RAWR HERE IT IS!!!!!!11111oneonewonpwn
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V
A Kingdom in Shambles
“So where’d you learn to do that?” Ike asked Popo and Nana.
“Do what?” Nana inquired.
“Freeze that Darknut.”
“Oh, we were born with that.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, all of our people can do that.”
“Your people?” Ike had never seen any other humans like Popo or Nana.
“Miniguits. We live in the north.” Kirby and Meta Knight had been flying above the group and just now descended to their level.
“I’ve heard of them. You all have a natural cryokinesis, right?”
“That’s right!” Nana exclaimed.
“We also have a lower body temperature than most other humans, that’s why we were these parkas: they keep the cold in and the hot out.”
The five of them (Meta Knight translated for Kirby) continue to converse as the path leveled off and noon approached. Link hung back with Sheik and Epona. Sheik could not speak this close to the others without revealing herself so she contented to walk hand-in-hand with Link
As the sun reached the apex of its journey across the sky, the walls of Mycelia came into view on the horizon. The cloudless noon gave no indication of the devastation they would encounter in the city.
“I’ll race you!” Popo suddenly challenged Ike and Kirby. The three race off, Popo surprisingly nimble on his stout legs and Kirby making circles around them on his Warpstar. Sheik let go of Link’s hand and he jogged a little to catch up to the lagging Nana and Meta Knight. Nana gave him a sideways smile.
“So,” was how she started the conversation.
“What?”
“What, what’s up with you two?”
“Who?” Link face was turning red much to Nana’s delight.
“You and Sheik.”
“W-What do you – n-nothing is – is, uh…” He cursed himself for faltering over his words.
“Okay.” Nana let the topic drop. Link started to look back at Sheik then stopped himself, suddenly aware that Nana was watching him. He straightened up and kept walking. Nana giggled.
Kirby came rushing back to them, almost knocking Meta Knight out of the air, and began to babble incoherently. Meta Knight began speaking the same way to calm Kirby down. Link, Sheik, and Nana all stopped and waited to hear what Kirby had to say.
“He said the city is in ruins. There’s no one there.” Sheik turned away from them holding back tears, realizing she had failed. Ike and Popo came running up waving their arms.
“We know it’s gone.” Link cut Ike off as he tried to speak.
“No, that’s just it, we saw somebody!” Sheik wheeled around.
“Really?” Link questioned him skeptically.
“Really!” Popo assured him.
“Then let’s go find them!”
They crossed the threshold of the walls and were horrified by the state of the city. Doors hung on their hinges, windows were shattered and boarded up, and whole buildings had collapsed in on themselves. A Chain Chomp’s bark could be heard in the distance.
“I thought Bowser’s army didn’t reach this far south?” Link asked Ike as he stuck his head inside an abandoned shop looking for survivors.
“I guess, I was wrong.” Ike looked down an alley.
“Anybody here?” Nana called out into the city. Here voice echoed several times in between the buildings.
“Someone had to have heard that.” Meta Knight was close to giving up. “I don’t think anyone’s here.”
“But I saw someone!” Ike protested.
“Then you imagined it.”
“I am not seeing things!” Meta Knight was beginning to irritate Ike.
“How do you know? No one else was there.”
“Popo was.” Ike was confident that he had shut Meat Knight up, but he was not destined to win this argument. Meta Knight turned to Popo.
“Did you see somebody?”
“I – I’m not so sure anymore.” Said Popo resignedly. Silence fell over them.
“HHHEEEEELLLLLLOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!” Nana called out once more. No answer. She sat down and crossed her arms in frustration.
“There’s no one here.”
“We should go. Zelda should know about this.” Link suggested. Something did not feel right and he wanted to get far away. Perhaps Ike felt that way, too, because he agreed to turn back. Sheik turned away from Link to hide the tears that were forming. Popo, Nana, and Kirby joined Link and Ike as they turned to leave. Meta Knight however, refused to budge.
“Someone’s here.” The tone in his voice assured everyone that this presence was not friendly. Link drew the Blade of Evil’s Bane, Ike Ragnell, Popo and Nana their hammers, and Sheik her needles. They gathered in a circle around Epona waiting for the presence to revel itself. And it did.
Two cloaked figures stepped out from behind a building. One wore a deep, faded red cloak, the other was slightly taller and wore a faded forest green cloak; both had their hoods drawn to cover their faces. The group prepared for a fight.
“Are you here to see the Princess?” The red-cloaked one asked in an Italian accent. The question caught them off guard.
“Were you sent by the Princess of Hyrule to see our Princess Peach?” The green-cloaked figure asked again in the same accent.
“Y—Yeah.” Ike lowered Ragnell. “We were sent by Zelda to look for survivors here.” The two figures nodded in understanding.
“Come with us.” The two cloaked-figures walked away. Link and the others were unsure about following them, but when they turned a corner without them, they raced after them.
The two men led them down a twisting maze of alleyways. Link soon could not regain his bearings amid the tall buildings that blocked the sun. They reached a chain-link fence with a fabric draped behind it and Link thought they had reached the end of their journey. Or the two men were going to try and kill them. Much to his relief, the red-cloaked man pulled the fence aside and shuffled the group inside.
On the other side of the fence sat a small remnant of the once sprawling city. Rundown shops lined one side of the streets, and broken house lined the other side. The same cloth-draped fences marked the ends of this safe haven.
The two men refused to stop and led them down yet another alley. This one ended shortly and revealed a large open area. Directly across from them sat a small building guarded by two Chain Chomps that were chained to the building.
The two men led them up to the building, causing the Chain Chomps to begin barking furiously. “Shut up.” The red-cloaked man snapped at them. “Filthy mutts.” He muttered under his breath and he led them inside. The man in green held the door took Epona’s reigns and tied her up next to the Chain Chomps, which ignored her completely. He quickly rejoined the group and shut the door behind him.
Inside the room it was pitch-black, until the red-cloaked man lit candles on either side of the room. The group then became aware of a woman’s figure seated in from of them.
“You’re Highness, we have brought the messengers from Princess Zelda of Hyrule.” The green-cloaked man announced.
“Thank you.” The woman said as she lit another candle revealing her features. It was indeed Princess Peach of the Mushroom Kingdom. The stress of the situation could be seen in her face: it looked worn and tired. Dark lines had formed under her eyes, giving her the look of someone who has been sleep-deprived. Her voice was weak and sounded defeated. And yet, the incredible beauty she was known for was still evident. Her eyes were an incredibly deep blue and her long blonde hair that was usually done in a ponytail hung down beneath her shoulders.
“It’s so good of you to come, Zelda told us she would send aid, but we were never too hopeful…” She sounded ashamed of thinking that way. “Before I say any more, might I ask who I am speaking to?”
“Ike.”
“Popo!”
“Nana!”
“Meta Knight and Kirby.”
“Link and Sheik.”
“Thank you all for coming.” Relief could be seen in Princess Peach’s face after seeing so many ready to help.
“We’re here to give any help you need.” Ike assured her, rather fast.
“Thank you, but before we get to that, I would like to have a word with the two Hylians first, will the rest of you please wait outside for a few minutes?”
“Of course!” Ike was first to respond once again.
Peach gestured to the two, cloaked men, “Would you please show them out?” The men silently nodded and opened the door.
“Oh, Princess?” Popo began.
“Yes?”
“Nana and I came here looking for a friend of ours, Toad, might we be able to see him?”
Peach smiled. “Certainly. Would one of you please escort these two to their friend’s home?” The man in green nodded.
As the doors shut, Link heard Ike say, “What kind of creatures are these?” Followed by loud barking, and a high-pitched screech.
Peach looked at Sheik. “You know, that’s--.” Sheik raised a finger to her unseen lips, indicating not to speak yet. She turned and made a figure in the air and all of the sounds coming in from outside stopped.
“Now you may continue.” Sheik said as she removed her scarf from her mouth.
“Thank you, Zelda.” Once Zelda had thrown off her scarf Peach stood up and hugged Zelda. The two had not seen each other in years and it took every once of their will to not be reduced to sixteen-year-olds and begin catching up on unimportant matters. This was strictly a serious visit.
“Sorry about hiding my identity, but if I walked around as Zelda I fear the Twilit Beasts would come at us in even greater numbers.”
“Why then do you hide yourself from your companions?”
“This isn’t exactly a trusting time, now is it?”
“Indeed it isn’t.” Peach agreed sadly.
Seeing as how the Princess was not kidnapped and the remaining citizens were not dead, Link mad a quick assumption. “So, I take it we’re not here to look for survivors, huh?”
“No, we aren’t.” Zelda said.
“Then why are we here?”
“You know of the Mirror of Twilight?” Peach asked.
“Of course. But I don’t see how that is relevant since Midna destroyed it. Thoroughly, unlike the Sages.”
“Well, that’s just it: that wasn’t the only—.” Peach was interrupted by the red-cloaked man throwing the doors open.
“Princess! There’s – town – center – Twilight – bad --!”
“Calm down! What’s happening?”
“There’s – Follow me!”
The makeshift town was under attack by several Twilit Beasts. They tore through the shops and homes, ruining everything that the citizens had worked so hard on. But all the citizens were unharmed. The Beasts seemed to be searching for someone in particular…
Link, Sheik, and Peach joined Ike, Meta Knight, and Kirby. They were hesitant to engage in combat with the Beasts, knowing how unpredictable their power could be. The very sight of them agitated
Link to no end.
“What are you waiting for?” Link asked, agitated.
“We, we were unsure how to confront these – things.” Ike said.
“They can be killed just like anything else, you just have to know what to do. Follow me.” Link drew the Blade and ran to face the monsters. Ike hesitated a moment, then followed. Meta Knight and Kirby trailed behind.
Suddenly the ground shook and large stone structures fell from the sky in a circular pattern around them. Kirby and Meta Knight were too slow and got stuck outside the Twilight force field, leaving Ike and Link to face the Beasts alone.
Immediately after, a portal opened up in the sky above them and dropped several more Twilit Beasts down into the force field.
“Dammit.” Link swore.
“What now?” Ike inquired nervously.
“We fight, but you have to do exactly as I say.”
“Okay.”
“How many do you see?”
“Uhh, twelve?”
“Yeah that’s what I got, too. Okay you go down that side, I’ll go to this side. Call out the number of how many you fell. You know, one two three.”
“What for?”
“Just do it. If I tell you to stop fighting you run to where I am immediately, got it?”
“Yeah, I got it.”
“Good. Go.” Link and Ike rushed off to different ends of the force field. Ike brandished Ragnell and felled his first Twilit Beast in a few strokes.
“One!” he called. Link heard him and felled one as well.
That’s two. He was keeping a tally in his head. The rest of his group and the citizens watched from outside. Sometime during the fighting Popo and Nana rejoined the group with Toad.
Ike continued to call out his kills. “Two!” “Three!” “Four!” “Five!”
“Stop!” Link yelled to him. Ike immediately ran back to where Link was. Link killed the tenth Twilit Beast and ran to the center of the force field with Ike. The remaining two Beasts closed in on them.
“What now?” Asked Ike with a slight hint of sarcasm.
“When I say so, we have to kill the last two at the same time.”
“What?"
“If one of them is left alone, it will revive all the rest and then we have to start all over again.”
“Alright.” The Twilight beasts moved in closer.
“Wait, wait, wait.” They could smell the rancid breath seeping out of their mouth-less faces; they could feel the cold radiating off their bodies. They both tensed their sword arms and aimed for the Beasts hearts. “Now!” Both of them released the stored tension in their arms and gleaming blades rushed forward and pierced the black skin and continued into the hearts. Both Beasts cried out a bone-shaking screech before falling to the ground, limp, and fading out of existence.
The large stone filed-marked dissolved, taking the force field with them. The portal overhead turned from red to green. Link looked up at it. “Well that’s convenient. We won’t have to walk home.”
“Link! Ike! Are you two okay?” Peach and the others rushed over to them. The citizens started cheering for them. Even the two, cloaked men were clapping.
“Now,” Link said to Peach and Sheik, “You were saying something about a Mirror?”
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Wel wuddya think.
no more meat knight, rob.
Feedback plz k thnk!
