The Legend of Zelda: Blood and Spirit

Chapter 31: The Fused Shadow

"Um… Mistress Veress?" one of the rebels asked hesitantly, hoping that her leader wouldn't respond too harshly.

"What?" she spat bitterly, glaring down at the group before her with lingering anger.

"Well… We… we were just…" the rebel started to stammer, before she was quickly interrupted by Veress.

"Spit it out already!" she shouted impatiently.

"With all due respect, we are in need of more power, mistress," the Interloper said as boldly as she could, inkling her head in respect to her leader. "To combat the light of the guardian dragons and the goddess herself, we require more strength than we already have, much more in fact."

"So?" Veress asked with little concern. "What do you want me to do about it?"

"Well, we were hoping that you could use the Fused Shadow to outpour more-"

Veress's eyes grew wide upon mention of the dark relic and she quickly stood and stepped in front of it, blocking it from her followers' view. "Now I understand… I know what you want…" she hissed darkly, glaring at all of them with disgust. "You want my Fused Shadow! All of you! I've known from the beginning that you all just want my power for yourselves! Why else would you join me in the first place? You simply want to steal what is rightfully mine! What I created on my own!"

"No, mistress!" another rebel exclaimed defensively. "We joined you because we thought you were right! About the goddess, about the hero, about everything! We do not wish to steal the Fused Shadow from you! We simply need to borrow some of its great power to-"

"To take me down and claim the Triforce for yourselves!" the Interloper leader screamed in rage, refusing to relinquish her last vital key to victory to anyone, not even her loyal followers. "You've been conspiring against me in secret, waiting for a moment of weakness so that you can take me down and obtain what I've worked so hard for! But I'm onto all of you! You will never defeat me! You all are weak! Pathetic! That's why most of you were captured by the goddess's followers in the first place! Because you will never know the strength that I do! I don't need any of you and I never have!"

"Mistress, please listen! We-"

"Get out!"

"W-what?" the Interlopers all stared at their crazed leader in complete surprise upon hearing this sudden command

"I said get out!" Veress screeched demandingly, drawing her twin golden knives as she looked upon her former followers with nothing less than hatred. "All of you! Get out of my sight! I don't need any of you to defeat the goddess and her hero! I can and will finish this on my own!"

"But… we-"

"If you don't get out of my fortress right now, I will destroy you all personally!" the Interloper leader shouted at the top of her lungs, brandishing her duel swords. "Now, go! And don't let me ever see any your worthless faces again!"

Sighing in resignation, the former Interlopers slowly began to pan out of the room, giving pitied glances to their former leader, knowing that clearly, she had been driven to the brink of madness by her own lust for power. There had been a time that they had all respected her for her bold leadership, a time when they had all viewed her as both terrifying and inspiring at the same time. However, since then, she had strayed from the glorious goals and ambitions that she once held so dearly when she had formed the group of rebels. As they had risen to power upon the surface and came to be feared by all, she had grown conceited and greedy, desiring a power that should have been shared equally among them all as her own. She had made it obvious now that she did value any of them as her allies, and so, they all left the fortress entirely, without saying another single word to her, knowing that she had turned into someone who was no longer worth following.