By Goddess Rinoa/Miss Lydia Chapter 11

Link brought his sword down hard. "Blade Haut!!"

The tremor wave rushed toward Ganondorf, but bounced off the energy that was surrounding him and disappeared.

"Wind which blows across eternity, gather in my hands and become my strength! Bram Gush!" The arrow of wind flew at top speed, but again, the spell was dispelled by Ganondorf’s energy.

Gordon threw his hands out. "Dark Claw!" The spell flew at Ganondorf and was yet again dispelled.

"Crap!" Link shouted. "Nothing’s working!"

"He’s gathering his strength!" Lydia said. "Get ready, he’s gonna attack!"

And attack he did. The energy field around him fell at last and he threw a ball of energy at them that resembled a fireball. Gordon jumped out in front.

"Balus Wall!"

The force field appeared, and the fireball Ganondorf threw bounced off in two directions. When Gordon dropped the barrier, Lydia wasted no time. "Dug Haut!"

The stone spikes shot up from all around Ganondorf. He jumped back and forth to avoid being nailed by one. While Lydia’s spell distracted him, Gordon prepared another.

"Disfang!"

His shadow formed the shape of a dragon. The shadow dragon charged and grabbed the arm of Ganondorf’s shadow between its teeth. Ganondorf yelled in pain and grabbed his arm, trying to break free of the spell.

"Astral Vine!" Link ran toward the restrained man with the sword glowing, prepared to deliver a fatal blow. Ganondorf glared at him, jerked his arm free of the shadow dragon, and slammed Link in the stomach with it. Link flew far and landed in a nearby tree.

Lydia ran forward. "Why you lousy son of a.....Goz Vu Rou!!" A shadow appeared and charged Ganondorf. He took some more damage, and fired back. Gordon used another Balus Wall to dispell it.

"Gordon!" Lydia yelled. "Keep him busy a second!" She ran off toward the tree Link was in.

Gordon half laughed. "Keep him busy, she says!!" Ganondorf fired a shot and Gordon fired back.

Lydia reached the tree and looked up. She could see Link up there hanging over a large branch. He didn’t even look awake. "Hey!" she shouted. "Link, are you okay?"

To her relief, Link stirred in response. Oh, good, she thought. "Levitation."

She floated up, moving from side to side to avoid hitting a branch. When she reached him, Link opened his eyes and looked at her.

"I hate trees," he said weakly. "If I ever end up in another tree, I’ll kill somebody."

Lydia chuckled a bit and began to help him down from the tree. Suddenly, there was an explosion below them, and the tree fell to the ground. Lydia hung in the air, hanging on to Link by the arm. She looked back to the battle. Ganondorf was facing their direction. He had used one of his spells to blow the tree down. Gordon attacked him again as Lydia flew back. Ganondorf easily repelled Gordon’s attack and shot back, this time taking Gordon to the ground.

Link pointed his sword at the ground. "Blade Haut!" The tremor fell from the air, and when it hit the ground it began to rush toward Ganondorf. He jumped to the side, but the tremor followed and hit him. He fell to his knees.

Lydia swooped low to the ground and Link let go of her arm. When he landed, he broke into a run. "Astral Vine!" He rushed up to the fallen man and delivered several blows before Ganondorf recovered. He blasted Link with a spell, who went flying again, then slowly got to his feet.

"Enough of this child’s play," he said slowly.

"Geez," Link muttered as Gordon helped him up, "after all we’ve done to him, he still doesn’t look too hurt."

"But he is hurt," Lydia said. "We can hurt him. We just need to keep this up."

"No need for that," Ganondorf said. "I said I will kill you all. And kill you I shall. Your time has run out."

With that, he raised both of his arms over his head and began to charge up some kind of spell.

"What’s he doing?" Gordon wondered.

"Uh oh!" Lydia shouted. "That’s a heavy-duty spell, whatever it is!"

The ball of energy kept growing and gaining more power.

"A spell that powerful will not only kill us, but it will probably destroy part of Hyrule in the process!" she continued. "We need to stop him before he can fire it!"

"What can we do?" Link asked, slight panic surfacing in his voice.

That’s a good question, Lydia thought. What do I do? What do I do? He’ll destroy us and a good chunk of Hyrule with that spell if we don’t do something. There’s only one way I can see to stop him at this point....but...

Ganondorf’s spell grew in power with every second. The wind around them picked up and swirled. His evil laughter echoed in all directions.

That’s it, Lydia thought. I’m going to do it!

"Gordon!" she shouted. "Take Link and get as far away as you can!"

"Why?" Gordon asked. "What about you?"

"Just go!"

"Wait a second," Link said, "what are you doing??"

"GO!"

Gordon obeyed after another moment of hesitation. He grabbed Link’s arm. "Ray Wing!" They flew high and hovered overhead.

"What is she doing?" Link asked, clinging to Gordon’s waist.

"I have no idea," Gordon replied. "I at least hope she knows what she’s doing."

Back on the ground, Ganondorf continued to charge his spell. "So, what now sorceress?" he laughed. "All out of tricks? I’ll destroy you now!"

Lydia smirked at him. "Oh, no," she said. "We said we wouldn’t let you destroy Hyrule. And we won’t."

Ganondorf narrowed his eyes and continued working on his spell. He didn’t even listen as Lydia began chanting a spell of her own.

"Darkness beyond twilight, crimson beyond blood that flows.
Buried in the stream of time is where your power grows."

"Hey, Gordon!" Link shouted. "What’s that spell?" He looked up at Gordon in time to see a look of utter shock appear.

"How...how can she be doing this?" he shouted.

"What? What’s she doing??"

"That’s the Dragon Slave!"

"What??"

"I pledge myself to conquer all the foes who stand,
Before the mighty gift bestowed in my unworthy hand."

"How does she know that spell??" Gordon shouted.

"Didn’t she say casting that spell would probably kill her??"

"Yes! She can’t live through that spell!"

"Let the fools who stand before me be destroyed
By the power you and I possess!!"

"NO!! Stop!" Link yelled to Lydia below.

"There’s no stopping her now!" Gordon shouted at him. "We have to get out of here!" He flew higher yet to escape what was coming.

Just as Ganondorf finished casting his spell, he looked at the sorceress. He was about to throw his big spell when –

"DRAGON....SLAVE!!!"

What followed was utter chaos. Link had never seen an explosion so big. He and Gordon were blown back even more by the enormous amount of energy. Link figured that an explosion that large would probably destroy half of Hyrule Field, but he didn’t care at the moment. He was more concerned that Lydia was down there killing herself to do this.

Lydia concentrated hard to keep the spell going. It was taking every shred of willpower she had within her to keep the Dragon Slave under control. Staring ahead, she saw that Ganondorf had taken a direct hit. He was in the middle of the explosion screaming in shrill pain. Even if this spell kills me, Lydia thought, I have to take Ganondorf with me! I have to destroy him!

Ganondorf’s screaming echoed and gradually stopped completely. Lydia slowly let the Dragon Slave die off and vanish. She fell to the ground with absolutely no energy left. She looked ahead and saw that Ganondorf was gone. There wasn’t a trace of him left.

I did it...., she thought.

She quickly was enveloped by darkness, and everything was silenced.

***

It’s so dark, Lydia thought. Where is everybody? Why can’t I see anything? Why can’t I hear anything? Why can’t I feel anything?

Feeling gradually returned to Lydia’s limbs, one by one. She slowly opened her eyes and light flooded in. She saw two very blurry faces hovering over her. As her vision slowly cleared, the faces appeared to light up, as if in relief.

"She’s alive!" one shouted.

"I think she’ll be okay!" the other said.

The first face looked down at her. "Hey, crazy girl, are you all right?"

Lydia had absolutely no idea what was going on. How could she be ‘all right’?

The first face spoke again. "Can you even hear me?" it said.

Lydia’s vision slowly cleared, and she recognized the smiling face speaking to her. It was Link. And the other face belonged to Gordon.

"Are you okay?" Link asked again.

"Where am I?" Lydia groaned.

"Back in your own bed."

"Do you remember what happened?" Gordon asked.

Lydia suddenly remembered. "Wow...," she said. "Did I just survive a Dragon Slave?"

"Well, kinda," Link laughed. "You survived a Dragon Slave yesterday."

"Uh? Yesterday?"

"Yeah, you’ve been out cold for a whole day. We were scared to death you wouldn’t live."

"Thanks....but what about...?"

"Ganondorf? He’s gone."

"It looks like your Dragon Slave wiped him out completly," Gordon said.

"Not only that," Link said, "but there’s a huge crater in the middle of the field. But we’ll worry about that later."

Lydia tried to sit up, but Link pushed her back down. "I wiped out the field, too?" she asked.

Link rubbed the back of his head. "Only part of it."

"Ah, geez. Did I toast that ranch, too?

"Lon Lon? Luckily, no. The ranch was just barely out of the spell’s range. You only charred up the south wall a bit."

"Hey, what about Zelda?"

Link glanced across the room and smiled. A third face appeared at the side of the bed. This one belonged to Princess Zelda.

"Feeling any better, sorceress of destiny?" Zelda said cheerfully.

Lydia smiled weakly. "Forget me," she said, "I’m just glad to see you. What happened?"

"After Ganondorf was destroyed," Zelda said, "I was released from whatever he had holding me prisoner. I owe you all some thanks for saving me."

After a brief silence, Link spoke up. "So...with Ganondorf out of the picture," he said, "is there anything stopping us from sending Lydia and Gordon back home?"

Lydia propped herself up on her elbows. "What’s the hurry?" she asked. "I’m in no big hurry to go home. I love it here."

"Me, too," Gordon said. "Do you wanna get rid of us that soon?"

"No no," Link replied quickly. "I like having you two here. It’s just that I know you have lives back on Earth. You’ve been here a good two weeks. Won’t your family miss you?"

"I left a note explaining the situation," Lydia said. "They’ll be all right."

"Do you actually think your parents will believe you traveled to another dimension to fight evil?"

Lydia shrugged.  "They believed the teacher when she said  'Gordon is such a gifted child'.  What a scam THAT was."

Although he usually didn't side with Lydia when insults were being thrown, Link couldn't help but laugh.  Gordon flashed his version of the Look of Death, then cleared his throat meaningfully.  Lydia reached over and punched his arm playfully.

Zelda giggled. "In other matters," she said, "what about that huge hole in Hyrule Field? We can’t just leave it like that."

"I don’t think we know any spells that can fix that," Gordon said.

“Yeah…it would take super-high-level white magic,” said Lydia, “which we don’t have.”

"What about the Triforce?" Link suggested. "We have everything we need to get it."

"You got the third stone??" Zelda asked.

Link pulled it out and showed her. "Anyway," he continued, "the one to touch the sacred Triforce gets a wish."

"You think we should wish to the Triforce to repair the field?" Lydia asked.

"It’s a plan," Gordon said.

"Yeah, I don’t see any other way. After all, Zelda’s right. I pretty much destroyed it, so we should fix it."

"We’ll go tomorrow," Link said, "after Lydia gets more rest. After the field is fixed, I guess we’ll send these two home."

Lydia sat up the rest of the way. "But I’m okay, really. We can go now."

Link pushed her back onto her pillow.

"No really," she said, "I’m okay."

"Yeah, sure," he said. "You nearly killed yourself doing that Dragon Slave. You need rest."

"Link’s right, ya know," Gordon said.

Lydia looked at Zelda with big eyes, as if asking for her to tell them that they were wrong. But Zelda only smiled at her. Lydia gave in and rolled over.

"First thing tomorrow," she muttered into her pillow, "we’ll go get the Triforce."

 

By the next day, Lydia was fully recovered and as energetic as always. Everyone had to work hard to keep up with her while on their way to the Temple of Time. She kept running ahead in anticipation, singing "We’re gonna get the Tri-Force! We’re gonna get the Tri-Force!"

When they finally reached the temple, Lydia’s excitement diminished. She looked at the temple dully. "Pretty plain looking," she whispered to herself.

The inside was just as dull-looking as the outside. At the far end was an alter with three hollows. Lydia looked around. "Well," she said, "I don’t see any Triforce here."

Link looked ahead. "Look, Miss Observant," he said, "see that big stone wall right over there? That’s the Door of Time. That’s why we need these." He held up the three spiritual stones.

"Oohh," Lydia said in awe, "I like that green one!  Let me see it!"

She tried to take it, but Link grabbed it away. "No touching," he said, and walked forward toward the altar.

Lydia scoffed. "What? No touching? Do I have cooties or something?"

Link glanced back and shrugged his shoulders.

"Oh fine. Be that way," Lydia groaned as she followed. Zelda and Gordon followed close behind.

Link set the spiritual stones on the altar. He turned to look at Zelda. "Now what?" he asked.

"Play the Song of Time," she replied. "The Ocarina of Time and the three Spiritual Stones will open the Door of Time."

Link pulled out the blue Ocarina of Time and slowly played the Song of Time. The hollow Triforce above the door lit up, shining yellow. The stone wall split down the middle and slid open. A very large room was revealed behind it.

Lydia’s spirits re-lifted. "So the Triforce is in there? All right!" She charged up behind the altar and into the room, leaving everyone behind. Link put his Ocarina away as they slowly followed. Lydia’s voice boomed out from inside the room.

"Arggh! There’s no Triforce in here!" she yelled.

When they reached the room, Lydia was standing in the entranceway with her hands on her hips. "There’s no Triforce in here," she said. "Just some rusted old sword."

Link curiously glanced ahead. The room was very empty and the ceilings were really high. Mounted in the center of the room, in a small pedestal, was a long sword with a blue handle.

"Hey, wait," Link said. "Zelda? Isn’t that...?"

Zelda nodded. "That’s the legendary blade."

"The Master Sword??"

"Yes."

"What’s the Master Sword?" Gordon asked.

"A very powerful evil-destroying sword," Zelda replied. "Truly legendary.  The only one that can pull the sword from the pedestal is the destined Hero of Time."

"Who’s the Hero of Time?"

"No one knows.”

"A legendary sword?" Lydia squealed. "That sounds so cool! I’ve got dibs! I saw it first!" With that, she bolted toward the sword at top speed. Link shook his head and followed.

Lydia grabbed the sword’s hilt and pulled hard. She pulled in all directions but couldn’t make the sword budge. Sweating, she gave up. She could hear Link laughing behind her.

"I guess you’re not the Hero of Time, are you, crazy girl?" he laughed.

Lydia whirled around. "Oh, yeah? I wanna see you pull this thing out!"

Just then, Zelda shrieked. Everyone whipped around and saw what scared her. A familiar black magic ball was hovering near the enterance of the room.

Link was shocked. "No! It can’t be!"

The black ball took the shape of the familiar six-foot man. Ganondorf was back, and his eyes were glowing a bright red. Magic power surrounded him.

"I thought you killed him!" Gordon yelled.

"I did!" Lydia insisted.

"You must have!" Zelda said. "That’s why I was released!"

"No...," Link said. "I understand now."

"Huh?"

"Lydia’s Dragon Slave didn’t kill him. He escaped it. We didn’t really defeat him after all. But he released Zelda, just to throw us off, so we’d drop our guard. His plan worked quite well. Now he’s got us cornered in here."

"He’s really outdone himself this time," Lydia said. "We can’t use any big spells in here. It’s too crowded. He’s got the upper hand now."

Ganondorf chuckled to himself and began to walk forward without speaking. His red eyes glowed even more brilliantly.  “Fools….,” his low voice grumbled.

Link snarled. "He doesn’t quite have the upper hand. We have the Triforce in our reach."

"No we don’t!" Lydia shouted. "Do you see any Triforce here? I sure don’t! Why do you think he’s attacking us after we’ve opened the Door of Time? He’s lost the Sorcerer’s Rune, so now he wants the Triforce, too!"

"He just followed us in!" Zelda said. "If he gets the Triforce before we do, he’ll destroy Hyrule with its power."

"No he won’t! He won’t get it! He won’t destroy Hyrule!" Link yelled, and without thinking, he sheathed his sword and ran to the Master Sword. The sorcerers were the only things standing between Ganondorf and the Triforce.

Lydia and Gordon stood ready to attack. Lydia glanced back and saw Link climb up on the Pedestal of Time. "What are you doing?" she yelled.

"I won’t let him destroy my home!" Link yelled back, and yanked on the Master Sword’s handle. "I won’t let him!!"

The Master Sword suddenly slid out of the pedestal. A bright blue light shot out of the ground and blew everyone away, leaving Link standing by himself in the middle of the blue column of energy. Still holding the Master Sword, he vanished into thin air.

"Link!!" Lydia shrieked.

"What happened??" Gordon yelled. "Where’d he go??"

A bright white light seemed to explode from where Link had been standing. It spread like wildfire as everyone shielded their faces with their arms.

Lydia squinted in the bright light. White everywhere. Nothing else could be seen. Suddenly, she couldn’t feel the ground anymore. It felt like she was floating away in empty space. She was completely helpless. All she could do was cry out.

"Gordon! Zelda!! Link!!"

All she heard was Zelda’s screams as she flew farther and farther away. Ganondorf’s demonic laughing echoed loudly in the distance. Then all that came was silence......

***

Lydia slowly opened her eyes again. She smelled fresh, green grass and felt the crisp morning breeze blowing through her hair.

She found herself down on her stomach, surrounded by grass. As she looked around, she recognized the scenery. She saw her climbing tree, and then the kid neighbor’s house. Then she recognized her own little blue house.

"What??" she asked herself, and sat up. She saw Gordon down next to her, who was also just coming out of it. He opened his eyes and looked around, then fixed his eyes on her.

"What happened?" he asked lazily.

"Gordon....," Lydia replied with panic in her voice, "Look.... We’re home!"

He looked around them and his eyes also showed panic and confusion. "Wh..what happened?" he wondered. "It couldn’t have been a crazy dream, could it?"

Was it? Lydia asked herself. She quickly reached in her pocket. When she took her hand out, it now held the Sorcerer’s Rune.

"No..." Lydia said. "It was real."

"Then what happened?? Why are we back home?? What about Ganondorf? What about Hyrule?"

Lydia jumped up as panic reappeared on her face. "How did we get back here?" she yelled into the sky. "What happened in Hyrule? What happened to Zelda? What happened to Link?? What’s going on here!!!???"

 

End Part I

The evil Ganondorf has free reign of the land of Hyrule.
As the land slowly wears away as Ganondorf works his evil, a hero rises.
And with the help of his trusted friends from a far away land,
he must liberate the land of Hyrule and restore peace once more.
It’s a quest that seems impossible to win, but where there is a will, there is a way.
The story continues with...

Worlds Apart – Part II

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