Chapter 7

Hyrule | Hyrule Field, towards Death Mountain

When the skin-splitting agony finally subsided, Mario found that he'd rematerialized somewhere bleak and rocky: a stony pass in the middle of the mountains, the rugged path spiraling down around several rocky steppes. Twilight burned in the cloudless sky overhead, baking the exposed rock orange and red, and webbing the crooks and crannies with pitch-black shadows.

Mario took a moment to assess himself — after that pain that had accompanied the teleportation, he wouldn't have been surprised to find himself missing a limb or two. Yet, shockingly, he was whole — no blood, bruises, or scars. Deciding not to question it, he immediately turned to Baby Luma, undoing his bonds and tossing away the rope and stake. His poor companion was deathly pale and clinging to the front of Mario's tunic with an iron grip.

"Are you all right?" Mario asked him.

Baby Luma trembled. "Scared," he said.

Still traumatized. Mario turned him over, looking for injuries. He winced when he saw a nasty splotch on the Luma's back — a burn! He didn't have any more, but the wound showed Mario what a close call their predicament had been. If he'd dallied a few seconds longer, the spit would've doubled as Baby Luma's funeral pyre.

"Ow," Baby Luma said.

"Sorry," Mario told him, "but you're injured." He rose to his feet, glancing around. Rugged stone in all directions, but Mario had read about high-mountain environments once, in the royal library. There was often a stream or creek nearby in places like this. "Let's see if we can find some water," he said. "We can treat your burn."

Not so fast! The mysterious she-being chose that moment to speak up, making Mario pause. You owe me, buddy — I saved your hide from those Bokoblins, and now I want some answers. And I want them now.

Mario peered around, searching the rocks for a female form, but saw nothing but glowing orange stone and a few stunted shrubs. "Why don't you come out?" he called. "I don't know why you're hiding, but we're alone now, and if you don't mind, I'd like to thank my rescuer face-to-face."

Who's hiding? the girl snorted. You're looking in the wrong place.

Readjusting his grip on Baby Luma, Mario took another look around, turning slowly in place. But he saw no figures, female or otherwise, anywhere among the sun-kissed rocks. He was completely alone, save for Baby Luma.

"I don't see anything," he said.

"See what?" Baby Luma groaned. "Who are you talking to?"

Down here, moron, the girl said.

Finally, a flicker of movement caught his eye — glancing down, Mario saw that his shadow, stretched long by the setting sun, was waving at him. Only it wasn't his shadow...at least, he didn't think it was, unless his hips had suddenly turned that curvy, and he'd suddenly gotten shorter. And his ears weren't that pointed, and he certainly wasn't wearing that horned...headdress, or helmet, or war helm, or whatever it was. Yet the shadow was attached to his feet — it was his. But it wasn't copying his motions — it was still waving at him.

"Are you my shadow?" he exclaimed. Imagine that!

No, not your shadow! the girl snapped. I'm supposed to be residing in Link's shadow, but suddenly I'm attached to you! So you might want to cut to the chase and confess your sins, before I see through my promise to crush you like a twig.

Okay, so she's in my shadow... The news might've baffled some people, but Mario took it in stride. Much weirder things existed in the Mushroom Kingdom. (cough-Fawful-cough.)

"What's your name?" he asked her.

I'm not interested in breaking the ice with you, dim-wit! The next words out of your mouth had better be something about what you did with Link, or where he is, or I'll subject you to pain worse than the warp!

The warp? As in the teleportation? Now Mario was scared. Hastily, he said, "Listen, thank you for rescuing us, but I honestly don't know anything more than what I told you back with the..." What had she called them? "...Bokoblins. My name is Mario, and this is my friend Baby Luma. I don't know who your friend Link is, and if he disappeared, I don't know how. We ourselves showed here just today out of the blue, and we're trying to get back to our spaceship. That's all I know. Honest."

"Say what?" Baby Luma mumbled.

Mario ignored him, waiting for the girl's response. For a long moment, there was just silence. Angry silence.

Then: You're lying.

Annoyance flashed through Mario. Why was she convinced that he was a liar? He wasn't the dishonest type. Honest. "I'm not lying," he said firmly.

Yes you are. You have to be! There's no other explanation: either you're lying or you're not telling me something. Link went into the warp from Snowpeak Mountain and you came out the other side. You're wearing his clothes. Something happened to him, and you're the only one that can be responsible!

Mario started. This Link person had gone into the warp...and he'd come out? The notion was mind-boggling. If it was so, then how had Mario disappeared from Starship Mario and appeared inside the warp? More importantly, how had Link disappeared out of the warp?

"That is weird," he said evenly, trying to keep from provoking the progressively angrier shadow girl, "but I know nothing about it."

The girl snarled in rage, and Mario caught movement out of the corner of his eye: his shadow, changing shape before his very eyes. It seemed to split in two, one piece morphing into the shape of the shadow girl, the other taking his mustachioed form. The shadow girl towered over him, something writhing in the depths of her helm — her hair? No, it looked more like a snake, a shadowy snake rising from the helm and twisting in the form of a giant hand. All at once, it lashed around shadow Mario's neck.

In the same instant, Mario felt a terrible pressure crunch around his throat like a vice, squeezing every molecule of oxygen from his skull. Gagging loudly, he dropped Baby Luma, falling to his knees and clawing at his neck. But there was nothing there — it was as through his throat were crunching on its own.

"Mario?" Blearily, he saw Baby Luma sit up, giving him a frightened look. "What's going on? What's wrong?"

This is your last chance, the shadow girl hissed into his ear as Mario's legs flailed and his eyeballs pushed from his skull. Tell me what you did to Link, and tell me now! Else I break your neck!

Holy mother of Peach! Never in his entire life had Mario been so terrified. But what did he do? Tell her what she wanted to hear? And what would she do to him when she discovered that he was lying?

The horrible pressure eased by the slightest degree, just enough for him to wheeze in a squick of air. Speak, she commanded.

He despaired. Like it or not, the only option was to tell the truth. "Don't know," he rasped.

His words were met with an incredulous silence. Mario's vision began to go dark, his heart galloping wildly in his chest, struggling without an oxygen supply.

Then, the pressure was gone, and his throat opened wide enough for air, blessed air, to wind down into his lungs. He collapsed onto the rock, wheezing, and Baby Luma bounded up to him, eyes wide with fear.

"Mario, are you OK?" he cried. "Your face is blue! Why are you choking like that?"

The pressure in Mario's skull slowly ebbed as his lungs expanded once again, and his heartbeat slowed. Glancing over at his shadow, he panted, "Do you believe me now?"

There was no reply, just a sudden wind, pulling Mario's clothing upward and nearly snatching his hat right off his head. He and Baby Luma looked up to see a black hole spinning to life high above them, whipping the wind into a frenzy and stirring a vortex of fallen leaves and twigs around them.

"What is that?" Baby Luma cried.

Mario recognized it immediately. It was the same black hole that had appeared in the sky before the shadow girl had teleported them — painfully. "What are you doing?" he roared.

I do believe you. The shadow girl's voice was crystal clear over the hiss of the wind. You seem to know nothing about how you got here or why you're in Link's clothes, so there's only one thing to do. Maybe if I warp you a few times, you'll disappear to wherever you came from, and Link will come back!

What! Mario still remembered the pain of the previous warp, and going through a second one — or a third, or a fourth — was the last thing on Earth he wanted to do. But before he could open his mouth and protest, the shadow girl ripped him to shreds, sending his three trillion pieces up into the black hole. The portal.

The world became indistinct, time uncertain. But the pain? Oh the pain was concrete, frighteningly clear, and blatant, as though Mario were being processed through a wood chipper. It might've lasted three seconds or three eternities, he didn't know. Just that, all of a sudden, the pain ebbed and was gone, and he found himself materializing somewhere in the middle of the woods, the trees standing tall and proud around him, the canopy sending dappled sunlight down to the floor.

But before he could process where he was, he was gone again, three trillion pieces writhing in agony as they flashed through time and space. After an eternity he stopped again, this time standing in the middle of a massive hot spring. Creatures surrounded him, big, stocky, with skin like sun-baked rock. One waved at him, but before Mario could respond, he was gone again, flashing this time to the top of a frigid mountain of ice and snow. The cold barely touched him before he was warped to the bottom of a lakebed, schools of fish shoaling in sheets around him. Then he was in a parched desert, the sand churning as creatures burrowed beneath it. Then, flash, a familiar place — the field, with the Bokoblins. And then—flash—in an ornate temple standing at the top of a waterfall. Then — flash — an icy cavern, icicles pointing from the ceiling. And then — flash — at the edge of a bridge spanning across a wide chasm.

Flash, flash, flash. On and on and on the shadow girl warped him, each teleportation sending him through a paper shredder; the pain seemed to cut deeper and deeper each time until Mario approached the brink of insanity.

"ENOUGH!" he managed to bellow as he exited one warp. He was standing in the middle of a busy marketplace, stalls of produce and food all around him, crowded by humans. "Stop it! Can't you see that it isn't working?"

Several passerby flashed him astonished looks, but before Mario could be embarrassed, he disintegrated for the final time, at last reappearing where he'd started — in that high mountain pass, where the stones now resembled shadows as the sun had now set. The only source of light was the rising moon and Baby Luma, who glowed with an ethereal luminescence. His friend bounded over to him as he fully materialized and collapsed to his hands and feet.

"Mario!" he squeaked. "Where did you go? What happened? What's wrong?"

Groaning, Mario managed to rise to his feet. His entire body was throbbing at the subatomic level, and his heart was racing again, trying to free itself from his chest. He felt burnt-out from the inside out, like an overheated machine — he was surprised that smoke didn't exit his mouth when he spoke.

"I'm all right, Baby Luma. Just..." He winced. "Just give me a second."

Baby Luma looked up at him, eyes wide with concern, and Mario mumbled under his breath, "Well? Are you satisfied? Have you enjoyed yourself, ripping me to pieces over and over? Or do you need further proof that your friend is gone, and that I'm not lying?"

Why? The shadow girl's tone surprised him: the word came out as a desolate moan. Why isn't it working? I thought...I swore it would work... Why isn't he coming back?

Mario's anger faltered — the anguish in her voice was an abrupt turn from the blatant hostility and mockery she'd been treating him to earlier. Had she really hoped that the warp would work, and that it would bring Link back?

Uncertain, he said, "Well, I'm sorry it didn't. Maybe warping is not the way to bring him back. Perhaps there's another explanation."

For a long time, she didn't answer. Then she spoke quietly, almost to herself: He can't be gone. He can't. Not after all we've been through together. What...what do I do without him? I can't gather the Mirror shards by myself. I can't face Zant on my own. Who is going to help the Twili if Link is gone?

Mario felt a pang in his chest, not because of what the shadow girl said — half of which he didn't understand — but because he was asking himself some very similar questions: What are the others doing, now that I'm not there on Starship Mario? Are they looking for me? What is going to be done about Bowser now that I'm not there? After all, there was no end to the ways Bowser could take advantage of his absence, if and when he actually discovered that Mario was gone. He could imagine the devastation if Princess Peach discovered the news — she was counting on him to save her, and how could he do so when he was stuck down here on this planet?

I have to get back. I have to return to Starship Mario! So much was at stake while he was dawdling here, talking to shadows, and the shadow girl seemed to be in the same predicament.

"Hey," he said to her. "You might not believe me, but it kind of sounds like we're in the same boat right now. Me and...Link both have somewhere we're supposed to be, and we have work that we're supposed to do. I know you and I got off on the wrong foot, but maybe we can figure this thing out if we work together, and bring Link back. Do you think we can do that?"

He stood there hopefully for a moment, waiting for her reply, but there was none — the shadow girl had lapsed into a miserable silence. Glancing down, Mario saw that his shadow had returned to its original form, that of a short Italian looking down at himself expectantly.

Mario's teeth set in frustration. Chokes me, draws-and-quarters me — multiple times! — and then ignores me. He hoped that all women on this strange planet weren't this discourteous.

"Mario." Baby Luma was tugging urgently on his pants leg.

Sighing, Mario refocused. Well, if she doesn't want to work with me, there's nothing I can do about it. He had bigger problems, primarily that they, for the meantime, were stuck down on this planet. Secondarily, it was dark, and they were out in the open without shelter. Mario slept out lazily under the stars on occasion, but the Mushroom Kingdom was a lot more temperate than this place — already, it was chilly enough to turn his breath into smog.

Okay, once again, shelter...

"Sorry, Baby Luma," he said. "I didn't mean to ignore you. At lot happened today, and I'm just trying to figure out what to do..."

"Mario," Baby Luma said again. He was pointing to something behind Mario, greatly frightened. Mario spun around to see a pair of reptilian forms slinking out of the shadows down below, moving steadily up towards them on nimble, clawed feet. In a swath of moonlight, he found that they were lizards, bipedal and, amazingly, wearing armor. And not the natural kind — no, one was actually in a breastplate, and another was carrying an honest-to-stars buckler. Each was also armed with a short sword, a dagger, and... Holy... Are those axes on the ends of their tails? The lizards licked their lips hungrily, as if they'd just spotted dinner. Which they had.

Just like that, Mario knew what he was going to do. He was going to run.

---|-

For the greater part of that night, Mario and Baby Luma ran for their lives, climbing cliffs, ducking and dodging through crevasses, and hiding behind boulders in an attempt to evade their pursuers. But those lizard things, or whatever they were, were stubborn to a fault, and gave chase until Mario and Baby Luma finally managed to put a ten-foot vertical shelf between them, leaving the lizards stranded at the bottom. Even then, the lizards spent a good ten minutes spitefully hurling stones up at the two before finally giving up and stalking off to chase easier prey.

To make matters worse, a storm rolled in around midnight, forcing Mario and Baby Luma to seek shelter. Before long, the mountains were being drenched with sheets of heavy rain, some of which turned to sleet in the chill. Luckily, there was a small cave weathered out of the mountain wall nearby, and Mario and Baby Luma hunched inside for the remainder of the night, bodies shaking uncontrollably in the cold. Mario clenched Baby Luma tighter than usual during those long hours, trying to absorb as much of his companion's warmth as he could, but it wasn't enough — had Mario had dentures, they would've chattered right out of his mouth.

Eventually, pure exhaustion overtook him and he fell asleep. Hours later he woke up to find that the storm had moved on and that dawn was warming the horizon. After Mario vigorously checked the surrounding area — a high, exposed shelf tucked into the mountainside — for enemies, like those lizards, he and Baby Luma ventured from their shelter and tried to warm up in the weak sunlight. While they did, Mario did his best to explain what had happened yesterday — who he'd been talking to and why he'd been choking and why he'd disappeared so suddenly.

Baby Luma grasped the gist of it. "So she lives in your shadow?" he asked, bellying down to the ground and inspecting Mario's shadow. The dawn light stretched it long across the stony outcrop, nearly to the edge. Right now, it looked just like Mario, and he wondered what that meant — was the shadow girl in there somewhere, listening to them talk about her? Sleeping, maybe? Or maybe she was ignoring them?

The latter seemed to be the case — Baby Luma tapped Mario's shadow and said hello, but there was no response. "Can she hear us?" he asked curiously. "I wanna talk to her."

"I don't know. Let me try." Mario crouched low and focused on his squatting shadow. "Hello?" he said. He wished she'd told him her name so he could address her properly. Continuing, he said, "Hello? It's me, Mario. Can you hear me? Are you still there?"

His shadow did not change shape or otherwise reply. Mario tried to raise the shadow girl several more times without success.

"Maybe she's asleep," Baby Luma suggested.

"Maybe," Mario said vaguely. Perhaps she was still brooding over yesterday's failure to draw her friend back to his proper place and time. Had someone snatched away Yoshi or Luigi in a similar manner, Mario probably wouldn't have been in the mood to talk to anyone either. I guess she'll come out when she's ready.

In the meantime, they had other problems, most importantly—

Growl. Mario's stomach let out a deafening howl.

—getting off of this blasted planet. Mario gazed up at the sky, which was gradually grading into blue as the sun strained from the horizon line. He wondered about how far away Starship Mario was, and what Lubba, Luigi, Yoshi, and the Toad Brigade were doing in his absence. Please be looking for me. Though finding him was a needle-haystack scenario — there were billions of worlds out there, and he could be on any one of them, for all they knew.

His tummy rumbled again, and he placed a hand on it, trying to quiet it. What can I do to make myself more visible? If he'd had a radio, he might've been able to send out an SOS, but he didn't. And even if he had, the likelihood that a transmission from down on the surface of the planet would reach Starship Mario, wherever they were, was astronomically small. Like it or not, the only way to get a signal to his friends and family was from space.

But how did he do that from down here on this unfamiliar world, out of his depth as he was?

"Mario," Baby Luma complained. "I'm hungry." His companion was gripping his belly, wincing as hunger pangs rippled through him.

A realization suddenly overcame Mario and, curling his hands into fists, he turned to his friend. "Baby Luma, I know what we have to do."

Baby Luma perked up. "To get back to Starship Mario? You do?"

"Yes, I do. We have to build a spaceship."

Baby Luma was so stunned that he stumbled forward a little. "B-build a spaceship?" he stammered. "Really?"

"Really," Mario said. "We have to contact the Starship, and the only way we stand a chance of doing that is if we broadcast a signal from orbit. And to get into orbit, we have to build a spaceship. There's no other way."

"Okay," Baby Luma said uncertainly. "But...build a whole ship? Couldn't we just borrow one?"

Grimly, Mario recalled the shadow girl warping him to that marketplace. The people had been wearing medieval-style clothing, and the streets had been filled with horse-drawn carts and carriages. "I don't think there're any spaceships in this galaxy," he said.

Baby Luma was baffled. "But...that can't be! There're spaceships everywhere! How can there not be one here?"

Growing up as he had on the technologically-advanced Observatory, Mario could understand his astonishment. "The people on this world aren't as advanced as you and I are," he told the Luma. "They don't know how to build ships like that yet."

"But I don't know how to build a spaceship either!" Baby Luma wailed. "Aren't they really complicated? They've got engines and shields and weapons and stuff. How do we make all of that from scratch?"

"Don't worry," Mario reassured him. "We can do it. I know we can. We just have to take it one step at a time. We'll start with a drawing of what we want the ship to look like. Then, we'll start gathering materials to build the frame. Finally, we'll work on the engines and the complicated stuff."

Baby Luma still looked unsure. "I don't know..." he said. "It still sounds really hard. How will we know how to build the hard stuff?"

"I'll do that," Mario said determinedly.

"You will?"

"Yep, I read about how to do so in a book once."

"Really?" Baby Luma was amazed.

"Really." It was hard for Mario to hold his smile. Deep down, he was as skeptical about this stupid idea as Baby Luma was, but again, what other choice did they have? The two of them building a ship was nothing short of a fantasy — sure, Mario had read a couple of books about spaceships once, but did he know how to construct a frame? How to run gas and communication lines? Couple navigational systems together? Heavens no! On his best day, he could barely hook three different devices to a power cord, let alone design a hyperlight drive.

But it had to be done. He had to find Starship Mario. So he would do it, no matter how ridiculous the notion was.

"Why don't we start by designing a frame?" Mario suggested. "Baby Luma, you can help me decide how the ship will look. We'll..." He glanced around, then wandered over to a sandy area on the outcrop, scuffing it a little with his boots. Picking up a stick and handing it to Baby Luma, he said, "We'll draw the design in the sand here, then start gathering material."

Baby Luma took the stick just as Mario's stomach snarled again, the hunger pangs reverberating so deep this time that he swore he could feel the vibrations in his intestines. He blushed intensely.

"After breakfast?" Baby Luma said.

"After breakfast," Mario agreed sheepishly.

---|-

Breakfast — then lunch, then dinner — was sparse, consisting of the bounty of a couple of berry bushes that Mario located and unearthed. Between them, the bushes' loads barely filled their stomachs, but neither of them knew how to hunt or otherwise locate food in a locale this exposed and rugged, so they made do.

They focused on the spaceship to distract themselves from their hunger, spending the rest of that day designing it together in the sand. Baby Luma, young as he was, had fanciful ideas of how a spaceship should look: pointed noses, huge wings, and streamlined torsos so that they could shoot through space like arrows.

Fortunately for both of them, Mario was more realistic. From his extensive talks with Lubba, Rosalina, and other members of the Luma clan in the past, Mario knew that sleek, winged designs for spaceships were unnecessary and impractical — those designs banked on the fact that the vessel would be subjected to the forces of aerodynamics, like wind resistance, which wasn't present in deep space. Spaceships could virtually be any shape and size and still move at the same speed as a much smaller vessel, as long as their hyperlight drives were powerful enough to propel them forward.

What was the most important in the ship's design was accommodation, and by that Mario didn't mean comfort. Space was an extreme, bleak place, and any ships with passengers had to be able to support an internal environment that was drastically different from the external: proper atmospheric pressure, oxygen concentration, and heating, to start, all of which were bundled into life support.

Still, while all of that was necessary, Mario also wanted the ship to be relatively small and compact, with no more than two main compartments. So, after arguing back and forth with Baby Luma a little about what was necessary and what wasn't, they decided on a dumbbell shape: one chamber for the piloting array, and the second chamber for resting, storage, et cetera.

The rest of the afternoon was spent determining how big around the ship was to be. They put tracks in the stone walking around, surveying their temporary abode and wondering how big, theoretically, the ship might be. By dusk, they'd determined that it would be just over seven car-lengths long, about the size of three Star Cruisers nose-to-nose.

Now came the hard part, the part that Mario was really uncertain about: construction. They had an idea for the design, but how did they actually go about making their design a reality? Mario had suggested starting with a frame, but a frame made out of what? He doubted there'd be any steel planks lying around to use. Wood? But where did they get that? They were in the middle of the mountains, where the only trees to be found were twisted and old. Even if they wanted to use those ancient specimens, they didn't have any axes to chop them down with.

As Mario worked with Baby Luma the next morning, etching the ship's schematic into the rock with a sharp stone, a sudden voice in his head nearly made him shed his skin: What are you doing?

Mario whipped around, wondering if Baby Luma had spoken, but his companion was jauntily scratching at the ground a few yards away. Yesterday's designing had brought back some of his good cheer, to Mario's relief.

Realizing that the voice had spoken into his head, Mario said, "There you are. I was wondering where you'd gone. How are you feeling?"

There was a disgusted pause, one that told Mario the shadow girl hadn't appreciated the question. Don't act like you care.

Mario's jaw set. Trying not to get annoyed, he said, "I'm just trying to be civil. You're the one who said you were attached to me. If we're stuck together, there's no reason we can't be polite."

"What?" Baby Luma called from a ways away. Eyes widening, the little Luma floated over, looking excited. "Is she back?" he asked Mario. "Your friend? Can I talk to her?"

Who is this? the shadow girl demanded.

Glancing at Baby Luma, Mario said, "I told you, his name's Baby Luma. He's my friend."

"Hi!" Baby Luma said. "Nice to meet you! What's your name?"

Mario waited for the shadow girl's reply. A moody silence spanned for several long seconds before she said, grudgingly, My name is Midna.

Surprised at the sudden reveal, Mario said, "She says her name is Midna."

"Hi, Midna!" Baby Luma said cheerfully. "Thanks for saving us yesterday! Hey, will you take a look at our spaceship?" He danced away, spinning as he reached the hypothetical nose of the ship. "It's gonna be this big!" he called, spanning his little arms wide. "I can't wait until it's all built! It's going to be awesome!"

Ship? Midna repeated. What's he talking about, ship? I don't see a ship.

"We haven't built it yet," Mario explained. "We only finished designing it last night. But when we finish constructing it, it'll hopefully take us into space, where we'll be able to contact our friends."

Space? Midna echoed, miffed.

Right. People down on this planet hadn't yet grasped the concept of outer space yet. Mario pointed skyward. "Way up there," he said. "Our friends are out there somewhere, and if we get up there, we might be able to contact them."

Now Midna sounded alarmed. What... Are you saying that you're leaving?

"Yes," Mario said, wondering why she sounded so shocked. Cheering might've been more appropriate — after all, hadn't she been hurling threats at him not two days ago? "The sooner the better."

What do you mean, the sooner the better? You can't go!

Mario's eyes furrowed. Okay, now he was confused. "What're you talking about?"

Baby Luma floated back over, curious. "What's she saying?" he asked.

Mario put a finger to his lips, listening as Midna spoke: Look, I've been thinking about this for a while, and while I admit that you proved you don't know anything about Link disappearing, that doesn't change the fact that he's gone and you're here, and that both of these events are connected. You have to take responsibility.

Mario's nostrils flared. Say what? "Midna, I told you that I had nothing to do with Link disappearing. Didn't you just say that yourself?"

Yes, I know that! I know that, but... You don't get it. Hyrule is on the brink of devastation, and Link is — was — the only one that could stop it. If you don't know where he is, fine. But at least help me find him!

Mario's fingers clamped tightly around his rock. Well, this was a shocking turn of events. First threats, now cries for help. Was Midna truly so desperate to find this Link character? There was no other explanation for this bipolar change in attitude.

It was too bad that Mario was also desperate — desperate to get into space.

"Why do you need my help?" he asked her. "Why can't you go off and investigate Link's disappearance by yourself?"

I can't.

"Can't...or won't?"

I can't, all right? I'm... She trailed off.

"I'm?" Mario prompted.

I'm...limited in how I can interact with this world. I'm a Twili, okay?

"Twili?"

Yes! People of my kind are nearly insubstantial save for when we reside in Twilight. I can't physically interact with this world, which is why I was attached to Link and his shadow. He interacted — forcibly — where I couldn't. He was going to take down Zant in my stead.

"Zant?"

You really don't know anything, do you?

Mario waited for her to continue, but instead the wind began to pick up, whipping gullies of sand upward. Mario looked up to see a warp portal blooming above him and cried, "No!"

"Mario?" Baby Luma squealed.

Relax! Midna said. Just let me, okay? I want to show you something.

Like I have a choice! Mario could do nothing but go along with it as Midna warped him once again, breaking down his body into bits and sending them spiraling off through space and time. The pain was agonizing, but this time, fleeting — before he knew it, he was whole again, standing on a tall hill before a rippling prairie, the one where he and Baby Luma had been accosted by the Bokoblins.

But he wasn't in that same area this time — he was higher up now, and able to see something far off in the distance, partially obscured by hillocks. It looked like the spires of a castle, and the rugged battlements of a high outer wall. It was a little hard to tell — the entire structure was surrounded by a translucent, golden... What is that? A force field? Maybe — it was a barrier of some kind, harshly reflecting the strengthening morning sunlight, and was shaped like a pyramid.

See that? Midna asked. That's Hyrule Castle. That barrier was created by Zant, the so-called King of the Shadows, and it keeps anything within it trapped inside. She took a hard pause. Like Princess Zelda.

Mario straightened. "Princess?"

Yes, Princess Zelda, the current ruler of Hyrule. She's been barricaded inside the castle ever since Zant covered Hyrule in Twilight. Another pause, but this one, surprisingly, was pained. At least, I think she's still there. I don't know... Ever since she healed me...

Mario shook his head, growing more and more confused. "Slow down," he told her. "Explain."

Zant's the ruler of my realm: the Twilight realm, world of the Twili. But not the rightful ruler — he usurped throne and crowned himself King of the Shadows. But that wasn't enough for him — he sought to expand his dominion to Hyrule, so he stepped through the portal to this world and covered it in Twilight, trapping Princess Zelda inside the castle and reducing everyone who lived in Hyrule into spirits.

Mario frowned, studying the landscape with new eyes. Puzzled, he said, "But everything looks fine. Except for Hyrule Castle."

Yes, now it does! I partnered up with Link, and together we liberated Hyrule from Zant's Twilight, restoring power to the Light Spirits in each Providence and destroying the monsters that the Twilight induced in the wilderness. We also collected ancient artifacts that we could eventually use to combat Zant: the Fused Shadows. She let out a perturbed hiss. That is, until he came and liberated them from me...

"You mean he's still around?"

Yes, and as long as he is, he's still a threat to this world. But the seat of his power is not in Hyrule — it is in the Twilight Realm, and that's where he must be defeated.

Mario's mind reeled, struggling to keep up. "Okay...so did you go after him?"

No, idiot! That's what I'm trying to tell you! That's what Link and I were working on next: constructing a portal that would take us to the Twilight realm.

"You were trying to make a portal?" You can do that?

Remember that portal I said that Zant used to step into the world of Hyrule? It's called the Mirror of Twilight, which was used in ancient times to banish prisoners to the Twilight realm as punishment for their wrong-doings. But Zant managed to shatter the Mirror and scatter the pieces across Hyrule, preventing anyone trying to bring him to justice form entering the Twilight realm. Link and I had discovered some of the locations of the pieces, but we'd only managed to recover one of the three lost so far. We were starting our search for the third piece when you appeared.

"I see..." It was all a lot to take in — usurper kings, princesses trapped in castles, pieces of mirrors, and this Twilight, whatever it was — but one thing was clear: Link lived in a world — Hyrule — on the brink of ruin, and was the only one who stood a chance of preventing total catastrophe. Sounds a lot like my pitiful life. "So this Zant... What would he do if Link were to not come back?"

He'd likely shroud the entirety of Hyrule in Twilight once again and secure his dominion. Which is why I need your help! Link is the only one who stands a chance of stopping him, and I want you to help me find him. She paused. Please.

The magic word! Mario bit his lip, taking another glance at Hyrule Castle again, which glowed like a ship inside a bottle. Despite the barrier, it was hard to imagine this country on the precipice of disaster as Midna claimed it was — from here, with the mountain wind stirring his clothing and the sun warming the sky overhead, everything seemed serene and peaceful. He even heard the song of a mountain hawk a ways above him.

Well? The shadow girl asked impatiently. Will you do it? Will you help me?

Mario wrung his hands together. "Midna...I don't know." Link wasn't the only one tasked with saving someone. What about Princess Peach? And Bowser? Who was going to defeat him now that he wasn't around? The urgency to return to them burned in his chest.

But at the same time, he'd somehow inadvertently snatched away this country's salvation, leaving every being living here at risk of a desolate future. Unintentional or not, his sense of morality wouldn't let him just turn his back on all of it. Part of him wanted to help, do what he could to make up for what had happened.

"I wouldn't even know where to start," he told her. "I know nothing about this country. And besides that, I have my own world to return to. I have friends. An enemy to defeat. A princess to save."

Midna let out a surprised breath. Really?

"Yes. Why do you think I'm so desperate to leave? I'm kind of like Link — I'm the only one strong enough to take on my enemy and save my friends. They're not helpless without me, but they are hapless. If I don't get back to save them soon..."

He trailed off, letting that sink in. Doubtless Midna knew how he felt — again, they were more or less in the same boat.

Okay, Midna said after a moment. How about this? I won't ask much of you. Just that you travel to Telma's bar and speak with the Resistance.

That caught Mario's attention. "Resistance?"

Link told me about them before. They're a group that wants to restore Hyrule to its original glory. They're small but stubborn and steadfast, and though Link's not that close with them, he trusts them. They might know some things, something that'll help me track down the next Twilight Mirror shard without you. Plus, there's a man among them that Link told me about before...Shad, I think is his name. He's smarter than most humans, and is into the supernatural and the mythical. Talk to him, he might have something to say about Link's disappearance.

Mario waited for her to continue, but she did not. "That's it?" he asked.

That's it, Midna said. Then...then you can go. I guess.

Mario considered. It sounded easy enough, and it was the least that he could do, considering all that had happened. And this benefited him as well — if this Shad person had any idea of what might have happened to Link, then perhaps he would know how to undo what had been done. Perhaps the spaceship would wind up being unnecessary.

"All right," he decided. "I'll do it. Where is this bar of yours?"

Midna sounded relieved. Castle Town, she said.

***

Starship Mario | Upper Deck – Search and Navigation

"How about a wide-scale scan of the outer debris shell?" Pollux suggested. "We send an extra ship out to search for possible routes through the debris field and—"

"It won't work," Io said. "Do you see how rapidly that field is shifting? It was blasted into orbit faster than the speed of sound, and it's still got enough residual velocity to achieve escape speed. Even if you do find a hole, it'll be gone within an hour."

The four of them — Lubba, Io, Pollux, and Yoshi — were back on the upper deck, sitting around a table while the rest of the crew manned the instruments, trying to think of a plan to recover the Spelunker. There were a lot of variables to contend with: the planet's lethal heat, its volcanic activity, the intense radiation... However, right now they couldn't even get past the debris field.

"Starship Mario," Yoshi suggested. "We have shields three times thicker than one of our miniature starships, ones capable of knocking away asteroids."

"Yeah, in hyperlight flight," Io said pointedly.

Yoshi ignored her, looking at Lubba. "We can serve as escort: fight out way down through the outer atmosphere and then, where there is less debris, launch the SAR team, who makes it the rest of the way down to the surface."

It was a good idea, one that actually made hope rise in Lubba's chest.

Then Pollux said, "We don't have enough fuel to serve as an escort. As of a half hour ago, our reserves are below six percent. A mission like this would take at least two Power Stars, and—"

"Hang the reserves!" Yoshi burst out. "Our friends are down there, Pollux, probably waiting for us to rescue them! We can't just ignore them and stay here, griping and moaning about our empty gas tank!" He slammed a hand down on the table. "What's more, Mario could be down there, and if he is, then I say we use every drop of fuel we have left on trying to get him out. In fact—" He glared around the circle. "I say we use the Grand Star. Have it cut a hole straight to the surface of the planet."

"Are you crazy?" Pollux said, aghast. "Use the Grand Star? It's the only thing keeping the ship operational!"

"So turn on the backup generators," Yoshi snapped. "Go conventional. Use them to keep the engine running while we check the surface of the planet."

"The generators don't power life support," Io hissed. "And even if they did, they'd only be able to keep it on for thirty-six hours, at maximum."

"The shields, even less," Pollux added. "The generators are nowhere near as efficient as Power or Grand Stars. They'd stand for a half an hour, probably less. The ship would freeze, then be shriveled by cosmic radiation. Everyone one board would probably..."

They lapsed into silence once again, stuck. After a moment, Yoshi rose and pushed away from the table, clearly having enough. As he stomped away, Pollux called, "Hey, where are you going?"

"Kitchen!" Yoshi snapped over his shoulder as he moved down the steps. The orange Luma sighed, turning back to Lubba.

"What now, Mister Lubba?" he asked.

Lubba rubbed his head, looking down at the scrap sheets of paper they'd been scribbling on for the past few hours. "Let's take a break," he suggested.

"But we don't have time for breaks," Io protested. "Time's running out. We have to figure out a way to save those still alive on the surface, sooner rather than later."

She was right, but Lubba was beginning to suspect that there was no way to save their friends. It had been three hours since they'd picked up the Spelunker's last transmission — three hours down on the surface of that molten planet. Had it been Lumas, Lubba might've had a shred of hope of their still being alive. But toads? They were as vulnerable as humans, highly susceptible to radiation, heat, gravity. The chances were too slim to even contemplate.

Besides, if they were alive, wouldn't they have heard something by now?

"Mister Lubba!"

He turned at his name, to see Rio bobbing excitedly by the Nav dash. He hurried over, heart throbbing in his chest.

"Good news?" he said. Prayed.

"Good news," Rio said. She gestured to a nearby Yoshi, who relinquished a headset to her. Handing it to Lubba, Rio said, "A transmission! Not a beacon, either. It seems to be coming from the Spelunker's data bay."

Pollux and Io crowded heavily around Lubba as he donned the headset, enclosing himself in a world of scratchy static. He squinted a little, trying to hear through all of the garbling and hissing, until he was barely able to pick up a voice beneath it all, rapidly cutting in and out:

"...ain...oad...dy...this...? ...eat...this...Cap...Toa...tuck...ava and...elp...us!"

Elation closed Lubba's throat so tightly that he could barely breathe. He was certain. No, he was more than certain. The voice on the transmission was Captain Toad's.

The Toad Brigade was alive!