None of us wasted any time in preparing. The four of us spread out, forcing Vaati to split his attention over four separate fields of view. At the same time the four smaller eyes oriented on each one of us, though his main eye remained trained on the real me. Vaati made the opening attack, the eyes glowing, blinking, then each one firing a laser-like beam at us. They followed as each of us dodged and weaved to avoid it, gaining respite only when his arms got in the way – he wasn't stupid enough to miss when he was about to shoot himself.
Red and Blue had taken to one side of the field and were busily working around Vaati's right arm, though since my own attention was busy on the other alongside Purple what they were doing escaped me.
Vaati's arms both reached out, trying to catch any one of us, the one on our side of the field heading swiftly for Purple.
"What, am I not good enough for you?" I demanded as Purple leapt back, trying to avoid those great claws.
"Little help here!" he called to me. "I can't hold these things off on my own!"
"You don't say!" Red's voice came, followed by, "Get your eyes tested you ugly beast!"
That told me they were having trouble with swords alone too, and a different approach was needed. I sheathed my sword and quickly retrieved the Mole Mitts as I ran to Purple's aid, ducking underneath the hand as it reached for him, turning as I rose in front of it. It grasped and was caught on the claws of the mitts. It was a struggle to hold Vaati's claws open, but I didn't need to do it for long.
I didn't need to tell Purple to do anything, he quickly went through my pack and retrieved something – what I couldn't tell, I was holding back the claws. When he stopped I heard him murmur, "I wonder?" then there was a light 'pling' – the sound of the Cane of Pacci. It's light passed me and hit the claw, which was torn from Vaati's body and left writhing on the ground – with a small opening visible in the claw.
We shared a look, then he stabbed the arm to hold it still as I willed Zelda's gift to work, shrinking down to Minish size, already starting for the opening before I had fully shrunk. Just as I entered I heard the sounds of Purple leaving to come to the aid of Red and Blue.
Inside was a chamber made completely of the same dark indigo stuff as the arm itself, filled with clouds and more golden eyes – though only one had a red pupil to it. I used the gust jar to suck up the clouds to clear a route through the eyes, removing its cover as it tried to flee through them.
The eyes moved too erratically for it to use the others as cover, leaving me to simply run for them and attack it, striking again and again until the room started to shake – my signal to get back out of there and grow up again – if that's even possible for me!
When I emerged again I saw the chain of clouds that had attached it to Vaati was again writhing, but now also exploding, a chain reaction that led down to the claw and destroyed it. I also saw that the clouds forming the other arm had shoved themselves into the ground, and the rest had vanished. Red quickly ran to me, having to stop and run to one side as the rest of the arm appeared with the claw, shooting out of the ground nearby to try and grab him. Blue and Purple were there in moments, Blue trying to distract it while Purple tried to get a clear shot. Every time he did so, the eye trained on him shot a series of shorter laser pulses at him.
"Gonna need a distraction," Red told me quickly when he finally caught up. "Had an idea, need to nick something off you real quick."
"Get it quick like, that arm just came back out again," I told him. It was back attached to Vaati, and Vaati was headed our way. Red pulled out the Boomerang, as soon as he was done the both of us moving away form that arm to the side where the destroyed arm had been – Vaati could not reach us here without shoving his arm in the ground again or using the eyes, and they appeared to need time to recharge.
Again the remaining arm struck, this time for Purple. Blue stole the Cane of Pacci from him and tried to get a shot, but now he was the one being targeted by the eyes. Red threw the boomerang toward the eyes, two of which were still on us and started to fire at us again. The boomerang snagged the one shooting at Blue and dragged it away from Vaati, along the way knocking the other three, forcing them to loose their aim. I took a leaf from the previous battle and rolled several bombs in among them, so while Red attacked the separated eye the bombs blasted the other three.
It gave the opportunity to Blue to hit the remaining arm, and as I knew this would happen I tossed Purple both the Mole Mitts and Gust Jar, trusting him to figure out what needed to be done.
With Blue freed up and Purple already shrinking down to handle the other arm, Blue took out the Ice Rod and started blasting ice at the disoriented eyes. Red joined in, alternating between sword beams in one hand and the Fire Rod in the other. I hung back and used more bombs, watching Vaati in case he tried anything.
He did. The skies above still held the storm, and it started to rumble again. Sparks of lightning started to play over the surface of the clouds.
"Keep moving!" I barked quickly. "He's trying to hit us with lightning!"
Moving while still trying to attack wasn't as easy, and I was also running out of bombs and had to resort to the sword beams too. Purple still hadn't shown himself, and he was taking a while – what was taking him so long? I spotted the tiny figure of him look as if it was thrown, or had dived out as the arm reanimated. Purple grew again, looking irritated.
"Darker than the inside of your boots in there," he told me as he passed heading for Red, evidently to exchange Fire Rod for the bow. Now Vaati had his arm again the storm subsided somewhat, the eyes started to fire again to try to keep us from rounding on it again – but Blue had not only remained on that side of the field, he also had the arm itself as cover. The arm shot for him only to meet the oncoming light of the Cane of Pacci, separating it again. He jammed his sword into it to hold it still to give Purple the chance to get there and try again, using the Ice Rod to keep the eyes busy. Red again used the boomerang to drag the eyes away, moving about the field to get them all away from him. Without them attached to him, Vaati's main body crashed to the ground – concealed by the arms and hands were small bat-like wings, but apparently without arms or eyes, not even his own magic could support him.
Purple again shrunk down and dived into the arm, after which Blue retrieved his sword and we did what we could with the eyes before they recovered – this time blinking rapidly to create balls of energy that became supercharged by lighting strikes and oriented on us. I struck at one without thinking, expecting as I realised what I was doing to get a shock – but didn't. The tough grip of the sword wasn't metal, protecting me, and the ball of energy was struck away from me.
Blue and Red were quick to pick up on this, and now we had this new trick we made full use of it to strike back at the eyes even as they rejoined Vaati. Now they were back in a chain it was tougher, but we also noticed that if any two of us hit at the same time, it seemed to cause a chain reaction that stunned them for a moment. What would happen if we had all four of us at the same time?
At last the other arm finally began to explode and Purple rejoined us again, this time successful. Vaati dived for us himself, the eyes leaving a trail of more energy balls, all starting to turn on us. We had to scatter to avoid Vaati's physical attack, and even then with the balls all around us we had to deal with them before we could regroup. Vaati attacked again several times, in the process catching Purple, who vanished and was restored into my own sword. Though Vaati's expression was limited to just that one eye, I thought he looked triumphant, particularly as I didn't re-summon Purple – yet. I had a plan in mind.
After another attack I made a quick series of gestures to Red and Blue, gestures I normally use when I need to talk silently to other thieves. They understood, though they also looked slightly puzzled – and as Vaati attacked them too, they deliberately let themselves get hit as well.
I made several strikes on my own to clear the balls around me, also avoiding a renewed barrage of laser attacks and yet more energy balls, then when I had the space and opportunity I swung the Four Sword and brought all four back again.
"Gonna have to do better than that, dude," Blue taunted him. "Ain't gonna get rid of us that easily!"
Vaati's eyes had used up everything they had to attack me while I was still alone and needed time to recharge. He could have dive-bombed us again, but for whatever reason, chose not to as the four of us headed for him and attacked the eyes – which naturally tried to close. I'd expected this to happen and planned for it before restoring my three doubles, and we all knew what to do – just as they started to, each of us jammed the sword into the eye, causing the eyelids to snap shut on them. We wedged them back open and attacked again, every time they tried to close repeating the same trick.
Before long they started to bulge outward – a sign if ever I saw one. We all got clear quickly, not turning to see the four eyes all explode and shower the area with short-lived globs of shadowy clouds.
Vaati again crashed to the ground, unable to lift himself up. He blinked and the golden horns started to glow, first sucking the storm into them, then firing bolts of lightning at us. He was vulnerable and immobilised, but not defenceless yet. That storm had limited power to it though surely, and as soon as it ran out we'd have our opportunity.
We again resorted to evasion, but Vaati now could only watch so much. If any one of us went out of his field of vision, he gave us an opportunity. The two magic rods and the bow were used by my doubles of course, while I chose instead to get stuck in and attack by slashing away with my sword itself. I only ever got in a few strikes before the massive red eye turned on the body to stare at me and I had to retreat, but judging by the way the cloud-like body quivered every time I landed a blow, each blow really hurt.
He tried to grab with the claws every time any one of us got close of course, but he had only a limited reach to him now, and we were too quick for him. Enraged and frustrated he grew clearly more and more desperate, trying to hit any one of us but failing until the storm's energy was completely used up and he lay there on the ground, defenceless.
Oddly enough, I didn't have the heart to try to kill him. I don't really approve of that sort of thing anyway. But as it happened – by one of those suspicious coincidences – I somehow knew there was a better alternative. A few quick gestures gathered us together and keeping voices low I explained what I planned to do.
"Gather around him then," Ezlo told us. "To do that you need to form a square between yourselves. Maintain it best you can for best results. I'll do what I can to help you."
He need not have added 'best you can'. This was me, four times over, he was talking about. When working with myself I always have perfect coordination. We formed that square before we surrounded Vaati, who looked clearly afraid now. He reached out for us with the claws, but when he did we struck back, every blow taking more shadow from them, diminishing them until they were little more than stubby stumps. Then, as we'd planned, as the idea had formed in my mind, all four of us lunged in perfect unison. Our four blades glowed brightly as they slid into the cloudy body of Vaati.
Ezlo leapt down off my head and started chanting in the strange Minish tongue he had always used when utilising his own magic. As he did the winds started to rage once again, a vortex surrounding Vaati that whipped more of the cloud from him in a series of streams that shot into our blades. The eye shrunk as the cloud, and as he shrunk we closed in, keeping our swords in contact with him until the slight clink of metal on metal told us our blades had touched – then there was a bright flash of light and all three of my doubles vanished along with Vaati, becoming a single stream of grey-streaked light that streamed into the one true Four Sword.
A/N: Stay tuned, the final chapters of this story are still to come and on their way.
