Time," Madame Dragmire cooed. "In the Forest Temple, if I remember correctly? He was a birthday gift for my charming Ganondorf, if you were wondering." My hands slipped a little more. "Careful not to fall," she laughed.

"You're a monster," I growled. "You've killed thousands if not millions of innocent people, and on top of it, you've raised your own son only with the intent to kill him when his use runs out. How do expect to live, once everybody else in existence is dead?"

"...I'll just have to cross that bridge when I get there," she answered darkly.

With a burst of hatred and rage I put every bit of muscle into my hands, and with a swinging leap I kicked off of the side of the temple and swung back onto the roof. Even though I was weaponless and in need of a miracle, I only knew that if I fell into oblivion the world would be doomed to destruction. It didn't matter that I was likely to die; something had to be done! That must have been the resolution to do it, because at that moment to both of our surprise my left hand began glowing yellow. "What's this!?" I gasped, holding my hand up to my face in bafflement.

"Such courage..." This was a new voice. Both Twinrova and I looked behind me in shock only to discover a girl clad in green. She looked roughly the age of 21, with soft curves all over her body and a soothing smile weaved on her lips. She was, no doubt, the most beautiful woman I had ever seen in my life. Even the Gerudo were put to shame by her. Her hair, even greener than Saria's, shimmered and glowed around her, cut short so that it only reached her shoulders. She wore a silk dress, yellow like the sun and fair like a clear day.

"Wh-Who are you?" I stammered.

"I am Farore," the woman replied rather calmly.

"Farore..." I repeated, spellbound.

"Goddess of Courage and Secrets. I've been watching you for a long, long time, Hero of Time." She smiled a smile that challenged the very shining sun. "And never before have I seen somebody display such courage." I glanced at Twinrova. She was dumbfounded, and a look of great worry crossed her wrinkled face. "I think your courage and spirit deserves to be rewarded," the goddess continued. She waved her hand gently across the air, and with a jump I realized something solid was materializing in my hands. Looking down, I grinned as I saw the familiar gleam of the Master Sword, and my reflection in the helpful Mirror Shield, both once again by my side. My hand stopped glowing.

"Thank you," I said, peering back up into Farore's eyes. They filled me with more hope and resolve than I could have dreamed of. "For everything."

"Evil times are not over yet. Remember, though, that I will always be at your side." Her image began to vanish. "Farewell... My child..." There was a bright flash of light, and her body tore apart into thousands of butterflies, all flying towards the heavens.

"Link!" I was almost startled to see Navi fluttering above my shoulder. I couldn't remember seeing her after I got back up from the roof. "Don't drop your guard, Link! We still have to end this!" Just like Navi, always bringing me back to reality. My attention shifted to Twinrova, who stood at the opposite end of the building looking quite flustered.

"Don't think you can kill me with the help of the weakest of goddesses," she warned, edging back to the end of the roof. She was looking and sounding older by the minute. There was no more air of a young maiden in her voice.

"I can see you shivering," I growled. "Now pay for what you've done!" With a yell of rage I charged towards the witch with my sword and shield held high, prepared to end her life once and for all. Contrary to my plans, however, she did what I least expected—she stayed put.

"Just one minute," she grinned. It was an evil look only Lady Morpha could match. All at once, I saw bad things on the horizon. I slowed my ascent, growing increasingly cautious. A green wispy flame lit in mid-air beside the witch and vanished, revealing a strange device with a sort of switch on it. "One more move, and I press this button. Do you know where my army is? They are at the doorstep to your beloved Lost Woods, torches ready to burn all the wretched weeds down. I can't have your pathetic people escape my dominion; if you so want to kill them, though, I'd be happy to change my mind." She glared. "So what will it be?" she demanded loudly. "Give up now, or my army will invade and destroy your pathetic excuse for a home and everything who lives there!"

I hesistated. What was I to do? Any attempt to strike the device out of her hands would result in my entire forest being wiped off the map; but the world would be doomed anyway if I just gave up and died on the spot.

"I'm waiting," Twinrova ushered. "Make your decision. NOW!"

I nodded. "Go ahead, press that button."

"Wh-What?"

"Press it."

"But your whole people will die the instant I press it!"

I gulped. This had to be the right way; it had to, or I'd made the worst error of my life. "Then press it. And then let's finish this." I stepped forward.

"Get back!" she cried, taking a step back. "I warn you, I'll press it!"

"You're a coward, Twinrova," I said darkly. "A coward. No matter how powerful you claim to be, you've hid behind your henchmen, not to mention your own son, for years. Instead of coming out and showing some spirit, you've used others to protect you. Everything I've done from the moment I stepped into the Spirit Temple up until now has been constant delays, delays that could have been done away with if you were truly powerful enough to put an end to me immediately. You've been biding your time, searching for an escape route, and now you're hiding behind it too. Quit trying to get me to give up, because I won't. A hero never gives up, whether he's afraid or not. Admit it, Twinrova!"

"That's it!" She slammed her finger down on the switch. "Captain? OBLITERATE!" There was a crackly noise, but no answer. "Captain?" she repeated. "Captain!? WHY AREN'T YOU ANSWERING!?" Twinrova eyed me with wide, fearful eyes, like a cat when cornered. "YOU! What have you done!?"

"It isn't what I've done," I answered, glad that my hunch was right. For the same reason as in the Civil War, the Lost Woods was untouchable. "You may not have known, but when I killed off that 'birthday present,' a new Deku Tree was born."

"A new what!?"

"That's right," I grinned. "Your whole army has been pulverized."

"Impossible!" she cried, hurling the gadget into the oblivion void.

"Now you have nothing to hide behind," I asserted. "Farore has no respect for cowardly women, and that is why I've triumphed again. Admit it, Twinrova! You are and always have been a coward!"

"No, you're wrong!" Madame Dragmire snapped. "WRONG!" The witch flung her hands to her sides, and with an explosion of fire and ice her body shot into the air. Her hair had undergone a total transformation, and one lock was now chaotic fire while the other was jagged ice. Her hands glowed an eerie white, and in them she held what looked like two juggling sticks. One was completely lit aflame; the other was enveloped in what I could only recognize as Blue Fire. "How dare you call me a coward!" she cried. "You shall pay dearly for this outrage!" If I didn't know better, I would have thought she had doubled in size. It was really quite intimidating. Without hesitating, she rose her right hand back and whipped it forward. From her wand launched a great blast of fire, with such force that the wind around it seemed to be ripped apart.

Unfazed though, and knowing Farore, Navi, and Saria would all be there for me, I stood my ground, shield held high. The blast hit so hard that it pushed me back to the edge of the roof once again; but the fire itself, I was pleased to see, was absorbed by my shield. "This truly is a bizarre shield," I exclaimed, awing at how no matter what the situation, it always seemed to come in handy.

"No... NO!" If I didn't know better, I would have thought the sorceress was in denial. "That wretched shield, it can't be! Nothing can withstand my magic!" she roared in frustration. "NOTHING!" With a scream she whipped another fireball at me, and again it was devoured by the mirror on my shield. My shield began glowing a fiery red.

Suddenly and unexpectedly, my shield trembled and BAM! The kickback nearly disjointed my shoulder as a ferocious beam of fire (comparable to that of Koume's in the least) erupted from the mirror. "What in the world!?" I exclaimed.

Not wasting time to wonder in amazement, I hurriedly slammed my arm to the left, directing the beam right at Twinrova. She immediately lifted her left hand and emitted a blast of blue fire. The fire connected with my own, and for the briefest of moments we were in a gridlock, before Madame Dragmire waved her hand and vaporized both beams. I could see, though, that her left leg had been singed and that she wasn't happy at all about that. "This can't be happening!" she boomed. "It's impossible! That godforsaken shield!"

In anger she launched another fireball at me. Instinctively I flung up my shield to catch it, but to my surprise it bypassed me altogether—and ran straight into Navi. There was a sharp shriek, and suddenly my fairy companion was no longer at my side. "Navi?" I screamed. "NAVI!" I looked over the edge of the temple. There, lying motionless on the Arbitra statue's head, was a small bluish glow. I prayed to the goddesses that she was merely unconscious. I realized to my horror that Navi was a mere inch away from falling off the statue and into oblivion. I had to save her!

A great wall of ice appeared before I could get to a spot where I could jump onto the statue, blocking my way. "Not so fast, Hero of Time," Madame Dragmire snickered from above. "I'm not done with you yet!" She fired another beam of blue fire, this time at me. I absorbed it with my shield.

"Is that the best you can do!?" I accused. There might only be seconds before Navi fell over the edge.

"Of course not," Twinrova countered with an unpleasant smile. She rose both of her hands into the air, and with a great crash a gigantic boulder slammed down from the heavens and shattered on the roof. Soon after another landed, and another, and to my horror I looked up to see a rain of meteors flying in my direction.

But she wouldn't have me that easily. Death Mountain had been enough training for this. I judged the shadows of the falling balls of fire and dodged meteor after meteor. How long would it be, though, before they ended?

Suddenly, something hit my left arm hard. I darted my eyes all too late to see my Master Sword flying away once again, landing on the edge of the roof opposite of Navi. It too wouldn't last long. Suddenly, all of Farore's help seemed to be naught; I couldn't banish her evil spirit without that sword! Twinrova seemed to know it too, gleefully laughing and priding over her well-placed kick as she flew around in the air.

I tried to run for my most powerful of weapons, but before I could get there Twinrova suddenly appeared in my way. Less then a second after I was faced with a rapidly approaching beam of fire. I flung my Mirror Shield up to protect myself; indeed it absorbed it, but to my dismay the previous blue fire seemed to dispel itself into nothing. She had figured out how to cancel out my shield's power, and she knew it.

With a great smile on her face, she took advantage of my momentary shock to kick me hard in my all-too-injured stomach. I got to my feet just in time to absorb another blast of fire, but it was so close that I could smell the putrid odor of my front-most hairs burning. Again I tried to run for my sword, this time in a different angle, but time and time again I was blocked by the astral queen and sent away, either by a cancelling-out blast of magic or by her own powerful foot. I was learning, though, and rather than waste the two blasts I already had stored up on my shield I avoided her flurry of blue fire as best I could.

My growing lack of sensation in my right elbow was the first sign, though, that something wrong had happened. With a quick peek to my arm, I saw the pale white sleeve covering my arm was burnt off, and the skin underneath it was purple. It was getting harder and harder to hold my Mirror Shield; my right arm was beginning to get frostbite, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

This was when Twinrova decided to do something new. With a great lash of her foot, my Mirror Shield was knocked out of my senseless hand and clanged loudly as it landed back near Navi. I looked desperately for some alternative; as I knew, though, there was none. She had me in her grasp. I could see it in her eyes. She knew. With great malice, she pulled back her right arm. I broke into a limping run as a bright flash of light appeared behind me. Pain roared up my leg—how many limbs did I injure without realizing? I felt myself slowing down more and more, the fire approaching faster and faster... And then a voice screamed in my head, "Link, run!" It was so pained, so desperate that I couldn't tell whose it was. That didn't make any difference to the voice, however, and it insisted, "Run! Hurry!"

That voice drove me on, as familiar and yet unfamiliar as it was, and with the fire less than a yard away from me, I reached the Mirror Shield, flipped forward in the air, seized it with my left hand, and directed it towards the blast of fire. "No!" Madame Dragmire cried. "NOOOO!" This time, my left shoulder was almost dislocated from the kickback as a spiraling beam of fire launched itself from the mirror, right towards the Gerudo queen.

Twinrova reacted with a rushed beam of blue fire, but she was so caught off guard that my fire shot straight through her's and engulfed her entire body. She screamed and collapsed on the ground, charred and burnt by her own magic. Though she tried to get up, she couldn't. And now I had my chance. In one single, fluid motion, I ran to the other end of the roof, seized the Master Sword, held it above my head, and plunged the glowing blade into the screeching witch's forehead.

"NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!" the fiery, cold witch cried, her scream booming and echoing like thunder all across the desert. Orange and blue flames erupted around her and in front of me, and I shielded my eyes with my arms. The witch's cries died with the fire, and when I removed my arms, Madame Dragmire was no more.

My time was not to be wasted in rejoicing. In the new silence that now crept its way across the entire world from my very spot, I left the bloodied Master Sword in its place by the vile sorceress and ran as fast as I could to the part of the roof overlooking Arbitra's head. There, just barely holding on, was my beloved fairy. I jumped down onto the stone head and seized the little fairy as quickly as I could. As I did, I saw that the swirling black vortex was gone, and in the pinkish-purple down painting its joys onto the Haunted Wasteland I could clearly see the paradise of the Desert Colossus shining back at me from down below. I held Navi in my hands delicately. "Navi," I whispered worriedly, "are you alright?"

At first there was no answer. Then, just barely, I saw her tiny wings twitch. "L-Link...? Is that... Is that you?"

"Yes, it's me," I cooed. "You'll be alright. It's over now." Very carefully I slipped her in the pocket of my tunic and climbed my way back onto the roof to collect my sword. There, to my surprise, stood a tall Gerudo whose nose looked like it stuck itself into other people's business. "Nabooru?" I gasped, though it was a quiet gasp more like a sharp intake of air.

She stood above the spot where Twinrova had laid, looking down at the charred black roof. The dry desert wind blew her long hair so that it was completely horizontal, perpendicular to her bronze head. "The greatest Gerudo to ever live... And yet the greatest evil to ever befall our race. She'd been controlling us since before I was born—even her own son. All those battles... They were just a game of her's, weren't they? A sick game, where only she could be the winner." For a moment it looked like she was about to choke, and suddenly teardrops burst forth from her watchful eyes. Nabooru crying was an unusual and very contradictory sight. "All the people who died to make this woman happy... It's inexcusable!" She spat on the black circle. "May Majora torment your soul, foul witch of the desert."

I approached the proud Gerudo slowly, not sure what to make out of it. Last time I saw her, she had been killed. "Nabooru, what...? Why? How?" I could only stammer.

"That wasn't me you fought, kid," Nabooru smiled, trying to be positive and wipe away her tears. "I was too valuable to her to be disposed of so easily. That was my clone." She held up her right hand. It was full of color, and when she flexed it I could see each individual bone and muscle doing its part to bring the hand life. "See? I'm perfectly fine." I gawked. "But that's not all... While I was dormant in the Tomb of Sorrow, I was visited by some old Hylian man. He told me... He said..." I nodded. Nabooru rubbed her arm awkwardly. "This is a bit overwhelming even now, kid. But... He said that I was a spirited leader, a determined woman, and the finest of all the Gerudo. Do you know what he told me? He told me I was something called a..."

"...Sage of Spirit," I finished, taking her by surprise.

"What? You know about that stuff?"

I grinned. It was a happy, honest grin. Perhaps there was something that I knew after all that Nabooru didn't. Her expression was priceless as I explained myself. "You're the reason I came to the desert. I've been looking for the Sage of Spirit for quite a while now."

Nabooru didn't know what to say. "Well, now... You've...you've been looking for me, have ya kid? What... What did you say your name was again?"

"Link," I smiled. It was the biggest smile I had ever made in my entire life, and every bit of it was sincere. "Hero of Time." For the first time, I was proud of my name.

"Well, Link, I believe I owe you an apology. Until I met you I thought men were worthless piles of cow manure; you've shown me to be quite the contrary. Perhaps when this is over, we Gerudo should change how quickly we judge people." I laughed. "No, seriously, kid. And I want to give you something... A promise that we'll change."

"What do you mean?"

"With Madame Dragmire gone, Ganondorf is the only evil left. I'm sure he can't stand against somebody as powerful as you; Twinrova far outweighs Ganondorf." Now she laughed. "Unless he's some monster or something deep down inside."

"I'll be looking forward to finding out," I nodded, sitting myself down on the edge of the Spirit Temple. The sun would reach the horizon any minute now, and I wanted to see a true, untainted desert sunrise like the kind in picture books. It was funny that the sun would rise in the same direction as the dark fortress near the Temple of Time. "That's my next stop, anyway. Ganon's castle, I mean."

"Good luck, kid," Nabooru grinned, looking out at the horizon with me. "He's one tough egg to crack. Madame Dragmire's got brains, but the Great Ganondorf has something we can't yet explain. Keep your eyes open; I'm sure he's got some tricks up his sleeve. In any case, that fool's probably fuming right now."

"He was never supposed to rule, you know," I said quietly.

"What?"

"She told me; his mother, I mean. The only reason she didn't kill him already was because he was supposed to kill Princess Zelda for her. He could have been a good king. His mother just raised him to be bad."

"Dang... She really was a monster, wasn't she?"

I nodded. "I almost feel guilty that I'm going to have to kill him. Whatever connects the princess, Ganondorf, and I... Why did one of them wind up evil while the other two were good? I don't know what connects us... But I think that if he hadn't been king, if Twinrova hadn't brainwashed him... We could have been friends."

"Don't get sentimental on me, kid," Nabooru grumbled. "Anyway, as I was saying, Ganondorf's all that's left of the Dragmire Dynasty. Once he's dead, I'll be in charge of the Gerudo. And once I'm in charge, I can guaruntee you my people will change their ways. Twinrova turned Hyrule against us; I'm going to try to undo that."

"It's hard to believe our people were once friends," I mused. "I feel like all this time the Gerudo were the great enemy I've been fighting. It's nice to know that I was wrong."

"Madame Dragmire had us all taught as children that Hylians were demons, capable only of devastating the world until they are as rich as possible. I'm glad to know that there are Hylians like you who fight in the name of peace, not money. And I have something for you. Remember what I was saying about a promise?"

I got back up. "Oh yes! I remember."

"What is it, what is it?" Navi chirped.

The future Gerudo queen dug in her pocket and pulled out a large orange disc. A symbol I had seen in some textbooks Saria had in her house was engraved on it. "That's the symbol of this temple," Nabooru explained, "before Madame Dragmire took over. She always said it just symbolized the eternal battle between good and evil. But I did some research on it, and found out it meant something different entirely. It symbolizes how what side we choose is only a title; we are all deep down the same people, it's just whether we choose to be noble or wicked that defines who we are. If you have spirit, and challenge those defining rules, you can re-unite conflicting people and bring about understanding." She held the disc out to me. "Link, as thanks for saving our people and kingdom, and as a promise from me to change my people's ways for the better, take this Spirit Medallion and vanquish Ganondorf once and for all!"

I took it gratefully. "Thank you for all your help, Nabooru," I smiled. "I hope you succeed in your mission; maybe we can meet again one day, but on happy terms rather than hostile." I looked down at my gauntlets. "Do you still want these Silver Gauntlets?"

"Nah," she scoffed. "You can keep 'em, kid. I don't need them any more."

"You guys, look, look!" Navi called. The two of us turned our heads just in time to see the most golden and beautiful of all suns rise from the desert horizon, sparkling and shining with such vigor that I had never seen before. The whole desert seemed to burst into life, and even the oasis beneath us seemed more vibrant than ever. It was a truly rejuvenating sight to behold, and I'd never forget that glorious sunrise until the day I'd die.

"I've always thought you Gerudo had the best sunrises," said a voice behind us. To my surprise, Shiek and Impa stood just behind us, watching the sun rise too.

"We'll be lucky if we see another sunrise," Shiek sighed. "Though I'm looking forward to giving Ganondorf a taste of what he deserves."

"I'm sure you'll see another sunrise, girl. With this kid's help, nothing could go wrong," Nabooru laughed, patting me hard on the back.

Navi and I were rather shocked. "Girl!?" we gasped.

"What you think I can't tell a girl when I see one?" The Gerudo laughed even harder. "Link, you're the only male for miles!"

I stared at Shiek incredulously. "What is she talking about?" I demanded.

Impa's pupil blushed. "Well," he answered in the most feminine voice I had ever heard, "I've been meaning to tell you this for a while. I just couldn't as long as we were under Ganondorf's watchful eye; we're safe here, though." I gawked. Shiek stepped forward and took my hand. With his (her?) other hand, he (she?) unraveled the bandages around his (her?) face. In seconds, where a boy's face had stared at me moments before now lay a woman's delicate face. Nothing in the caliber of attractiveness that Saria, Ruto, Malon, and Nabooru all enjoyed, but decent enough to be called beautiful. It was uncannily familiar, though.

"Wh-Who are you?" I stammered, nearly stepping backwards and falling off the roof.

"Princess Zelda, at your service," the Princess of Destiny smiled.

"By Farore's Book..."

"I'm sorry for my secrecy; I'll explain later, when this is all done. But I just want to say... I'm sorry for how I've treated you earlier. The riddles, the rudeness... I was just mad that you vanished, I didn't know what truly happened until Rauru told me moments before you came out of your coma—and then I just couldn't believe it was you. But I know it was wrong of me now... I hope you can forgive me!"

"I forgive you," I sighed. Now wasn't the time for quarrels.

"Talk about a much-needed reunion," Navi remarked thoughtfully. "Come to think of it though, you've changed a lot since that coma. I'm really glad I was able to be there every bit of the way."

I chuckled. "Thanks. I love you, Navi."

"Same to you!" she giggled, giving me a light peck on the cheek and blushing. We all laughed after that. I'd never felt happier. I'd look back on that golden morning for years to come.

She was right, of course. Looking back, I really had changed. When I had woken from my coma I was a confused adult who missed that age where kids are supposed to figure out who they are; I was sick of myself and sick of the world. But I came to terms with myself, and thanks to Saria I even found something to look forward to, something to motivate me. No matter what I was, she'd love me; love need not be between members of the same race. I still remembered that. And it was thanks to Epona and Darunia that I really found out what it meant to have friends, always there for you and helping you when you need it most. I learned death could be a painful, agonizing event, but I'd matured enough that I could get over it, and get on with my life—something Ruto and I went through together. Impa and the people of Kakariko Village taught me just how fine of a line there is between friends and enemies, and though I now know that everybody has the capability of being bad, I know people are able to make that choice even when the gods try to make it their decision. I'd gone from a fragile, emotional kid to a mature, spirited adult who could deal with the hardships in life with a smile on my face. Perhaps, if I could survive a transformation such as that, Ganondorf wouldn't be so bad of an ordeal after all. I even smiled when I thought of it.

And so the five of us watched the sun ascend in the sky—Navi, Impa, Zelda, Nabooru, and I. For so long, my destiny had been uncertain, sometimes seeming bright and sometimes bad, elusive not unlike a phantom. Yet today my destiny finally came to a decision, and I knew it was a good one. Today would be a good day—we were sure of it. Hyrule would be won.

-

"Link, where are we going?" Saria asked as we pushed our way through a particularly dense part of the forest. "I've... I've never seen this part of the forest before. I'm... I'm a bit scared."

"Don't be frightened, Saria," I comforted. "I'm here. I just have to see something. I just need to know if it's all true."

"Whatever you say, but I don't like it," she grumbled in that mature way she always did. "What if we leave the forest?"

"That's exactly what I intend to do."

"What!?"

"Remember what I said? You'll be safe, just trust me. You won't die if you step out of the forest." I squeezed her hand. I'd never let something like that happen to her.

"Alright..." she huffed. "I trust you."

We finally stepped out of the forest. It was a cloudy day, and Hyrule Field was as grim as ever. Saria awed at how few trees there were, and how differently the air smelled. I rememered with a wry grin how I reacted the same way when I first left the Lost Woods. But I wasn't just there to show Saria Hyrule Field. I searched and searched, until at last I found a small alcove shielding a bit of land from the rest of the countryside. The earth there was bare, the soil so deteriorated that no plant could ever hope to grow on it again. There was one thing, however, that existed in that dead land. In the darkest corner, was the charred remains of a small cabin. I held Saria tight and cried.

A Note from the Author: And so it ends. I hope you enjoyed it! If you want something fun to do, go back and look for all the Oracle Series references in this chapter; there are loads of them (i.e. Facade in the Cavern of Destruction, when Facade is a mini-boss in Onyx's Castle in Oracle of Seasons). For a hint, most Seasons references are in the Cavern of Destruction, while most Ages references are in the Tomb of Sorrow.

The Wizrobes are there because I've always thought every boss in Ocarina of Time (Wind Waker too) was sort of a "bigger version" of a Zelda enemy. Bongo Bongo's a "big Wallmaster," Queen Gohma's a "big Gohma," even Morpha is a "big Gel," and I've seen Twinrova as a "big Wizrobe," so the Wizrobes in the Temple of Despair represent that.

And for those who love big secrets and couldn't guess, most of this chapter took place in the Dark World.

Kingdom Hearts music was a big inspiration for everything Temple of Despair forward, especially "Destati." Try listening to "End of the World" while reading the temple part.

For those who enjoyed the series and want more, the Majora's Mask saga is underway. The Shadow Apocalypse series has begun with Sovereign Swamped, which's second chapter is well underway. I hope you enjoyed Dark Mind, and I'm excited to see you guys in the Shadow Apocalypse!

Reviews are greatly appreciated. If you have any questions about anything, I'll be glad to answer them too.