Sins of Darkness REWRITE || an SSB Fanfic

Chapter 24: Undoing

Two days came and went, and now Zelda stood before the entrance to the Minishi Woods Chasm. It was still sealed, with grass and trees hiding it from sight. However, there was evidence of said seal having been broken a couple times before, and Zelda assumed it was from the times Sheik had managed to use the chasm to meet with the leaders of the darkness. As she thought that, she ignored the twinge of pain in her chest.

The plan was simple: in order to arouse as little suspicion as possible from the enemy, Zelda would go in through the Minishi Woods Chasm disguised as Sheik. Alone. She'd taken his armor and robed herself with it, then used magic to change her features- her hair and eye color, to be particular- so that they resembled his. When she looked at herself in the mirror once she was done, a bout of emotion overcame her. They were practically identical.

She shook the thought off her mind. Back to the plan, the back-up team, which was comprised of Link, Ike, Pit, Palutena, and Dark Pit, would enter the Depths through the Elma Knolls Chasm to the West, and with Link's expert guidance and knowledge of the Depths, they would maneuver their way to the enemy's headquarters without being detected, remain hidden, and step in should anything happen to Zelda while she was inside the mansion.

Even until a couple hours ago, when the group first split to make their way to their respective Chasms, Ike and Link continued to protest this plan, insisting that there must be another way. And Zelda didn't doubt them; she was certain there were other methods that were perhaps safer, or hell, maybe even smarter. But it was too late to back out now.

Using her magic, Zelda partially undid the seal, only opening it enough for her to fit. She stared down into the deep, seemingly endless chasm that contained nothing except darkness. The gloom that surrounded its walls moved, almost as if it were alive and inviting her into its horrible abode. She slipped on a piece of fabric on her mouth and nose, then jumped.

The fall into the Depths was excruciatingly long and suffocating. The gloom had minimal effect on her, all due to the small amount of light magic she used during her descent, both to prevent the gloom from hurting her and to illuminate the way down, but even then her head felt the slightest bit out of place and she suffered from some shortness of breath. Eventually, she reached the end of the chasm itself, and the space opened up to the infiniteness of the Depths. A post of light below indicated where the floor was, so she deployed her paraglider and floated safely to the ground.

Once she put her paraglider back, she took out her Purah Pad, switching the surface map to the Depths version. Her destination was located further north, and from just taking a glance in that direction, she knew it would be quite a difficult journey. Another thought occupied her mind, though, as she looked to the west and wondered whether her friends had safely made their descent yet. Since their trip to the mansion was longer than hers, they had decided that they would make their way down here first and then they would meet up after the mission was over. She debated whether she should meet with them now, but she couldn't afford to wait for them, she could only pray that they were alright.

After taking a small moment to get her eyes accustomed to this dark environment, Zelda began her perilous journey to the enemy's mansion. She encountered a few monsters here and there, all of which she took care of with ease. The most difficult part was when she had to climb: now that she was officially in enemy territory, she wanted to avoid using as much magic as possible so as not to draw the enemy's attention to her. Thankfully for her, the path there was pretty clear-cut, so the only times she actually had to climb was when said path would crumble, which happened more times than she'd like.

Eventually, she finally reached the entrance to the mansion. As she stared at its twisted, romanesque architecture, she wondered how the whole building wasn't just falling apart. It looked like it would topple over at any moment, with the way its walls sat sideways, diagonally, and even upside down. But what really disturbed Zelda was the fact that, once again, there was no security around. Not monsters, no strange creatures, nothing. That meant one of two things: they simply didn't have enough resources to make an entire army, or what Zelda believed to be the most likely option, they were confident that they were strong enough to take on whatever threat might come to them.