Phew, I finally finished this chapter!

Enjoy! ;)

Chapter 19: The City in the Sky

The ancient broken cannon has reformed itself somewhere near Fyer's ride at Lake Hylia. The heroes were reformed as well, and, after changing back to normal, they proceeded to head over to Fyer to let him know about the cannon.

"Hey, buddies!" Fyer greeted, and then noticed the cannon in the distance. "So… Uh, is that yours?"

"Well, yeah…" Link replied.

"Heh heh… Hey, buddies, I never thought you'd get so hooked on fantastication that you'd try to build your own cannon! So…are you gonna give me the tour or what? Looks like you have a serious rig over there…"

"Sure." Link and his friends led Fyer over to the cannon as the latter took a good look at it.

"Whoa! It's kind of…retro, huh? And there's no ignition device, so you can't even use it."

"We know." Mario said. "Do you think you can fix it for us? You do have a fondness for cannons, so…"

"Hmm…" Fyer mused before facing the group. "Listen, buddies, I suppose I might be able to fix it for you… I mean, maybe…"

"Maybe?" Yoshi tilted his head.

"That is, if you can pay me 300 Rupees…in advance. Whaddaya say?"

Link sighed. "Here you go." he hands Fyer 300 Rupees.

"Heh heh… I knew you'd see the light, buddy." Fyer chuckled as he took the Rupees. "Now I'll just be a sec!"

Unfortunately, this second, or sec as Fyer said, turned out to be days, as Fyer spent almost all days and nights fixing the cannon while the heroes who were standing there spent their time in that spot either sleeping, having lunch, playing cards… you know it. Eventually, the cannon was only completely fixed at the fifth day in the afternoon.

"Here we go, buddies." Fyer said, wiping the sweat out of his forehead. "All working as it should…I think."

"Finally!" Daisy exclaimed. "It was boring standing here for five days!"

Fyer just ignored Daisy and continued, "It may look like junk, but this thing's got some powerful innards! You're going to be knocking on the door to the heavens! Seriously, buds… It might be rough!"

"Eh, we can handle it." Toon Link said.

"If you say so… Anyways… I'm sorry for soaking you for the dough. I'll leave you alone, then. Heh heh… Well, you just have all the fun you want, OK, buddies?" Fyer then left back to his ride.

"You all ready?" Link asked his friends.

"Ready!" they nodded as everyone somehow managed to squeeze themselves into the cannon.

The cannon started moving on its own, standing up on its 'legs' while aiming for the sky, and blasted everyone off.

"WHOOOOAAAAAA!" the heroes screamed as they were sent rocketing up to the skies before falling down, thankfully right into a puddle of water.

The City in the Sky is an ancient city that is home to the Oocca. This place runs on many ancient and complex machines that are far more advanced than anything found below the clouds, including spinning propellers that keep the several floating islands aloft and fans that generate powerful winds, which could be why this city prospered. It is highly possible that this city is what remained of a certain peaceful village that came to form due to the ancient goddess Hylia lifting it up to the skies, but since the humans living up here moved to the surface, this place was left in ruins and began to fall apart as a result.

After recovering from the wild ride they've been through, the heroes swam over to dry shore and looked around the place.

"So this is the City in the Sky…" Rosalina breathed.

"Just how high up are we?" Daisy wondered.

"No idea, but this is-… Whoooooa!" Luigi exclaimed when a strong gust of wind suddenly blew on them that pushed them to the side until they touched a wall. "Golly, this place is windy!"

"We probably won't be going anywhere with those strong winds constantly pushing us around." Mario stated.

"Don't worry, I got this." Toon Link said and pulled out the Wind Waker as he started conducting something. "Strong winds, become gentle breezes!" he thought with his eyes shut.

It seems that the winds somehow listened to the Hero of Winds' thoughts as they suddenly died down, and now these winds were now blowing gently on the heroes' faces instead of violently, much to Link, Midna, and the Mario cast's surprise.

"…H-How did you do that?!" Link asked his counterpart incredulously.

"I used the Wind Waker to command the winds." Toon Link replied with a proud smirk. "I'm not called the Hero of Winds for a reason!"

"I'll admit… For a light dweller, that was actually pretty impressive." Midna said and then they were about to proceed forwards to begin navigating the dungeon, when they suddenly heard a loud roar that echoed through the whole skies.

"What was that?" Peach asked.

"Up there!" Yoshi pointed up as everyone followed his pointing finger, and to their shock, a large black-armored dragon with crimson wings came swooping in by and flew off in the distance.

"W…Was that a dragon?!" Luigi asked.

"That's a new one…" Link awed. "I'm pretty sure we'll have to fight it."

"You think it has the last mirror shard? Then let's get going!" Midna said as they all went to the left path, avoiding the Baba Serpents on the way before Link struck the diamond switch above with an arrow to open the gates leading to the door.

The room they entered had several gaps and columns, the latter having some of them broken. Vegetation was wrapped around these columns, and some tiles on the floor were blue. Roaming around this room were Helmasaurs and several Oocca.

Link had the idea to pick up one of the Oocca and use it to fly over the gaps, while Toon Link opted to use his Deku Leaf, and the Mario cast did the same thing as Link did. They glided over the gaps while avoiding the Helmasaurs, and then they reached the door on the other side.

This next room, the Central Fan Chamber, worked as the dungeon's main hub, as it was large with three different directions to go to. The group first took out the Helmasaurus in the middle of the room before looking around, and saw that all doors were available, so they asked Midna to fly up to the left grating above to take a look outside. Soon, she came back in and reported:

"Both the left and right sides are inaccessible, the latter side having a locked door, and the middle one had large propeller-things that weren't moving at all. But, I did see a mechanism on the left and right sides that resemble the ones found at the Arbiter's Grounds."

"Well, I think we know where to go first, though that opening above is too high, so you better wait here." Link instructed as the others nodded and then he faced Midna. "Thanks for your help, Midna."

"What I'm here for!" Midna replied warmly as Link used his clawshot at the grating on the left to go up and head outside, where he used the spinner to activate the mechanism as it caused a bridge to appear.

The rest of the group met up with Link while he was crossing the bridge and helped him fend off the roaming Kargaroks before going into the next room, where they got a Small Key from a chest and left. However, as soon as they crossed the bridge again to head back to the hub, the same dragon from before came in all of a sudden and destroyed the bridge by ramming into it. The dragon then flew off into the distance again.

"Oh, great fan-freaking-tastic! That dragon broke down the bridge!" Daisy complained.

"Hey, I'm sure we'll find a way to get back there later." Link stated. "For now, let's just go back and use the key we got."

With that, Link activated the other spinner mechanism on the right side to make a bridge leading to the locked door appear, and then they all walked across and unlocked the door. On the next room, the Links put on their iron boots to walk through the strong winds coming out of the fans as they dealt with a few Helmasaurs while Yoshi spotted a diamond switch on a pillar and commanded an egg to home itself onto it. That caused the fans to deactivate, allowing the Mario cast to progress, and when they reached the other side, they saw the Links coming out of a door while holding the Dungeon Map in their hands.

"This is a… pretty big dungeon…" Toon Link blinked as they all looked at the map.

"Well, it's not like it'll take too long because it's slow paced, right?" Yoshi shrugged.

"Here's hoping." Peach said as they went to the next door.

In the next room, Mario shot fireballs at the Keese flying around before the heroes proceeded to jump across the gaps. Some of the tiles had Tile Worms hiding in, in which they were blown down into the abyss by Link throwing the gale boomerang at them, and then the group kept jumping across until they reached the door on the other side.

For the next room… they only had to fight off a pair of Dinolfos, which was made a lot easier due to the fact that the heroes could just send these lizards falling down from the sky.

"Well that was pathetic." Midna remarked as a gate opened up above. They climbed up the vines to reach up there, where they found a few Oocca and pots, and then Link eyed at the bulb-like ornate handle above as he used the clawshot to hang himself to it and pull it down, making an updraft appear in the room.

Seeing that, Link picked up one of the Oocca and jumped off towards the updraft as everyone else watched him being sent high up by it, and so the Mario cast picked up an Oocca each as well while Toon Link used the Deku Leaf again and they flew up after Link who was standing at the door above.

They had to make use of the updrafts again in the next room, so by using the Oocca and the Deku Leaf in Toon Link's case, they made it around the wall on the left where there was another handle for Link to pull it down to activate another updraft up ahead. Then, they just flew on ahead using the remaining updrafts and reached the next door.

It took them to the Great Wind Tower that consisted of four levels, many sorts of enemies, fans sending out strong winds, and clawshot targets everywhere. They knew that this tower might be the key for them to reach the very top of the dungeon, but for now, they still couldn't go up that high, so they had no choice but to go with the flow of the dungeon, like it or not. By using more Oocca and the Deku Leaf, the heroes glided all the way down to the bottom of the tower, as the door on that level was the only one that could easily be accessible at the moment, and they went in.

The first thing that caught everyone's attention in the next room was the handle hovering above a large fan blowing wind upwards, so Link again used the clawshot, but he also put on the iron boots to weight it down to deactivate the fan below. Noticing an arena-like room below the fan, Link called out to the others to go down, and so they all did.

Upon landing on the floor, they looked around the room cautiously, knowing for sure that something might strike soon. It was then that a flying creature suddenly swooped by behind the heroes with a loud roar as some of them jumped in startle.

"Ack!" Luigi yelped. "What was that?!"

"Look!" Toon Link looked up as the others did the same, seeing a lizard creature with dragon-like wings and was carrying a sword and a round shield.

That was an Aeralfos.

"A flying creature, eh? Like we'd never seen one before!" Midna smirked as they all got ready to battle it as it screeched at them.

The Aeralfos came swooping downwards to attack Link, forcing him to block with his shield and countered, hitting the Aeralfos on its torso and then charged up a spin attack to slash it away. The Aeralfos quickly recovered and proceeded to spit fireballs at them, but Mario countered them by launching his own fireballs, and then Yoshi made an egg block as he jumped over it and landed behind the Aeralfos before striking it with his tail.

Roaring angrily, the Aeralfos managed to slash Yoshi away and destroyed the egg block before clashing blades with Link again, as Toon Link attempted to fire an arrow at it, but the creature saw it coming and flew up into the air to avoid it. However, the Aeralfos had its shield in front of it, as Link noticed that it looks similar to a clawshot target and so he fired said item at the shield, bringing the Aeralfos down to his level as it tried to stab Link, but he rolled around and used a back slice on it.

The Aeralfos flew up again, and this time it breathed a flamethrower right below it and sent it out as a fiery shockwave at them, but they dodged it as Luigi rained down a powerful lightning bolt at the Aeralfos, which stunned it as it cried in pain while falling back down to the ground, and then Link finished it off with a helm splitter.

After taking that last hit, the Aeralfos drops its weapons and falls to the ground before exploding. Eventually, the gates above a ledge opened up, revealing a chest on the other side. While Peach was healing Yoshi from the slashing mark he received from the Aeralfos, Link used the clawshot to get up to the ledge and opened the chest to pull out a second Clawshot and Hookshot, the latter being similar to the one Toon Link has.

"Oh?" he eyed at them.

"What did you get?" Mario asked.

"Another clawshot and hookshot, apparently."

"Wait, a second hookshot?" Toon Link's eyes perked up as Link tossed him the hookshot. "Wow! I didn't know there would be another one in here!"

"Hey, perhaps you two can wield both clawshots and hookshots at once?" Rosalina speculated.

"Hm, that could work." Link replied and then eyed at the clawshot targets and at the vines at the fan on the ceiling. "I wonder…" he mused before he used one of the clawshots at a target, and then he aimed the other one at the vines as he was pulled towards them and climbed up. "Nice!" he exclaimed.

"Oh, that looks fun!" Toon Link exclaimed and did the same thing as his counterpart did.

"That's great and all, but what about us?" Yoshi wondered after Peach finished healing him.

"Don't worry, I can just teleport us up there." Daisy said and used Farore's Wind to teleport the rest up to where the Links were.

Now that Link has the Double Clawshots and Toon Link the Double Hookshots, they and the Mario cast could explore out this dungeon more. So they left the room to return to the Great Wind Tower, where the Links proceeded to clawshot and hookshot their way up by using the targets on the walls until they got to another handle, and Link weighed it down to open up a gate that was slightly below him that led to a door. The Links then lowered themselves down to the gap's level and got over to the door and then waited for the others, in which Daisy had teleported them here before they all went into the door.

And that was just the beginning of the Links exploiting the Double Clawshot and Double Hookshot while poor Daisy had to rely on constantly teleporting the others to where the Links would end…

A LONG time later…

"Ugh, I am so worn out on energy…" Daisy groaned, as her energy had been drained due to overusing Farore's Wind all the time just so that they could get to where Link and Toon Link were after using the double clawshots and double hookshots to get around.

"We're sorry that you have to do this…" Toon Link said pitifully as they had got to the exterior of the Central Fan Chamber.

In here, they first took out the Dinolfoses and the Kargaroks before climbing up some vines, and then the Links changed into wolves so that they could cross the tightropes while the Mario cast followed them by flying as ravens.

"You know, since you're that tired of using that teleportation spell, you and the others could just stick to being ravens!" Midna suggested, addressing Daisy.

"I guess that would be a less tiring idea." Daisy shrugged… well, she tried at least since it was hard for her to do that as a raven.

"I guess it's settled then." Link replied and he and the others turned back to normal before they all went through the door, where the Links put on their iron boots due to the strong updraft in the middle of the room and defeated the two Helmasaurus, with the Mario cast assisting them with projectiles, and then Link went over to the fancy chest to take out the Big Key. "All right! The key to the boss!" he exclaimed.

"Nice!" Toon Link exclaimed and then noticed a handle above, so he aimed his hookshot at it and weighed it down to deactivate the fan generating the updraft.

They went down to the lower level and dealt with the two Helmasaurs before Link hung himself from the grating on the ceiling by using one of his clawshots and lowered down below the fan and pulled down another handle to activate the large fan from the hub room that made the large propellers from the outside to spin.

With that, everyone dropped down to the hub room and went to the door in the middle, where the Links proceeded to use their double clawshots and hookshots onto the propellers' gratings while the Mario cast flew off as ravens as they also took care of the Kargaroks flying around so that they wouldn't get in the Links' way.

Once the Links reached the other side, they all went through the door, taking them to the interior of the Northern Fan Tower as all they had to do was to get all the way up on top where the boss door was while also activating some diamond switches to activate some of the propellers. They first had to deal with two Aeralfoses before they could start their climbing, or flying in the Mario cast's case.

Soon, they finally reached the boss door as the Links dropped down from the target they were on while the Mario cast changed back to normal.

"Finally, we're here!" Midna exclaimed. "I was getting bored from this dungeon!"

"You and me both." Daisy said as Link unlocked the door and they all went in, where it took them outside, and they saw the two destroyed columns having an iron grating and vines respectively on them… and that made the Mario cast sweatdrop in exasperation. "Oh great, more climbing…" Daisy muttered as they were forced to change into ravens again while the Links relied on their grappling hooks to go up.

The path up led them to a large square-shaped grassy platform that was higher than the rest of the city, and had four pillars with iron gratings around it. As the Mario cast shifted back from their raven forms before they all proceeded to walk to the center of the arena, the same dragon that had been circling around the city came in swooping past above the heroes' heads as the sky was suddenly filled with thunderclouds. The dragon came back and hovered in front of them while letting out a loud roar at them.

"The Twilit Dragon, Argorok!" Midna snarled as Argorok proceeded to just fly around the arena.

"So we're really fighting a dragon…" Yoshi awed. "Where do we start?"

Link eyed at the pillars around, then at Argorok's tail, which was strangely shaped like a grappling hook at its tip, and that gave him an idea. "I got it!" he exclaimed and proceeded to use his clawshots to get high up in order to aim for Argorok's tail, but then Argorok spotted Link and flapped its wings to send out cyclones at him. "Whoa!" he yelled and quickly avoided them by moving to another pillar.

"I think we might need some help here." Rosalina said. "Everyone, cover me! I'm going to summon someone!" she requested the others.

"Got it!" Peach nodded as they took off while Rosalina began to concentrate as she had her wand in front of her.

"Bring me someone who has fought dragons before!" Rosalina declared and opened up a portal.

The one who came out of the portal this time was a young man clothed in purple, laden with brown leather and a satchel. He was equipped with a sword and a shield, and had a smooth mop of brown hair. Upon landing on the ground on his feet, the swordsman looked around him.

"Whoa… Where am I?" he wondered.

"Hello there." Rosalina came up to him.

"Were you the one who brought me here?"

"Yes, I was. I'm Rosalina, and I heard that you've dealt with dragons before, right?"

"Yeah, I have. Dozens, if you ask me."

"Then do you think you could help us-…"

"…-Fight off that dragon?" the swordsman completed Rosalina's sentence upon noticing Argorok, and then glanced back at Rosalina with a determined smirk. "Sure, I'll gladly help." he drew out his sword and shield and charged forwards.

In the midst of that, Link had managed to hang on to Argorok's tail tip by using the clawshot at it and put on the iron boots to weight the dragon down to the bottom level, where it landed sprawled on the ground and most of its armor was shattered.

"It has armor on? Then I know what to do first." the swordsman thought as he was still rushing towards Argorok. "Metal Slash!" he yelled, as he easily sliced through the rest of Argorok's armor like swiss cheese as everyone watched in surprise.

"…Okay, how were you easily able to cut through metal with just your sword without breaking it?!" Link asked.

"I used a skill called 'Metal Slash'." the swordsman explained. "It allows me to cut through any sort of metal, no matter how sturdy or hard it is."

"Dang…" Toon Link blinked.

Just then, an exposed purple gem from Argorok's back began to glow, catching everyone's attention as they looked at Argorok to see it getting back up and flapping its wings to rise up into the air again and let out an angry roar as it started to rain in the area.

"Oh, boy…" Luigi trailed.

"Looks like it's not down yet!" Mario exclaimed.

"But now that its armor is gone, it should be more vulnerable." the swordsman pointed out.

"And I guess that gem on its back is the weak spot." Rosalina stated. "We have to go for that gem!"

Argorok started by breathing fire at them, but they quickly avoided the attack as Link began going up on the pillars again, as Argorok flew up in an attempt to stop him, only to get hit in the back by a huge fireball that came not from Mario, but from the swordsman, that being the Kafrizz spell.

"Hey, you!" the swordsman called out to Argorok. "Your real opponents are here!"

Roaring angrily, Argorok came down and swiped its claws at them, but they dodged as the swordsman slashed the dragon with a Dragon Slash to deal heavy damage to it before he followed it up with a Kazap, where he does a spin attack while his sword was charged up with electricity, as Argorok roared in pain and then Toon Link leapt up and stabbed the gem on its back as a few cracks were shown.

Argorok then recovered from the blow received by Kazap and shook off Toon Link from its back as it proceeded to breathe fire again, only for Peach to reflect it back with Nayru's Love and then Daisy jumped up in an attempt to punch the gem with her crystallized fist… except that Argorok merely shook off the reflected flames and thus was able to swipe Daisy away with its claws.

"AGH!" Daisy yelled as she was knocked away and had a few claw marks on her left cheek.

"Daisy!" Peach cried as she was about to rush up to heal her, but then Argorok knocked her away by swinging its tail at her. "Aaah!"

It was at this moment that Link managed to latch himself onto Argorok's back. "Don't worry, I got it!" he called out and proceeded to stab Argorok's gem repeatedly until the dragon shook him off.

"Alright! Stand back, everyone! I'm finishing this!" the swordsman exclaimed while sheeting his sword and began to concentrate as two rings of magic appeared around him. "QUADRASLASH!" he yelled while thrusting his arm down, as a huge sword of light suddenly slammed down right into Argorok's torso and where its damaged gem was.

As Argorok roared in agony by the blow, it was letting out flames while flying up and flailing its head around. By reaching the highest point possible that it could, that's where Argorok didn't have any strength left and stopped breathing fire as it fell all the way back down and exploded in the air.

"And that's that." the swordsman said before proceeding to cast Fullheal on Daisy as the claw marks on her disappeared, while at the same time, everyone looked completely speechless by the way he just finished off Argorok.

"Well… That's one way to finish off a dragon…" Link blinked.

The swordsman chuckled. "I know." he then looked at Rosalina. "Am I free to go now? I need to go save my world from Calasmos."

"Oh, yes." Rosalina created a portal. "Thank you very much for your help."

"You're welcome." the swordsman smiled. "May we meet again!" he waved and went into the portal.

Eventually, the skies around the arena cleared up, and then the last mirror shard materialized in the air before it floated down towards them, where Midna picked it up.

"Everyone, you did it! It's the fourth shard!" she exclaimed. "Now we have them all!"

"Hooray!" Yoshi cheered.

Midna then put the shard away before saying, "Hey…everyone. The words of the sages… Do you remember them?"

"What words?" Peach asked.

"Only the true ruler of the Twilit can destroy the Mirror of Twilight. Zant could only break the Mirror of Twilight into shards… He couldn't utterly shatter it."

"Oh, yeah…" Toon Link pondered. "So, this means…"

"Yes. That's proof of his false kingship." Midna nodded firmly before casting a portal on the ground. "Everyone, we have to hurry! To the Mirror Chamber! After all, a fake is a fake…and no matter how much you dress it up, the real thing always wins!"

"You said it right!" Daisy nodded in agreement as everyone stepped into the portal, taking them to the entrance of the City in the Sky.

Then, they just had to use a cannon that was similar to the one they used to get here, and were blasted off down to the surface.

To be continued…

Due to the fact that the City in the Sky is a very slow-going dungeon, I honestly had no idea how I was going to write it in here and it made me think that this chapter would turn out to be really long because of that. But somehow, I managed to work it out!

Despite that, one thing that I was really looking forward to this chapter was writing the boss fight against Argorok, as I did have planned a summon for this battle as you just saw. In fact, this summon alone made me having to change Argorok's battle a bit as a result, and I think it turned out to be really well done!

Speaking of the summon, I think this one is way trickier to guess compared to Joker and Marisa, but even so, let's see if you can guess who that one was!

Next up, the Twilight Realm! See you next time!