AN: Sorry it took so long… bought the Wii edition of Resident Evil 4. 'Tis awesome. Close this window, forget my story, and go buy it now.
Naito approached the stone platform slowly, his eyes darting around the chamber for any sign of movement. He made it to the platform before the room began shaking, and a deep rumbling sound built up under the sand. Naito swore quietly, and drew his sword.
"WHY DO YOU DISTURB THIS TEMPLE?" the same voice from when the birds attacked said.
Naito didn't say anything. He spun quickly when he heard a loud crash from behind him. There was a small explosion of sand and as it settled it revealed a whirlpool-like dip in the sand. From the center of this, a giant green shape emerged. It was the head of some kind of large worm. It had gaping pincers on both sides of a large round mouth full of teeth. Its eyes were black and beady. A tongue with a rounded end protruded from its mouth, dripping saliva on the sand.
"I AM MOLGERA, GUARDIAN OF THIS TEMPLE AS APPOINTED BY GANON HIMSELF. THIS TEMPLE BELONGS TO ME AND MY OFFSPRING NOW… YOU ARE AN INTRUDER." The voice said, coming not only from Molgera but also the temple walls.
As soon as it finished talking, it struck. Naito ducked as it plunged its head forward, pincers gnashing at the air. Naito swung his sword up as it withdrew its head, but it glanced off its rock hard skin. Molgera burrowed under the ground again, disappearing from view. Naito spun and slashed suddenly, knocking a much smaller worm out of the air. This one was about as big as he was, but looked about the same as Molgera otherwise. It writhed on the ground for several seconds before turning to dust.
There was a loud roar, and Molgera once again surfaced, spraying sand everywhere. It lunged forward, but fell just short as Naito back flipped. Its tongue whipped out at him, and he instinctively slashed his sword forward. It left a deep gash in the tongue, and yellow blood spurted out. Molgera screeched in pain and withdrew, eying him warily. It delved back under, and Naito saw two smaller worms slithering through the sand toward him.
He ducked as they lunged simultaneously and rose with an upward slash as they were overhead. They were both cleaved neatly in two. Naito spun just in time to see Molgera rise again from the sand. It lunged, stopped halfway toward him, and then suddenly its tongue darted out, slamming into his left hand. His sword went flying, and the tongue moved to the side, sticking to his torso. He yelled in surprise and tried to pull free, but it was no use. Molgera began reeling him in. Naito dug in and tried to push himself backward, but he was slowly dragged toward the gargantuan worm's jaws.
Just as the teeth loomed almost overhead, an arrow clipped the side of his hat and pierced down through the tongue on an angle. It instantly let him go and shot back in. Molgera screeched in rage. Naito back flipped, scooped up his sword and then spun around. Link was standing on the ledge where Naito had entered from, his bow drawn and another arrow ready. He looked like hell though: half of his face was covered with blood, one eye was swollen halfway shut, his hat was gone, and there were splotches of blood on his tunic… not all of it was human blood, at least.
He fired another arrow, but this one glanced off of one of Molgera's pincers uselessly. Molgera hissed in anger, and said "YOU... HOW DID YOU SURVIVE?"
"Bit of advice: your enemy is never dead until you've seen their body." Link said smoothly, leaping down from the ledge. He ran at Molgera, firing arrow after arrow. Quite a few missed, but many struck the tongue as well. Molgera screamed in rage and slid back under the earth.
Link slowed down beside Naito and put his bow away. He smiled slightly, reaching into his pouch. He pulled out a strange looking contraption, and tossed it over to Naito.
"Picked this up for you on my way. It's like my hookshot; you'll figure it out." Link as he turned to face Molgera, who surfaced from below again.
Naito realized the thing Link had tossed him had a glove, and he slipped it on. There was a large, metal thing attached to the glove with a sharp spearhead slightly protruding from the end. He felt a trigger inside the glove, and gave it a squeeze. The hook sprung out on a coiled chain, reached the end and then retracted back automatically.
Molgera opened its jaws, and without warning a stream of purple acid spewed forward. Link and Naito dove in opposite directions, rolling into the sand. The acid hissed and melted away parts of the stone platform. Link quickly slid his iron boots on as soon as he rose, and then fired his hookshot at Molgera's tongue. As he retracted it, his weight pulled the tongue as far as it would reach, and then Molgera slowly began to fall toward him. Link gritted his teeth as Molgera tried to pull back; it felt like his arm was going to be pulled off.
There were several loud screeching sounds, and Naito looked up. He saw a dark cloud of the black birds descending toward them from the high ceiling. He looked back at Link and saw his face clenched against the pain. He spun back to face Molgera, and aimed his own hookshot at its tongue. Without any extra weight, he was pulled up to Molgera's tongue. He held his sword with the tip aimed at the tongue as he was pulled up, and the sword pierced the tongue deeply. Molgera shrieked in pain and stopped tugging, causing it to be pulled over suddenly by Link. Naito's momentum carried him up to just above Molgera's mouth, and he back flipped off of its head as it fell, pushing himself clear of its body.
Link instantly retracted his hookshot out of its tongue and charged forward. It was laying half in and half out of the ground, stunned. Its mouth was open and its tongue hung out. Link brought his sword up and slammed it down with a yell, severing the end of the tongue. Naito stepped to the side as the yellow blood began to flow. Link spun and faced its open mouth, and fired an ice arrow into its throat and blocked it off, just to be sure. Molgera twisted around in rage and pain, raised its head off the ground with a choked roar, and then collapsed back, dead.
The birds, which had just about reached them, stopped moving suddenly and simply plummeted to the ground. A small green worm crawled out from the back of each bird's head, and died after trying to crawl away.
"What's happening?" Naito asked.
"I'm pretty sure these worms are all Molgera's children… Molgera was like the queen of a hive, it seems. Without her, they don't know how to function. The worms must be parasites that can take over the body of their host." Link told him.
Makar was flying down toward them now, and he touched down on the large stone platform.
"Before we start, you have to tell me how you lived. You've done some insane stuff, but this probably tops it all." Naito said to Link.
"Fair enough. Let's see… as soon as I fell, the birds followed me… although I guess you saw that. That's why I look like I do; they were tearing at me as I fell. I was just thrashing around as they clawed at my face, and they even stole my hat."
"Gasp! Not your hat!" Naito exclaimed in mock horror.
"Yeah, listen, shut up and let me tell the story, ok? Anyway, I had fallen a fair way down and I could see the fan below. The birds had finally started to back off by now. Then I had the weirdest idea… I knew how I could stop myself from hitting the ground, except that I would have died from the sudden stop anyway. So what I did to break my momentum was use Farore's Wind to set a warp point right there in the air. What that means is that if I use the spell again, I go back to where I set the point. So I used it just before I hit the fan and reappeared in the air about fifteen feet above the fan. It was then a short drop to the fan where I normally would have been hacked to bits. Instead, I created a protective shield around myself using Nayru's Love. The fan has a cover, see, which goes over about half of it… I guess it's there to let you walk over the fan or something, I don't know. Anyway, I got stuck between a blade and this cover, and stopped the fan… after the shield wore out I just dropped down below, where I thought I was safe…"
"And you weren't?" Naito cut in.
"I'm getting to that. Turns out, I broke the fan. The birds saw I was alive, so they dove down at me. I ran for it; there was a door leading away, but the birds caught up. They tried to drag me back into the open where more of them could get me. I threw a bomb and it startled them long enough that I could get away. I spun and used a light arrow, which blinded them long enough for me to bolt through the door and close it behind me."
"What was behind the door?" Naito asked.
"I would tell you, if you didn't keep cutting in with pointless questions. There was a small, square room with a chest in the middle. That's where I got that hookshot. Only after I took it, the door locked and a hidden panel on the wall opened. This weird black human-like bird thing that looked kind of like a Rito attacked me. I wasn't exactly feeling up to fighting, so I nailed it with an ice arrow and stopped it in its tracks."
"THAT was all it took?" Naito gasped.
"For a while. Long enough for me to notice the hole in the wall up near the ceiling. There was a rope nearby, so I climbed up and out… and that was when the bird broke out and soared up after me. It knocked me over and was circling above for the kill when it stopped, cocked its head as if it heard something, and took off through a hole in the wall higher up. I was standing in the room with the fan, on a ring of ground around it. I was starting to feel sort of lightheaded by now, so I ducked back into the room I just came out of, hoping it would be safe from the birds if they came back. I barely had enough strength to slide down the rope. I rested a bit; I think I might have dozed. Anyway, when I was feeling a bit better, I shimmied back up and headed through the only door there. You know what happened next; I ended up in here, looking at that giant worm."
There was brief silence, and then Naito shrugged. "That was it? I expected something flashier, like single handedly fighting the whole flock and then roping them together using the fuses from all your bombs, and gliding to safety with them before fighting your way through a thousand dark warriors to get here."
There was a longer silence. Link broke it by saying, "Next time, you try almost dying and see what you come up with."
They looked at each other for a minute, and then burst out laughing. They hugged each other; laughing so hard tears were rolling down their cheeks.
"Good to see you." Naito finally said as the laughter finally started to subside.
"Likewise. Now let's get this done; Ganon's waiting." Link said, and the two joined Makar on the platform. They once again performed the ritual, just like in the Earth Temple. Naito led them through the Wind God's Aria, with Link on his Ocarina and Makar on his fiddle, the three standing in a triangle around the Master Sword in the pedestal. As they finished, the column of light once again enveloped the sword.
When it faded, Naito drew the blade again. He held it up, and it suddenly shone with white light, bright enough to force Naito to close his eyes. Link watched as the diamond gem in the hilt regained its golden shine. The light dimmed, slowly fading away, although not entirely. Link could now see the sword's familiar dull glow that went beyond light simply reflecting off of the blade. It brought a small smile to his lips.
"Power has been returned to your sword… you should go and confront Ganon now. I will wait here, and protect the power of the sword. Come visit again after your victory; I promise the temple will be returned to its former splendour." Makar said as wind gathered around Link and Naito. They both waved to him as they were lifted up by the temple's power, and were carried away to prepare for their final battle.
AN: There… finally finished. You have no idea how many times I rewrote parts of this chapter. If you're trying to figure out how you can show your appreciation, the "submit a review" button is down there at the bottom left.