Real quick, before we get started: I've started a YouTube channel under the name 'Shalerrin', in an attempt to be self-employed. Obviously I haven't been able to post very many things yet, but I'm planning to play Zelda and post some animated storytelling videos in between. I HATE to sound like I'm begging, but if you're interested, consider popping over and subscribing? I can't start to monetize until I hit 1000 subscribers and if I can't monetize then there's no real income. I'm… a long ways away from that goal at the moment.
Also… I guess it's sort of a gender reveal? Not that I actually say it, but you get to hear my voice. And that terrifies me more than it should, but I'm gonna be brave here. It's just another way to geek out with fellow Zelda fans. I'M TRUSTING YOU ALL WITH THIS, OKAY? I'M TRUSTING YOU.
It wasn't so much a race as it was a really large and complicated game of keep-away.
More specifically, Steam was doing everything he could to keep away Malladus from the barely-upright Spirit Tower, because he was pretty sure that one more hit would end in a lot of Very Bad Results. How bad, he didn't really know, because he had nothing to base his suspicions off of aside from a few extremely vague historical legends, but he did have enough experience with Malladus in general to conclude that he shouldn't try to find out. Given the amount of chaos that had happened when Malladus was just a disembodied ghost, Steam really didn't want to see what happened when Malladus could actually punch things.
Though, whether or not he would bother or just move straight to setting things on fire was another issue entirely.
For all that the Spirit Train was carrying several times the cargo of the Malladus Train, it was a surprisingly even match. It probably helped that Malladus had only possessed his Train about five minutes ago and was likely still figuring out where all the sticking bits were, but in general the Spirit Train really ought to have been weighed down by the seventeen-plus passengers it was carrying.
On a side note, the rest of said passenger Links had stopped screaming in fear and started screaming in excitement. The other thing to be noted about adrenaline is that, once the source has been found, identified, and declared to be (probably) safe, the terror transitions into an emotion most closely described as, "This is gonna be awesome."
For reference, please take a moment to once again imagine the machine called 'Top Thrill Dragster', and then imagine the sheer size of the lines that it would accumulate, consisting of all the people who would want to ride such a thing. Adrenaline at its finest.
All this to say that the Spirit Train was still moving far faster than anyone would think it had the right to move. The inertia on the turns was ridiculous.
Of course, the one problem with moving so fast was that it was really hard to keep track of the passing landscape, mostly because it was whizzing past in an indecipherable blur. Steam was pretty sure that the Spirit Tower was on his left somewhere, because that was the direction that Malladus was trying to go, but it was a bit hard to tell. It was probably a very good thing that the Spirit Train could produce its own tracks, because it was really hard to tell what was and wasn't a railroad before they blew right on past it.
However, Steam was pretty sure that he'd just plowed through some trees. There was too much wood-colored stuff flying by to be anything else.
...Probably. There was also a pretty good chance that it'd been a house, but Steam was pretty sure there would have been more screaming in that scenario.
The Malladus Train jerked and clashed against the Spirit Train, and Steam had to haul hard on the steering to keep his relative position. His sense of direction informed him that the Tower was still to his left, and assuming that Realm hadn't accidentally hijacked the destination again it was probably trustworthy. Now Steam just had to do something to get Malladus away, as opposed to just blocking him at every opportunity.
"I really wish Zelda were here to watch the controls," he hissed, before throwing the accelerator lock into place, then yanking the steering harshly to the right and wedging a stray wrench under it in order to counter the constant pushing-left of the Malladus Train. Then he darted to the cannon room. He skidded across the floor, just barely avoided crashing into Wind, who was still loading the cannon, and said, rapid-fire, "Okay new plan I need you to make Malladus Train angry."
Wind paused, then gave the ammunition he was struggling with a massive shove. The iron ball fell into the depths of the cannon with a resounding CLANG.
"How, exactly, do I do that?" Wind asked, rather sensibly in his opinion. "It's not like Trains have pain receptors."
"No, but he does have laser ports," Steam replied. He pointed demonstratively. "There and there, and then it's a mirror image on the far side, see? Take those out, and he'll get angry. Get him angry, and I doubt he'll think about the Spirit Tower anymore. I'll be able to distract him and take this someplace less… breakable."
Wind nodded thoughtfully. Then something ahead caught his attention and he frowned. "Uh, if you're back here, then who's driving?"
"I jury-rigged a temporary autopilot," Steam said.
"Is the autopilot aware that we're about to run through Hyrule Castle?"
"WE'RE WHAT!?" Steam screeched, and immediately sprinted back out.
"...I should probably hang on to something" Wind decided.
Steam, meanwhile, shrieked, "EVASIVE MANEUVER WARNING!" in the general direction of the passenger car as he shot past it, then launched himself at the steering and slapped the wrench haphazardly to the floor. Then he threw his entire body weight into forcing the Trains sideways just enough to miss the Castle. This was a lot more effort than it might seem, because Malladus was very pleased to have a new target and was doing his level best to hit the Castle. In this case, Steam had opted to use the Spirit Train to shove the Malladus Train out of the way, which, because the Malladus Train was already grinding up against the Spirit Train, wasn't nearly as complicated as it sounded.
There was the slight issue of the Malladus Train being twice the size of the Spirit Train, made of much sturdier metal, and overall probably much more likely to win in a comparison of flat toughness, but the Spirit Train a few things the Malladus Train didn't.
Specifically, a conductor who refused to acknowledge failure as an option, the backing of a very invested goddess, and the uncanny ability to utterly ignore the laws of physics.
The pair of Trains missed the Castle by mere feet and continued headlong into the countryside behind it, which understandably freaked a lot of the civilian bystanders out. That was a problem, but from what Steam could remember there weren't any buildings in this direction, not really. If he could just kind of corral the Malladus Train into this general area, that would work out so much better. Of course, to do that, it would be really nice for Wind to get on that cannonfire aggravation.
Really, Steam knew it was a bit of a rough ride, but what was taking him so long?
Wind, meanwhile, was having aiming issues. In an ironic twist, the Malladus Train was actually too close for Wind to get a good bead on the laser cannons - it was just smooth metal as far as he could reach.
He frowned contemplatively, then poked his head out into the short hallway leading from the cannon to the engine room and called, "How important is it that I hit the lasers and only the lasers!?"
"It's pretty important!" Steam shouted back. "The lasers are incredibly painful!"
Okay yes, that made sense, but- "But can I aim for things besides the lasers!?"
"Probably!?"
Wind considered that for a moment, then decided to take it as a 'Yes'. "Thank you!" he yelled, before ducking back to the cannon. He sighted along the barrel; no matter which way he turned it, all he could see was the unblemished side of the Malladus Train.
"Fine then," Wind muttered to himself, straightening out the cannon again and wrapping his hands over the firing mechanism. "If there's no target, I'll make one."
He then proceeded to fire about six cannonballs within the same amount of seconds and tore a hole straight through the metal hull of the Malladus Train by the first three. The fourth one smashed through some important-looking tubes, the fifth one put a really impressive dent in a large barrel-looking thing, and the sixth one enlarged the dent to the point where the metal barrel-thing nearly bent in half from the force and began leaking an alarming amount of smoke from all the places where the seams no longer matched up.
"There we go," Wind said, pleased, and also very pointedly ignoring the pained and furious screeching now coming from the front of the Malladus Train. In his experience, that just meant he was doing his job.
Steam, who was farther up front, had the distinct privilege of watching the Malladus Train's face contort into discomfort, which did not help the already poor aesthetic of those features. Given that he himself hadn't done anything, he decided that it was probably safe to assume that Wind was the one responsible.
"Guess he found a target then," Steam decided, then refocused on the tracks ahead of him. Everything was still moving too fast to tell, but if they were where he thought they were, he was almost positive that there hadn't been Spirit Tracks in this part of Hyrule before. It was probably a very good thing that the Spirit Train could apparently spawn its own rails, otherwise this ride would be a lot bumpier.
Also, they were now very far away from the Spirit Tower. Steam weighed his options, then the consequences, then began comparing those consequences with the fallout of not risking the consequences, and then decided that calculating all that would take too long. Conveniently this meant that he could skip back to the Options part of that thought and take one, which he promptly did.
If Wind was asking about targets other than the laser ports, it probably meant that he couldn't reach said laser ports. Therefore, Steam probably needed to reposition the Spirit Train in order to get Wind a better shot, which meant he needed to break off the deadlock that the two machines were in. This in turn meant he needed to back off and give the Malladus Train space, which admittedly came with the distinct risk that Malladus would just turn around and target the Spirit Tower again. However, Steam still had a pretty clear view of the face - which, actually, was probably Malladus' face now - and judging by how angry the expression was, Steam felt pretty confident that the Spirit Tower wasn't exactly at the front of Malladus' mind anymore.
So before he could second-guess himself, Steam tugged the steering away from the Malladus Train, enough so that the whole length of the engine came into view. Already the act of driving was so much easier without an entire second Train shoving up against them.
Then he twisted around and shrieked, "WIND IF YOU DON'T TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THIS I AM GONNA BE SO TICKED!"
"SHOULD I BE INSULTED THAT YOU DON'T TRUST ME!?" Wind yelled back, because of course he was already bringing the cannon around to all the new and shiny targets he'd just been presented with. He sighted down the barrel, nodded to himself, and shoved a cannonball into the loading tunnel.
"WELL IT WOULD REALLY SUCK IF YOU MISSED THE CUE!" Steam's voice shouted from the engine car.
Wind snorted. "HARD TO MISS A CUE THIS OBVIOUS!" He made a small adjustment on the angle of the cannon, then gripped the firing mechanism and yanked. A cannonball soared through the space between the two Trains and embedded itself in the delicate machinery of a laser port, which immediately fizzled and died. It did have a large metal ball bisecting the power source, so this was an understandable reaction.
"Honestly, it's like he forgot I sailed with pirates," Wind sighed, adjusting his aim for the next target.
"I need to remind myself to stop underestimating the alternate versions of myself," Steam muttered, as a second laser port also got into a fight with a cannonball and lost. Wind was scarily good with a cannon, to the point where Steam wondered what his maybe-ancestor had left out about the ocean he'd traveled on. Hadn't there been something about reefs with patrolling hostile warships and gigantic angry squids?
...No wonder it looked like Wind was finding this easy, an opponent set on tracks was probably much easier to track and aim for than an opponent with the whole of the ocean to maneuver in.
Wait - he'd just shot the last laser port on this side of the Malladus Train. Steam was gonna have to cross to the other side in order for Wind to be able to reach the other two ports, which would just make the whole confrontation easier. It was, after all, much safer to deal with an opponent who couldn't shoot you with lasers than one who could. Steam considered this for a minute, wondering whether it would be better to drop behind the Malladus Train and get around that way, or speed up and bring the Spirit Train around the front.
...Actually, given that the Spirit Train was only two cars long, and in contrast the Malladus Train never seemed to end, going around the front was probably the only sane choice.
That decision made, Steam flipped up a panel, slammed in a six-button sequence, and then flicked a switch. All of these things had large, unfriendly warnings on them in capital letters, drawn with even brighter red paint than the red section of the accelerator gauge. The feeling of impending bad decisions in the air multiplied exponentially.
Coincidentally, this happened at the same time that the Spirit Train's speed multiplied exponentially. This was immediately followed by a hollow BOOM and the belated realization that Steam probably should have given a warning for this, as the Spirit Train proceeded to temporarily stretch the sound barrier.
The force alone almost threw Steam off the controls again, and it was only thanks to the fact that he'd been sort of expecting it that he wasn't. It did, however, take him several more seconds than he'd wanted to wrangle his Train back under control in order to bring it around in the way he wanted.
He then took advantage of the (comparative) calm and shouted, "SORRY ABOUT THE JOLT!" in the general direction of the passenger car.
In response, he received a lot of incomprehensible complaining and a singular, earsplitting roar of, "VIO GET OFF MY LEG!" He winced, imagining the pile-up. It'd never been a comfortable thing in the first place, but in a cramped metal box? Yeah, Steam was glad he was up in the engine room.
Back with the cannon, Wind picked himself up off the floor, revised his opinion of Steam's driving skills, and then noticed that the Malladus Train was now on the opposite side of where it had been. Wind frowned a little; he hadn't bothered to check if the cannon had a rotating track, and if it didn't then this was going to become a bit of an issue. Just in case, he equipped his Iron Boots before giving the cannon an experimental push. It spun easily, much to his relief, so he took the Boots back off before lining up a shot for the two new laser turrets that were now in his range.
"I wonder what I'm supposed to do when I run out of objectives," Wind muttered to himself as he pulled the triggers. The targeted laser port was promptly crushed. Almost absently, Wind adjusted his aim to the last turret and autopiloted his way through the reloading process. "Maybe I should just blast another hole in the sheet metal and see what I can break?"
At that point, the Malladus Train abruptly caught on to the fact that he was missing three out of the four laser turrets he'd started with. Malladus immediately decided to blame being in an unfamiliar body and the unexpected presence of pain receptors in a vessel made of metal for his distraction rather than admitting to himself that he'd been too caught up in the race with Steam to notice until just now. He then channeled his denial into the only laser he had left, and proceeded to fire it right into Wind's face.
Well, he tried. He actually missed, because Wind had seen it coming and ducked in a frantic rush, but he still did a lot of damage to the opposing Train itself. If the upside of the Spirit Train being primarily made of wood was the speed, the downside was the extreme susceptibility to fire and fire-related substances. More specifically, the Malladus Train's lasers were made of light and heat and also possibly plasma, all of which were excellent at sending things up in flames.
Wind, meanwhile, yelped, and immediately began batting at said flames. Then he thought better of it, and instead pulled out his Deku Leaf. It proved to be much more effective, especially once Wind figured out the difference between accidentally fanning the flames and blowing hard enough to put them out.
Once that was solved, though, Wind shoved the Leaf back into his Bag and dragged the cannon back to aiming position. He had a laser port to take out and a newly acquired realization for why Steam had been so adamant about taking them out before anything else.
Now though, the question was why a Train had even been fitted with lasers in the first place?
Steam spared a brief moment to eye the damage done by the laser and groaned to himself. That was gonna take a while to buff out. Alfonzo was probably going to have a fit, right in between scolding Steam at the top of his lungs and furiously sanding down the scratches… whenever Steam actually got around to bringing the Spirit Train back to Aboda. Given the state of the universe, that might be a good long while.
His thoughts were cut off by the screech of protesting metal, which conveniently doubled as the announcement that Wind had just launched a cannonball into the last laser. That, though, was nothing in comparison that the bellow that the Malladus Train let out in response. Apparently, now that the demon possessing it was paying attention, cannonballs were a lot more painful that previously demonstrated.
Then, quite suddenly, Malladus braked. Steam, unprepared for that, shot past the front of his opponent and ended up staring the face straight in… well, the face. And because of this, he also noticed that the face was building up a fireball in its mouth.
"INCOMING!" he screeched, then threw himself to the ground, but not before locking the controls. He was an engineer, after all, abandoning the helm just wasn't allowed. Then the fire hit, and all that became a bit less of an issue.
Steam said something that Zelda would have gasped at, and immediately sprinted back to the passenger car.
"OKAYsotheTrain'sonfire, I'mtoobusydrivingtodealwithit, Wind'stoobusybeingartillery, IneedsombodywithawateritemtotakecareofitbeforeweburndownPLEASEANDTHANKYOU!" That said, he darted back up to the engine and hoped someone in the car had understood him. There was no way Malladus would settle for only one fireball, and Steam needed to steer in order to dodge.
Meanwhile, the passenger car group blinked at the space Steam had occupied for a brief and confusingly jumbled few seconds.
"...Does anyone know what it was he just said?" Speck asked.
Sketch frowned, then reached into his bag and brandished an Ice Rod. "Well, I caught the first bit, which was that the Train's on fire. I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that the rest of it was about needing us to take care of it."
"Ooh!" Red said brightly, and pulled out a Rod of his own. A quick tap sequence swapped the color from crimson to teal, and he shook a couple snowflakes from it before nodding to himself. "I can help with that!"
"Ditto," Lore declared, doing a similar routine with the much more elaborate Rod of Seasons. The temperature in the passenger car immediately plunged about thirty degrees. Frost began accumulating on the windows.
"Everyone stop demonstrating," Gen ordered, shivering. "Just, go find whatever's on fire and take care of it!"
"Can do," Lore saluted, and proceeded to jam open a window, shimmy out, and vault himself up onto the roof of the car. His footsteps thumped across the top for a few moments.
"Okay wow," Lore said, sounding surprised in spite of himself. "That is a lot of fire." He poked his head back down through the open window. "I request backup."
"Then move so we can fit, silly," Red told him.
"I can do that."
Twenty seconds later, Sketch and Red joined Lore on the roof of the Train, along with Mask and Ocarina who had Ice Arrows. There was a brief stretch where they all just stood and processed the sheer amount of fire that the Spirit Train was somehow enduring without having burnt up yet.
"...Okay yeah, that is a lot of fire," Mask said nonchalantly, already halfway through nocking an arrow. "I can see why Steam might have been a little panicked."
"Look on the bright side," Lore grinned. "We don't have to share targets."
"This is a wooden Train!" Ocarina shrieked after him as Lore bounced off across the roof, the air temperature already dropping in response to his waving of the Rod of Seasons. "There is no bright side!"
"Chill," Mask advised. "We got this."
"We are standing on a pyre on wheels," Ocarina muttered.
Mask hummed appraisingly and fired an Ice Arrow. "Nah. We'll be fine."
"How can you be sure? ...And so calm about being so sure?"
"Practice," Mask shrugged.
"...Why have you had practice with this situation."
"Spoilers," Mask said, and ignored Ocarina's groan in favor of firing another arrow. "Don't worry about it, you'll get there eventually. Now stop flailing and help me shoot this fire into submission."
"Shoot over here please!" Red called.
On his way back to the controls, Steam skidded into the doorway of the cannon attachment and said, "New plan! I need you to shoot the face in the face because it may or may not be Malladus' actual face but either way it's shooting fire and we need it to stop doing that," just slowly enough that there was actually space between his words this time. Then he shot off again before Wind could make any sort of response.
Wind mouthed 'Shoot the face in the face?' to himself before shrugging and deciding that it had probably made more sense in Steam's head, then pulled himself back to his feet from where he'd dove for cover. Sure enough, now that he could see past the floor, the Malladus Train was indeed breathing fire. The Spirit Train appeared to be far more friendly with the fire than Wind suspected Steam wanted it to be, because now that he was paying attention the entire roof of the passenger car seemed to be ablaze.
...This probably explained why Steam seemed a bit frazzled, actually. Wind should get on that 'shooting the face in the face' thing, it would probably help the stress levels tremendously - if only because that would eliminate the fire.
Wind swiveled the cannon onto his new target and began loading the ammunition.
Steam, who by now was rather out of breath, finally latched back on to the controls in the engine room and once again pushed the acceleration to speeds highly unrecommended by the safety manuals. He wanted to make sure Wind had a good shot, and that meant staying ahead of the Malladus Train so the face would be in full view.
This unfortunately also meant Malladus had the Spirit Train in full view, which resulted in more fire. Steam did not need more fire. Steam in fact really wished he'd paid attention to the lessons on water magic in kiddie school. He did not appreciate being put into a literal hot seat.
Right at that moment though, the hollow BOOM of cannonfire reached his ears, and Steam was treated to the wonderful sight of large metal projectiles smashing directly through Malladus' ugly metal face. It was beautiful. Steam wished he had a pictograph.
Malladus, on the other hand, had the opposite reaction. Wind had good enough aim to all but obliterate both eyes, and now Malladus could really only see a color blur on his left side.
This, understandably, made continuing the Train Battle a bit problematic.
Screw it, Malladus decided, this body had clearly hit the limit of what it could do for him. Time to ditch it - but he might as well ditch it with pizazz.
That decided, Malladus promptly wrenched himself to the side and aimed for the gray-color-blur that was standing out against the green-colored-everything-else-blurs, under the assumption that gray probably meant a building and green probably meant trees, and Malladus was hoping to get some last-minute destruction in before hopping to a new host.
It ended up working out for him more than he'd really ever expected it to.
The Malladus Train unexpectedly crashed, and Steam had to brake fast and hard to avoid completely overshooting the wreck. After all, Malladus had proved time and time again that what happened to his host body didn't necessarily happen to him. Just because the Train was now a pile of scrap and smoke, that meant nothing for Malladus' state of being.
It took a couple minutes for Steam to shed enough speed that he could bring the Spirit Train back around, which was why he didn't actually register the landscape until it was too late. The thing was, Hyrule was only so big. At a certain point, and a certain speed, the country really just turned into a very large racetrack. This meant that Steam and Malladus had, for all intents and purposes, been driving in circles - and circles, above everything else, always came back to the start.
In a dramatic and particularly unfair twist of irony, Malladus had actually managed to unknowingly crash his Train body directly into the barely-standing remains of the Spirit Tower. Divine intervention or not, there was no way that a structure already as weak as the Tower was could survive an impact like that. The Spirit Tower, fighting every descending inch, came inevitably crumbling down.
There was silence in the space outside reality.
"...Well," Farore said, and then ran out of things to say.
"I have never been so irritated at being forced to align with the laws of physics," Nayru breathed. She had half a mind to uninvite gravity to the annual Universal Constants meeting. (Nayru had an automatic bid because of her connection with time (and Time).)
"I declare a temporary break from the Stitching-Hyrule-Back-Together project in order to observe this impending confrontation," Din stated. "And possibly lend assistance if need be."
Farore squinted at her. "...You have popcorn left over from the Demise fight, don't you."
"...Maybe."
Farore sighed. "Give me the jalapeno ones and we'll talk about this later."
Din grumbled. "How'd you know?"
"You used your Fancy Vocabulary. You only do that when you're trying to distract us by sounding important."
"Yeah, because it worked."
"Not really," Nayru interjected. "I'll take the buckeye flavor, by the way."
"Yeah, yeah, just give me a moment to dig them out. I may have gone a little overboard."
Farore tossed a small handful of popcorn into her mouth and pulled over the nearest Reality Window. "I do want to watch this, though. If nothing else, we might need to rebuild the Spirit Tower afterwards."
"Gravity," Nayru grumbled. She was definitely retracting that invitation.
There was a moment, while the dust settled and everyone processed the fact that the Spirit Tower just came down, where both sides just stood and stared at each other.
Then a slow grin spread across Malladus' face, regardless of the fact that he was a small blue skull at the moment, having promptly abandoned the Demon Train upon the crash.
"WaitWAITWAIT SOMEBODY STOP HIM!" Steam shouted, just a little bit too late. With a cackle, Malladus dove into the ground beneath the rubble of the Spirit Tower and vanished from sight.
"...Okay," Steam said, rapidly rerouting his thought processes. "Strategic retreat. Now would be good."
"Did he just get access to his real body?" Sketch asked worriedly. "Did we just lose?"
"Yes, and maybe," Steam said. "I would prefer to still try and kick his butt anyways, but I have no idea how big his body actually is and in the interest of not being on top of the spot where I assume he's going to come back out, we should really get on that strategic retreat."
"I second that," Realm said, staring down at his feet. "The ground is cracking."
The Links immediately began scrambling out of the way, as the earth beneath them began to rumble ominously. The remains of the Spirit Tower shuddered, then collapsed, then vanished from sight entirely because a massive hole had just opened up right under it and swallowed it. Massive clouds of smoke began wafting from the new crater.
"That jerk, he's making a Dramatic Entrance," Steam muttered, from the safe distance he and the rest of the group had retreated to.
Malladus emerged, slowly, from the smoke, with enough aesthetic intent to make an artist swoon. And unfortunately, he was indeed as physically imposing as he'd been claiming.
About the only similarity he had to his spectral floating-head form was his hair, which was vibrantly blue and pluming like smog from his head. Joining this trend were his eyebrows, and a truly magnificent mustache. His skin was dark, but not the normal kind of dark - it was more like a very dark green, and it was translucent. Beneath his skin were his bones, and those glowed an unsettling yellow, an effect which was matched by his eerie pupiless eyes, and when he grinned, he had fangs. Set between the unsettling eyes was a large red gem. He also didn't seem to be wearing any clothes, but then again he also didn't seem to...er, have anything that would require clothes.
And of course, he was about eight feet tall. It just wouldn't be right if the Links got a fair battle in terms of physical prowess.
"...Alright, I can see why people got freaked out enough to seal him away," Lore decided. "I did not need to know what the demonic pelvic bone looked like."
"Not to mention," Steam said dryly, "the parts where he razed the land, killed several hundred people, and tried to eradicate the country of Hyrule from the maps."
Lore tilted his head. "Would you believe I forgot those things were a factor?"
Malladus, meanwhile, was being Dramatic™ and very obviously flaunting his newly recovered physique by stretching in one of the most flamboyant and noticeable ways possible, because he was not at all sore about being called unimpressive, nope, not a bit. He was just really stiff from not having used his body in ages, was all. And, gosh, was that a crick in his back? He should limber that up. Obviously the best stretch for his back was the one that would make all his muscles flex, and not at all doubling as an underhanded method to show off.
Malladus, it should be noted, could be just a bit vain.
"Is he… going to do anything?" Mask asked slowly. "Like, anything actually destructive?"
"...Presumably?" Steam hazarded. "I will admit I expected him to do more than just… flex at us."
"I'm getting to that," Malladus said, annoyed. "I'm reacquainting myself. It's been a while."
"Could you not get to that?"
"No," Malladus said. "There's a malformed soul bond that's going to make me sooner or later, so I might as well make it sooner. Hold still."
"Whatever you do, do not hold still!" Steam yelped, and then everyone went scrambling as Malladus, and everything within fifty feet of him, erupted into flames.
There was a convenient boulder that served as a temporary buffer from the inferno, and everyone clustered behind it - it was a very large boulder. While the literal firestorm raged against the rock, Gen pointed in imperious finger at Lore and said, "You. Distract him. We're gonna make a plan and fill you in once we actually have one, but we need time to make said plan, and you're the Link with the least amount of common sense and ability to care about things like burn scars. Pretend he insulted Subrosia, or whatever."
"Oh, I don't need to pretend," Lore grumbled. "He's completely misusing his arson abilities. It's like he's never heard of the Incendiary Circle before."
"Perfect, go enlighten him," Gen ordered, and proceeded to helpfully push Lore towards his new target in the brief space between fireballs. There was a fizzle, and a pause.
Then Lore said, "Did you just try to explode me?" and immediately went on his now-somewhat-recognizable rant about cloaks, Subrosia, Holodrum, bombs, and the proper use for all of the above for about three sentences before transitioning into one of the many foreign languages he knew and continuing his tirade without even pausing to acknowledge the language switch. Coincidentally, a lot of the fire was promptly redirected towards the new and louder target.
"And while he's doing that," Gen sighed, "Steam, ideas?"
Steam grimaced. "I have no idea what he's capable of and also no idea what his weaknesses might be. I'm almost positive Zelda knew a Song that could make Malladus vulnerable, but she only taught it to me the one time and I really don't remember all the parts for it. We could try re-sealing his body, if anyone might know how to do that?"
Most of the Links immediately shook their heads; sealing spells were, after all, primarily a light magic technique, and as previously mentioned light magic had not deigned to manifest in any of Hyrule's Heroes.
Gen, however, frowned contemplatively. "I… might," he said at length. "Or at least, Fi might. I've done sealing before, but I was following her lead the entire time, and also just straight-up using the Master Sword as a conduit. I don't know if that's applicable here though."
"Ask her, it's better than what I've got," Steam said. He had a solid nothing, for the interested.
Gen poked his head out from behind the boulder and evaluated Lore's situation for a moment, before deciding that, yeah, he had time to consult his weapon on the situation. "Fi, you listening?"
Briefly, all the versions of the Master Sword lit up sequentially; then Fi seemed to settle on the version Ocarina was carrying and chimed, "I am always listening, Master."
"Creepy. We'll come back to that, but right now I need to know if we can perform a sealing like what we did to the Imprisoned?"
"Please indicate the desired target for the sealing."
"I need to borrow her," Gen told Ocarina awkwardly, then unsheathed his fellow Hero's weapon and pointed it at the chaotic fireball that was Malladus.
Fi hummed for several long seconds. Then she recited, "Malladus, the Demon King - or so he likes to call himself. This title is already taken by Demise; comparing power levels puts Malladus on the same tier as Ghirahim, the Demon Lord."
"Definitely mockable, but not what I'm looking for," Gen prompted.
"Like most beings made of dark magic, this foe is weak to the opposite element," Fi said. "In this case, sealing power would be applicable - there are several trace remains of a previous spell that can be used as anchors for a new one. However, I would suggest performing this action with haste, as this opportunity will only last until the spell traces fade."
"Perfect," Gen said. "Any advice on how to deal with him until we manage that?"
"Analysis indicates a strong preference for fire magic," Fi said, as the blatantly obvious arson continued to run rampant. "I predict an eighty-five percent chance of advanced flamecasting. Additionally, there is evidence for enhanced physical prowess; I would advise avoiding close combat, using items and abilities advantageous against fire, and extreme evasive maneuvers until the sealing can be performed, Master."
"Got it," Gen said. "Thanks, Fi."
Ocarina's Master Sword chirruped once, before falling silent - and presumably, the occupant going back to her usual casing. Gen, for his part, breathed a quiet sigh of relief before smiling. "Alright, looks like we've got a Sealing Plan. By any chance, does anyone else know how to do it?"
Head shakes all around. Gen huffed. "Worth a shot."
"Can I just clarify, real quick," Sketch began, "we're basically going to… what, keep Malladus occupied until you and Fi get your sealing juice flowing?"
"Well… yes."
Wind raised a hand. "Exactly how long is it going to take you to do that?"
"No idea," Gen admitted awkwardly.
"...Great," Steam sighed. "At least it's something. Should I try and distribute the parts of the Song I remember, just in case?"
"Might as well," Dusk contributed. "Every bit will help."
"Okay then, who here can sing?"
There was a moment of silence. A few Links shuffled uncomfortably. Nobody seemed very vocally inclined.
Then Dusk sighed and said, "I'm not bad, I suppose."
He received several surprised looks. "Somehow I wasn't expecting that," Blue muttered.
Dusk shrugged, slowly turning a vaguely red color. "Wolves howl. I can sing. It correlates."
"...Does that mean you can howl because you can sing, or that you can sing because you can howl?"
"...Yes?"
"Can we not do this sidetracking thing right now?" Steam interrupted. "I think even Lore has his limits on being targeted with fire."
"HE'S RIGHT, I DO!" Lore shouted cheerfully, having chosen that exact moment to sprint frantically past the group's hiding place. His hat, the strap of his weapon gear, and his left shoe were all merrily ablaze, and Lore seemed largely unconcerned by this. It was actually concerning that he wasn't concerned.
"Alright then, everyone who's vaguely musical, get instructions from Steam. Everyone who's not, distract Malladus and improvise. I'll be consulting with Fi on getting the seal set up, and then at some point we'll all actually converge and attempt to set all that in motion!" Gen was valiantly trying to put forward a Confident Leader image despite the fact that his plan had at least six different holes and everyone knew it. They were, however, polite enough not to point it out to him. "So, I guess… scatter?"
Abruptly, Lore skidded up, still on fire and still seemingly unconcerned about it, and said, "Nonononono, you're doing it wrong. You gotta do it right."
"And doing it right implies…?"
"This," Lore grinned. "BREAK!"
"Oh, is that a thing now?" Mask asked.
"It's totally a thing now. Also, I wasn't just saying that for the funsies, I taunted Malladus into chasing me and he's about to run us all over so we should all really do what I just said and BREAK THE GROUP HUDDLE RIGHT NOW."
So saying, Lore sprinted off again, and this time so did everyone else.
There was fire everywhere. It was making it really hard to find a good place to run, because more often than not someone's foot was going to come down on scorched earth and that was painful. Several minutes were spent running around like an upturned anthill before Steam managed to corral a few fellow Links off behind the rubble of the Spirit Tower, these being Dusk, Ocarina and Mask, and Wind, and immediately set about briefing them on what he could remember about the Sacred Song. Gen, meanwhile, was hiding in as dignified a manner as he could manage, conferring with his flickering Master Sword as Fi probably schooled him in the art of sealing magic. Lore was still running distraction, and by now had managed to work Malladus into such a frenzy that the surrounding landscape was no longer necessarily fireproof. Whether or not this was a good thing was largely debatable. As for everyone else, they were alternating between trying to put out the fire with whatever items they had, and conversing with each other on what might distract Malladus long enough to let Lore get a break, and also for Gen to get his sealing on.
In other words, it was complete chaos.
"So the first part went like, ~bah, bah, bah~," Steam said, his face scrunched up in fierce concentration, "and then there was like a counter harmony that went sort of like, ~la la, la, bah bah~, and then I think they might have started overlapping? And there's like this whole back and forth duet thing going and according to Zelda if we're doing it right then we start to summon a bunch of other instruments. So if a timpani randomly materializes from thin air and starts an accompaniment, it's working."
"Weird tell, but okay," Mask said. "This sounds like we only need two people though?"
Steam grimaced. "I have sincere doubts that I'm remembering this Song well enough to trigger the magical instruments, but the spell won't work unless the full orchestra kicks in. So unless we somehow miraculously manage to finagle it, I need you guys to be the supporting harmonies."
"Er… the ones you can't remember?" Ocarina asked.
"Those ones exactly," Steam agreed miserably.
Wind winced sympathetically, but flipped his baton into his fingers nonetheless and said, "I'm gonna need you to describe exactly what you do remember in as much detail as possible. If I can recreate it, you can probably tell me if what you're hearing matches what you remember."
"Worth a shot…"
"We should probably practice the parts he already gave us in the meantime," Dusk decided, pulling Mask and Ocarina a few feet away. "Who wants what bit?"
"I'm good at counter-harmonies," Mask volunteered, about a half second before Ocarina said, "I'm good at counter - dangit!"
"I'm also good at supporting melody lines?" Mask offered.
Ocarina tilted his head. "Right, yeah, I do forget about that sometimes. It's just not as common, you know?"
"Duh," Mask said.
"Oh, shut up, you know what I meant." Ocarina rolled his eyes, then said, "I can do the supporting melody lines."
Dusk stared at them for a moment. "...You do know that it can be really confusing to everyone on the outside when you both refer to each other as 'me', right?"
Mask and Ocarina looked at each other. "It's true though," Ocarina pointed out.
Dusk sighed. "You know what, if I want to continue this conversation I will do so after we've taken care of the glowing skeleton man. I guess this makes me the main melody then?"
"Howl away," Mask agreed.
"...I am starting to regret bringing that up."
Gen was doing his level best to concentrate on what Fi was telling him about the proper sealing spell for the situation, but it was a little bit hard to do so when everything around him was actively going up in flames. There was also the screaming to consider, and the distant explosions, and also whatever it was that Lore was doing that required quite so much guttural screeching. It sounded like the brief demonstration of Firetongue that Lore had given during the storytelling session, and Gen really had to wonder what had prompted Lore to switch over to the language of dragons.
Probably, some sort of perceived insult to dragons. Gen made a mental note to never, ever let Lore meet the Water Dragon. While Her Ladyship would probably appreciate a mortal going to bat for her, Lore's personality would get him smote in twelve seconds flat.
...The Thunder Dragon though, Gen was pretty sure Lore would get on with just fine.
He shook his head, then flicked himself in the temples. He had better things to focus on than what Lore may or may not get up to in the future. Specifically, he hadn't listened to any of what Fi had just told him.
"Can you repeat that?" he asked loudly, to be heard over the chaos of the surrounding fight.
Gen's Master Sword flickered disapprovingly, and Fi made sure to imbue her tone with her opinion on that matter. "I said, it would be best to use the strongest version of the Imprisoned's seal, Master."
"Right. That was the nine-point one made of three triangles, wasn't it?"
Had Fi been physically manifested, she would probably have been giving off the vague impression of rolling her eyes exasperatedly while somehow not moving her expression in the slightest. "That is what I just said, Master."
"Oh," Gen said, and then for the sake of his dignity decided to leave it at that. "Er, what next then?"
"There is a ninety-five percent chance that you will need a Focus to anchor the seal with."
"That might be a problem," Gen muttered, glancing around at the rubble which used to be the Spirit Tower, which had quite clearly been the previous Focus for the previous seal. For the first time, Gen wished he'd grabbed the prison spike from the Sealed Grounds when they'd confronted Demise in it. Then again, that probably would have been too convenient.
"...What if I just stack some of the rubble into a small pile?"
There was a long pause, during which something out of sight exploded extremely violently and the faint warbles of an uncertainly-sung song began drifting across the battlefield.
"Analysis indicates that as long as the pile remains intact, the seal will follow suit," Fi said eventually. "However, I strongly advise against pinning your hopes on a stack of unstable rubble, Master."
"Well, that might be our only option," Gen replied, grimacing. "Let's come back to that."
"Yes, Master," said Fi, and even though her tone didn't change at all, Gen still received the impression that she was humoring him. He was beginning to suspect that he was absolute rubbish at sealing, and Fi just wasn't telling him about it.
It would have been nice to discover this fact before the ridiculously fire-prone battle with a demon sealing being the only real way to resolve it.
Meanwhile, everyone else was dealing with Malladus himself, and were having a distinctly worse time than any of the other groups. The main reason for this was the fire. There was far, far, far more fire than would ever be necessary for anything, ever, and on top of that Malladus had the nerve to pump his flames to a heat index so high that just being near them caused the spontaneous combustion of lesser materials like clothes. And hair. And basically anything conceivably plant-like. About the only thing good about the situation was when Red or Sketch or somebody else used an Ice Item, the ice immediately melted and they ended up with water to douse the flames instead. Not that they could produce enough water, because again, way too much fire, but they could at least keep a designated patch of earth relatively safe and unscorched.
This was also, coincidentally, the patch of earth that everyone but Malladus (and Lore, but Lore was a bit busy) was standing on.
"I have never before regretted not having a fireproof item so much in my life," Sketch complained. He blasted his Ice Rod at a few encroaching flames, the results of which immediately melted.
"Agreed," Speck said fervently. "This is ridiculous. How come Lore hasn't caught fire and burnt to a crisp yet?"
As if on cue, Lore sprinted past, bellowing something unpronounceable by anyone but himself, pursued by an irate Malladus and even more fire than what had already been present. He was, somewhat surprisingly, not nearly as scorched as he should have been, but he did look very out of breath.
"...Somehow I suspect the reason might be because he just hasn't deigned to notice," Realm speculated.
"Knowing Lore, that might actually be a possibility," Vio sighed. "But, ignoring the fire-"
"Good luck with that," Blue snorted.
"-have we actually got a plan for keeping Malladus busy?" Vio continued forcefully.
"Going by what we learned from Steam… no," the Four said bluntly.
"Alright then, we disregard what we learned from Steam," Green decided. "And we replace it with what we've learned from Lore instead."
"That being?"
"Anything goes."
Everyone nodded and made muttered assenting noises. Sketch took the opportunity to blast more ice at the overly enthusiastic blaze.
Green brought his hands together. "So, Sketch, Red, you've got the cold items, you guys are on point. You're responsible for making the path we're gonna be walking on. Everyone else, if you've got a long-range weapon, load it now, because we're gonna have to snipe at Malladus from whatever distance he happens to be at. Realm, if Lore needs it be ready to swap with him for Distraction. And please, nobody set themselves on fire. There's quite enough of that already."
"Really," Sketch said dryly. "I hadn't noticed."
"Well then it's a good thing I'm here to tell you about it," Green fired back, not missing a beat. Sketch blinked, then grinned wryly and accepted his defeat.
"Okay, I'm on it. Red?"
"Which way do you wanna go?" Red chirped.
"Not sure it matters, but since Lore and Malladus went that way and we're technically trying to interfere with that…"
"Ooh, yeah, that's a good point!"
With that, the pair of them began blasting the fire into submission, which made a very large cloud of smoke and several angry hissing noises. While they were doing that, the other Links began pulling out various bow-and-arrow combinations, or whatever else they might be carrying in lieu of that.
"Does anyone remember what Malladus' weak point might have been?" Speck asked while he rustled around in his Bag.
"Probably the big shiny gem on his forehead," Blue replied. "Adventuring Rule Number Three is to always shoot anything crystal-shaped, crystal-colored, or conceivably crystal-related."
Speck blinked. "Huh… um, then what are Rules One and Two?"
"Break every pot you see, and that nine times out of ten the weak spot is probably the eyeball."
"Ah," Speck nodded sagely. "Vaati."
"He was a really good example of Rule Number Two, yeah," Blue agreed. "This would be that one time out of ten where it's something else, though. Luckily Rule Number Three covers it."
"How many Rules do you have?" Realm asked.
"Right now? Like, twenty or so. I keep adding new ones-"
"INCOMING!" Green interrupted, as Lore came charging right through the formation. It took approximately half a second for everyone to remember that Malladus had been right behind Lore, which was further helped by the fact that it took about half a second for Malladus to also charge right through the formation.
Consequently, any form of organization the group might have had was immediately dashed to pieces. Red and Sketch had the good sense to start blasting their Ice items every which way in an attempt to make safe ground to stand on for the now-scattered Links. Lore took the opportunity to circle back around next to the Four and pant, rapid-fire, "I am now out of-" GASP "-breath to taunt Malladus with-" WHEEZE "-and I would really appreciate a swap out-" PUFF "-please and thank you."
"Realm, you're up," the Four called.
"On it!" Realm declared cheerfully, sliding into place next to Lore and clearly tensing himself to take off running at the slightest incentive. The hem of his tunic was slightly ablaze, because he'd had to jump through some fire to get to them, and the Four absently batted it out for him. There was more important (and more painful) fire to be concerned with.
Malladus, now that he was up close and personal again, had upgraded himself. The bones beneath his skin, while still visibly glowing yellow, were now rippling with heat in the same way that coals in the heart of a firestorm did. It was such a simple change, but somehow it made everything about Malladus seem so much worse. Additionally, he now radiated heat like a furnace, or a maybe a particularly cold star.
...He was setting things on fire simply by being near them, basically.
"So, we have a problem," Vio began, and shot off an arrow at Malladus as an example. It burst into flames and burnt away into charcoal before ever reaching the target. "A big problem."
"Altering the plan! Green decided. "Red, Sketch! Projectile Ice!"
"Oh, sure!" Red chirped. Sketch tilted his head.
"Projectile…?"
Red promptly answered the unfinished question by waving his Ice Rod and launching what looked like a literal ton of frozen chunks directly at Malladus' head. Like the arrow, the ice immediately fell victim to the heat and fire.
Unlike the arrow, the ice melted into water that stayed just cold enough to not immediately evaporate, and drenched Malladus from his shoulders up. And somewhat surprisingly, the demon reacted in a way that could only mean pain.
More specifically, he started cursing Red, Red's father, Red's father's father, and Red's father's father's father. Several of the words he was using didn't make sense in the hylian language. Neither did most of the insinuations.
"Oh," Sketch said. "Nice."
"Thanks!"
"I like this plan," Lore decided, having finally gotten his breath back. He brandished his Rod of Seasons and said, "Mind if I join the party?"
"Not even a little bit," Sketch grinned. "Let's give him Winter."
"Read my mind," Lore declared, the tip of his item already lighting up blue.
At that point, though, Malladus finished cursing out Red, and noticed the large amount of Cold aimed at him. Of everything that could be said about him, slow reaction times was unfortunately not among them.
He dodged all the attacks with ease, and then set about returning the favor. Everyone scattered.
"Try and bar him in!" Green yelled as he ran. "Containment can only be a good thing right now!"
"Okie dokie!" Red called back.
Steam looked out over the chaos, grimaced, and then called over his shoulder, "Everyone know their parts?"
"To the best of our ability," Mask said. He tactfully didn't bring up the bits where half the song was still swimming in obscurity because Steam hadn't been able to fully remember the tune no matter how much Wind tried to jog his memory.
Steam grimaced again, hearing the unspoken addendum anyways. "Yeah… sorry. Um, Dusk, can you start us off?"
Dusk raised an eyebrow. "Shouldn't we be closer first?"
"How would we even begin to do that?"
The firestorm, at this point, had progressed to a heat index where the ground was actually beginning to melt a little in some places. Conveniently, every Link had been through a volcano at some point or another, and so had at least a little immunity built up in some way, but there was really nothing that would ever enable walking on lava. And it was just spotty enough that trying to get across the field would probably result in the loss of a leg or two.
"...Fair point," Dusk admitted. "But genuinely, doesn't Malladus have to be within hearing range of the Song in order for it to work?"
"I… hadn't thought of that," Steam admitted.
"Hang on, " Wind said. He waved his baton through the air a couple of times, then continued, "I think I can use the air to amplify our sound. But, uh, only in one direction at a time."
"That'll work," Steam agreed. "Dusk?"
"Yeah, okay," Dusk said, then took a deep breath and began the song. He was glad that he'd had some practice time with Mask and Ocarina; he wouldn't have had much to go on otherwise.
Then Wind did something complicated with the Wind Waker, and suddenly Dusk could hear his own voice bellowing across the scorched field. He almost winced. Was that what he sounded like to other people?
Yeah, he was really starting to regret having brought his vocal talents up in conversation.
There was a song in the air, and it sounded just two steps shy of being a complete mess. The melody line was only confident for about two out of every three notes, and the less said about the accompanying harmony the better. For all that was going wrong though, it was somehow going right just enough that, when the tune hit Malladus' ears, he actually stopped throwing fire for a couple moments to poke a finger into his ear instead.
"What is that?" He demanded. "I can't decide if it's pleasant or discordant."
"I think it's supposed to reveal your weaknesses," Lore informed him.
Malladus blinked, which had the very odd effect of flickering the visibility of his bones off and back on again in tandem with his eyes. "That nonsense is supposed to be the Sacred Song? Do you people have any idea what it's supposed to sound like?"
"Theoretically yes," Sketch said. "In actuality… that's very debatable."
"This is laughable," Malladus decided. "I am actually going to spend a minute, standing here, laughing at you fools."
He then proceeded to do just that, going into a range of mirth that was honestly disturbing. Discreetly, Lore whipped out a piece of parchment and began to take notes. Several hundred feet away and through the distortion of a soul dimension, Shadow tilted his head in appreciation. And everyone who actually had an undistorted view of the world was hit with the sudden conviction that they should probably not be standing so close to someone so clearly dangerous.
"Now then," Malladus said. "I'm going to get back to killing you all. Thank you for the amusing distraction."
"You're not welcome!" Blue shouted.
Malladus threw fire at him, and by proxy, the rest of the group Blue was standing in. For a few moments, everyone scrambled to get out of the way and Malladus did his best to hit them in spite of their evasive maneuvers.
And then, quite suddenly, the sound of a cello burst into being, and the song hit a Note. Unlike all the previous notes, which quite frankly had been questionable at the very best, this one came with a capital letter, and when it resonated through the air it smacked into Malladus so hard that it snapped his head backwards.
There was a moment of absolute stillness.
Then, from a good distance away, Steam's voice yelled, "HAH! I TOLD YOU GUYS I REMEMBERED THE SONG!"
"WELL THEN KEEP DOING IT!" Green shouted back.
The next note was normal, and so was the one after that, but then another Note came echoing above the fire, this one accompanied by the sound of a pipa, and hit Malladus just as hard as the first one had. That seemed to trigger a cascade effect, where even though a few notes were still just normal, most of them were Notes. And with more and more Notes, came the Song.
Malladus, by this point, was having a very bad time of it. The Song was actually physically slamming into his body, and with every impact the glow of his bones became momentarily weaker - and of course, every hit drove him a little closer to falling to his knees.
"I thought Steam was exaggerating a little bit about the whole Sacred Song thing," Sketch admitted, watching this. "I will admit, I was wrong."
"Should we be taking advantage of this?" Speck asked.
"We don't… think so?" the Four hazarded. "Wasn't the whole plan to stall him until Gen got his sealing on?"
"Actually, yes," Lore said. "Has anyone seen him?"
"Okay," Gen said. "Fi, chances of success?"
"With the addition of a working Sacred Song, I predict that Sealing Malladus will have a seventy-five percent chance of a positive result, Master."
"Close enough," Gen declared. "Fi, start channeling, I want as much light magic as possible for this."
"Understood."
Gen let out a harsh breath. ""Here we go," he muttered, and then began sprinting across the fiery wasteland. He was pretty sure he knew where to go - the Song, for some reason, was visibly pulsing across the ground towards a central point in the flames, and it only made sense for that to be where Malladus was.
He really hoped he wasn't late.
Gen skidded onto the scene with his fireshield earrings glowing like little twin candles, because he'd wholesale jumped straight through several patches of almost-lava to get to his destination. There was a very good chance that, had he not had fire protection, his shoes would have melted off, which understandably would not have boded well for his legs either. He had the Master Sword already drawn and raised into a ready position, and it appeared that Fi was awake and ready to go judging by the glow his weapon was giving off. He was also, for some reason, carrying a small collection of rocks under his other arm.
"Hi so I need to set up a focus real quick someone keep Malladus distracted until I do and then I can actually get on with the sealing please and thank you!" Gen rattled off, then immediately dropped the rocks and began forcing them into a stack.
"Distraction?" Lore said. It was almost possible to watch his ears prick up with glee. "I can so do Distraction."
Malladus, meanwhile, hadn't been paying attention to any of this, because the Sacred Song was still pounding into his brain and wasn't letting up. His plan, for the moment, was to ride it out. The Sacred Song only lasted for so many measures, and once it ended, he would be free to wreak havoc again.
Admittedly, he would be about half as strong as he'd been, because there was no escaping the effect of a Sacred Song on a demon like himself, but he would still be able to do some damage.
He just had to grit his teeth and be patient for… about six more stanzas.
Five…
Four…
Three…
Two…
Come on…
There! The Song finally came to an end and Malladus wasted no time in launching himself to his feet. He had fire to shoot and Heroes to burn and a country to conquer, but not necessarily in that order. He needed to get started. He needed to-
"Oi! Mr. Mustache Man!"
Malladus paused. He turned. And then he said, "That had better be the beginnings of a compliment, whelp, or I am going to have to separate your head from your body."
Lore, who had indeed been about launch into a mustache insult of epic proportions, skillfully rerouted all his mental processes and promptly declared, "Of course not! I was about to gush profusely at the absolutely fabulous style you're pulling off. I must say, I adore the decision you made to have all your hair be made of fluffy blue smoke. It clashes fabulously with the rest of your coloring - how do you style that sort of thing?"
Malladus, for a very long minute, did absolutely nothing as he evaluated how much of a trap this might be. Then, slowly, he said, "I feed it cedarwood chips and spray it with an oxygen/hydrogen mix twice a day."
"Oh. My. Din. I never thought of that!" Lore gasped. "I should totally try that sometime!"
Very doubtfully, Malladus eyed Lore's hair - which, despite being glaringly orange, was not actually on fire. "I… wonder if you'll see the same results."
"Yeah, you're probably right," Lore sighed. "Oh well. We'll have to exchange tips the next time your break your seal."
"In case you hadn't noticed," Malladus said, "I already broke my seal."
"Oh no, not that old one," Lore said, flapping a hand. "I'm talking about this one. GEN, HIT IT!"
"GLADLY!" Gen bellowed, as Lore hit the deck and Gen whipped a gray blur over everyone's head, but directly into Malladus' face. The blur resolved into a small spire of rocks, cobbled together by what looked like sheer stubbornness, and stuck about three inches into Malladus' head. While Malladus stumbled backwards and tried to process this new development, Gen raised his Master Sword above his head and yelled, "FI, DO THE THING!" Then he brought his weapon down in what the other Links recognized as the Skyward Strike move Gen had described to them, and smacked Malladus - and more specifically, the makeshift spire in his forehead - with enough light magic energy to bleach a moblin's hide white. Immediately, Malladus froze in place.
Now looking like he was really straining for something, Gen decisively slashed his Sword through the air in a distinct pattern. As he did so, matching rifts in the air around Malladus appeared with every motion Gen made. The self-titled Demon King was now well and truly immobilized - but he was still doing his best to glare daggers at his aggressor.
Gen was visibly panting now, probably from the stress of letting Fi channel light magic through him. He took a deep breath, and then flipped his Master Sword around in an intricately complicated pattern, which he ended by stabbing, point first, at the dirt below.
And in response, the seal he had crafted around Malladus blazed with light, and inexorably sank into the ground, dragging Malladus with it. With one final flash, all that was left was the small makeshift spire, sticking up from the ground - and presumably, still embedded in Malladus' head somewhere, even if it was probably more in a metaphysical sense by this point.
"Hylia's Grace," Gen gasped, and immediately sat down. "That was so much more tiring than I remember it being."
"That would be because you were establishing a seal this time, Master, as opposed to re-strengthening an already existing one," Fi informed him in no uncertain terms. "I recommend rest and a stamina potion."
"I will get right on that," Gen wheezed. "Right after I start being able to feel my lungs again. Oh my goddess, I am never going to take Zelda for granted ever again."
"...Um," Speck said. "Is it over?"
"I have no idea," Lore said. "Steam probably would. Does anyone know where he is?"
"Here," Steam's voice called, right before he himself came into view amidst the still-enthusiastic fire. "What happened?"
"Gen Sealed Malladus," Vio said. "We're wondering if that's the end of it."
"Doubt it," Steam sighed. "Malladus ran around without a body before, remember?"
As if on cue, a small, blue, smoky sphere with a pair of bulbous yellow eyes popped out of the ground, took one look at the spire sticking up, and began throwing a temper tantrum.
"ARE YOU SERIOUS!?" Malladus - or rather, the tiny disembodied spirit of Malladus shrieked. "THIRTY MINUTES! I WAS FREE FOR ALL OF THIRTY MINUTES! WHY!?"
"Nothing personal," Steam said, at which point Malladus turned around and suddenly realized he wasn't in the best place. "Just, you know, revenge for destroying a country landmark, invading Hyrule, stealing Zelda's body, spreading mass panic, making Chancellor Cole a thing, and firing lasers at my Spirit Train." He paused. "Oh. I guess it is personal. My bad."
With that, he stabbed the Lokomo Sword directly through the small little ball that Malladus now was, and promptly discorporated him. Malladus dissolved with an indignant shriek and a sucking noise, as a black void materialized out of his vanishing remains and then shot off into the distance.
"Good riddance," Mask muttered. "Too much fire. Way too much fire."
"Speaking of which," Dusk said, "we should probably do something about the fire now that Malladus is no longer fueling it? Before it starts moving beyond this field and into something like a town?"
"Absolutely," Gen sighed, heaving himself up from the ground, having successfully got his breath back. "Okay. First, everyone is taking a Health Potion, no exceptions, because I absolutely refuse to believe that nobody got burnt in this mess. After that, Red, Sketch, Lore, you guys get started on the fire. The rest of us will come up with our own methods and join you in a couple minutes. Clear?"
"Clear," the group chorused, because if there was one thing that everyone had learned during the Vaati and Ganon fight, it was that Gen had way too many opinions regarding medicare and it was better to just let him have his way with it.
To be fair though, he was absolutely right.
"Oh Thank Us," Farore decided, as the Aspects of her Attribute huddled among themselves and passed around small bottles. "That could have been so much worse."
"Parts of the surrounding countryside are glowing," Nayru pointed out. "From heat."
"Oh I am so there," Din said, grinning fiercely. "I always thought New Hyrule could have done with a few more volcanoes and wow, heeeeeey, look at this perfect opportunity…"
"No." Without looking at her sister, Nayru reached out an arm and snagged Din's sleeve as she made her move. It was generally a very unwise idea to leave Din unsupervised during landmass creation. Islands were her first love, but volcanoes were a close second. Din had a frightening tendency to go overboard with volcanoes and not realize it until after the fact when the whole thing erupted and endangered half the country's population.
"But-!" Din made puppy eyes. She may or may not have been taking notes on the actions of one specific red-dressed Courage Aspect. "Just one? Please?"
Nayru stared at her, hard. "...One," she allowed.
"Yessssssssss."
Nayru released Din's sleeve, and Din immediately dashed off towards the reality window to start crafting. Just one volcano. Exactly one volcano. One volcano that Nayru hadn't put any size parameters on.
Din almost - almost - cackled, but since doing so would alert Farore and Nayru to her plans, she opted for a giddy smile. Ooooooh, this was gonna be fun!
"Was that the best idea?" Farore said, taking in Din's expression and feeling rightfully apprehensive about it.
"It was either that or listen to her beg us for the next decade," Nayru pointed out.
"True," Farore sighed. She pulled another reality window over and peered through it, evaluating the makeshift sealing spike. It was literally cobblestone - as in, a bunch of random stones cobbled together via what looked like desperation, stubbornness, and enough ambient heat to make the edges melt together. "We're gonna have to Inspire some people to make that more secure."
"The Tower of Spirits does need rebuilding," Nayru offered. "All we'd have to do is incorporate the sealing spike into the design, and it would basically be good as new, original purpose and all."
"Nice," Farore nodded approvingly. "That wraps up so well we could almost tie a bow around it."
"I'll ping Wisdom," Nayru said. "She can oversee this while Courage moves on."
"Warn her about Din while you're at it, will you?" Farore said. "Or at least, the latent volcano. Pass it off as Malladus' lingering influence or something, he did make a lot of fire."
Nayru grimaced. "I'll tell her to bring heat shielding."
Secondary plug for the people who didn't read the top: I have a YouTube channel under 'Shalerrin', I make animations and play Zelda. Subscribe and support me, please and thank you, in return you get to hear my voice and all that fun stuff.
FREAKING FINALLY.
Behold the Train Battle, which fought me for every single word and still manages to be the most stupidly difficult thing I've ever tried to write, yet somehow managed to be one of the longest chapters in the whole story. Honestly, what is it about Trains that's so absurdly prone to Writer's Block? Literally nothing has ever made me struggle this much. This chapter and I had a battle of sheer undiluted stubbornness, and I'm proud to say that I won. I think I burnt myself out for the next week or two, but I am victorious.
In other news, my Malladus headcanons made several more appearances. I did a LOT of research on what his real, not-possessing-anybody body might look like and irritatingly came up with a solid nothing, upon which I immediately took gratuitous liberties with the description of the Demon Train, his host-less spirit form, and crafted an entire body based solely on the faces of those two things because that was the only material I had to work with.
And then I gave him a moustache, just for joke continuity.
First Thanks to piplup40, AlphaAqua and Xajenn8 for favoriting/following!
Second Thanks to Mia The Black Cat, The Warmongers of Simora, hidalgo061191, wedward45, kittykruger, EnchantedTorch, lavenderwave0, Staffthebest, The Evil Dreamer, maexle200, Obsidian tree, 777SarcasmLane, Ayth_Jr, FarTooManyFandoms, NinjaGirl0805, BillieJoy, otansword, berryj2, Dark Acua, thesingingkitten, ACrowByTheNameOfRamen, 1silvergamer2, Legion222, crai22, Deathtrooper20, anothername714, Bionic608, Lilkupi, zakarieleskowsky, reji8627, and MalphLink for Favoriting/Following!
First Responses:
-Dark Pit not Pittoo: ...I knew I forgot something. Sorry, yes, you're right, there was supposed to be a response to your previous comment. Therefore, I shall do it here. As that is a quote of the Happy Mask Salesman (and would seem odd coming from anybody else) if that were to show up (which it probably will), it will be doing so in the Hyrule/Termina which is native to Ocarina and Mask. Also... I take it you've been messing with my disclaimers? ...That's not good. The Universe already has that slot taken and doesn't take very well to others. It will stalk you now...
-wowsocool: THANKS! Comments like that keep me going.
Shadows from Twilight: Same for me, but this isn't a Dusk-centric fanfic. It's about all the Links. I actually have to discipline myself not to have Dusk be in the center of things all the time. But don't worry; he'll get his moment in the spotlight. And it will be glorious when it happens.
-LuckyLugia: Well, to me Shadow seems to be a drifter. He wouldn't stick around after it all ends, but... he may pop up every now and then, just to annoy people.
-piplup40: Thanks!
-Xajenn8: Gen is the first Link by my reckoning, since I am only going by game content here.
Second Responses
-Ganonymous: Oh, is that their alternative to NaNoWriMo? Good luck! And thank you so much!
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