Chapter 13 Din's Raging Ruby

Link stood energized by the calm intensity of a pre-battle stare-down. Strangely, the scorpion seemed to understand and respect this pause as well.

"There's some kind of honor in this beast." Link thought.

It readied a strike with the stinger; which Link was ready to dodge. Before he could do so, the tail was blocked and knocked back by a preemptive attack on Zelda's part.

"Link, I'll keep the tail off as long as I can. If you can take the claws out with your hammer, its head will be an open target."

"Got it!"

He charged in and quickly realized that it was much easier said than done. The scorpion effortlessly punched Link out of its way.

"Do you think you can hold its claws still as well?" Link asked.

"I'll try!"

Zelda conjured white halos that clamped the claws shut, and held them down.

"Hurry!" she shouted, struggling to keep her hold.

Link ran as fast as he could to the guardian's left claw. He slammed it a total of four times, each time the claw cracked more; and by the fourth strike, it was practically falling apart. The brace on the other claw suddenly broke free and the beast tried to clamp Link.

In a majestic move, Link leapt out of the clamping claw's way with a front flip, and used the momentum of the flip to strike the braced claw with even more force. The crushing blow shattered the left claw, forcing the scorpion back screeching in pain.

Its tail started moving unnaturally. This was due to the clash of Zelda's grip holding the tail and the scorpion trying to lunge at Link with it. All of a sudden, the tail stopped struggling. For a moment, it stayed still, but then it shot out a thick green liquid towards the young hero. Luckily, the spray missed, but the sand upon which the liquid landed began to dissolve.

"It's acid!" Zelda warned.

A look of perpetual fear covered Link's face as he gazed up to avoid the next volley of acid. The sand made it difficult to move quickly. He barely dodged the spray and had many close calls in between.

"What to do? I'm not fast enough…" he thought.

Zelda attacked with a barrage of explosive balls of fire that distracted and shrouded the scorpion's vision with smoke.

Link ran towards the mound of smoke that covered the beast. As he got closer, he discovered a halo wrapped around the claw and felt confident about his next attack. He bashed the claw four times, shattering it on the fourth.

The now defenseless arachnid backed up until it hit the wall. Advancing upon his foe, Link leapt at its head and began to break its protective face mask. He could only muster up three bashes, and a few cracks when he heard Zelda shout, "Look out!"

A few drips of the acid managed to escape Zelda's hold and were heading right at Link. In an act of desperation, he shot the head of his clawshot to the wall at his left. The riveting chain jingled as the claw reached for a surface. Once it latched on to the wall, the chain wound up and pulled Link towards it. He barely dodged the gush of acid.

"Looks like clawshot is the way to go now," he thought.

The arachnid seemed to have lost sight of its prey. Link took this opportunity to run up and slash at its two most frontward right legs, breaking its joints, and incapacitating its forward movement. The giant crawler squealed and shot a load of acid at him. He had already clawshot himself far out of the way by the time the acid hit the ground.

Link stood in plain sight to the beast and had to act swiftly on it. A trail of acid was sent flying his way. He used the clawshot to quickly dash himself back and forth along the wall to avoid any incoming splashes. After a couple of barrages, the acid had covered up most areas around him and he was running out of places to go.

"Zelda! Help!" he shouted as a last resort.

The next thing he saw was a large explosion that engulfed the guardian, creating a cloud of smoke and dust that covered its vision. The spraying stopped. Link ran out towards the center of the arena. He looked back at Zelda. She had her arms pointed out towards the beast from her last attack. Her body suddenly went limp and she fell to the ground. He immediately clawshot himself to the wall next to her.

"Are you okay?" Link asked in concern.

"That's it!" she stated.

"What?"

While pausing many times for heavy breathing, Zelda said, "I can't do it any more… I feel… so… weak… I'm… can't…"

"That's enough!" he said loudly to silence her. "Rest, I'll take care of it."

Link carried Zelda over to a spot behind a wall on the upper level where she would be safe. Her mind drifted away, but she understood his last orders: "Stay right here."

The young hero stepped back into the arena with a certainty that if he were to win this battle, it would be without the help of his sorceress; and that if he were to lose, it would mean the end of him, Zelda, and all of Hyrule.

The cloud of dust and smoke had dissipated so the scorpion could see him clearly. Link could discern that Zelda had managed to destroy the shell on its face with her last strike.

He was ready to fight his opponent one on one.

The scorpion attempted a first strike with a scatter of acid. In order to dodge the attack, Link clawshot himself to the right wall and started running toward his foe along the wall, avoiding the continued sprays coming his way. When he could no longer outrun the onslaught of acid, he pulled out his sword, and sent a clawshot to the face of the beast. The claw latched on, and pulled Link to its face with tremendous speed.

Upon reaching the face, the sword he had armed himself with was lunged into one of the crawler's eyes. Link pulled the sword out to unleash a three-slash combo on the scorpion's vulnerable mug. The screeches of pain roared across the chamber as it lunged its tail in desperation.

The hero was prepared for this attack and jumped back; however, what he did not expect was the close range spray of acid that the guardian shot out as the stinger rose out of the sand. He managed to shield himself, but the acid began melting the shield, which had to be discarded immediately.

"I gotta finish this now!" he thought.

The stinger lunged at him again, which he was able to dodge. An impulse took over him, and he shot the claw onto the stinger itself. As the tail was pulled back, Link was launched skyward, almost hitting the ceiling. He didn't loosen his grip on the stinger though: instead, he armed his sword and rappelled himself downward, gaining velocity as he charged. By the time he had landed and stabbed the stinger from above, he was moving with so much speed, that his crash landing slammed the stinger into the body of the scorpion, forcefully injecting acid into its internal organs.

Once again, the beast's cries echoed loudly across the chamber. To silence his foe, Link armed his hammer and slammed the hilt of the sword protruding from atop the stinger. The finishing blow plunged the tail even deeper into the guardian and broke its remaining legs, slaying the gargantuan arachnid and laying it to rest.

Link pulled his sword out and observed that the acid had corroded the blade beyond repair. Similarly to his shield, the sword was discarded. He leapt off of the massive carcass and then ran back to go check on Zelda.

The exhausted princess sat still against the wall in the same position Link left her in. The rested look on her face showed that she would not be conscious for a long time.

An ominous noise came from the direction of the fallen beast. He looked and saw that the giant scorpion was slowly vaporizing into dark violet smog. An assumption led Link to believe that it was normal for the guardians to dissolve in that manner.

With a sigh of relief, the young hero sat and rested next to Zelda.

"Just a few minutes…" he thought.

A few minutes would have actually been enough to put him to sleep. He was alarmed by a sudden loud and powerful tremor that shook the entire chamber. Link stood up and tried to figure out what was going on.

To his amazement, the entire lower level of the room was rising like a platform. The sand was shaken off and the stairs, which used to lead down, reversed their arrangement to climb upward. The platform stopped once it was the same distance above the outer rim as it used to be beneath it.

Link shook Zelda by the shoulders in excitement. "Zelda! Wake up! You have to see this!"

She opened her eyes drowsily, mumbled a few incomprehensible words, and then drifted back to sleep.

"Zelda. Zelda!"

He gave up on waking her up and went ahead up the stairs to see what was up there. Upon reaching the top of the podium, he saw a round red-orange gem that was slightly larger than an apple. A thin energy aura emitted by a small pedestal located at the center of the platform, reached up like an arm and gracefully held the gem suspended a few feet in the air.

Link was so mesmerized by the crystallized blaze of vitality he beheld that he lost track of the slow strides he was making. Before he knew it, the gem was within arm's reach. He reached out to grab it. As he did, the aura dissipated and he felt the weight of the gem as it landed on his hand.

It was not a perfect circle. What looked like crystallized flames rose from its top and sides, like a flame frozen in time. Within the precious stone, one would see a dancing fire at the center. It never looked quite the same at any instance. A rush of vitality and excitement filled the holder of the raging ruby. Link felt like he would never need to sleep again as he held it. He also felt powerful and invincible.

An important thought interrupted him. "Zelda!"

Though he was running at full speed, he noticed that he felt no fatigue even after the exhausting battle he just won.

"If the gem gives vitality, then it should wake her up!"

To test the theory out, he first tried to wake her up by calling her name. When he got a similar response as the last time, he proceeded to open her hand and place the gem on her palm.

Immediately, her eyes shot wide open and she jumped out of her seat. She turned to Link with a look of surprise, excitement, and a hint of fear.

"This is… this is… the gem!" she shouted in disbelief. "You defeated the guardian?"

"It appears so." Link answered with a gaze of contented delight. He was happy for Zelda's enthusiasm. It wasn't very often that you saw her like that.

"This is great!" she exclaimed.

Shortly after catching a glimpse of the raised platform, she dashed up the stairs, tripping twice, and made her way to the pedestal where she locked her attention on the ancient hieroglyphs written into the floor.

Link strode slowly behind, observing her investigation from a distance.

"Hey, what's this?" Zelda vibrantly said as she pointed out something at the base of the pedestal.

It was a shield that was embedded into the ground. It had steel rims and numerous designs on it including the symbol of the Triforce and eagle, along with decorative steel lining around the Hylian crest; the spaces in between were deep blue. Link reached at it and pulled it out of the ground. On its back, there was a handle that fit his right arm perfectly.

"This is nifty," Link commented.

"There is some form of a blessing on this shield. I can't tell what it does, but it is probably pretty sturdy." Zelda observed. She continued to read the name as it was inscribed on the platform.

"Hylian Shield," she read aloud.

"I like it!" he added as he made practice motions with the shield.

The princess let Link play with the new toy while she examined the writing.

"I got it!" she suddenly shouted in triumph.

She levitated the ruby in front of her and then dropped it into the pedestal. Glowing red lines of energy surged through the cracks and inscriptions all over the platform. The entire podium began to rise into the skylight, and kept on going until it reached the surface several hundreds of feet above the chamber.

Once again, they were back in the blazing heat of the afternoon desert sun.