A/N: Aaaaaaaaaaand I'm back! Did ya miss me? Admit it-you missed me! Sorry this chapter didn't come earlier-there was stuff that needed to be done, stuff that I won't go into detail with because you probably just want to read! I won't stop you-here ya go!
Zelda continued her trek across the Subspace Island, but she was growing increasingly tired, and the aches that remained from her confrontation with the Dremora weren't helping at all. Still, she traveled on, hoping for something, anything, that would show her she was getting at least a little close to either of her two final targets. She looked around the desolate area she stood in- the Ruined Zoo, the place where Lucas and Ness battled Porky. What looked like buildings were now reduced to nothing but ruins and debris. Zelda might've looked around a little more if she didn't hear her stomach growling. Crud. She forgot to pack food.
Okay Zel, not one of your most smartest decisions, she thought to herself. But, this place was once a zoo, right? Therefore, there must be food here. She scanned and searched the area for about fifteen minutes before frowning in frustration.
"What do I have to do, eat from the garbage?" She asked no one in particular. Then, as the words had emphasized it, Zelda noticed a garbage can a couple yards away with a discarded sandwich on it. She had no idea who would throw away a completely good sandwich without taking a bite out of it, nor who had been here so recently to begin with, but she simply stared at the food.
"I had to say 'garbage'. But, okay!" Zelda shouted. She sprinted over to the trash can and picked up the sandwich. It didn't look too contaminated or dirty. What could be the harm in eating it? Then, just as she was about to take a bite, frantic, tiny footsteps sped across the pavement ground. She turned towards the noise, but saw nothing. And then, a creature blasted through a hole in a nearby building's foundation. Startled, she shrieked and threw the sandwich at the blur. It missed, and the creature sped off.
Zelda frowned at the food on the ground. Just then, another blur shot from the hole. This time, she could make out the small shape of a Ratatta. It was fleeing from something. At that moment, memory struck as she remembered that this exact same scene happened before she battled the spriggan. Just then, a loud crashing sound could be heard in the distance, coming closer, and Zelda was half expecting another one of the tree creatures to burst forth and attack her, and something did burst- just not a spriggan.
This creature resembled an ape, large and hairy, with a muscular build. It had two long arms with three clawed fingers. When she looked at its head, she was surprised to see it had three dark, black eyes on its face with wicked fangs in its mouth. Zelda stared-this was a troll, and it carried with it a third ingredient for her potion-troll fat! She smiled. Like the spriggan, trolls were very susceptible to fire-so, Zelda just had to stay out of melee range of the troll and blast it with fire and ta-da! Victory!
As the animal sniffed the air, Zelda readied a fireball, but the troll smelled her long before her spell was complete. It grunted, then roared, and lumbered towards her. She quickly launched the flame, which struck its bulky body fairly easily, but the troll kept coming. Zelda backed up a little before firing another one, which hit it again. Just as Zelda was about to fire a third flame, the troll caught up to the princess and struck her hard with its long arms and sent her crashing into a nearby girder.
Zelda got up, but the troll was already on top of her, and batted her away again. She winced as she remembered trolls had great physical strength, so attacks with its arms hurt a lot. It trotted towards her once more, and Zelda quickly fired another fireball at it. When it hit, she jumped back and fired once more. She frowned. By now, the troll's health would've been returned to normal, given its ability to regenerate and heal wounds.
The troll roared once more and swung an arm. Zelda dodged and blasted, but was knocked down by a second blow. It swung a third time, and this time she rolled out of the way and hit her foe in the side with more fire. The troll turned and sped towards her, swinging its arms. She backed away, burning the troll, but with its regeneration ability and strength, defeating this foe would take a long time. Then, Zelda felt something cool and woodlike on her back- a large stack of crates. As she turned around in surprise, the troll caught up to her and swung at her once again and knocked her into the crates.
This was bad. If the fight kept up at this rate, Zelda might be dead before the troll was. As she picked herself up, she decided there was only one way out-and that way was up. Quickly, she clambered up the large boxes as the troll attacked again. It turned to where Zelda was sitting, on top of a crate. She gulped and prayed to Farore that trolls couldn't jump.
It approached the crates and let out an enraged roar. It swung its arms, only to hit air. She Zelda stared, purely dumbfounded. She couldn't believe it. On top of these crates, the troll couldn't get to her, it just swung at nothing. Zelda almost laughed, and readied her fire. She launched four, maybe five fireballs at it before something terrible happened. As it turned out, the troll hadn't been batting air earlier-it was batting at the crate. The same crate Zelda was standing on.
As soon as she heard the sound of splitting wood, she knew what was wrong, and was too late to avoid it. All at once, the crate shattered with one final swing of the troll's arm, and Zelda fell to the floor. While she was disoriented, the troll roared and swatted her backwards, then rushed to her and did it again, and attacked her a third time.
Zelda staggered. She knew she needed this to end now, otherwise she wouldn't survive. Zelda managed to weaken it when she was perched on the crates, but it had probably regenerated health since then, but not by much. Presumably, it might take three more flame attacks to kill it. She put a little more distance between herself and the troll, readied her fire, and launched it.
Boom! The first one hit. Boom! The second one hit. Boom! The third and final one struck its mark. The troll staggered and keeled over. It was almost dead, but not quite. Zelda charged at it, and delivered a magic-charged kick to the troll's head. With that final blow, the troll fell to the ground, in a heap of dust.
Finally, it was over. She let out a sigh of relief and approached the lifeless animal. She obtained what she needed-troll fat. Zelda put it in her bag and trudged out of the Ruined Zoo, feeling worse now than she had when she arrived. She didn't even remember she was hungry. As Zelda walked off, she dreaded the thought of the last creature she would need to fight to obtain the last ingredient for her potion.
A/N: Yay, Chapter 4 done! And, since I have no school tomorrow, I can get started on Chapter 5! Heck, I might even finish it tomorrow...I may even finish this tomorrow! Who knows, I'll have nothing but time! Unless I go to my friend's house...even so, I still might finish! Oh, and about the scene with Zelda on the crates...that's actually a true story! You see, when I was passing through some ruins called Labyrinthian while playing Skyrim, I encountered a frost troll. I backed up onto...some spot high up, and the troll couldn't get me! My original plan for this chapter was to have Zelda just flame the troll down while on the crates, but that seemed WAY TOO EASY. Well, thank you for reading, and Chapter 5 will be up soon! I will try not to not update for a week like I did before, so don't worry! We're getting close to the end here, so bear with me, okay? Great! See ya next chapter!