Link stared at the Nothing. It was the only remaining defiance Link could manage within the crystalline cage.
The Nothing stared back.
Why was it keeping him here? Because he didn't freeze in its world like the others? Because it wanted Zelda to find him? It all seemed senseless.
“They call me Null.” It said, in a voice of thousands of no-longer-things. If he focused, maybe he could've heard his own voice. Trapped in that thousand.
“You are right.” Null said, the voice narrowing into something more familiar. Still a monstrous combination of stolen things, but honed. Just enough to grind against his ears in its corrupted familiarity. Seemingly to flaunt what was taken.
It could read his thoughts?
“You creatures are all so loud.” It said, near a snarl of a sound, “It matters little where it comes from. The voice is simply the loudest part.”
Link huffed. So that's why it stole his voice first, out of all the options. Mere annoyance. Link slid down to sit in the crystalline cage. He had exhausted uselessly banging against walls hours ago. He might as well ignore the monster and take a nap until he could figure something out. Without Null right there to immediately halt his progress.
“I do have one question before you do that.” Null announced, leaning toward him.
He glanced up through his bangs, glaring at the creature of void.
“Why is existence so… important? Why fight for something most experience so little of?”
It was a strange question. Link settled uneasily in his awkward lounge. Why fight for life beyond to live? For friendships, family, for food and sleep and music and laughing and talking and just living. For everything. He could hardly imagine a reason not to fight.
He glared at it. Why create monsters to terrorize and spread fear? Why tear up everything?
The Nothing cracked open like an eerie, hungry smile, “It is delicious.” It formed clawed hands to grab the crystal he was encased in. Link scrambled to his feet. His back hit crystalline wall, instincts flaring to run-fight- He couldn't even scream as he was pulled closer to the maw of the void. It had his voice!
It cackled, “Chaos makes it all the sweeter.”
Link stared, wide-eyed and panting. They weren’t fighting a monster that wanted mere energy and power. That was a means to an end. This was a creature who would simply consume the world whole. …He needed to escape.
Null hummed and released his cage. “I suppose I never answered your first question.” Its voice returned to the thousand nothings, “I'm simply saving you, the princess, and the Goddesses for last. I aim to savor that taste.”
It tapped the crystal like a child tapping the glass of a fishbowl. Toying with him. Link forced himself not to flinch. He furrowed his brow. He crossed his arms, sitting back down. He would not be intimidated.
If nothing else, he knew Zelda was out there, out of its grasp. And that hope alone was plenty to fight for.
did any of you expect a sequel to my phaaze is a void (kirby) post? i sure didn't
just 100%ed LOZ echoes of wisdom, incredible game i had pretty low expectations after the link's awakening remake was just kinda okay to me but it blew me away, but i was losing my shit the entire final boss fight because the fucking thing happened again
quick recap, kirby star allies' final boss is void termina, right, world of destroyers devil-like thing, in japanese it's said "There are as many Voids as there are skies." meaning there's one of these for every dimension, and with how self-referential nintendo is and how the great cave offensive from kirby super star referenced almost every nintendo property anyone remembers lol so they'd in theory have voids too, so i said phaaze was the metroid world's void given it was kinda sorta similar to kirby's dark matter
i hadn't really thought too hard about any other candidates (mainly because the only nintendo lore i really got invested in was kirby, metroid & pikmin so far lol, i've only beaten like 3 zelda games now) but figured demise from LOZ skyward sword was a fairly decent choice for zelda's, given he's also the series' mega-satan from ancient times that started a cyclical loop of hero vs bad guy that void termina also kinda had, until i was introduced to echoes of wisdom's antagonist, Null
cutting it here since i ramble a lot and don't want to eat your screen
so, get this,
this giant black/purple blob thing has existed since before the world existed
devoured anything that formed
got sealed away when the world was created
but still desires to return the world to nothingness
and basically rips holes in reality that people keep falling into especially children
creates mimics of people with red eyes and has a reoccurring thing of purple smog
and it's final fight is within it's own innards against a weird glowing core thing that initially has a shell resembling the Tris which are essentially it's antithesis
void termina may not be a black blob but dark matter certainly are
void termina's title is literally Destroyer of Worlds (and in japanese they're named Nil, unfortunately not Null too they're Nihil)
and is a thoughtless soulless force of destruction until kirby kills them with the power of friendship which is implied to rebirth them as a good guy or whatever
i don't remember it ever being explicitly stated they've always existed but everything points to that being the case, they got sealed away in ancient times only to get reawakened recently
they flee through a random wormhole to Another Dimension which is kirby's Freaky Otherworldly Place when you fight them and they have some weird association with AD in general
when someone is possessed by void termina's fragments they're surrounded by purple smog and some of them get red eyes but not always and also it creates a copy of them in AD??? or their soul is sent there and corrupted as well or something since it's said they're not actually clones??? the Parallels are very confusing, also at least one child has been raptured into Another Dimension though that was unrelated to void
their final phase is fighting them within their own innards that initially has a shell that just looks kinda weird but when torn off reveals a face resembling kirby which is essentially void's antithesis given it's the like the source of Dark Matter or whatever which kirby is absolutely the opposite of
oh also both have weird ass masks
and is it just me or does that blob bit vaguely look like void termina's core too
and another thing, the final dungeon of echoes of wisdom, Null's Body, is just a giant blob of darkness with a weird and organic looking inside, kirby 64 had Dark Star as the final level which was just a giant blob of darkness made up of all the dark matter though the innards of void termina is a better comparison since dark star doesn't really look organic lol
if only things in zelda came in sets of four instead of three like they do in kirby since void termina was sealed away by four heroes but null was sealed away by the three element goddesses or whatever, i know about hylia but they weren't mentioned at all in echoes of wisdom? at least nowhere important
i'm probably gonna try and look for more of these voids now that i've done it twice on accident lol, but it's kinda complicated because to avoid going on an entire rant the length of the rest of this post, it's said that voids manifest differently depending on what type of energy is gathered and there's four Matters also mentioned in void termina's japanese descriptions: Heart, Dream, Soul & Dark, these are definitely the types of energy void can gather given that Dark Matter, and we aren't told what the fuck these are as like fundamental forces even though they're major recurring themes in the franchise, and void termina (and phaaze & null lol) are dark matter voids but that leaves the other 3 types of matter voids completely unknown (i personally think fecto elfilis from kirby and the forgotten land is either a dream or soul void but that's another topic), and those would also not have most of the thematic connections i'd be looking for, it's almost like i'm looking for unintended patterns across franchises made by totally different teams of people, so uh i'll be on the lookout but don't expect a third of these any time soon
