Legacies

A Sequel to Crossing of the Paths

By MMM/AJ

 

Part II - Resurrection

 

Chapter XXIII – S5

 

Ares yawned tiredly and sat back in the soft padded couch next to Shakara.

 

“It was quite ingenious of you, dressing an Acolyte up like you and sending him to his death in the Dantunian War like that father, I’m impressed.” Shakara said.

 

Ares grinned. “It was a good opportunity to get rid of that whelp Anmor too, and the fake Triforce was just as easily concocted.”

 

Ares yawned tiredly and laid back further into the soft padded couch after he spoke. “It’s getting awfully late now, do you suppose we could talk some more tomorrow morning?” He asked.

 

“Sounds like a good idea dad, I’m tired after the day I’ve had.” Shakara replied, standing and stretching.

 

Ares stood and nuzzled her gently. “I’m sorry about everything that’s happened to you. I just don’t understand why you won’t let me link minds with you.”

 

“Listen Dad, it’s not like I don’t love you, I just believe that it’s important to have a precedent of privacy between us. It’s a matter of mutual respect.” Shakara said.

 

Ares sighed in resignation and walked to the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” He said, and smiled again.

 

“Sleep well.” Shakara said as he closed the door.

 

Shakara laid down on the couch and waited an hour in the main hall, pretending to be asleep. A room hadn’t been built here for her yet, and she wasn’t actually tired, nor did she plan on sleeping. No acolytes entered the room upon her orders, and she waited until she was sure her father was asleep. She then crept out of the great hall and into the corridors of her base, though there was no point since she didn’t need to go unseen. She ran headfirst into an Acolyte on patrol and decided to ask him for directions.

 

“You there! Direct me to the Network Control Hub!” Shakara ordered harshly.

 

The Acolyte saw Ares’ symbol on her forehead and bowed politely. “It is on the second floor, four chambers on the left from Lift B Milady.” He said.

 

Shakara left the Acolyte behind without so much as a ‘thank you’, not realizing that she was about to pass through the room where Tanis and Ashley were being held. When she entered, the Acolytes guarding all the imprisonment bubbles bowed to her. She was extremely shocked to see Ashley among the bowing guards. Ashley was standing in front of Tanis’ cell, holding a laser rifle and bearing a control collar on her neck.

 

“So, my father selected you for service eh?” Shakara asked, walking up to Ashley.

 

“Yes milady.” Ashley replied obediently.

 

“Would you come with me please?” Shakara said, phrasing it more like an order than a question.

 

“This is a Class A prisoner milady, he cannot be left without a guard by regulations.”

 

Shakara glanced at Tanis, who was wearing one of those awful inhibitor collars on his back. He was weeping softly in the back of his cell, his face hidden in his paws.

 

“The prisoner is psychically disabled, and there are at least ten other Acolytes in the room. His chances of escape are infinitesimal. I can make this judgment and this order, and I want you to come with me!” Shakara said harshly, taking the moment to enjoy being able to boss Ashley around for once.

 

“Yes milady.” Ashley said, still without emotion, and they turned and walked toward the door.

 

When they reached the door, Shakara took a moment to look back at Tanis, who was now looking up at her. She winked at him, and his bleary, tear-washed demeanor brightened dramatically. She silently mouthed to him to keep acting sorrowful, and he grinned widely for a moment before returning to his weeping.

 

Ashley and Shakara made their way through the darkened halls, up the lift, and down to a door covered with authorization warnings splashed all over it. A small red beam of light projected from above the door and scanned the symbols on Ashley and Shakara’s foreheads, and then the door beeped and swished open. The room inside was filled with the massive bulk of the Nexus machine and all its associated equipment. The device itself was composed of a huge, dark steel orb with spines on the bottom on top that it sat on. It was basically the same shape as the symbol on Shakara’s forehead. Hundreds of cables of various widths were connected to its sides, and they cobwebbed outward to connect with the walls and other nearby computer banks. The space above it was occupied by a massive network of heat exchangers and coolant pipes. Two Acolytes, who were covered heavily with glistening implants, were standing guard, and bowed as they entered.

 

“Ashley, I need-” Shakara began.

 

“My new designation is Agent A, milady.” The mindless human girl interrupted.

 

“Well Agent A, you will do well to remember not to interrupt me again. Now my father has requested that I be trained with all his technology, including the devices contained in this room. So I want you to show me the procedure for an emergency shutdown of the entire electropsionic matrix.” Shakara said.

 

“Of course milady.” Agent A said, and walked over to the main terminal.

 

“In order to activate the main shutdown switch, you must first input the thirty digit authorization code into the console. Once authorized, there are three different options available. If the emergency is an overheat or a fire in the core, you must first pump the cable ejection primer here and then hit the disconnect button.  The central computer core will detach from the rest of the system and the entire chamber will flood with flame retardant and coolants. If the emergency is digitally contained within the network itself, such as a fatal cascade overload, simply pull the deactivation switch and the system will directly shutdown. If the emergency is an external environmental issue, such as volcanic activity or an earthquake, first you must pump the primer and disengage the computer as before, and then use the backup system to enter code 307A. This code will encase the core in a heatproof, impact-proof alloy container and move it into a designated shelter via emergency tubes run by the backup system.”

 

“My father sure trains his new agents quickly!” Shakara exclaimed.

 

“Simple psychic data transfer milady. Everything I needed to know he told me in a few seconds across a mental link.”

 

“How do I disable the emergency backup system?” Shakara asked.

 

“The secondary electropsionic core is only active during an emergency situation. Should there be a need to deactivate it, then you must proceed to the secondary terminal to your left and follow the same procedure. Note that option C, involving environmental emergencies, is not available for the secondary core. Should any of the recognized environmental emergencies occur, that core will be inevitably lost.”

 

Shakara really didn’t pay too much attention to Agent A’s words, instead she was intruding on her mind to get the Authorization codes for shutdown. She succeeded, and then began entering them into the console.

 

“I am just testing confirmation.” Shakara said when she saw Agent A giving her a funny look.

 

“There are no scheduled tests for this system for another ten years milady!” Agent A said loudly.

 

When the words ‘Code Confirmed’ flashed on the console’s screen, Shakara slammed her paws on the deactivation switch as hard as she could. Agent A and both Acolytes in the room instantly collapsed onto the floor unconscious, and Shakara swiftly reached down to grab the laser rifle that Agent A had been carrying. She fired a continuous beam from it into the cables connecting the core with the rest of the computer network, slicing and melting right through them. She wanted to make sure that nobody reactivated it anytime soon. For good measure, she pumped the primer and ejected what was left of the molten cables from the core’s input sockets. The fried stumps popped out like corks from a wine bottle and jets of hot gas violently erupted out of the core itself. She followed the same procedure on the emergency backup core, shutting it down and melting its cables as well. Then Shakara reared back and kicked the screen of the nearest computer console, caving it in completely, and then followed that up by slicing its cables as well with her tail blade. It would be a very long time before any of the Acolytes got up again, and now Ares wouldn’t be able to escape into one of their bodies.

 

Shakara heard a groan and turned to see the human girl sitting up, although she wasn’t sure if it were Ashley or Agent A who had gotten up.

 

“Agent A?” Shakara asked.

 

“What the hell are you talking about Shakara?” Ashley snapped, wobbling to her feet.

 

Shakara sighed in relief and walked over to Ashley. “Hold still and let me cut that collar off of you.”

 

Ashley suddenly turned and swung a right hook at Shakara’s skull, and Shakara blocked it with her right arm.

 

“I’ll have your head on a spear you traitor!” Ashley ranted, taking another swing.

 

Shakara firmly grabbed both of Ashley’s arms and spoke, “Listen! That was all an act! I’m sorry for putting you through all that, but my father had already detected your presence on the gunship and I needed a convincing explanation!”

 

Ashley looked dumbstruck for a moment as her shocked mind processed this new information. Soon afterwards, a flood of the purest and most indescribable relief poured out of her expression and blood rushed to her cheeks with happiness. What Ashley did next shocked Shakara, but not in a negative way, the shorter human girl embraced her for a short yet meaningful moment.

 

“You don’t know how relieved I am!” Ashley said, nearly crying from joy.

 

“Alright, I’m glad for you, but you need to listen. We don’t have time to dawdle. I have just shut down the Electropsionic core as per our plans, and now we need to rendezvous with Tanis and get his collar off of him as well. If we hurry, we might have a chance to regroup and prepare ourselves before my father senses what has happened and awakens. Now come on, we need to move fast!”

 

The two of them sprinted back through the halls together, jumping over the scattered bodies of the unconscious Acolytes.  No alarms were going off since the whole system had been reset, and all the doors had opened to their default positions. Reaching the imprisonment chamber, Shakara saw that all the energy bubbles that had held prisoners had faded away, and all of them had been freed. Tanis stood among a motley gang of scarred, abused people that had all equally felt the wrath of Ares’ torture artists. They were milling amongst themselves when she first stumbled in, and many of them were breaking into the storage lockers next to their cells to retrieve their weapons and belongings. One of them, a dark-skinned woman, was cutting the collar off of Tanis with some sort of bladed weapon when one of the others caught sight of Shakara and panicked.

 

“Look, there’s one of them!” A brown haired man shouted and pointed at Shakara.

 

“Get her!” another member of the mob shouted.

 

Tanis sprinted up in front of the angry prisoners before they could rush at Shakara. “Wait!” he shouted. “She’s on our side, she’s the one who shut down Ares’ psychic network and set us free!”

 

The crowd looked ruthlessly skeptical, but none of them spoke a word out to protest directly. Shakara saw that she needed to put her own word in to prove what Tanis had said.

 

“Listen to me, I don’t have time to explain everything with words, and I especially don’t have the time to do so in a way that will expel all of your doubts and suspicions. So I am going to project everything that you need to know directly into your minds. Don’t be alarmed when you hear my voice in your head, and don’t worry about being mentally attacked.”

 

Shakara was happy to find no direct resistance when she psychically linked up with everyone in the room. She quickly introduced herself, explained her past, and gave them a brief synopsis of her newly revised plan. She found that the whole assortment of those in the room consisted of people from here in this dimension where Hyrule existed, and a number of others from a land called Weyard in another, completely separate dimension. They all came from different parts of their respective worlds and spanned different social classes, and yet they now stood before her together in equality in the face of the threat of Ares. From here in Hyrule came two Gerudo siblings by the names of Kalana and Ruru, two Zora siblings by the names of Onta and Iona, and a Dantunian named Aquel. From Weyard came a group of warriors and a scholar, all of whom had been traveling together long before any of these events had come to pass. And to add to that was Tanis and Shakara herself from back home at Earth. Altogether, this was a substantial force to fight Ares with, even though most of them used primitive solid metal swords for weapons. Shakara could sense that they all had the skills to use energy-type attacks of some form of another, though they called these energies by different names. All of their energy could be pooled and used to fight against Ares. With this, Shakara could feel that their chances for victory were growing significantly, and all that was missing was a way to unify them all into an effective fighting force, and Shakara knew that she held that key.

 

- - - CONVERGENCE - - -

 

Chapter XXIV

 

Ares was sitting in his room dictating another one of his journal entries into his personal computer terminal. The red velvet splendors of his domain were veiled in the shadows of the night, and he kept the main light off to calm him as he softly spoke his words into the microphone. All of his empire was quiet this night, every single one of his goals had been accomplished now and peace dominated the lands under his control. Ares himself was unable to sleep for the while due to sheer excitement. Tomorrow was going to be a big day, he would re-unite all three pieces of the Triforce and finally put them into the Resurrector machine to proceed with his plans. Not only that, but his daughter had turned out not to be dead after all as well! He spent almost half an hour gleefully relaying all these events into his log before he began to feel sleepy. After finishing the retelling, he ended the recording session and laid back in his chair to recline and relax. His mind, which had been agonized for weeks now, was finally getting some rest.

 

Ever since that day when he believed Shakara had died, Ares’ emotions had been thrown into turmoil. He was conflicted and ripped by different feelings to the point where many of his political advisors became worried about his sanity. On one day, he would be stricken with grief, unable to cope with any of the issues that laid at hand, and he would spend hours locked alone in his room lamenting for Shakara. On another day he would be gripped by a savage rage, unwilling to believe that he had let himself be caught by that despicable trap that humans called friendship. He would tell himself over and over again that Shakara wasn’t actually worth anything anyway, since she had turned out so rebellious, and that he had let himself become emotionally weak. On a third given day he would be sick and tired of everything in the world, and nearly became suicidal. Every day was an appalling streak of depression for him, and even during his fits of rage he still felt a biting loneliness. And on all of his days, he was confounded by the fact that despite his power and wealth, he was still feeling a gaping hole in his life that could not be filled.

 

Now that Shakara had returned, and the final third of the Triforce had been captured, this hole had been instantly filled. As Ares laid back in his chair, thinking, he finally began to realize that, perhaps it was the companionship that made his life complete? The time he had spent connecting with Shakara that night had been one of the happiest nights he had known, and perhaps his greedier, colder self was wrong in the end? As he comprehended this, the warm comfort of his now-perfect life finally lulled him into a deep, restful sleep. He left his terminal on, and its cool white and red light bathed him as he dozed off in his chair. Life was good.

 

It took a long while, but something wrong in the atmosphere began to pry into Ares’ restful state. It was a vague feeling of something amiss that crept into his dreams and haunted his relaxation. It disturbed him and caused him to slowly drift into wakefulness. He gradually opened his eyes, and his vision was blurred at first from the sleep in them. He saw something blinking urgently on the terminal’s holo screen and sat up. He rubbed his eyes and looked again, and saw dire words flashing on the readout: “Fatal System Crash, Psionic Network Disabled, Main Computer Network Down”

 

Ares stood straight up like he had been lying on a hot plate. He tried to psychically contact any of his Acolytes to find out what was going on, but there was no response. His entire empire had suddenly been crippled in his sleep, and the first thing that crossed his mind was if Shakara was ok. Stress coursed through him as he was abruptly kicked into full alarm from his restful state, and he teleported straight into his HQ’s main hall to find Shakara.

 

The main hall was nearly pitch black when Ares arrived, and the couch where Shakara had been sleeping was empty.  He glanced around wildly as a sense of panic rose up in his throat. He felt a rush of relief when he finally saw her standing in front of the door to the labs, facing away from him.

 

“Shakara, are you alright?” Ares shouted to her.

 

“Yes father, I’m fine.” Shakara replied impassively.

 

“What’s going on?! The system crashed, and I…” Ares lost his train of thought before he could finish.

 

An icy drop of water landed squarely on Ares’ head, and he looked up to see the overhead dome had been opened up. The Hylian sky loomed above them, filled with angry boiling clouds that churned violently in the night’s darkness. Not a single bolt of lightning flashed, giving an ominous feeling of suppressed fury.

 

“I want to ask you something father…what is your definition of glory?” Shakara asked coldly.

 

Ares was utterly silent as his mind roiled in confusion.

 

“Is it this?” Shakara boomed, and psychically projected the images of a gruesome pile of dead bodies into his mind.

 

Ares was caught completely off guard and unawares by Shakara’s sudden onslaught. Mounds upon mounds of decaying bodies of Hylians, Iresians, humans, Acolytes, an unrecognizable others festered in a dump-like trench, and Ares could even smell the decay. He cringed like a frightened puppy and the images faded from his mind as Shakara relented.

 

“That is what your wars do, father. Endless, pointless waste that knows no bounds. I will have no part in it!” Shakara said, shouting the last part as she turned to face her father.

 

Ares faltered for a moment, and then his strength returned to him. “I don’t need you judging my actions! You should obey me!” he boomed back at her.

 

Shakara’s demeanor calmed again, it was almost as if her intensity was coming in waves. “Do you know what your first and biggest mistake was father?” she asked.

 

Ares was silent again, he fumed and tried to think of something to say.

 

“Thinking that everyone, including me, would bow down and obey you without question. Do you know what your second mistake was? Complacency. You never sat down and thought out every possible way your empire could be brought down, and you never took any of your enemies seriously. And worst of all, you thought that you could quell my spirit with simple words. I’m more than that father, and now all of these mistakes have come back to haunt you, embodied within me and my friends.”

 

Ares tried to ask her what she meant by her friends, but she closed her eyes before he could say anything. He suddenly sensed an enormous amount of energy beginning to collect in and behind her, like a great tidal wave. When she opened her eyes, they were glowing in a multitude of shifting colors, and her posture and demeanor seemed to shift. She held herself differently, a lot more purposeful and dangerous looking. As the collecting energy continued to steadily rise, Ares decided it was the best idea to raise his shield and ready himself for an attack. The two Triforce pieces in his hand glowed brightly as he drew on their power, and his shield glowed gold and red. Since all his Acolytes were out cold and unable to send him his energy, he only had the Triforce left to support him now. His arrogance told him it should still be more than enough, but his entire belief system had now been shaken by Shakara’s speech.

 

Shakara grinned and grabbed the door to the science room behind her to throw it open. Standing in the room behind her was a crowd of high security prisoners that Ares recognized from the special imprisonment chamber. Kalana, Ruru, Onta, Iona, Aquel, Isaac, Felix, Garet, Jenna, Sheba, Ivan, Mia, Piers, and Tanis all stood arrayed behind Shakara with their weapons at the ready, and all their eyes glowed in the same mysterious manner. They all began to move to surround him in unison, and he frowned in bitter acceptance of the fact that his daughter was in fact going to have to be a loss to him after all.

 

When Shakara’s entire group evenly spread out around Ares, he reminded himself that almost none of them outside of Tanis and Shakara had any means of protecting themselves from a mental attack. He reached out with his mind in attempt to take control over several of them, but was met with a collective mental barrier that Shakara had put around all of their minds. Ares concentrated on just one person next, pushing more and more energy into the assault in an attempt to break their mental wall, but to no avail. He backed off then, realizing that this fight would be a lot more difficult than he thought. He suddenly grinned in spite of himself as his more destructive side gained control.

 

“You wanted to know what my definition of glory was Shakara? It’s overcoming adversity to achieve victory!” Ares said. All present in the room smiled subtly in unison.

 

Dozens of cripplingly powerful blows struck Ares’ shield at once, each of which would have normally been enough to disable him if he had not been in possession of the Triforce. Each member of Isaac’s party unleashed a Djinn upon him, their combined force enough to turn an average Acolyte into a puddle of biomass. The power of the Triforce flowed into the shield and it held, but more attacks followed in rapid succession. A triple-blow from Kalana’s scimitar was followed by tandem water spells from Iona and Onta. The powerful jets of highly pressurized water struck the shield and threw it against the wall as if Ares inside weighed nothing. He had barely come to a stop when Tanis and Shakara landed on top of his shield and began stabbing their energy swords into it. Their first series of blows was ineffective, so they answered with more and more, mixing in powerful blows from orbs of psychic energy. Isaac and Felix raced forward to unleash more Djinni.

 

Ares waved his arms and unleashed a colossal circular psywave that tossed all his attackers away like bowling pins. The psywave traveled past them as they were tossed away and went on to part the clouds in the darkened sky and travel off into space. Ares was denied his chance to continue on the offensive however, his shield was suddenly encased in a massive ice prison. The cold bit his skin as the concurrent spells from Onta, Iona, Mia, and Piers all formed a massive iceberg nearly two feet thick around him. The massive lattice of ice crystals then shattered with such an incredible physical force that it burst multiple gaping holes in his shield. Had it not taken the impact for him, he would have been shredded beyond recognition.

 

Ares’ foes didn’t hesitate in the flawless execution of their tandem attacks. Before the clouds of ice shards even had time to fall to the ground, a massive, dragon-shaped pillar of flames melted right through the ice, passed through a hole in Ares’ shield, and struck his body, charring him black and baking his insides to well-done status. That attack was only barely dissipating when Tanis and Shakara’s energy swords caught on the edges of the hole in the shield and pried it open further until the whole thing gave way and shattered.

 

Ares called on the power of the Triforce and fired a massive beam of golden energy at Tanis and Shakara. It struck their shields and flung them away like dolls, and then soared on past them to blast a series of molten holes through the rest of his base. He also took the chance to heal those of his internal organs which had been destroyed by the heat of the fire dragon in order to remove the immediate danger of his death. He turned towards where Tanis had landed, and then was interrupted by an icy cold lance of pain in his abdomen. He looked down to see a gore soaked sword protruding from his stomach, and he then wrapped his tail around the ankles of his assailant and threw him across the room violently. He re-raised his shield just in time to block another flurry of sword and scimitar blows and began healing himself again. He was interrupted when a series of flashes of light and deafening bangs filled the air, and his shield bent like a balloon being poked inwards. He saw through the flash that multiple bolts of lightning had struck it, and Ivan and Sheba’s weapons were sizzling and smoking. More repeated lightning strikes followed, and Ares’ energy consumption doubled as he tried to defend and heal himself both at the same time. The two Triforce pieces in his hand were beginning to sting and burn, and he decided to change his strategy quickly, since this one obviously wasn’t working.

 

Ares teleported in a small golden flash and reappeared behind Kalana’s back, holding onto an energy sword. He drew back and prepared to behead the Gerudo woman, but dual energy beams from Tanis and Shakara threw him across the room and bent his shield wildly again. He teleported a second time to reappear behind Tanis, but another combined Djinn blast from Isaac’s crew sent him reeling before he could even rear back to strike. It was as if they were somehow tracking his teleportation co-ordinates to anticipate all his attacks, and he decided that yet another tactic change was in order. He quickly flew high up into the air above everyone’s heads where no-one could reach him who couldn’t psychically fly. He raised his arms and pulled every last ounce of energy out of the Triforce that he possibly could, forming it into one end-all, planet-destroying doomsday orb. The Triforce burned like someone had taken a branding iron to his hand, straight out of the bellows, but he ignored the pain and concentrated at finishing his monstrosity of an attack.

 

“Come forth Iris, I summon you!” Jenna’s voice called brilliantly over the crackling hiss of the collecting energy above.

 

Ares swiveled his head around curiously, expecting some kind of attack, but the storms in the Hylian sky roiled on uninterrupted. He shrugged it off and returned to the task at hand.

 

“Behold, your doom has come!” Ares shouted, and then waved his arms downward to fire his attack down at his foes.

 

High above them all, a new light began to emerge from the wrathful clouds. The glow intensified and began to push through the clouds, and suddenly Ares craned his neck upward when he sensed something massive approaching. Beams of reddish light shot downward like lightning, they surrounded and encased Ares before anyone could blink. Similar energy collected around Ares’ massive doomsday attack and stopped it in its tracks. The beams then began pulling upward, like giant glowing ropes of steel, and Ares felt confused and frightened.

 

“What kind of trick is this?” Ares psychically bellowed as he was pulled to higher and higher altitudes.

 

“Have a nice flight!” Tanis’ psychic voice replied simply.

 

Passing through the upper limits of the storm clouds and into the calmer night sky above, Ares caught a glimpse of a rapidly ascending Goddess who was pulling on the beams of light which held him prisoner. She rapidly disappeared into the distance and he began violently accelerating up towards space. Feeling the air thinning, Ares formed an air bubble around himself and continued to resist. He was continually pulled like this until the planet fell away below him and he was surrounded by the dark abyss of space on all sides. He struggled fruitlessly for minutes on end, and with every passing moment he became more frantic to escape and much more enraged. His rage was cooled with icy cold terror when he realized where he was being taken, right towards this solar system’s star.

 

Ares became blindly desperate, he fired energy attacks into the beams that imprisoned him, but to no avail. He attempted teleportation numerous times but the energy of the beam blocked him. His skin began to sizzle and burn as he rapidly approached the star, both from the heat and the concentrated light. He did manage to successfully raise a heat shield to protect himself, but it was soon overpowered. He turned this shield opaque to protect from the intense light and triple-reinforced it to try and insulate against the heat, but for every passing second the burning became more intense. He writhed and twitched in agony as his skin slowly char-broiled, and he began to lose his mental focus as the rest of his body was affected. He cried out in defiance, trying to form words to rebuke the grim reaper, but his muscles were being cooked and he could not control their movements any longer. In that moment, Ares was as close to hell as any still-living mortal could get.

 

With one monstrous crash, the heat shields collided with the star’s outer gas layers, causing a spectacular display of blinding orange and yellow fireworks. At that very moment, death should have come to the tyrant inside, but the Triforce interrupted at the last moment. The cracking and failing shields were reinforced by its golden energy, and the imprisoning beams from Jenna’s summon reversed direction and pulled Ares away from the star.

 

Ares regained consciousness minutes later as the Triforce’s healing energies filled his body. He slowly realized that the star was fading in the distance, and that the only thing that had stood between him and death were the two golden triangles in his hand. As his mind returned to normal, he couldn’t help but chuckle.

 

“Fickle little artifact.” He said half joyously. “You’ll save my life, but you won’t let me use your full powers against my foes. How altruistic.”

 

The calming blues and greens of the Hylian planet returned to Ares’ view as he was rapidly carried back. He didn’t realize that he was still under the grip of Jenna’s summon, so he didn’t bother trying to slow down until he was about to enter the atmosphere. By the time he had reached the planet he was fully healed and mentally acute once more, so when he tried to slow down and failed, he realized that something was still terribly wrong. The planet’s atmosphere blasted his shield violently and bright tongues of orange flames curled around it in an almost artful pattern. He passed through the upper atmosphere, storm clouds, and towards his HQ in a matter of seconds, his rate of speeding blurring out his vision. Normally, the computers in the buildings of his HQ would have registered him as a dangerous comet or asteroid and fired several volleys of plasma to destroy him, but since the network was down, none of those automated functions remained online. The plasma bolts could have struck his shield to slow him down, but instead he flew unimpeded right into the steel flooring of the base.

 

The rules of summoning prevented the ensuing blast from harming Jenna or anyone else in her party, but all of Ares’ base was nearly obliterated from the impact. The impact-resistant alloys that Ares had designed himself withstood most of the collision, but all of the unshielded, sensitive equipment in the entire building was torn loose and tossed several miles away. The entire building sank under the force of the collision, and the soft earth sank and buckled like sand. The tremors that blasted through the earth all around caused houses in distant villages to collapse, and the towers of Hyrule Castle tilted and swayed.

 

Ares himself was saved from most of the impact by his shields, but the energy drain on the Triforce this caused made his entire hand explode in excruciating pain before going totally numb. Even with the cushioning his shields provided, Ares struck the floor with enough force to break multiple bones throughout his body, he felt his jaw splinter and his knees shatter, and again he took another close step towards the agony of hell before the Triforce saved him. When the dust cleared and the warped and mangled walls of his base came into his blurred vision, his opponents still stood there above him, stronger than ever. It was at this point that he realized that he was not going to win this fight. The Triforce may have saved his life multiple times, but it was not going to be enough to kill these enemies.

 

As the bones in his body quickly mended by the Triforce’s command, Ares looked over at his right hand, only to see a ghastly, shriveled gray piece of flesh. The Triforce had turned his once vibrant and healthy hand into the picture of decay, it looked like his arm from the elbow down should have belonged to some kind of shambling undead beast. It was completely numb and limp as well, he could not get it to respond, and he knew that the Triforce had drained all the life force out of it. He stood, and in an instant his foes were right in front of him again.

 

Ares tried to strike first again, but by now he was incredibly weakened. When he lunged at Isaac with an energy sword, Isaac simply dodged to the side and landed a devastating right hook to the side of his head. Ares was sent tumbling through the air, his body spinning twice before grinding into the burning hot dirt that had settled after the impact. He kept pushing himself to fight, despite his rapidly waning energy, and flipped over onto his feet to attack Kalana. Kalana dipped under his attack and bashed his jaw with the hilt of her scimitar, breaking his jawbone a second time and sending him violently up into the air. Tanis appeared above him, and plunged both of his feet into Ares’ stomach in a flawless double kick that sent him right back into the dirt again. His intestines were brutally bruised by the kick and he landed on top of his tail, sending an even brighter lightning bolt of pain up and down his back. The Triforce tried to heal him again, but now there was hardly any life left in him and it had little effect. His battered and ruined body now lay still on the wreckage of his once glorious base. The air suddenly stood silent for a moment.

 

Shakara walked up to her father, and added final insult to injury by plunging an energy sword into his second neck, sealing his defeat. She held this sword to his other neck, threatening to totally sever his head.

 

“Game’s up father.” She said softly.

 

Ares looked up at his daughter, her eyes were still glowing, and he could see in their emotion that all love had been lost. At that moment, all of Ares’ other injuries; his severed second neck, multiple bruises, broken bones, dead arm, were nothing compared to the pain that Shakara’s stare gave him. The cold, almost dead glint that she gave him cut his heart better than any energy blade could have, and his resolve quivered and faded away.

 

“Shakara...I’m...sorry.” Ares stuttered, his psychic voice barely transmitting properly due to his drained power.

 

Shakara did not strike the final blow, but instead stopped to listen to him.

 

“For everything I’ve done wrong…even if I’m still not aware of all of it.” Ares paused for a moment, and then spoke again. “Do you…remember the time when we played laser tag, you and I? That time that we spent together then, it meant more to me than any other time in my life. I didn’t know it until now, but that was more important than any of the times I spent performing my conquests. And now that all time is about to fall out of my grasp…it saddens me that we won’t ever play games like that together again.”

 

Shakara closed her eyes for a moment, and her energy sword began to shiver and fade. A small droplet of water formed below each eyelid, and all was still for a moment.

 

“Don’t hesitate!” Tanis called, and several of his party members rushed forward to finish the job.

 

Ares noticed something odd, the glow had vanished from the eyes of his attackers, and he rolled to the side to dodge Tanis’s energy sword attack. This time, it seemed that Tanis was moving much slower. A new theory formed inside his head, and he decided to keep resisting just a little more to see if his theory was true. Ares jumped backwards and landed on top of his old Resurrector machine, which had been thankfully bolted down and was not damaged by the explosion when he landed after Jenna’s summon. In it were the six elemental gems, and the third and final piece of the Triforce, all of which were being held in containment fields slotted into the machine. Tanis was charging toward him, so Ares grabbed as many of the Gems as he could get all at once, and used their energy to heal his wounds and regenerate himself. He felt extremely lucky that he had been given a chance to get back into the game.

 

Ares teleported again, wanting to see if there was any significance to the loss of the glowing eyes in his opponents. He was correct, none of them anticipated his move like before, and he caught the Zora Queen Iona utterly off guard. He lopped the Queen’s right arm off solidly and was about to strike her neck, but Jenna saw him and launched a beam of fire at him. He raised a new shield, which took the impact easily, and returned fire with his own orb of red energy. Jenna’s leg was blown clean off by the blast, and she fell to the ground unconscious almost instantly.

 

Ares knew that whatever psychic link that Shakara had developed was now gone, so he intruded on the minds of all in the room who not gifted with their own psychic abilities and sent them drifting off into the deepest slumber. All that remained now were Tanis and his own daughter.

 

Tanis came charging towards Ares, this time dual wielding energy swords with a look of desperation in his eyes. Ares dipped under the blades, kicked Tanis squarely in the stomach, and then twirled around and stabbed through his second neck. Tanis stumbled to the ground and clenched his belly, the wind had been knocked out of him and he could no longer use his powers. Ares kicked him in the sides a few more times to make sure he stayed down, and then walked over to Shakara. He didn’t attack her, but he kept his shield up just in case. Shakara simply stood there, refusing to even look at him.

 

“Whatever it is that caused this mutiny, please tell me! I need to know everything I did to you so that I won’t repeat it again! I cannot blame you for betraying me anymore, just please help me to help myself!”

 

“I should hope that you have a pen and some paper ready…the list is quite long.” Shakara said, almost a whisper.

 

Suddenly, Shakara fell to her knees. Ares suddenly felt a wave of fear wash over him, he ran over to her and caught her as she toppled.

 

“What’s wrong? Are you ill?” Ares asked.

 

Shakara silently pointed at her back, and Ares sat her up and looked. Originating at her implant plug and at the burned triple swords on Shakara’s back were numerous cancerous masses, every single one of them visible lumps under her skin. They had spread over her like some kind of plague, and a few of them were open sores, leaking clear fluid out of her skin. Ares examined them psychically to find that they were extraordinarily malignant, and had already fanned out into numerous other parts of her body.

 

“Shakara…I…I don’t understand! Why didn’t you-”

 

“Heal myself with my psychic abilities? Trust me, I tried. Whenever I channeled the restorative energies into the tumors, they fed on it and grew instead of shrinking. There’s no way for me, you, Tanis, or anyone to cure them.”

 

“But…I should have known! I have to be able to fix this!”

 

“Face it dad, even you aren’t good enough at genetic engineering to create a perfect being. Even if you made one, single, miniscule mistake, it could have lead to this. And every time I felt my anger for you, the cancer grew a little more inside me by feeding off of my emotions. Whenever I was happy it would stop, but that wasn’t often enough.”

 

“No! I won’t let you slip away from me like this! I’ll cut all of them out, even if it takes me twenty more years! I have the technology damnit!”

 

“I’m sorry father, but this is something you must accept. If you won’t learn this lesson for yourself, then learn it for all the people you’ve subjugated. You can’t keep deluding yourself any longer, it’s time to live on and let life take you where it will.”

 

Something inside Ares snapped, and he rose and walked over towards his Resurrector machine. This was the final straw that broke his conqueror’s complex, and he was ready to give up his dreams pf conquest for Shakara know. He lowered the containment field around the final piece of the Triforce, knowing full well that he would only receive one wish, and if he gave it to Shakara then he would never have its power again.

 

The Triforce of Wisdom hovered free from its imprisonment, and the other two pieces tore loose from Ares’ hand. The three reunited in a brilliant flare of gold, and the completed artifact drifted just above Ares’ head.

 

“Unworthy one!” The voice of the Triforce boomed, nearly deafening all in the room. “Your black heart and corrupted mind are unfit to wield the complete power of the Triforce! You shall never again use our power to commit your heinous deeds, and we shall once again split into three-”

 

“Wait! Please, hear me out!” Ares interrupted. “I’m done with infinite power now. Please, I beg of you, just spare my daughter and give your power to her so she might live!”

 

The three Triangles hovered in utter silence for a moment. “Only an act of utter selflessness such as this could ever have redeemed you in our eyes, and thus it has been shown before us. Shakara will live.”

 

The Triforce descended until it was just a few inches above Shakara’s limp form. It cast a golden glow upon her, and for a few seconds she remained still. Then, she clambered to her knees and stood. She reached around and felt her back, the sores were gone and the lumps were shrinking and disappearing.

 

“Shakara et Benca, your father has given you a great gift. He has given up his ambitions of power, sacrificed his wish so that you might live. Is there any wish that you might have of the Gods?”

 

“I never want to have any of this happen to me ever again. I want to be free of all the negativity on my heart. I want to purge all the darkness that brought upon that sickness, and to be free to be happy again.” Shakara replied.

 

“What you ask has dire consequences that you may not fully comprehend. It would be wise for you to reconsider.” The voice of the Triforce said in return.

 

“No! This is what I want! I’m sick of living a life clouded by shame, regret, and sorrow! No more shall I carry this burden of blackness, it is rotting me away at the inside! Take it from me now!” Shakara cried.

 

“Very well, the wish is granted.” The booming voice said, in an almost sad tone.

 

A muffled, percussive thud like that of a drum echoed from the Triforce, and Shakara closed her eyes. A bubble of golden energy projected from the three triangles and encased Shakara, and both of them began to fly up into the air through the twisted skylight. As Shakara and the Triforce were carried up into the night sky, they left a towering column of golden light below them, one which reached above them as well as they came to a stop halfway between the ground and the clouds. The column of light parted a hole in the clouds, which began to twist and twirl upon contact. The winds at every altitude began to pick up around this massive pillar to the sky in a spinning motion, picking up dust and debris as their speeds increased. When the winds got strong enough, the dust formed up into a giant tornado-like funnel cloud, which was radiating golden light from the center. This sight was so breathtaking to behold that many Hylians rose from their beds to stand and stare. The golden light shone brightest from the pseudo-tornado’s epicenter where Shakara was, right in the very middle of the entire spectacle.

 

“No! This isn’t right! I won’t let it happen!” Ares bellowed and kicked off of the ground to fly towards Shakara in the center.

 

When he found her, incased in a blinding cocoon of light, he formed an energy sword and stabbed at it, trying to free her. He was utterly unsuccessful at even making a ripple in the orb that held his daughter, and in response he put all his energy and concentration into a rapid succession of blows. This lead him to unconsciously release the paralysis on all of the members of Tanis’ party below, and they began to heal each other and recover their strength while he was distracted. Before Ares knew it, the entire team was up on their feet and ready for another round of combat, and Tanis rocketed up through the air towards him.

 

“Don’t interfere Tanis! I’m trying to save my daughter and this has nothing to do with you!” Ares yelled belligerently.

 

“Despite whether you or I like it or not, we’ll need to work together in order to save her!” Tanis yelled in reply.

 

Ares felt Tanis try to psychically link up to him, but it wasn’t some form of attack. It felt like Tanis wanted to co-ordinate their movements, just as he and Shakara had done against him in the battle before. Ares was shocked, nay stunned to think that Tanis would be willing to take such a risk for the sake of Shakara, and he realized he had something in common he shared with Tanis, they both deeply cared about what happened to Shakara. He decided to accept Tanis’ proposal and not to betray him, Shakara was now ultimately his number one priority.

 

When Ares did link minds with Tanis, he felt himself bathed in the warm glow of Tanis’ emotions. There was a great shining positivity in Tanis that Ares could never have even dreamed of, its soothing purity calmed his mind and made him feel like everything was going to be alright. He also felt Tanis was indeed just as concerned about Shakara as he was, and he felt like, perhaps, he could share some sort of bond with Tanis should everything turn out alright? The irony bitterly stung at his pride that such thoughts could ring true, and he decided that it was indeed time for him to reorganize his life goals to include his family more than his ambition, that is, if given the chance.

 

Ares and Tanis began flying in perfect unison around Shakara’s glowing form. They accelerated until glowing contrails followed behind them, forming an orange and red ring around the nucleus of the pseudo-tornado, making the whole assembly look like a massive atom. Ares’ vision began to fade out as the G forces drained the blood from his head, and just as he was about to black out completely, he and Tanis broke off from their spin and soared directly away from Shakara at breakneck speed. They then curved around in beautifully synchronized arcs, retaining their momentum, to fly directly towards Shakara inside the imprisoning orb. Both Tanis and Ares formed spikes of energy on their feet and landed feet-first onto the orb, pushing all of their psychic power and physical momentum into the dual impact. But it was not enough, the sphere held.

 

Worse came to worse in fact, the power from these blows simply slid off of the barrier that the Triforce had created, and Ares and Tanis received the full force of each other’s attacks. Ares felt his bones crush and his organs collapse when the blow struck him directly in his stomach, and he thought to himself how annoying it was that this kind of crap was happening to him so much tonight. The mental link that connected him to Tanis allowed them both to share each others’ pain, so Ares had the privilege of feeling his own pain on top of the pain that Tanis was feeling from his injury as well, making his vision blur in danger of passing out. But the link allowed them both to share energy, and they pooled what was left after the failed attack to heal each other and keep from falling to their deaths. All in all, that attempt had been an utter waste of time and energy, and by now it was too late to prevent Shakara’s separation. With another flash, this one not as bright, the bubble that had encased Shakara began to fade. The wind came to a screeching halt, and all the dust and debris that had been picked up by the pseudo-tornado suddenly began to fall. The clouds stopped spinning, the world grew silent, and two emerged from where there once was one.

 

Chapter XXV

 

“It was never supposed to be like this!” Ares lamented, hear heart writhing.

 

The Triforce had done its job well, an Angelic and a Demonic half of Shakara had been created, each opposed to the other in every way. Hardly anyone in the room except Tanis and Ares understood the significance of this event, nor its grave nature, and chills continually ran up and down Tanis’ spine as the two opposing halves began to battle with each other. Nobody seemed to notice that the Triforce seemed to have disappeared, all of their attention was focused on the fantastic lightshow playing out in the skies above Hyrule. The Hylian people watched even more intently now, the bright flashes of energy were a spectacle none of them had ever beheld in their lives, and it seemed to flow in cycles of stalemate, neither side gaining any ground for nearly ten minutes.

 

Ares was paralyzed with confusion and grief, he knew that if either half killed the other, then both would die and he would lose his daughter forever, so he needed to act in some way. But he couldn’t just pick a side and fight against the other, both of them were Shakara and he could not forgive himself if his actions lead to her death. Then, amidst the fighting, there was another golden flash, and the voice of the Triforce spoke again.

 

“Your heart is unbalanced between the Three Holy Attributes, and thus we shall split!”

 

Ares squinted to see what was happening, and he saw that two of the pieces of the Triforce were speeding away from the two combatants, one directly down towards the opened roof of the base. The Triforce of Courage, leaving a slightly blew trail of light, flew down and struck Kalana on the head, this time it had chosen the sister of its last recipient. Kalana fell to her knees and collapsed, and Ruru rushed to her side. The other piece of the Triforce speed off in an Easterly direction, and Ares lost sight of it quickly. When he turned back towards the battle, he saw that one of the combatants was plummeting like a stone, and was about to come to a bone crunching landing on the base’s warped steel floors. Ares created a soft, cushioning psychic bubble to catch her, and saw that it was the bat-winged demonic version of Shakara, who was now unconscious and had the mark of the Triforce of Power on her forehead. The angel-winged half rocketed downward in pursuit, bearing two shining energy blades in her paws.

 

“Wait, stop!” Ares shouted, jumping in front of the blades.

 

“Move father! She stands for everything I hated about myself, and I must destroy her!”

 

“No! If you kill her, you will die yourself as well!” Ares shouted in reply, as small tears began to trickle from his eyes.

 

“I don’t care, I cannot let her escape and perform the dark deeds that she so desperately craves!”

 

Ares lunged forward at his daughter’s light side, and their energy shields clashed violently. He tried desperately to weaken or break her shield so he could paralyze her and re-merge them, but to no avail. Tanis and the others watched in awe, none of them knowing quite sure what to do.

 

“I’m going to re-merge you with her, and we’ll be a happy family again!” Ares babbled hysterically as he pushed more and more energy into his attacks.

 

“Get real father, we never were a happy family in the first place and we never will be!”

 

“I won’t let you die!” Ares bellowed in return.

 

Suddenly, a great bolt of dark energy collided with the light one’s shield. The combined force of this strike and Ares’ attacks burst the shield and tossed her end-over-end until the cracked her skull against the steel wall and fell unconscious to the ground. Ares whirled around to see the dark one standing victorious, a huge, vicious grin on her face.

 

“Well father, am I everything you hoped I would be?” the dark one hissed.

 

Ares stuttered for a moment before finding his voice. “No, and you must stop! I want my old daughter back!”

 

“Aww, but isn’t this new form what you really wanted, a fellow conqueror to stand by your side on the brink of a new era of dominance?”

 

Ares was cut to the bone, the dark one’s words were utterly true. But he also knew what he wanted now, and he knew that he had left that part of himself behind.

 

“No, I truly wanted a friend!” he yelled defiantly.

 

“Well, we can be great friends, you and I! Just make sure to give me final control of all the worlds we conquer together, and we’ll be the perfect team!”

 

“No, I want my old daughter back! You must re-merge and go back to how you were!”

 

A look of annoyance played across the dark one’s face. “The old Shakara is dead and gone now father, and you need to stop living in the past! I’m not called Darkess, and I plan on re-tracing my grandfather’s footsteps into darkness!”

 

The angelic one’s eyes flittered open, and a fraction of a second later a bolt of brilliant white energy pierced through Darkess’ abdomen and exploded against the far wall.

 

“Then I will call myself Lightess, and I will dedicate myself to stopping you!”

 

Darkess gasped in surprise for a moment, but grinned again as energy from the Triforce of power healed her wound. “How rude of you to interrupt, you were going to get some speech time of your own too!”

 

Darkess and Lightess flew at each other and began battling again, but this time Tanis jumped off of his feet and flew in to intervene. He took Lightess’ side and began to fire multiple energy beams at Darkess, but they had little effect on their own. Ares stood and watched again, still paralyzed by indecision, until a thought struck him. Should Darkess escape into space and hide, it would make finding her to re-merge with Lightess nearly impossible, so he finally decided to pick Lightess’ side as well and join the fray.

 

Ares noticed right away how badly diminished his powers were without the Triforce, his power pool had been reduced to nearly a third of its size before he had started battling that night, and it showed significantly when he fought against Darkess. She blocked all of his attacks deftly and dealt out vicious blows with her own energy sword, and Tanis wondered if this was how Tanis had felt before they had become allies. He was forced to take up a co-operative strategy with Tanis and Lightess, and he wondered briefly if Tanis would offer to link their minds again for coordinating their attacks.

 

After only a few minutes of intense swordplay, Darkess halted her assault for a moment and looked at each of her opponents in turn. She let her energy sword fade, and then grinned maliciously. “You all make a good team, and I must say that this has been interesting. But I have far much to do to play around here, so I’m going to have to end this now.”

 

Darkess flew up above her three opponents and collected as much energy out of her piece of the Triforce as she could, adding her own energy to it. When Ares sensed how much energy was gathering, he felt a cold, shivering blast of fear run up and down his spine. He could tell that even with Tanis and Lightess alongside him, he could still never block Darkess’ attack. He wanted to run away, to teleport to another place on this planet and hide, but he knew that Darkess would eventually find him. He resigned himself to keep fighting anyway; he was too dedicated to bringing Shakara back to flee.

 

Darkess fired a beam of energy nearly five feet in diameter down at the three of them, composed of an unholy mix of Triforce energy and dark energy. Ares and his team raised a shield to block, but when the dark beam struck it, it bent inward and began to collapse. Ares felt himself turn cold as the shield drew on his life force, and his knees gave way. He fell to his knees and looked up to see the shield beginning to buckle, and said sorry to Shakara in his mind one final time.

 

When the shield didn’t collapse and death didn’t come, Ares opened his eyes and saw one of the Weyardians that he had held prisoner now standing beside him, sending her own energy. The red haired girl named Jenna had joined up with him, despite all the hours of torture she had endured by his command. Suddenly, three more of her companions stepped in and contributed, and the shield began to brighten and expand against Darkess’ attack. Then, all of them followed, as well as the Hylians and Zoras, and Ares climbed back to his feet. Warmth crawled back into his body again, and he smiled in wonderment at the selflessness of those he had subjugated before. He felt their emotions and their energy as they grouped behind him, and decided that he would give them all their freedom should he ever get the chance.

 

The shield that Ares’ team had raised changed, it expanded and grew into a great orb of energy, pushing Darkess’ beam back in her face. Darkess’ expression changed from one of smug superiority to terror and panic. She tried to pull even more energy from the Triforce, but instead was met with only a burning pain in her right arm. She kept trying over and over again, expecting a last minute save, until the energy from Ares’ team broke through her attack and blasted the entire lower half of her body into oblivion.

 

Darkess began to fall out of the sky like a warplane that had been hit by flak, and Ares saw her lower half begin to re-grow and regenerate. He flew up to catch her, and then severed her second neck with an energy sword to put an end to the healing process. He then flew back down victorious, and the Weyardians cheered.

 

Ares set Darkess’ charred form down and turned to launch a surprise attack at Lightess. Lightess had not expected such backstabbing, and fell to the floor paralyzed by Ares’ energy. He then picked her up and carried her towards Darkess, preparing to re-merge the two of them back into his daughter again. A sudden shriek pierced the air, followed by many shuffling footsteps, and Ares felt burning agony skewer his stomach. He dropped Lightess and turned to see one of his own Acolytes, Agryn no less, holding the energy blade that had stabbed him. Agryn’s normally purple eyes were slowly turning a deep, bloody red. The implant on Agryn’s head was beeping wildly, and the symbol on his forehead had simply fallen off. Other Acolytes, previously unconscious after the system crash, had gotten to their feet and taken the Weyardians prisoner with paralyzing attacks. Hundreds more of them emerged out of every corridor, surrounding them in a huge circle.

 

“Checkmate!” Darkess cackled, now free from Ares’ psychic grip.

 

Agryn yanked the sword out of Ares’ stomach, and Ares topped over onto his side. He tried to heal himself again, but his energy stores were low again already, and Agryn hit him with a paralyzing attack. “How?” he managed to sputter.

 

“I saw an opportunity and I took it!” Darkess laughed as her legs regrew. “Your Acolytes were lying leaderless on the ground, their minds easily accessible and controlled. I’m surprised you didn’t try this yourself, so I picked the slack for you by conquering and restructuring your entire psionic network with my mind, and now every one of your Acolytes bows to my command!”

 

“Then I have no choice!” Lightess shouted, and then raised an energy sword, preparing to stab herself in the head. She knew that if she died, Darkess also died.

 

The Acolytes all moved in unison, they easily overwhelmed Lightess with their collective power and paralyzed her too, and she fell on the floor just the same as Ares. Now the entire group was on the ground in this manner, and Darkess held all the cards. Ares’ mind reeled with fear as he tried to predict what Darkess would do with all of them.

 

Darkess stood there, thinking for a moment, and then walked over to Kalana, who was still out cold after receiving the Triforce of Wisdom. Darkess created an energy sword and sliced Kalana’s entire right arm off to take the Triforce, and then frowned when it prepared to fly at her skull,

 

“There has to be a better way to do this than the skull-bashing method!” Darkess said, and then dodged to the side.

 

When the second piece of the Triforce missed her head, Darkess then jumped to her feet and grabbed it with her right hand. She squeezed it as hard as she could, and forced it to enter her hand directly. It burrowed into the skin next to its counterpart, and Darkess cringed, then smiled.

 

“Perfect.” Darkess said, and turned towards Ares. “Now all that’s left is for me to find the final piece, and I’ll be able to live out your dreams father!”

 

“It’s right here!” a human voice shouted, and Darkess whirled around to see the dark haired girl Ashley standing in a doorway.

 

Ashley whipped off her trainer’s fingerless glove, revealing the Triforce of Courage in the back of her hand. “Plus, I don’t think that you’re ready to receive it just yet anyway!”

 

Darkess was taken aback for a moment, and then grinned again. “Well well well, if it isn’t my least favorite human on Earth! My, I’m going to enjoy killing you! But why is it that you think I’m not ready to receive the Triforce yet?”

 

“Watch this. Merge!” She shouted, and suddenly the Triforce pieces in Darkess’ hand ripped free. The piece in Ashley’s hand pulled free as well, and all three re-united for the second time that night.

 

“Hey, that’s mine!” Darkess shouted angrily.

 

Ashley jumped up into the air to touch the Triforce first, hoping to gain its power instead of letting it fall into Darkess’ hands. But Darkess simply teleported in between Ashley and the golden artifact, and smashed her away with her tail. Ashley tumbled to the ground, rolling like a stuffed dummy. Darkess laughed, and then touched the Triforce greedily, thinking of all the things she would do with its power.

 

“Away with you!” The voice of the Triforce bellowed, now in a tone of unsuppressed rage. “You are more than unworthy of the complete power of the Triforce!”

 

“Unworthy, am I? I’ll show you how unworthy I am!” Darkess laughed.

 

From the thunder torn night sky descended thousands of glimmering lights, each one converging above Ares’ base. As they grew in the distance, Ares saw them to be nearly all of his old warships, now flying under Darkess’ control instead of his. Battlecruisers, Destroyers, Carriers, and every other class of ship descended to hover over Hyrule, their hulls reflected the flashes of lightning in the night sky. Darkess commanded the hundreds of thousands of Acolytes aboard them to send her their energy, and they obeyed. A flaming black aura of power surrounded Darkess’ body as she absorbed the collective energy from all of Ares’ empire. She waved her hands and encased the completed Triforce with a dark bubble of energy, holding the pieces together to prevent them from splitting again. The Triforce reacted with a supernova-like blast of golden energy within this imprisoning shield, thinning it and distending it considerably. Ruru and Onta gasped in awe and terror when that shield held however, they were shocked and amazed to see that the power of the Triforce had been matched. The bubble shrank down again, until it encapsulated each triangle in an aura of darkness.

 

“Ha! Behold the power of the Gods contained!” Darkess laughed.

 

Darkess grabbed the Triforce out of the air like Christmas ornaments suspended by fishing line, it no longer resisted her control. She turned it over a couple of times in her hands, and then snapped her fingers when an idea came to her. She walked over to the Resurrector machine, which had been bolted to the floor and had not been blown away when Jenna’s summon smashed Ares into the base. She placed the Triforce into its intended slot on the machine, causing it to hum to life with power. She teleported all six of the Elemental Gems into her hands, and then placed them too into their slots in the machine.

 

“What are you going to do with my machine?” Ares asked feebly.

 

“I need a new body, father, one that won’t die when Lightess dies, and one that you won’t be able to re-merge with Lightess. I’m going to use this amazing piece of machinery of yours to grow myself a new body with just those requirements, and then I’ll transfer my mind into that body, kill Lightess, and proceed to conquer the galaxy!”

 

“It’ll take years to grow a full body though, are you really that patient?” Ares asked.

 

Darkess tilted her head and thought for a moment, and then smiled and bent over to open a panel on the side of the machine. She tinkered with the device’s innards for several innards before closing it up and wiping the dust off of her paws. She walked over to the line of paralyzed prisoners and smiled.

 

“Would any of you like to volunteer for a job of utmost importance to me?” she asked, a look of malevolent mischief on her face.

 

None of those who were still conscious among the group responded, and Darkess walked over to stand before Tanis. “How about you, my old friend?”

 

Tanis looked up at her with a woeful gaze, saying nothing. Darkess grinned and decided to use him; she picked him up with her mind and stood him up on top of the Resurrector, which had lost its glass top during Jenna’s summon. Wires and electrodes floated up and stuck to his body in various places, making him look like an experiment from some freakish horror movie.

 

“Now for the proper settings…” Darkess said, and began removing Elemental Gems from the machine. She removed every single one except for the Darkness Gem. Her hand hovered over the activation button for a moment, and then she stepped back and rubbed her chin.

 

“Everything needs to be absolutely perfect before I proceed…” Darkess said, thinking and looking around the room. “Oh, I’ve got it!”

 

Darkess turned toward one of the Acolytes under her control. “Red is nice, but I like char black better.” She said.

 

Every single Acolyte in the room twitched for a moment and stood up straighter. Their skin and fur slowly darkened from red to black, and their horns curved to points.

 

“That’s better, now you’re truly my Centurions!” Darkess said, grinning broadly.

 

Next, the hulls of all of Ares’ red-painted warships darkened to black, and his symbol was stricken from them, as well as from the halls of the base. The Centurions all began to line up neatly as if attention.

 

“Now for the final touch, my witnesses!” Darkess said, and lined up all the paralyzed prisoners to face the Resurrector. Those that were injured or unconscious she healed and revived so that they could watch with full attention.

 

All of the Centurions in the room began to chant in a low, ominous tone, speaking Hylian words for an ancient dark ritual.

 

“I don’t know what it is you’re going to do, but I’ve hope that somebody someday finds away to stop you.” Ashley said venomously as she was made to kneel like all the others.

 

“…Ashley?” Tanis groaned, trying to lift his head.

 

Darkess reached around and slammed her paw against the activation button. Electric jolts rocked Tanis’ body, causing him to have several seizures before standing rigid. The machine hummed loudly, almost as an accompaniment to the Centurions’ chanting, and Tanis’ body began to morph. The skin where the electrodes were attached to him began to darken, and the dark spots grew and spread. Tanis began to gain muscle mass, and he hunched forward and bellowed at the top of his lungs as he was wracked with pain. It looked like plague spots were fanning out all over his body. Claws suddenly pushed their way up through the skin on Tanis’ fingertips, causing blood to trickle forth from the wounds they opened as they emerged. The same process occurred on Tanis’ feet as well. When the spreading Darkness covered Tanis’ head, his golden forehead symbol began to twist and sprout spines. The normally smooth gold darkened into some sort of blackened metal, and it caused rivulets of blood to drip down Tanis’ face as it sprouted numerous barbs and etched its new form into his head. He let another pained howl, and the pupils slowly faded from his eyes, causing the blood to run cold in the paralyzed witnesses. Two pairs of parallel bat wings, the same as Darkess’, sprouted from his back, both dripping the same cloudy black blood. His horns curled up and bent into spines, and more spines sprouted from his back in a line down his spinal cord and down both sides of his tail. When the transformation was completed, he let out an ear shattering, primal roar like some angered beat, and broke through the psychic bubble that Darkess had held him with. The wires of the machine all fell off at once, and he stepped down from the machine, leaving a trail of black blood behind him.

 

“Do you know what it is that you’ve done, you fool?” Ruru cried out suddenly.

 

“Yes! I’ve created my ultimate form, ‘Damnation’!” Darkess said victoriously, and then turned towards her creation. “Now I will transfer my mind into him and destroy this old body.”

 

Darkess spread her arms wide and closed her eyes, then stood there for several moments. Damnation grunted once, and then picked her up in his massive paws. She opened her eyes and blinked for a moment in confusion, and then Damnation gripped her and pulled her body in half, unleashing a splash of blood and letting the organs dump out. Darkess screamed in horror, but was silenced quickly when Damnation threw her like a baseball against the wall, knocking her out in an instant. He then crouched down and began to feast on the other half of Darkess like a lion at the kill, and all the psychic bubbles holding onto the witnesses faded away and they were free from their paralysis.

 

Ares saw his opportunity, he flew over towards Darkess, who was now barely clinging to life. He picked her up and began to heal her, letting her remain unconscious. Once she was mostly restored, he threw her on top of Lightess and surrounded them both in a psychic bubble. He used all that was left of his energy to re-merge them, and they were blocked out of sight behind the glowing red bubble. Ares hurried as fast as he could with the process, knowing that Damnation could finish with his meal at any moment, and when the bubble faded, Shakara’s original form slowly emerged. She groggily opened her eyes and looked up at him.

 

“Father….I...” She said quietly.

 

“As long as you’re alive, I’m happy.” Ares said, smiling warmly at her.

 

Ares suddenly gasped, and blood began spurting out of his mouth. Shakara reeled back in terror as his blood splashed her face, and she looked up to see that one of Damnation’s tail spines had ripped through his back. He collapsed on the blood soaked floor, and Damnation raised his massive foot and brought it down on Ares’ head, crushing his skull and permanently extinguishing his life.

 

“Father! No!” Shakara cried in anguish. She began to sob, and her tears washed his blood from her face.

 

Damnation walked over Ares’ bloody remains and picked Shakara up, preparing to pull her in half yet again.

 

“Not this time, pal!” Shakara suddenly bellowed, and she sent psychic fire into Damnation’s paws. He roared angrily and dropped her like a hot potato.

 

Damnation created a massive orb of psychic energy and prepared to lob it at Shakara, but she teleported behind his back and swung an energy sword at his second neck. But he raised his wings to shield himself and she chopped right through one of them instead. Black blood poured out like water from a garden hose, and his tail flicked up and batted her away, its spines puncturing her in numerous places. A surge of energy filled Shakara, healing her wounds and powering her up, and she looked to see that the Centurions in the room had aided her. She realized that she had still retained their allegiance, even though Darkess was now long gone. The whole of her father’s empire was at her command now, and she rushed to implement it.

 

The power from every single Centurion in ever single ship rushed through Shakara’s veins, and the world seemed to slow down around her. There were no words to describe the scale of the power she felt, energy from three whole worlds was at her fingertips now, and she shone a brilliant red. As she prepared to decimate the monster that had killed her father, Shakara heard a lone voice call out to her.

 

“Don’t kill him! Somewhere behind him Tanis still exists!” Ashley called out.

 

Shakara nodded, and then rushed forward with a new plan in mind. This time she moved much too fast for Damnation to react, she sliced off every single spine on his body, topping it off by taking off his remaining wings as well. Damnation howled in rage and surrounded himself with a maelstrom of dark energy, but Shakara teleported out of the way. She took the moment to teleport the rest of her friends to safety as well, moving Ashley, the Weyardians, and the Hylians to safety outside the base. When the energy storm faded and Shakara reappeared, she now faced him alone.

 

“I’m sorry for everything I’m about to do, Tanis.” She whispered, closing here eyes for a moment.

 

Shakara created a swarm of smaller-sized energy spheres and dispersed them throughout the room evenly. Beams of light less than an inch in diameter shot out from these orbs, connecting them together and forming a huge lattice of burning lasers throughout the room. Shakara then drew them all together towards Damnation, who raised his own shield to block them. The beams collided with the shield with tremendous force, each carrying the energy from all the Centurions under Shakara’s control. Damnation’s shield didn’t break, but the beams bent it into numerous hemispheres, which bulged and quivered under the force of Shakara’s attacks.  Shakara formed another group of these orbs, but instead of linking them together, she fired them directly at Damnation’s shield, targeting the weakest regions of each hemisphere. When each hit his shield, they bent it inward and weakened it even further, and she formed more as fast as they were used. In this manner she created a rapid-fire barrage that chipped away slowly at Damnation’s energy until at last his shield gave way and shattered into pieces from each hemisphere.

 

Shakara sped forward to attack the moment the shield fell, and Damnation reached a massive paw up to catch her like a speeding baseball. His claws raked across her body, rending her skin off and tearing the muscles underneath. She responded by forming two energy swords and slicing them both through damnation’s wrist like a pair of scissors, totally severing his hand. Damnation bellowed so loudly that Shakara’s ears rang loudly, and she used the Centurions’ energy to heal the gashes that his claws had created. Damnation stopped his bellow halfway through and fired a gigantic beam of dark energy from his mouth, an attack that made Darkess’ previous beam attack look like a pittance. Shakara barely had time to raise her shield, and the beam struck it and propelled her straight into the ground. The power of the Centurions held her shield together even as the beam continued on behind her, blasting a tunnel into the Earth several miles long. Shakara emerged unharmed from the cloud of dust and smoke. She mirrored Damnation’s last attack, firing a beam of her own that blasted a smoking, circular hole through his stomach. It began to close up immediately as Damnation used his recover ability, and new spines and wings began growing. Shakara wouldn’t allow him to heal however, she formed a shield around herself and flew directly inside the hole in Damnation’s stomach and used it to prop his wound open. She forced it open even further by expanding her shield, applying pressure against his other organs, until he was broken entirely in half. A part of Shakara smiled at her ironic revenge.

 

Shakara stood over Damnation, who was now finally quiet in the grip of unconsciousness. She pondered on how to bring Tanis back, and quietly came to terms with the prospect of never seeing him again. An idea flashed to life in her head, and she looked back toward the Resurrector machine. But she frowned and became crestfallen again, realizing that she needed some trace of Tanis’ old self in order to reverse the transformation. Such an object had not been needed to create Damnation since the Darkness Gem had been used as the sole basis for self, and for it to be reversed, the machine needed something else to use as a reference for creation. She then bent over Damnation’s dying form in order to say Tanis’ last rites.

 

As Shakara whispered her words for Tanis’ words, her eyes caught a tiny glimpse of gold. She looked closer and saw that there was still a trace of gold left in Damnation’s forehead crest, gold that had used to be a part of Tanis’s own crest. Her heart pounded with excitement, and she pried out the tiny speck of gold with one of her claws. It was barely smaller than a pebble and had very little shine or luster left, but it was a brilliant nugget of hope for Shakara, and she carried it over to the Resurrector machine and put it in a slot. She took quick action by picking up Damnation and healing his vital organs so he wouldn’t die, but left him unconscious. She set him back onto the Resurrector and hooked him up to all the wires once more. She reinserted all the other Elemental Gems, double checked to see that the Triforce was still in place, and pushed the activation switch.

 

“Come on Tanis, I know you’re still in there!” Shakara urged quietly as the machine hummed to life.

 

Damnation’s slumped body began to quiver, and then started to shrink. The spines and claws all fell out at once, replaced by regular skin, and the wings shriveled and fell off. The spined horns slowly receded back to Tanis’ normal horns, and his skin began to lighten back into its original orange color. The forehead crest was the last to change, it slowly smoothed out, losing its barbs, and returned to its original shape and golden sheen. But it didn’t stop there, the golden crest spread across his head like a great royal crown, and more lines of gold crept down Tanis’ body, one for each limb and one on his tail. His entire body was adorned in this manner, making him take on a spectacular air of some kind of king or god, and the machine finally fell silent. Shakara pulled him down and removed all the wires, admiring the new additions to his appearance. She saw that the implant plug which Agryn had put in him had also fallen out, and not even a scar was leftover. He groaned and opened his eyes, and Shakara sighed in relief when she saw that his deep purple pupils had returned.

 

“Hey, how are you feeling?” She asked of him, cradling him in her arms like a child.

 

“Horrible…you’re not going to shove a bag of food over my head are you?” Tanis asked weakly, with a smile touching his mouth.

 

Shakara blinked once, then remembered and smiled.

 

Chapter XXVI

 

Explosions shook Hyrule as Ares’ ships fired their plasma turrets down at several ground-based targets. But this time the plasma bolts weren’t aimed at rebels or Hylian citizens, but directly at Ares’ old HQ and several of his other installations. Not half an hour before, the mines and cities on the sides of Death Mountain had been abuzz with Goron slave laborers, but now they stood evacuated and were slowly blown into oblivion at Shakara’s command. The mines closed up and melted together and under the superheated salvo, and the dirty industrial towers fell in on themselves, leaving nothing but a molten slag pile. Ares’ HQ soon joined them until nothing was left to evidence Ares’ rule except molten scars upon the land.

 

Several miles away Shakara and Tanis stood at the head of a huge crowd of cheering Hylian people. Though Tanis couldn’t understand a word of the Hylian word, he did understand the universal sentiment that they were displaying, and he watched the ships finish their job with a smile in his eyes.

 

Ashley finally pushed her way through the last parts of the crowd and suddenly clung to Tanis like a lamprey. “I’m so glad you changed back!” She said, bordering on tears of joy.

 

“Hey, you know I wouldn’t give up, even if I was already on the brink of death!” Tanis sais, tousling Ashley’s hair again.

 

Ashley slowly let go of him, and then looked at him slowly. “I like the new getup.” She said, looking down at the new lines of gold that had trailed down his body.

 

Tanis smiled for a moment. “You know, to be honest, I don’t have the foggiest memory of what happened to me after I was strapped into that machine.”

 

“Let’s just say that while you were out, I got knocked around quite a bit, my father was killed, and I inherited his empire. All that, in a nutshell anyway.” Shakara said.

 

“I assumed as much, since the ships were destroying the base.” Tanis said.

 

“It’s my first and only act as the ruler of this world, to throw down the mantle of control itself. It’s time that these people thought for themselves.” Shakara said.

 

When the final plasma shot was fired and the explosions slowly fell silent, an extraordinary thing happened. The Black River, which had been partially powered by the emotional energy of the subjugated peoples, began to change color. No-one could see it from the ground because of the thick layer of clouds in the sky, but the Black River was now turning from the black of sorrow to the blue of joy. As ships flying over Weyard and Earth also completed their tasks of liberation, the Black Rivers over those worlds also changed the same bright, cheerful blue. Somewhere, deep underground back at Earth, the Acolytes had just stopped their gory task of destroying the rebel colony, and suddenly turned to leave. The last haggard battalion of defenders there, led by the brown haired Major named John, erupted in cheers that paralleled those of the Hylians.

 

Shakara’s ships now descended up into the sky, leaving deep red contrails behind them before breaking holes through the clouds and disappearing. With the end of the spectacle, the people of Hyrule gathered in the streets of Hyrule Castle City and began a wild party in celebration of their freedom. The crowd that had gathered around Tanis rushed forward towards the City gates to join in the revelries. Tanis, Ashley and Shakara stayed behind however, they felt that it wasn’t their place to stop the Hylians from celebrating since they had lived so long under oppression. In fact, Shakara was about to summon a dropship to carry them home when someone else approached them from behind. Kalana, the Gerudo Elder, patted Tanis on the shoulder. Behind and around her were everyone else who had fought against Ares and then Darkess back in the base.

 

“Tanis, Shakara, we all have something we want to say to you.” Kalana said, smiling at him.

 

Tanis and Shakara looked at each other for a moment, and then back at the crowd of their companions. Kalana took their silence as an acceptance and began.

 

“I think I speak for all of us when I say that you have done great deeds here tonight.”

 

“Here here!” Jenna interrupted enthusiastically.

 

Kalana rolled her eyes ever-so-slightly, and continued. “You defeated overwhelming odds, brought us all together, and most importantly, brought hope to three different worlds.”

 

“Sheesh, even the good guys are full of clichés tonight!” Ashley quipped, and Tanis jokingly slugged her on the shoulder.

 

“At any rate, Hyrule and its people owe you a great debt of gratitude to you.” Kalana finished.

 

“Weyard as well!” Felix added, striding up to stand next to Kalana.

 

“Hey listen, I only did what I felt was right, and I never would have done any less. You owe me nothing. As I told Ashley here once, I never keep tabs for friends.” Tanis said, returning their smiles.

 

“Oh come now, you must let us do something for you!” Aquel insisted, standing slightly behind Kalana.

 

“Well…you could throw us our own private party, one that would put that one to shame.” Tanis said, pointing to Hyrule Castle City, where numerous fireworks were now exploding.

 

“Now that’s what I’m talking about!” Ashley exclaimed, jumping into the air excitedly.

 

“That’s an excellent idea! We’ll host it at the Gerudo Palace!” Ruru said enthusiastically.

“Alright, but next time we’re having it at the Zora’s Domain!” Iona said.

 

“Come on, I want to see that famous Gerudo hospitality you promised me!” Aquel said excitedly.

 

The party turned out to be everything that Kalana promised. Every Gerudo in Hyrule that had not already fled was celebrating, but Kalana managed to get them their own private room in the Palace along with a large table full of food. Tanis and Shakara were the guests of honor, but in truth the party celebrated the heroic deeds of everyone who had participated in the battle, even Ashley. They all greatly enjoyed each others’ company, and laughed and talked into the wee hours of the morning and beyond. Ashley, Kalana and Jenna even developed their own secret handshake. When they all finally began to grow tired, Shakara stepped up behind a small podium to give a speech.

 

“My friends, please listen to me for a moment.” Shakara began, and the room quickly fell quiet. “I know we all have gone through quite an ordeal tonight, and that we all want to put it behind us as quickly as possible. But with our victory, some new issues have arisen.”

 

“Now that Hyrule has been liberated, the question arises of how we should proceed in the reconstruction of all the nations that my father devastated. And not just physical destruction either, he wiped out all the social and governmental structures of every society he touched, and replaced them with one that favored his rule. Now that he has been toppled, all of the nations of these worlds are stranded in a great power vacuum with no-one to lead them. Undoubtedly after the celebrating is over, the people will be confused as to who to follow and will eventually descend into wars over dominance. We need a solution to this problem immediately.”

 

“Dantun has already chosen her new king!” Aquel piped up proudly.

 

“I am the next in the line of succession for the Zora Royal Family, I will take up that crown.” Onta said in turn.

 

“And my sister has agreed that I am ready to take up Eldership of the Gerudos.” Ruru added.

 

“That’s good, but the greater Hylian Throne still sits empty!” Tanis said.

 

Everyone in the room exchanged glances, but nobody blurted out any ideas. Ever since Ares had executed Sirpala, the Hylian bloodline seemed to have been exterminated.

 

“That’s alright, I didn’t expect anyone to come up with one magic solution right off of the top of their head.” Shakara said reassuringly.

 

“We can always bring back the old Hylian Unity Council, and use it to decide who will next inherit the throne!” Kalana suggested.

 

An excited murmur flowed through the partygoers, and Shakara nodded in approval. “That’s an excellent idea.” She said.

 

“What are you going to do with your father’s ships?” Ashley asked.

 

“I’m going to use them in a peacekeeping and protective force. They will be put on indefinite hold in orbit around the three worlds, only to be called on again to stop any future attempts at conquest. I’m also going to keep the Black River active as well, but this time not as a tool of empire, but of communication and commerce.” Shakara said.

 

Everyone in the room seemed to forget how tired they were feeling, and applauded loudly as Shakara stepped down from the podium. Card games suddenly broke out, and everyone either didn’t care about the time or just forgot completely. Kalana and Ruru taught everyone how to play “Keese & Leevers”, and soon they were all absorbed in this addictive Hylian game.

 

“So, do you want Tanis and I to fly you home via the Black River tomorrow?” Shakara asked Jenna as they looked over their hands of cards.