All around Young Link was chaos. Allies were getting vaporized in the moment or trying to escape the beams. It was no different for him, as he weaved through them by jumping, dodging, or running as best he could. Thankfully, his small size made him a difficult target. But he knew he couldn't keep it up. He needed a way out, but there were no nearby portals for him to escape to.
It was then he noticed a perfectly square hole on the ground, not much larger than himself. Has that always been there? Seeing no better options, he jumped in.
He fell a few feet before landing. Using one of his fire arrows as a torch, he glanced around. He saw that it continued a ways forward before swerving down again. Running, he jumped down again, only to find the same. This pattern went on for over a dozen times, getting deeper and deeper into the heart of the floating island.
After following this underground trail for what felt like forever, Young Link finally saw a light, and blocking it was one of his allies: Steve.
Before he could reach out to him, the block man activated a pair of wings and flew off.
Knowing that there'd be no other way out of the island, Young Link reached for his hookshot and shot it at Steve's Elytra.
By a stroke of luck, it connected and he was pulled forward. In the next second, he found himself dangling by nothing but one arm as he desperately tried not to let go. Steve, on the other hand, seemed unaffected, as if the sudden increase in weight meant nothing to him.
The Minecraftian pulled himself up into the top of a tree, blinking at the harsh sunlight. "Good thing I had the Elytra." He looked down into the tree. "Yo. Swordie kid. You alright?"
Looking at the block man, he nodded. His arm was pretty sore from having hung on for so long. If it wasn't for the awkward position and lack of control of where he was going, he would've enjoyed the ride a lot more. It reminded him a bit of when he used Cucoos to glide back home.
"Good to know." Steve looked at the kid for a few seconds more before he lightly patted a nearby branch. "Why don't you climb up here? Get a look at our current surroundings. Maybe you can see something I can't."
Using his Grappling Hook, the young Hylian quickly reached the top of the tree. Looking around, he saw nothing but empty hillsides and ruins to the north and west, some mountains to the east, and a big forest to the south. He shook his head in denial.
"Hmmm... hills and ruins to the north and west, mountains to the east, forest to the south..." Steve closed his eyes for a second, then opened them. "Ruins sound promising to me. Usually find good stuff in ruins." The Minecraftian looked down at Young Link. "What do you say?"
The youth thought about it for a moment and then nodded with a smile. His experience with exploring Temples had taught him a similar lesson.
"Good. Now, how do you suppose we travel to those ruins?" Before YL could respond somehow, Steve held up a hand. "Yeah, I'm asking you." He smiled.
Young Link, after glaring at the blocky man with a look of contempt, said: "We could use those wings of yours again"
"... I like that. Sure." Steve resisted the urge to ruffle the kid's hair. He instead set up the Elytra. "Hop on."
Jumping on top of Steve's back and grabbing on tightly, he signaled him with a quick "Ready!"
Steve ran through the motions of prepping the fancy hang glider. "Hold on tight, I'd rather not have to tell Bayo you got hurt." He then took a running leap off of the tree and soared through the air towards the distant ruins.
"Now this is more like it," thought Young Link as he felt the wind on his face. He could see why his other incarnations loved this so much
Eventually, the two reached the distant ruins and Steve landed the Elytra safely. "We're here."
Jumping down from Steve's back, Young Link proceeded to study the ruins surrounding them. They didn't look like anything that he'd ever seen before, but considering the various different places the other fighters came from, it didn't mean much. Looking around, he started to notice several large scratch marks in the ruins and in the ground. With a gasp, he immediately realized what this meant. However, before he could warn his companion, an ear-splitting screech was heard.
Steve grabbed his bow from his back and notched an arrow. "Wonder what that is."
An immense shadow passed over them. A few moments later, a gigantic red and black bipedal dragon landed in front of them, with a look of anger in its eyes.
Grabbing his own bow, Young Link got ready for a fight.
"Well, you're a big one," Steve stated as he eyed the dragon.
Young Link just stood there, watching the monster's actions carefully, hoping to find a weak spot to help defeat it if need be. The monster charged towards the duo head-on.
Steve started to rapid fire arrows as he looked for what he could use environment wise.
Similarly, Young Link fired off several fire arrows, but they bounced off its skin as if they didn't exist. Seeing how ineffective they were, he stopped and waited until it was close to him to roll sideways and get a closer look to its left side. "Its whole body is covered in similar scales, meaning my arrows won't do any good. The boomerang will probably be no good, either. What to do..."
Steve notes the scales. "Arrows won't work..." The master craftsman put away his bow and eyed the dragon, then reached to his side and drew his netherite sword (with max enchants of course) and charged at the beast.
Looking at the dragon's side, he noticed something: "Its scales had chinks in between them. Maybe I can use that to my advantage somehow..."
Steve reached the dragon and jumped into the air, swinging his sword at the beast as he seemed to somehow swap between his sword and bow rapidly in quick succession before landing on the ground. "I call that trick 'sword swapping.' Seems to work most of the time."
The boy reached into his pockets, hoping to find something to help them. "Bottles? No" "Bombs? I doubt they'll do significant damage" "Slingshot? Even less so" "Deku stick? Useless"
He gasped, suddenly remembering something. "I think I have some..." Young Link ran as fast as he could towards Steve, with an idea already forming in his head. "Listen, I think I have an idea of how we can hurt it"
"What's your idea?" Steve thought for a second about using TNT but then decided against it.
Young Link reached within his pocket and pulled a few small objects, as the dragon readied itself to charge at them again. "I have these things called Deku Nuts. They temporarily blind and stun any nearby enemies when I throw them!" "Next time it charges at us, I'll stun it, and I want you to fly me up to it's head right after." He stopped to think about it for a second, and added: "And maybe find a way to damage it afterwards"
"So like Blindness Potions? Good to know." Steve readied the Elytra.
As the beast charged them, Young Link stood there, waiting. When it was but a few paces away from them, he threw a Deku Nut as hard as he could and immediately ran to the side like before. The dragon stopped and moved from side to side and back and forth, disoriented.
Steve let Young Link use him and the Elytra to fly up to the dragon's head. The Minecraftian then let the kid stand on the beast's head while he put away the flying contraption and attempted to stab the dragon in the head with his sword.
Landing on the monster's head, the youngest Hylian slid down its neck, looking for some weak point to exploit. At the bottom of his neck, he found a somewhat bigger opening. "Here! I think I found a weak spot!" he signaled the block man. "Hurry, before it regains its senses!"
Steve found the weak spot and attempted to stab said weak spot with his sword.
At the same time, so did Young Link. Hitting flesh, he thought: "Our weapons are too short to make any permanent damage, but it'll definitely hurt it enough to distract it" A moment later, the monster, feeling the pain of the injury and with the effects of the Deku Nut wearing off, shook around violently, trying to shake the unwanted riders off.
Steve expertly hung onto the dragon with one arm as he put his sword away and took out his trident, now attempting to half blind the creature and maybe injure its jaw. "Tridents can be thrown and they rebound back to you like those boomerangs you three have... or the two of you, not sure if the older one has one - anyway, once we get thrown off, I'll try to show off what the trident can do."
With all the thrashing around, the Hylian was forced to hang on as best as he could, giving him no chance to focus on what Steve was saying. Unfortunately, with one powerful shake, he was thrown off the monster's back. Landing hard on his back, he was left winded for a few seconds.
Steve decided to jump off the dragon and rolled when he hit the ground, then got back up, made as if you thrown the trident (it started to glow brighter then longer he held back) and then threw the trident like a javelin at the monster, aiming for the center of its head, right in between its eyes.
Bleeding from both its wounds, the monster screamed in pain and anger. Flapping its enormous wings, it started to take flight. "I was wondering when it'd decide to use those!" - noted Young Link, struggling to stay up against the powerful wind currents caused by the dragon's wings.
"Now this is more like it!" Steve caught his trident on the rebound and set it against the ruined brick with a tink. "Hmmm." The block man reached up to scratch his beard in thought. "Got any ideas?"
"We might not need one. Maybe it's running away" - responded the Hylian, seeing the dragon get higher and take off.
"Maybe it's a fake out. Ender Dragon liked to do that a lot."
As if on cue, they heard a loud roar getting closer and closer. Looking towards its source, they saw the monster fly towards them high in the sky. As it passed near them, it fired a series of fireballs from its maw. Running as fast as he could, Young Link escaped from the projectiles' trajectory, feeling the heat on his back as he did.
Steve quickly summoned a shield to protect himself against the dragon's attack, then he got an idea. "Yo, we can build some sort of piston TNT contraption to bring the beast down. You interested?"
Young Link looked at the block man with eyes as wide as they could go. That sounded far more insane than anything he'd cooked up in his adventures. Both intrigued and with a tinge of regret, he nodded. "Goddess, please help me..."
"Good. Now, here's what we do..." Steve began to summon all sorts of blocks - TNT, pistons, redstone, levers, slime blocks - and began to build. Soon, he had some sort of contraption that could be rotated using levers, it involved TNT, of course, on a timed system.
"Hurry, the dragon's going to make another pass at any moment!"
Steve lit the TNT contraption, grabbed the younger Hylian, then ran to a safe place in the ruins.
Moments later, the dragon flew through where they were, looking for them and screeching loudly
The TNT contraption went off with a loud boom.
Young Link watched in amazement as the contraption sent a box of TNT flying up and hitting the dragon's open maw as it was about to spit out another fireball. The ensuing explosion could be heard and felt by the duo, who proceeded to cover their eyes. A few seconds later, the dragon began falling from the sky, with its head covered in a ball of flame, and landing on the ground with a loud THUD. Both of them watched as the beast attempted to get back up, but failed and fell back down.
Steve ran up to the dragon and attempted to finish off the beast with his sword.