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silvrash-797 · 2 days ago

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Now that the holidays are done, I bring you this!

Gloomstruck

Chapter 6: Obsession (picks up immediately after the events of chapters 1 & 2)

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Shadow didn’t know how long he lay in this section of gloom, absorbing its power into himself, letting it heal the bruises and lacerations he received from the monster camp.

Long enough that the substance below had grown warm and dull, blackness eclipsing the beautiful red.

Wearily, Shadow rose and took a dozen paces, nursing his bruised ribs and bad shoulder. He sank into another patch of gloom, relaxing as cold relief swept across his body.

He let the gloom particles settle on him, soak into him, and vowed revenge: on those monsters, on whatever brought him back, and most of all, on Link.

Link, the “Hero.”

Link, who betrayed him.

Link, who made a fool out of him in front of his own minions.

Link, who always got all the glory.

Well. No more. Shadow would show him who really deserved to stand at the fore. He’d take everything Link held dear for himself.

But first…he needed more power. And the gloom was gonna give it to him, or he’d take it by force.

Shadow didn’t know how long he spent wandering amidst the gloom, only that he left a trail of dull black behind him as he absorbed more and more of that delicious power. He kept diligent distance between himself and any other monsters – he’d meet them on his own terms.

Once the gloom he’d assimilated healed his wounds, he began practicing with the magic it gave him, unwilling to be caught unprepared again. He sent shadowy tendrils flicking out in all directions, focusing on making them as sharp and strong as swords, then morphing them so they were blunt and devastating like the hammers he’d had to face.

One of these tendrils struck a tree, startling a swarm of small, frog-like creatures from behind it. They ran, yipping and barking, a short distance away before they turned and snarled at him.

They were…kinda cute; the noise they made was not. Shadow sent out his magic as a dozen spears, killing each baby monster before it could charge at him. Their dying squeals echoed through the power he held, ringing like music and whetting the desire to rend, to destroy.

And so he went. He traveled through a few more lengths of gloom, until the power and malice were practically bursting from him, practicing all the while. By the time he made it back to the scene of his great defeat, he’d honed the power into a razor’s edge, intimately familiar and supremely confident he could finally hold his own.

Time to begin the hunt.

He swept through the camp, killing each monster that opposed him and absorbing their life force. He left their swords, spears, and hammers where they lay, content with the magic he could shape to his every whim. He checked inside the chest they were guarding, but found only a flower that glowed like the sun. He left it lying in the dirt.

He walked on, taking out two more camps before he discovered – quite by accident – that he could shadow-travel between pockets of gloom.

He had stepped into a slightly deeper patch that pooled at the bottom of a slope when his foot slipped into intangibility, sending him plunging face first towards the ground. He yelped and covered his head with his arms, squeezing his eyes shut.

The impact he expected never came. Instead, the cool liquid closed over his head and sent his consciousness careening through space. He emerged someplace where several of the monsters were shrouded in ice, although the temperature of the air hadn’t changed.

A piggy lookout with a blue pelt and forked horns spotted him immediately, sounding an alarm.

"Bring it on!” he challenged, snapping a dark tendril at the bowbeast to silence its horn.

An icy bat and silver lizard charged him first, but an effortless dodge and swipe of his shadowy blade dispatched both within moments.

Shadow cackled, turning to face the next challengers. A pair of the bauble-horned silver pigs approached, but these two looked different. These two had baskets on their backs and some sort of armor covering their entire bodies. No matter how he slashed with his blade, the armor blocked them from all damage.

Distracted by the pair as he tried to figure out a blade that would get them out of his way, Shadow forgot about the two ice monsters clinging to the rock walls of the camp. They shot streams of icy balls at him, catching him off guard and freezing him in place.

Cold became his every thought. He struggled to free himself, to do so much as breathe, but was helpless as the two pig monsters sheathed their weapons and pushed his frozen body to the edge of a cliff. With malicious grunts and snorts, they pushed him over.

Falling took forever. Shadow battered at the ice with his magic, finally freeing himself as he hit the ground and rolled several feet.

Instantly, burning replaced the cold. Shadow gasped as he took stock of where he’d landed. Bright, divine light shone all around him, unraveling the tapestry of power he’d woven for himself. His skin tightened as it burned in the all-encompassing radiation, worse than any sunlight he could remember.

The light kept pulling the gloom from his body, mutating and poisoning the memories he’d received from it.

Instead of Zelda's pity, he saw her confidently telling him he was a hero.

“You are one of the ‘Links,’” she said warmly. “You are actually a hero yourself.”

Instead of staring down the tips of the Four Sword at four angry copies of Link, he lay in a pile of shattered glass as they hovered over him in concern.

“Shadow!” the purple Link – Vio – cried, uncharacteristically emotional. “Why would you do that?! I thought you-, hang in there, I-”

Shadow screamed as he weakly dragged himself through sand and grass, scared of the light and desperate to escape the burning agony it brought to his body and mind. Even after its influence faded behind him he crawled on, moaning, until he sensed gloom nearby. He collapsed into it and sobbed, choking as it prodded at the holes in his power.

What was true? Was he a hero, or a villain? He was irrefutably a creature of darkness, but could he live in the light?

Who was Shadow Link, really?

Beneath him, the gloom hissed, pulsing faster as it seamlessly patched the holes the light had left behind. A shroud of darkness flicked into place across his mind, drowning out the questions, leaving only vicious anger.

He emerged a new creature. Malice fairly sparked from his fingertips; hatred and anger turned his eyes a brilliant, blazing red.

Between one blink and the next, he’d traveled through the shadows back to the camp at the cliff’s peak. He formed his magic into a massive mallet and swung, obliterating the armored and ice creatures alike.

Nothing was safe after that.

He defeated pig monsters and lizards; tall, lanky creatures with snouts and enormously fat pigs with bugles; huge, walking stone piles and giant versions of the babies he’d first killed.

He took out winged creatures large and small; monsters that spat rocks or other elementally charged projectiles and strange, lumbering mummies, some of which spat acid – those were his favorite.

He took great pleasure tearing the cuboid automatons and any stal monsters that appeared apart piece by piece until there was nothing left.

The sleeping, one-eyed giants and rampaging beast-men offered some resistance, but ultimately they fell to his might just the same.

He barely paused to think about the banana-loving, white-masked weirdos he kept finding throughout the land. He would have left them alone, honestly, but they had the only edible food, so they had to be vanquished as well.

He even found a few arenas, each containing three-headed dragons, molten spiders, flying centipedes, giant moths, or dirty fish blobs. Those took much more effort and ingenuity.

He’d just defeated his third giant moth when he felt…something…shiver through the air and vibrate amidst his very core.

People – non-banana-weirdos people – had just entered the wasteland, and they were close.

Cautious and intrigued, he made his way to where he could sense their light, their goodness, like a blight in the beautiful darkness. He caught up to them as they spilled out onto a plain near his resurrection site.

Nine men or boys, of varying ages and sizes. All armed to the teeth with projectiles and short-range weapons. A low, involuntary growl slipped between his teeth as he saw his doppelganger among the men. “That’s why they all reek of light and goodness,” he snarled quietly, “They must be ‘Heroes.’”

Three of them turned towards him suddenly; he dropped into the gloom they’d just crossed, hiding but not traveling. He didn’t want them to know he was there, not yet.

Not until he decided what he’d do with them.

Voices filtered down to him as he hid. He let just his eyes manifest to see which of the heroes was talking.

“What is it?” Red-shirt demanded.

“I thought I felt something,” Link whispered.

“Heard something,” Wolf Pelt added.

“We’re being monitored,” Tattoos intoned.

Well, that won’t do. Their senses were sharper than he thought. Shadow let himself travel to some gloom close to the camp they were headed for, the first one he’d decimated, and settled in to wait.

He watched them approach, watched Scarface climb up and over the rocks. He laughed to himself as the rest tiptoed around the camp, talking quietly to each other, but cut it off abruptly as three different heroes – Red-shirt, Scarf, and Greenie – mounted the rock and looked around.

Cursing, he melted into the gloom and left, hunting for more monsters to kill.

Some hours later, a braided thread of panic, pain and fear reached around his heart and mind and tugged. A weak, insignificant spark in the back of his head responded, pulling him through the gloom before he could figure out what had happened.

He emerged in a narrow streak of gloom at the base of a cliff, behind some tall, rocky pillars. Across a gap, he saw Tattoos holding his doppelganger on top of another pillar. Link looked pale as death, lips blue and shaking like a leaf. An arrow had pierced his lower leg, staining the surrounding tights a deep maroon.

The weak, insignificant spark in his mind nearly wept at the sight. Shadow ignored it.

Something on the other side of the rocks shattered, then sinister laughter echoed off the cliff face.

“Cub!” someone above him shouted. A dread chill shuddered across his soul; he retreated into the gloom as Scarface sprinted past, scrambling up the cliff.

Shadow stared at Scarface, perplexed at how he could possibly stay up there, but was distracted as an empty, malicious presence writhed over and through the gloom he hid in.

It felt like Ganon. Shadow retreated further into the gloom, making himself as unobtrusive as possible, ready to flee at a moment’s notice.

Another hero yelled something, but Shadow was too deep to make out the words. Finally, the Ganon-presence withered away, and he breathed a silent sigh of relief.

He might be a menace and a monster, but that thing was infinitely worse.

Shadow surfaced slowly, curiosity at what the heroes were up to driving him forward.

He peered around the closest rocky pillar, watching as Red-shirt fed Greenie something, Scarface sat with the Kid, and Scarf bandaged Link's leg. He couldn’t see Tattoos, Wolf Pelt, or Cape.

When Link got up and walked to where the Kid and Scarface sat, Shadow flickered into his place under his doppelganger. That niggling, weak part in the back of his mind nearly purred in satisfaction, handily evading the malice that tried to drown it.

He listened as they discussed the existence of “gloom spawn” and their rate of appearance, the gloom he'd assimilated wriggling with unbridled pleasure at the fear in their voices.

Disturbed, he shadow-traveled to a place far from the heroes.

Who was he, really?

The malice burned in his veins, but no matter how hard it tried, it could not contain that small part in the back of his head that demanded to be noticed with more and more urgency.

Shadow spent hours traveling through the darkness, alternatingly pulled towards destruction and concern. Every time he popped up near the heroes, one would turn, hand on a weapon, and stare in his direction. Rather than be seen and known, he’d let the malice pull him towards more monsters, destroying their camps as much for the thrill of destruction as for the growing light in the back of his mind.

Who was Shadow Link, really?

When the heroes appeared to be stopping for a time, Shadow flew over their location, resting on a large arch of bone or stone, and stared across the camp, conflicted.

The hatred and anger he’d felt after that horrid divine light still pulsed throughout his body, darkening his thoughts and writhing through his being. But the holes that same divine light had exposed were growing, fighting back, shedding light gently but firmly across the malice.

It was tearing him apart. Who was he??

Back and forth he went, while the heroes slept, traveling through the gloom, destroying monsters, keeping an eye on their camp, his thoughts a whirlwind.

Villain.

Hero.

Darkness.

Light.

Malice.

Peace.

Suffering.

Hope.

Shadow.

Link.

Finally exhausted, Shadow settled at the edge of a wide mass of gloom he found on the open plain near the heroes' camp; half in, half out, he begged for numbness, for rest, for relief.

Oblivion came, and he welcomed it with open arms.

Some time later, the low hum of voices woke him. Sound traveled far, he’d discovered, but even still he secreted himself among the shadows at the edge of the gloom, hiding, waiting, and watching.

The heroes, loosely led by Scarface, passed within feet of his hiding spot, but no one noticed. He smirked, pleased.

He was just about to leave when something shrieked; the gloom surrounding him suddenly rippled as the Ganon-presence manifested right in the heroes' path.

Five writhing hands emerged from the gloom, preparing to strike down the heroes, ready to consume everything in their path.

The malice they contained pulled on his soul, constraining him to act, to destroy.

Link’s light and goodness pulled on his being, urging him to rest, to be whole.

Shadow’s heart hammered in his ribs, blood rushing loudly in his ears. He clutched his head and squeezed his eyes closed, unable to think straight through the conflicting messages.

WHO WAS SHADOW LINK?

The heroes scattered back the way they’d come.

Shadow joined them.

Invisible and intangible, Shadow darted past Scarface standing alone against the gloom spawn, past Wolf Pelt and Cape, through the cluster that was Tattoos, Scarf, Greenie, and the Kid, until he found his place in Link's shadow, right as he took an item from Red-shirt and rocketed halfway up a tree.

He did his best to ignore the siren call of the gloom behind him. It festered in his blood and surged through his magic; it planted thoughts, images, and ideas in his head, like just how easy it would be to materialize and knock Link from the tree to crash to the earth below. With luck, he’d take more of the heroes down with him.

Shadow doggedly shook his head, clinging tighter to Link's magical core. He curled up tight and pressed close to the space between Link and the tree – Link's violet eyes flickered his way briefly – trying to shut down all his senses and just exist.

He heard shouting, and screeching, then finally blessed silence. Weary beyond anything he could remember, Shadow released a shuddering sigh and lost consciousness.

Light at the edge of his being roused Shadow from sleep to alertness in a heartbeat. It held the same divine signature as the stuff that had burned him before; even proximity to the light was fraying the power he held.

Despite the questions over his identity that plagued him, Shadow knew he didn’t want to lose the power he’d gained. He dove from Link's shadow into a tiny patch of gloom, just far enough away from the light that it couldn’t affect him.

He watched the heroes sprint towards the light, confused for a single moment. He understood why when another gloom spawn erupted where they’d just been standing.

He held his breath, hoping it wouldn’t notice him.

Its ravening form pursued the heroes until, as if slamming into a barrier, it stopped amidst the trees. It writhed and shrieked, but the divine light held it at bay. Finally, with a vicious hiss, it faded away, and Shadow could breathe again.

He stayed in the small bit of gloom, watching as most of the heroes fell asleep under the root-like structure and Scarface started a fire, cooking something that made his mouth water. He rose in idle curiosity as Scarface climbed the outside of the root, looked around, and glided back down.

A tug in the pit of his stomach startled him a step closer to the heroes. He stared in wonder as a Dark gate – in defiance of all that should have been otherwise – spiraled into existence at the far edge of the bright clearing.

The heroes rose, packed up, and started walking through the portal, but Shadow remained frozen in place.

Should he go? He had power here.

But power wasn’t enough now. He’d proved it by denying the gloom's compulsion and following Link.

Link would know who he truly was.

Link was disappearing through the portal!

Shadow plucked up his courage, gritted his teeth, and sprinted across the lighted clearing, enduring the burn to slip into the narrowing band of welcome darkness.

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