A Toxic Infection

Described [here]

A disorderly march took the horde on its great campaign to sweep the southern front before any great force could be gathered to oppose them. In great numbers they came, as if the Evil King had created them from nothing. Gathered were they from a place of grinding and gnashing of teeth. They formed the true hand of Ganon, a blight upon the land. Their purpose was that everything they touched should wither and die. For this time, He sought to control the Golden Power once and for all.

They rapidly expanded upon known civilian towns so that none could conceal the way to His wish. Like a plague, they tore into the gates of each town. Fits of giggling exploded from swathes of goblin-kind, whilst their giddiness to enter plugged up the common entrances. Within Kakariko village, militia and drifters alike were called to arms. The gods protected the resistance as civilians rushed to evacuate. Axes clashed with spears, more common magics flew back and forth. Yet the day was still young.

Finally came reinforcements, a gallant militia arrived from an area previously attacked. A deep purple miasma clenched the air as droves of Bokoblins turned to dust. Armed with much finer equipment, the reinforcements pushed the wave back. The sky turned a thick goldenrod while the sun angled itself behind a blanket of clouds. Fire tore through the trees from incendiary arrows, making the smokey air ever thicker. But the fearless resistance continued to fight. The hope of the land depended on it, in their hearts. Enormous Moblins began to shove their way past the decaying front lines. Bones tore violently from the earth, exploding forth Stalfos legions. Arrows continued to thickly beard the turf.

A club with an arm still attached flopped to the ground, cut true from a Moblin by the longsword of a heavily plated guardsman. What the resistance made up for in skill, they lacked in numbers. The outlook at this point was looking sour. Men groped for the sky as they were forced to the ground by gathering swings. Bombs amassed craters in the dusty roads as support struggled to disable towering Stalfos. Miniblins flooded out of the shadows of the craters like swarming locusts. The echoes of explosives cascaded across the town.

The sounds of screaming and explosions licked lewdly against the ear canal of a sleeping girl. Grumpily her shape arose in the grey light of the corner. She flipped her cowl over her nappy hair, there was no time to ready her appearance today. She fumbled out of the alleyway into the dusty street. Slowly she slid to the middle of the road with her mallet in tow. Down the road she pulled it like a freshly shot deer. It wasn't long before the battle came to her.

Iron clashed and greasy sweat slithered down the flanks of those who still struggled. A helmet was crushed swiftly under the foot of a hefty Moblin. Angry shrieks expounded a belief of pure terror into the battalion. Kargoroks sped by and seeded the battlefield with Bulblins from above. The minions pushed at an increasingly fast pace with few drawbacks. Even the largest bombs could not thin the onslaught fast enough.

Eve stopped in the center of the road, she had heard something. Between explosions and screams, she could almost make out a clinking, and maybe a grunting. She slowly turned her head the way opposite the battle. Shuffling behind her was a towering Darknut. It echoed wishes of violence through its helmet, finishing with an explosive roar. The roar shattered the air around it. Details and etchings on the armor glowed a faint blue to accompany the outburst, as if to signify a breaking hold on its monstrous power.

As if to answer it, Eve wailed back at the devil knight. Her eyes lit up like lanterns under the shade of her cowl to return the sentiment. The creature tinkered in thought as to wonder what the girl was attempting. The heavy armor sang as he swiftly levered the enormous blade lagging behind him over his head. The monolithic slab of metal erupted a gaping chasm as it clapped like thunder into the earth. The action challenged to instill fear in the girl. She answered his challenge by dragging ever closer to him with her mallet. He yanked at his blade with more haste as she noticed her getting closer. With a rivaling force of leverage, Eve flung the mallet over her head. It connected with the breastplate of his armor, and a rippling crack exploded from between the metal. The Darknut was unmoved by the blow in a steady protest of her resistance.

For his counter-attack, he kicked her chest with a heavy boot. He was now able to wrench his blade from the dirt as she careened backward. An imposing roar signaled for her to run. The Darknut became frustrated when she refused to leave. She woke not to protect the town nor its people, but to teach. Her blood boiled over with a desire to make them learn. When the entirety of Ganon's army knew not to wake her from a nap, only then would she be satisfied. The girl propped up the handle of the mallet so that the head was on the ground. Another swing of the blade was caught by the handle, saving Eve's life by an inch as the force knocked her from her weapon. Even under leather gloves, her flesh became sore quickly. The Darknut dragged the blade behind it again for another swing.

Eve jumped at the window of his defenselessness. She pried the mallet from the dirt and swung it sideways. The head clashed horizontally with the breastplate, assailing it once more and making it quake against the monster's flesh. A fissure opened in the center of the plate from the stress of the blow. This time the Darknut stumbled back, mildly shocked from a blow to the same spot. Eve heaved the instrument back over her head for a sequential attack. But the Darknut was not impressed with Eve's enormous instrument. He caught the handle of the mallet in his left gauntlet. Eve perspired while the weapon remained above her head instead of coming down. The monster lifted the girl with the weapon, then threw both backward.

The path was scraped across Eve as the mallet tugged her arms. The Darknut regained control of his ground. The foe roared even louder than before, and closed in on Eve's fallen body. This time the soldier was ready to slice the girl in half. His boots pounded the ground with increasing magnitude. He was finally in cutting range when everything became cold. Through his beastly captain helm, he had made eye contact with the (?)girl. All of his hairs stood on end as a chill went down his spine. Her eyes danced in his mind, stomping a heavy Riverdance on his soul. Visions of the Outer Darkness tickled their tendrils on his face like an icy wind. They hadn't prepared him for this.

Eve bolted up between his scared daze and knocked a third hit on his breastplate. With a ripping snap the heavy pieces dragged coldly to the ground. Underneath was a mesh of mail, as well as some fancy looking decorations. The Darknut laughed nervously in a loud, low voice. He would be much faster now, and had a deadly advantage over the slow attacking girl. There was a sudden loud cheer as the frontlines of the invasion neared the middle of the town. An undefeated guard in plate-armor was raising his sword high to the sky, as if drawing power from his wounds. He continued to cheer as his eyes grew ever bloodshot. There was a bright flash as he chopped a Bokoblin behind him cleanly in half. The afterimage of his sword blazed like a tiny sun and rocketed past Eve, miraculously piercing through the Darknut. Festering purple blood spewed from his wound and lit ablaze as it fell. While Eve admitted to herself that she could have just ran from the monster, she liked this outcome a bit more.

She was not completely sure whether she was doing it out of gratitude, or to punish those who interrupted her sleep. She stomped toward the battlefield with the mallet still in tow to fight some more. The Darknut stared at her bewildered. He was overwhelmed with shock that he wasn't defeated by a worthy opponent, but by a mistake. If he hadn't already been sliced through he would have surely killed himself. He stood in shame as he bled to death slowly. The wind twisted about and stirred the smoke of strife. Guays dropped below the stacks of floating ash to take glittering objects from fallen warriors. Most likely they were going to put rupees in their nests to admire much like a centerpiece.

Eve reached the resistance, and took the liberty of swinging apart a group of Miniblins. Some watched as the hooded figure approached through the increasingly thick air. Others were far too busy dealing with many monsters at once. Quickly, as if to prove she was on their side, she buried her mallet into the spine of a Bokoblin harassing an archer near the back of the field. They would take it that way at least, she wasn't interested in treaties. The invasion had interrupted her sleep, so most of the blame was on the monsters. She watched the sky for arrows and moved forward when they stopped falling.

Time continued to tick by, with every tock a new casualty. With every Bokoblin Eve would break, came more and more heads. With every honk of the resistance's horn came a louder honk from theirs. An arrow ripped by and sliced the heroic guard from before in the eye. Any sliver of hope that remained slowly leeched from the men. Magicians in the back were already drained of power, and so they fled. Only lives remained sacred now. The town was already half in ruins, and there simply weren't enough left to defeat every foe.

As if to punish those who remained, all of the enemies in the rows furthest back had their weapons coated in venom. Several Bokoblins came armed with blowguns, dropping the weariest warriors from the front lines. Eve picked off those around one of the remaining circles. Like a guardian angel she landed her mallet on those attacking the people trying to fire their bows and catapults. But it wasn't satisfactory, she simply wouldn't take it as it was. She advanced to the frontlines to show the monsters true pain. She spun on her heel to get her mallet into a twirl. A Moblin terrorizing the men with a club was decked in the shin.

Finally her guard was taken advantage of by a passing Bokoblin. He dropped his toxic machete across her back, tearing a flesh wound into her sloppily. She exploded with rage, and mashed at him with her weapon. She dropped the mallet as a dart whizzed into her shoulder. She quaked with fury and met the culprit's eyes with her own. With her final breath, she vaulted off the back of a soldier. Screaming violently, she flew toward the monster and seized his neck with her gloved hand. His neck erupted with searing black flames as she crushed it in her palm. His burning body shot to the ground as if it suddenly weighed twenty tons. Several other darts clipped into the girl's body as she quickly lost consciousness.

The armored guard rushed in to claim her body before retreating. He threw her over his shoulder and drew back with all of his comrades. They carted away her weapon to bury with her. Many other soldier toted bodies away, hoping to maintain human dignity. They escaped the town with the little they had left.

A mass funeral was held in their large, secluded graveyard. Regarded as some sort of hero by many, the unknown volunteer fighter was given a makeshift tomb built from rough stone slabs. Her body was lowered in, not given any treatments due to a lack of resources and the sheer amount of those lost. They placed her belongings with her as well, including her bottled fairy who seemed lifeless to them.



For fifteen years Eve remained in a coma. Her body processed the toxins, doing the best job it could to keep her at the closest to life she could be. Like a vegetable, she remained very much the way she was when she was buried. Slowly but steadily her body became more and more aggressive against the toxin that now resided in a dangerous percentage of her blood. The paralytics kept her heartbeat and breathing at its bare minimum. People soon came to forget who she was or what she did as hardships overwhelmed the people of Southern Hyrule.

A rich plethora of visions came to the Kokiri in her slow dream world. A dumb Octorok in a top hat greeted her. She returned the kindness by sitting on him and riding him around. The dream world was enormous, bigger than even Hyrule. All of the colors were brighter, and the people even nicer than ever. The Octorok would bring her tea out of nowhere, which she would sip while ordering him to drag her around.

Eve noticed a strange Business Scrub. She had a sudden deja vu and remembered his likeness on wanted posters. He would begin to be stalked around wherever he went. Eve sent him threatening letters, and hoped to one day control him. He had a strength, something she wished she had but did not. No matter how much she lifted she would not have the charisma and skill this little plant man had. Her envy blazed like a tangible pain inside her.

She took control of him by instilling him with fear. She took him along to scour the world for treasures unknown. She met many people, and fought many bizarre creatures. But something had always been off. Being attacked by living playing cards, rooms of haunted houses repeating over and over, or even that cold feeling at the back of her neck. The dream-like setting scared her more than anything she'd been through.

Everything flashed by like a nightmare. Sailing on a large boat, blazing through hallways of complexes, there was no end to them. She watched through tinted eyes as everything became surreal. A boy in red forced a smile at her. Suddenly she was in a huge field of flowers.

She stood up and looked behind her. There in the field was a gazebo, and within it a table. Beyond the gazebo was an enormous sparkling blue city, with crystalline towers reaching high for the clouds. Eve entered the gazebo to find a girl in a blue dress sitting with tea. The girl's flesh was metallic, and her eyes were blank as if carved into weathered stone. Her hair was wiry and blue, it also gave off a sheen of metal.

"You like my megalopolis." the girl asked Eve without an actual hint of it being a question.

Eve couldn't find the words to answer. The girl continued "Pardon me. I did not introduce myself. My name is Refractalis. You are wondering why you are here."

"Where am I. What are you?" Eve demanded with a strict seriousness.

"I was hoping to strike a bargain of sorts. If you would please. Forfeit your life. You will live here. My city is beautiful. The world does not need you now." the automaton offered with a continuous dryness to her voice.

"No, I'm not just going to die. Do you have any idea what I've been through?" Eve responded fiercely.

"You must end at some point. Your chaotic emotions and desires are ugly. You have poisoned the land with your greed. The King has returned to eliminate those like you with such goals. You are a grain of rice beneath his power. Stay here. Where it is paradise. The waking world is doomed to drown in its own foolish power struggle. What is left will be perfection. A cleansed world where even the Demon King will want to disappear. You must forfeit your life at once." the being continued to bargain.

Eve snapped at her "Shut up! The families of civvies, slave drivers, even the ranch farmhands, that I killed they all make an equilibrium. There is no world without the culture of sentience to provide it with the fruits of desire. Even if I wasn't the one who deserves it, someone alive does! I do have a purpose in the world. You are nothing more than binding chains, a void of meaningless. The truly evil one is you."

Refractalis twisted her head around in a full circle. Her eyes became red and her body became hollow and dark. "You. . . do. . . not. . . know. Who do you think you might be dealing with. I will crush you."

The Business Scrub from before ran into the field. He was exhausted as if he had run for a long time. "I came as fast as I could!" he shouted to Eve. Now, it was too late. Eve's shadow stretched long like a wad of taffy. The teapot exploded in Eve's face and all of the flowers in the field wilted. Sickly weeds grew in their place and bloomed dozens of tiny white bells. The dark shadow met with the Business Scrub's feet. The ally of many years began to slowly lose color. His body began to distort and twist, and stretched to a tall height most men could never dream to achieve. The face was now blank and pure white, the body slim and black, with a business suit patterned onto the chest. Eve walked out into the field to see what was happening.

Suddenly and swiftly the face cracked into two and rows of dagger sized fangs erupted in a mess of saliva. The limbs split apart into countless arachnid legs and spiraling tendrils. The shoulders became studded with spikes the exploded into barnacle-shaped pimples that dripped violently with curdling septic sludge. The sky snapped into a red field of capillaries below a menacing grey cloud cover. The cracks in the sky began to twist and distort as if to a malevolent unending sonata of pain. Black, writhing trees began to spasm out from the ground. The megalopolis ate the entire horizon like a colossal mouth, breaking row after row of skyscrapers up past the clouds. The creature cried like a neglected baby. The sound tore through the field and hammered into Eve's ears.

Twilit Pandemic Blight
INFECTION​

The towering creature began to vomit grey parasitic worms. Eve stared blankly at it, unable to look away from it. She pulled her mallet out of her pocket as she usually did in this dream world. Even at this point she didn't question where it went when she wasn't using it. With a gulp she approached the entity. It reached down with a tendril to grab her. She held steady to her mallet and attempted to swat the approaching tentacle. She was too slow and it managed to wrap around her legs. The tentacle began to lift her despite her struggling, and pulled her up above the sickening mouth. The flavors emitted by the breath of it made Eve gag.

Without much else to do, it dropped her over its maw with the intent to swallow her. Eve dropped a bit sideways, and landed next to a tooth. With an Earth-shattering roar, it began to breathe in. The vacuum force of its inhalation sucked her tight to the outer surface of a blade-like fang. She held onto the surface as long as she could until it had to exhale again. At this point she took her cue to run. Eve climbed frantically up the side of its mouth, pulling her mallet like a wagon.

She began to climb its smooth head. It was seemingly unaware of her on top of it, as it did not attempt the toss her off. At the top of its head she slammed her mallet down repeatedly as if the thing was a nail. It began to grunt and squeal at high volumes. The beast collapsed and she rolled off, sliding down a heap of tentacles. On the ground were many of the worms it had been dripping. She broke into a jog and tried to splatter each one. She just barely hurt each one, as they would continue moving even with mash wounds to their centers.

Infection began to stir, soon it would attack once more. Eve was now surrounded by worms with nowhere to go. She thought about her situation, and slowly realized what was happening. This isn't real, I must have been dreaming. It suddenly occurred to her. That also meant a lot about what she had been through. She knew that she must still be alive somehow in the actual real world. Most importantly, that meant she could win.

Eve took control of her imagination. Her feet began to creep across the ground, her head now much high than the worms. She grew like a magic beanstalk until she was roughly the height of the monster. It felt very awkward to be so high, and she felt nauseous for a second. The monster however, did not care what size she was. It grabbed hold of her with all of its limbs. She panicked and started to struggle against the head as it tried to bite. She grabbed it by the neck and tried to choke it. A viscous white venom began to squirt from each of its shoulder pimples. The fluid sprayed unceremoniously all over her face, and she became a dripping mess.

A rage began to stir within Eve. Her joints popped and crackled all at once. Her muscles began to grow and tense up. Tattered grey wings tore out from her back, and her neck bulged to a frightening fitness. Soon she was a hulking shape that towered over the monster. She hammered its head, this time with her fists.

The beast gave a high pitched cry, like that of a dying bird. It too began to grow, more arms reached out of its body and grabbed the ground tightly. It shut its mouth, then opened it again to reveal a large quaking eye. It shot off a series of bright orange pulses from its pupil. The force of the beam threw Eve backward onto the ground. There was now a hole straight through the right side of her chest. Eve whimpered painfully. There wasn't much hope left, even with her new lucid dream abilities.

Then, an idea came to her as she watched the sky. She stood back up, completely straight. Her muscles started to return to normal and she grew much taller. She reached her arms right to the sky and tugged on the red capillaries. She drew them into a large net and dropped the entire thing on Infection. The red tubes began to spread all around the beast and consume it in a heap of wires. The vessels pulsed repeatedly and the ball shrank until it could no longer get any smaller with just the vessels. Eve reached over to the ball and grabbed it in her hands. She was compelled somehow, with no exact reason. Listening to the thought, she began to stuff the ball into the hole in her chest.

She opened her eyes slowly.

For a few minutes she couldn't see anything. Then slowly a rectangle appeared to her. The golden rectangle became clearer and clearer until she could finally see what it must be. Her body refused to move for a very long time. She managed a loud cough, a wad of dust flew from her throat. A horrible fury awakened in her as she remembered the feeling of being strapped down. The Power Bracelets beneath her gloves glowed brightly as she began to wiggle again.

With a sudden fury she leapt toward the stone seal. With both her palms wide, she put a forceful push on it. It slid a tiny bit open. Light came into the tomb and she spotted her belongings. She gathered her fairy, her mallet, and put on her cowl. She then tossed the hammer at the seal stone with all her strength. The flat stone burst to pieces outward. Most of the bits dropped outside while some of the stones fell back in. Eve bounced out of the tomb with an unusual glee. "Oh yeah!" she roared into the distance.

Her blood flowed anew with a malicious vigor.