Chapter 21: The Mysterious Arbiter's Grounds
The party slept for a lot of the day but awoke in the early morning. Uten was already awake, as she was waking up the party members. "Hey guys, follow me! We did it!"
"Huh?"
"The medicine from the Molduga Guts, they worked!" Uten caused the party to wake up and they started following her up the staircases of the Domain to the Royal throne room. King Dorephan sat on his throne once again, with Prince Sidon ecstatic at Uten's arrival.
"Uten! I could hug you!" Sidon said. He ran up to Uten and hugged her really hard. Sidon stopped hugging her and she recovered herself.
"Thanks to you Uten, brave Zora, I am back to my old self again!" King Dorephan said with a hearty voice. "Seeing as you were not only brave enough to test out the prototype water suit made by Denton, you also managed to hunt and kill a Molduga, something that no other Zora has ever done before!"
"Well in all honesty, a lot of my teammates did the work." Uten said humbly. She looked back at her teammates.
Zhago stepped up to Uten. "We might have done the work, but you were the one who strategized for us, and you even harvested the guts yourself."
"I'll admit, I didn't even do anything to hurt the Molduga. It was mostly your job that you managed to pull off correctly." Poump said.
"Thanks guys." Uten said to the others.
"For all of your hard work, I reward the two Hylians and the Sheikah Warrior with specially fitted Zora armor, just for you!" King Dorephan's servants presented them with Zora armor. "With this armor, you will be able to swim about as fast as a Zora, and you can even scale waterfalls!"
"Thank you so much for your rewards!" Uten said.
"Thank YOU for saving my life! You have put a really good deed on your family name, so cherish it." The party grabbed their Zora armors and the servants went back next to King Dorephan. "You are welcome to come to this throne room whenever you feel like it. You are dismissed." The party walked out of the throne room together.
"Alright guys, what's our next course of action?" Uten said to the others, feeling much more confident in herself.
"If I remember correctly, we need to go back to Gerudo Desert in order to investigate the Arbiter's Grounds." Poump said.
"Oh wait, but I destroyed the bridge that went to Gerudo Valley." Zhago said, feeling a bit displeased with himself.
"Hey, I registered at the Shrine next to Gerudo Town. We can teleport there together!" Poump said holding his Sheikah Slate up.
"Are you sure we can teleport all at once?" Uten asked.
"We should try. Here, grab me."
"Wait a moment, let me put on the survival suit." Uten equipped the water outfit. "Now I'm ready."
Everyone grabbed Poump. He pressed on the Shrine that was located in the Gerudo Region and then all of them turned into blue streaks that floated into the sky.
Instantaneously, the party found themselves teleporting on the Shrine just outside of Gerudo Town. All of them were present and accounted for. "You two can stay out here. Tipa and I will go into Gerudo Town in order to speak to Lady Riju about our mission.
"We'll wait out here. Damn it's hot out here." Poump walked towards the shade with Zhago and they sat there.
Uten and Tipa walked into Gerudo Town. They headed straight for the palace. The guards stopped them. "What's the hold up?" Uten asked.
"If you wish to speak with Lady Riju, she is at an outpost to the South of this town." The Gerudo Guard said to Uten.
"Oh, alright. Thank you." Uten and Tipa started walking out of Gerudo Town until they realized that they didn't have any Sand Seals. Uten looked around and saw a group of Gerudo women sitting around a table together. Uten approached them. "Hi, excuse me, would you happen to know if Gerudo Town sells any Sand Seals?"
"You want Sand Seals?" The Gerudo pointed in the direction of a through way. "Through that alleyway and to the left. Then make a right. There's a place where they allow people to rent their Sand Seals."
"Alright, thank you." Uten followed the directions and they made it to the Sand Seal rental shop. There was a pen filled with Sand Seals wading about, and an open entrance around here for people using Sand Seals to travel. "Hi, I'd like 4 Sand Seals and 2 sleds please."
The Gerudo who was attending the rentals asked for the money. "140 rupees, please."
"Here you go." Uten handed the rental keeper the 140 rupees. Uten and Tipa got onto their sleds and reigned the Sand Seals. They steered them towards the other entrance to Gerudo Town, where they met up with Zhago and Poump. "Hop on." Uten commanded. Zhago and Poump got onto some shields and started riding the Sand Seals South. They saw an outpost on their way there. They stopped at the outpost since they knew Riju would be there. Buliara was standing at the bottom of the outpost.
"I see you've arrived." Buliara pulled at a crank and a ladder was lowered to the ground. "Lady Riju is up that ladder. She will brief you on what you need to do."
The party climbed up the ladder one at a time. They all made it to the top of the outpost, where Lady Riju was standing. Zhago pulled out his Eye of Truth on her. She didn't change in appearance at all.
"You see me for the first time and the first thing you do is see if I am not myself?" Riju said when she noticed Zhago looking at her through the Eye.
"We've had a lot of run ins with Yiga, so I'm just being cautious." Zhago replied.
"Very well then." Riju looked at the rest of the party. "May I ask what happened with the Molduga hunt?"
Uten spoke up. "We successfully killed the Molduga, but it swam towards a Mesa of some kind where two other Molduga are living. One of them looks fully grown, the other one looks like a baby."
Riju was happy to hear the news. "Wonderful. Our research on the Moldugas can continue." Riju changed the subject. "I have gathered you here in order to speak about what you should do while you are in the Arbiter's Grounds. Link has told me that he had suspicions that two of Hyrule's Champions are locked in there. Teba, the Rito Champion, and Yunobo, the Goron Champion. Besides freeing them, you should also investigate the mysterious device that Link said he found at the bottom most level of the excavation site. He said it might be linked to powering up Vah Naboris. And as for Vah Naboris, you will need to find a way to command it to walk across the desert towards the monster colony." Riju looked out into the distance. "There will be many Yiga footsoldiers stationed around there, as Link said it's their new stronghold for their weapons manufacturing. Be very careful when you go in there." Riju turned to look back at the party. "Any questions?"
Poump spoke up. "Will Link be able to join us?"
"He might be busy right now, but you can try to have him join you in there." Riju replied.
"Well uh, why would we want to even go in there in the first place? Sounds like a death trap to me."
"You want to help with Zelda's mission, right?" Riju said with a bit of impatience. "If you get Vah Naboris, you will be able to deal with the last monster colony. Plus, if you go in there, you could be able to save the other champions and help bring order back to Rito Village and Goron City. You've already gained a good reputation, so hold true to it." Riju walked towards the ladder. "Take your time, but get it done." Riju went down the ladder.
Zhago pulled out the Hawkeye and looked into the distance. He scoped out what looked like a really deep excavation site, with a very tall tower erupting from the ground. He looked from the excavation site to the outpost they were on and noticed the sand level was getting higher and higher. As if the sand formed a bowl around the excavation site. "Poump, you need to stop speaking against authority figures like that." Zhago said after some silence.
"Hey, we literally killed an authority figure and then our cucco turned into a girl. I'm feeling antsy about a lot of people right now." Poump replied.
"You're too antsy. It kills our image." Uten said to Poump. "We have good standing with Zelda, King Dorephan, Paya, and Lady Riju, so we shouldn't act like people are against us all the time."
"Eh, you're right." Poump said.
The party went down the ladder and walked up to their Sand Seals. They saw Riju and Buliara riding away on their own Sand Seals towards Gerudo Town. The party rode their Sand Seals down towards the excavation site. As they approached, a sand storm started blowing across their area. The party closed their eyes and trusted the Sand Seals to carry them to the Arbiter's Grounds with ease.
After some time, the sand storm let up and revealed the large building that was the centerpiece of the excavation. The building provided very ample shade, and they could see what looked like a large mechanical camel standing behind the tower. They made it to an area with a bunch of wooden scaffolding, which was draped with flags depicting the Yiga insignia. There were 4 towers set up where Yiga Clan archers were standing on. The party hid behind a wooden fence that blocked the Yiga archer's view of them. Zhago equipped the Hawkeye and looked at the towers with the archers on top. He pulled out his bow and with the extra accuracy of the Hawkeye, shot at all 4 of them, causing them to fall off of their towers, dead. Zhago looked down and saw a circle of Yiga clan members surrounding a fire, and they were set up in front of what looked like a stairway to a door. The party sneaked around the scaffolding and made it to one of the dead Yiga bodies.
"I will wear this as a disguise." Poump said. He started taking the Yiga's clothes off.
"Are you sure that would be a good idea?" Uten asked.
"It could work. Try and see if the disguise will work." Zhago said.
Poump put the Yiga outfit on and equipped the Yiga mask. He wore it above his normal clothes. "Here, Uten, Tipa, you will pretend to be my prisoners."
"Really? We're Yiga prisoners now?" Uten said with a bit of annoyance.
"It's a part of the roleplay." Poump said from under the mask. "Just play along and we will be able to get in there no problem. Zhago will cover us."
"I hope this works." Uten said reluctantly. Poump grabbed both Tipa and Uten by the hands and walked them towards the fire where the other Yiga were.
The Yiga that were sitting around the fire turned to look at Poump with the prisoners. "Hey, would you look at that. New slave workers I suppose." One of the Yiga said at the sight of Uten and Tipa.
"Yes, new prisoners for us to have." Poump said with a slight nervous energy. He noticed there were 7 Yiga sitting around the fire, with weapons all around them. 2 of the Yiga footsoldiers got up and took Tipa and Uten by the hand.
"We'll take them to the conveyor belts. Thanks for your service." The 2 Yiga took Uten and Tipa inside of the door.
One of the Yiga from around the fire looked at Poump. "Sit down man." Poump sat down with them. They all chatted for a bit, with the exception of Poump.
One of the Yiga noticed he wasn't speaking. "Hey, you. New guy. We haven't heard you say a thing in the past minute. Something wrong?"
"It's that arrow slit through his mask. Knocked his brain right out, so he can't say anything." Another Yiga pointed out how there was an arrow slit on Poump's mask.
"How did you get shot by an arrow and survive? That should've knocked you out dead."
Poump thought about something to say. "I fell on some flint and it caused this."
"So you fell onto a sharp rock and didn't get punctured in your own forehead? Even if you did survive that, that hole looks like it was made by a fast moving arrow."
"How would you know that?" Poump replied.
"Smart ass. We've seen action before, we know what an arrow through one of our masks looks like. Either you're an undead freak, or you stole one of our outfits." The 5 Yiga around the fire pulled out their Vicious Sickles and attempted to attack Poump. Poump brought up his Royal Shield and blocked their attacks. An arrow flew through the air and zipped right through one of the Yiga's heads. "Someone else is here!" 2 of the Yiga teleported away, while the other 2 remained with Poump.
2 of them teleported close to Zhago, but not in eye shot of him. They looked around the area in search of the archer. One of them looked around the scaffolding trying to find the shooter. Zhago jumped down from above and sliced the Yiga's neck open, causing them to fall to the floor dead. The other Yiga heard the noise and investigated. Zhago snuck up behind the other Yiga but the Yiga turned around and noticed Zhago before he could strike. "There you are!" Zhago swung his sword at the Yiga. He dropped a smoke bomb and teleported away. "Ahk, where did you go?" Zhago waited for the smoke to clear. He was above the Yiga on some scaffolding. He pulled out two throwing knives and sent them flying at the Yiga, crippling his leg. "AUGH!" Zhago jumped down and stabbed the Yiga through the stomach, killing them.
Poump pulled out his sword and eventually parried one of their attacks with his shield. He slashed at the one he parried, causing them to fall back. The other Yiga tried back attacking Poump, but then an arrow went right through the Yiga's ears. The Yiga dropped his weapons and fell to the floor. "AHH THE PAIN!" The Yiga said with the arrow going through both of his ears. Poump slashed at the Yiga that fell back and killed him. He turned around to look at the Yiga on the floor with the arrow in his head. Poump stabbed the Yiga through the stomach. "OUGGH!" The Yiga exclaimed as the sword went out of his stomach. "WHY CAN'T I DIE?!" The Yiga screamed again. Zhago ran up, feeling really confused as to what was happening. Poump shrugged his shoulders at Zhago, as even he had no clue what was going on. Poump took off his disguise and followed Zhago inside of the building.
As for the 2 Yiga that were escorting Uten and Tipa into the building, they made it through a few sets of doors and through a long hallway. The sides of the hallway had glass windows, with what looked like a conveyor belt. On the conveyor belt, there were some Sheikah tech devices that were working on reasambelling what looked like the shards of a mirror. Uten took the opportunity to speak to the Yiga footsoldiers. "Hey, you should kill us now." She said.
"What was that?" The Yiga replied.
"Kill us now so this can be done with." Uten said.
"Wait a moment." One of the Yiga said. "Didn't Ghirahim want to see a girl with horns?"
"Oh yeah, that's right. I'll take her right to him." The Yiga grabbed Tipa and teleported away.
"Tipa!" Uten brought out her spear and attacked the Yiga with it. The Yiga dodged out of the way and punched her in the face. Uten felt her water suit give her energy, so she wielded her spear with better form and stabbed the Yiga dead onto the wall. "Where is Tipa?!" Uten ran through the corridor. Poump and Zhago walked through the few sets of doors and saw her running at the other side of the corridor. They ran up to her.
"What happened to Tipa?" Poump asked.
"They have her." Uten replied.
As for Tipa, the Yiga teleported inside of a room with a glass dome that overlooked the whole desert. She even looked outside and saw that Vah Naboris was about 3 stories below them. The glass dome closed up, blocking out the sun. Tipa looked around and eventually saw the figure, wearing a white outfit, and with silver metallic skin. "You have done well in bringing him to me. Resume your patrol, there are trouble makers amongst us." The figure said to the Yiga. The Yiga walked up to a lift with about 6 more Yiga soldiers going onto the lift as well. The lift descended out of the room. "Now, Demise. Shall we restart our plans to get what we wanted for so long?"
Tipa's eyes turned red and her voice sounded more malicious. "Yes indeed, Ghirahim. Together, we can take back what was rightfully ours. The Goddess won't stop us now!"
"Demise, don't get ahead of yourself. We can't risk fighting the Hero right now." Ghirahim replied with worry. "Say, I've been researching what the people of this world have experienced. I've read so many history books that speak about what your curse has done for the past 100,000 years. But no matter what your curse does, that Hero is always there to stop you!"
"He won't stop us this time!" Demise replied.
"If I remembered correctly, you defeated the Hero 110 years ago, but 10 years ago, that same Hero came back and destroyed you!"
"He didn't destroy me! He destroyed Ganon! The host of my evil!"
Ghirahim thought to himself for a little bit. "Wasn't Ganon a Gerudo before? Many history books have referred to him as a Gerudo King, a Prince of Thieves. And countlessly through time, another Hero comes along to kill Ganon, no matter what form Ganon is taking. Who even is Ganon?"
"Ganon was a being that possessed great power. The Goddesses foolishly granted him the Triforce of Power. When I was looking for a new vessel to carry my curse, I chose Ganondorf, since he would be destined to meet with the Hero and the Goddess incarnate through the rest of eternity! Every time Ganon failed, I would reincarnate his life essence again and again as a fail safe for my plan! This land, Hyrule, has and will continue to be doomed by my curse, and it will still be held through Ganon's body. We need to find it. His body."
"Where would you expect me to find it?" Ghirahim said to Demise.
"You will find it in the Castle that stands in the center of Hyrule. Deep inside of the dungeons lies the old decrepit body of Ganondorf himself."
"Ganondorf?"
"That is his given name when he appears to be more humanoid. He still possesses the Triforce of Power, as well as a powerful male Gerudo body. He is much stronger than this weakling that I am inside of right now."
"What must we do in order to regain your power?"
"IDIOT!" Demise screamed at Ghirahim. Ghirahim knelt down. "I just told you how we can regain our power!"
"I am sorry, Lord Demise." Ghirahim said, shaking a little.
"The last time we were together, we were bested by the second Hero of this world. Here we are, 100,000 years later, in a world with not one, but three Heroes."
"Three Heroes?" Ghirahim said, surprised.
"Yes. One of them lives off the coast, on an island away from Hyrule. He possesses the other Hero's blood. He is too young to fight us, so we can kill him easily."
"What about the other Hero?" Ghirahim asked.
"The other Hero resides here in Hyrule. And she could be a great danger to all of us."
"She?" Ghirahim asked.
"Yes. She's been a thorn in my side for the past millennia. Always driving me away in a time when another Hero wasn't around. And she always appeared just at the moment when I was closest to victory. If we kill Her now, we will be able to take the future of Hyrule in our hands, in our vision. The land will belong to the monsters once again after so long!"
"We will win this, Demise." Ghirahim said.
"Very good. Firstly, we must kill the meddling party that is here."
"Oh Demise, don't worry about them right now. I have sent many Yiga footsoldiers after them. And I also have something I want to show you." Ghirahim walked to the center of the room and snapped his fingers. A broken mirror with black patterns appeared from the ground. "I've been asking for assistance for our take over. From another world that has never been seen by any Hyrulean in over 10,000 years!"
"What is that?" Demise said. It looked familiar to him.
"A mirror to another realm. The Twilight Realm."
The party walked through the corridor and made it to a large circular room with windows above them. They saw a lift descend to their level with 7 Yiga coming off of the lift. Zhago, Uten, and Poump drew their weapons. The Yiga circled around them and then as if in formation started hitting and running with every other attack. Their tactics managed to damage Uten's water suit, and they even broke Poump's shield. Zhago threw three throwing knives at the Yiga and managed to ground two of them. Zhago pulled out a bomb arrow and lit it. "Roll away!" He yelled to the other party members. They rolled away from the bomb and Zhago teleported away. The Yiga also rolled and teleported away from the explosion, making Zhago's strategy useless. He instead threw his sword right at one of the Yiga footsoldiers and killed them instantly. Poump spun his sword around and defeated three of the Yiga soldiers, and Uten waved her spear and made the water from her water suit tank travel up the Yiga's noses and drown them. All 7 of them were dead.
"Tipa must be up there." Uten said. She walked up to the lift. It seemed to have an electric cage surrounding it, and a switch next to it. Uten pulled at the switch.
"Access denied." The machine said.
"Come on now, we need to get up there!" Uten kept on pressing around the switchboard.
"Access denied. Access denied. Access denied. Access Denied. Missing: Key"
"Oh just great. We need to find a key now." Uten said. "I'm not going anywhere until we reunite with Tipa."
"We might need to cut our losses, she could be working against us now for all we know. You remember when she had those red eyes, and the malicious voice?" Poump paced for a bit. "And also how she turns into a Lynel that tries to kill us? Whoever that Ghirahim guy is, he is going to use her to kill us."
"You have a point, Poump." Uten said. She looked at the other side of the circular room and saw another lift, that wasn't caged off. "Let's go down that lift. That might be the only thing we can do right now."
"Wait, before we go down into whatever death defying adventure wherever that lift would take us, let me call Link." Poump pressed a button on the Sheikah Slate and it initiated a video call with Link.
Link looked down at the screen with a look of annoyance. "I'm in court right now."
"We're in the Arbiter's Grounds right now." Poump said.
"For Hylia's sake…" Link turned off the video call.
Poump looked at the others nervously. "I think I called him at the wrong time."
"I guess we'll wait." Zhago said. They waited in the room for a few minutes, and then they saw the door open and Link walk through. He had a stern expression on his face.
"You came!" Poump said at the sight of Link.
"Yeah, and now I have to postpone my court session." Link lightened up. "But, since it's for you guys, I will help you guys out in any way I can. I take it you are already acquainted with our goals here, right?"
"Yeah, we need to get Vah Naboris and free two of the missing champions." Poump said.
"Good. Say, where's the girl with horns?" Link looked around and saw she wasn't with them.
"Oh yeah, about that…"
"A Yiga soldier teleported away with Tipa." Uten explained. "We don't know where she is, but we did run into someone named Ghirahim who called her by the name, Demise. We have a feeling that Ghirahim must have Tipa."
"Ghirahim… why does that name sound familiar…" Link rubbed his chin in thought.
"I heard some Yiga soldiers speak about him being the current leader of the Yiga Clan." Zhago added.
"I've heard rumors about that." Link replied. "It seems you have discovered that the rumors are true. What makes me more concerned about Ghirahim is who he is. I read through the historical archives and learned that he was apparently really close to putting an end to the world 100,000 years ago, with the assistance of a being called Demise."
"Are you saying this could be the same Ghirahim from the past?" Poump asked.
"It's very unbelievable, but that might just be the case." Link walked up to the lift with the party. "I investigated this facility a few months ago. It already looks like they've managed to turn the whole place into a working factory of some kind, even with working lifts." Link walked onto the lift with the party and they descended to the lower level.
As the lift descended, they noticed a large assembly line of some sort filled with Hylians tinkering on some weapons. They seemed to be manufacturing an arrow of some kind. Link took a closer look at the Hylians and recognized them as Hateno Villagers. There were 6 of them.
"Oh my goodness!" Link exclaimed. "Those are Hateno Villagers! Some of them are my neighbors!" The lift made a stop and Link walked up to the assembly line. The villagers looked up from their conveyor belts to see Link.
"Oh, Hullo there Link!" One of the villagers said at the sight of Link.
Link waved hello to them but had a bit of skepticism in seeing them in a Yiga stronghold. He made a notice at them wearing coats with the Yiga insignia on it. "Medda, how did you and everyone else get here?"
"Oh wow, that's a long story." Medda and the villagers continued working on the arrows on the assembly line, but Medda continued speaking as he worked on them. "It happened about a week ago. A few Hylian soldiers came into Hateno Village and promised us that we would be put into a job that would pay us farmers 300 rupees an hour. The villagers and I agreed to it and we filed into their wagon. They rode us to the Gerudo Desert and said we had a very important thing to do for the people of Hyrule. Then some strange guys in red outfits with masks who call themselves the Yiga Clan welcomed us inside of this tower and put us to work. When we came in here, we even saw some other Hateno Villagers that we hadn't seen in a long time. One of them was Nebb by the way. Nebb said that he had a bad feeling about these Yiga members, but he said we should go along with their plans for now." Medda picked up one of the finished arrows from the assembly line. "Do you know what type of arrow this is, Link?"
"That's an ancient arrow." Medda handed Link the arrow. Link inspected it. "These work best against Guardians, but do something horrifying to anything without a Guardian's properties. It's impressive that these ancient arrows are being made in large numbers."
"Yeah it sure is." Medda replied. He looked around and then spoke to Link with some more intensity. "We plan on rebelling against the Yiga Clan. Once we're given the money, we'll escape from here. We've mapped out the place for ourselves, and have an escape route ready, but we're not too sure if we will survive the escape." Medda looked behind Link and widened his eyes. "Everyone! Into the emergency bunker!" Medda and the other villagers hurried into a small room nearby and pressed a button. Some doors closed, shutting them inside of the room.
Link turned around and discovered three small Guardians approaching them with a few special and blue glowing weapons. Behind them, five Yiga footsoldiers approached them behind. Poump, Uten, and Zhago pulled out their weapons. "Guardian Scouts." Link said. He pulled out his Master Sword and Hylian Shield. The Yiga stopped in their tracks at the sight of the Master Sword, and as if by command the Guardian Scouts stopped as well.
"How do we fight these Guardian Scout things?" Poump asked.
"First we need to separate them. And those 5 Yiga soldiers behind them aren't going to do much good either." Link started observing the enemies. "Zhago, you know what to do with the Yiga soldiers. Make them hurt. Poump, try to move the Guardian scouts away from each other. That way they will be easier to fight individually. Uten, use your spear on the Yiga soldiers. They can't reach you if you defensively fight with your spear."
"Alright, got it." Poump said.
One of the Yiga soldiers became impatient. "What the hell are we doing guys, they're just standing there talking. Fight them!" The Yiga members ran forward and passed the Guardian scouts. Link, Zhago and Uten clashed with the Yiga members. Poump flanked behind the fight and walked up to one of the Guardian Scouts. It turned around and looked at him with it's red glowing eye.
"Nuh-uh." Poump said. He used his Power Bracelets and grabbed the Guardian Scout and threw it to the other side of the room. The other two Guardian Scouts noticed Poump and pursued him with their weapons drawn. Poump took notice of the Guardian Scouts' blue weapons. One of them had a large axe with a shield, and the other one had a spear, a sword, and an axe. Poump lunged at one of them to punch them but the Guardian scout with the spear jabbed at Poump with the spear and caused him to roll on the floor.
Link confronted three Yiga soldiers at the same time. He blocked their attacks and then once the opportunity arrived, he dodged one of their attacks. He flew right at the three of them and slashed his Master Sword at them with rapid strikes in quick succession. The three Yiga members fell to the floor in bloody pieces. Zhago threw one of his throwing knives at one of the Yiga members. The Yiga blocked his attack but got stabbed in the back by Uten, and then Zhago stabbed behind himself and defeated the last Yiga member.
Poump got back up and pulled out his Clawshot. He used it on one of the Guardian Scout's axes and pulled the axe out of their robotic hand. Poump looked at what he got and it didn't look like an axe. It just looked like a metallic stick. He pushed around the stick and then ignited the blue axe out of it, as if it were made of pure energy. Poump ran up to the two Guardian scouts with his new axe and managed to slam it into one of them, but the other one blocked both of his attacks with it's shield. The attacked Guardian Scout retracted itself and started shooting a laser on the floor. It spun around while it was shooting the laser to the floor, forming a circle in which the laser was rotating in, creating a gust of wind somehow. The other Guardian Scout got hit multiple times by the laser attack, causing it to explode and drop it's weapons. "Wow, that was incredible Poump!" Link exclaimed at the sight of his battle.
Poump jumped up a little bit and brought out his paraglider. The glider caught a gust of wind which was somehow coming from the Guardian Scout's laser. Poump was sent into the air above the Guardian Scout. He thought of a cool idea. He pulled out his blue axe in mid-air and slammed it down onto the Guardian Scout below him, causing it to explode. Poump hurt himself a little bit, but he was mostly alright.
"Marvelous!" Link said at Poump's performance. A laser sight aimed itself at Poump. "Watch out!" Link ran up next to Poump with his shield out face first. Poump turned around and saw the other Guardian Scout pointing it's red laser sight right at him. Link ran in front of Poump once the Scout shot out the laser. Link parried the laser with his shield, causing the laser to be sent right back to the Guardian Scout, making it blow up from the impact. Link reached his hand out to Poump. "Here, take my hand."
Poump took Link's hand and was brought back up to his feet. The party walked around the room for a bit. They noticed some ropes being lowered down to their level. On the ceiling above them, they saw more ropes being dropped from the scaffolding. About 20 Yiga footsoldiers started sliding down the ropes towards the party. The Yiga Clan members drew their bows. "Get down!" Link screamed to the others. Zhago grabbed Poump and Uten and then teleported towards the assembly line and hid behind it. Zhago grabbed a few ancient arrows and put them in his quiver. The Yiga members rained their arrows down onto Link. Link pulled out his shield and then an orange force field surrounded him. The arrows all pelted themselves across Link's force field. The ghost of a Goron appeared and some of the arrows reflected back at the Yiga, causing about 3 of them to fall down to the floor, dead. The other 17 Yiga members made it on Link's level and surrounded him. Link made a stance with his Master Sword. All of the Yiga charged right at him at the same time and then Link spun his sword around, and then the ghost of a Gerudo appeared, followed by a shock of electricity in the air. All of the 17 Yiga surrounding Link fell down to the floor dead, fried by the electric attack. Poump, Uten and Zhago walked away from the assembly line towards Link.
"That was a lot of Yiga assassins." Zhago said to Link.
"And there will be more." Link sheathed his weapons. "Alright now, a few things. Those Guardian Scouts dropped some really good weapons. I'd advise you all to take their weapons, and their shields especially. Next up, we should find the other champions, wherever they could be. With them, I can escort the Hateno Villagers out of here. Let's go through that door. I remember hearing that there were some cell blocks in that direction." Link and the party walked towards the door. Link waved his Sheikah Slate at the door and it opened. "They're using that now." Link muttered to himself. The party and Link walked through a corridor that lead to a lift and a door. The wall had a glass window showing some Sheikah tech robot arms piecing together the pieces of some shards from a mirror. "I wonder what that could mean." Link said when he observed the mirror shards. Link looked at the lift and the door. "Which way should we take guys?"
"I think we should go through the door first." Poump said.
"I agree." Zhago and Uten said in unison.
"In here we go." Link waved his Slate in front of the door and made it open up. They walked inside and saw a Goron in a cell. "Yunobo!" Link exclaimed.
"Haha yeah, it's me, Yunobo! You're best Goron friend!" The Goron in the cell said with a gruff voice.
"Hey Yunobo, you seem kind of off." Link replied.
"But I'm me! I'm right here!" The Goron replied with a lighter voice. "Let me out of here!"
"Hmm, alright then." Link looked at the lock on the cage. "We need a small key to unlock this. Or, you could just punch the bars down since you are a tough Goron."
"Oh no, I can't do that! I've been starving here, so my strength has started to wane!" The Goron sat on the floor trying his best to look helpless. Link saw a door in the room.
"Wait here guys, and make sure he's okay." Link said to the others. He walked through the door. The party looked at the Goron and made sure he didn't croak and die. After a minute, Link walked out of the door kicking some spiders off of himself, and he also had a large stone hammer in his hands, and a key on his belt. "I found the key." Link unlocked the cage with the key and allowed the Goron to go out of the cage.
"Thank you very much, Hero!" The Goron aggressively swiped his hand at Link causing him to fall over. The Goron balled up and rolled towards Poump. Poump used his Power Bracelets on the Goron and tossed him to the wall, but the Goron rebounded. Poump rolled out the way and knocked Uten and Zhago over. The Goron went out of its ball form. Zhago pulled out the Eye of Truth on the Goron. The Eye revealed a Yiga member using Sheikah tech disguised to look like a Goron. It was quite the convincing disguise. Link got up.
"This isn't even a Goron, Link!" Zhago said to Link.
"Of course I am a Goron, I am the Goron Champion, Yunobo!" The Yiga Goron slammed his fist onto the ground.
"If you are Yunobo," Link said to the Yiga Goron. "Tell me how we managed to get to Vah Rudania."
The Yiga Goron stopped to think for a moment. "The both of us caused Rudania to fall down Death Mountain, and then the both of us leapt down the mountain to board onto it."
Link smiled at the Yiga Goron and then made a frown. "No, that's not what happened." Link pulled out his Sheikah Slate and pointed it at the Yiga Goron. He pressed a button on the screen and caused the Goron to freeze up entirely with a yellow energy surrounding him. Link attacked at the stationary Goron several times, but the Goron didn't move a single inch after each hit.
"What are you doing?" Poump asked.
"Prepare to punch with those bracelets." Link said after he slashed at the Goron one more time. "Now!" The Goron all of a sudden very violently rolled into the wall and then rebounded straight towards Poump. Poump pumped his fist forward at the Goron that was speeding towards him and then punched the whole disguise right off of the Yiga. Zhago swiftly stabbed the Yiga while he was down.
"So that wasn't Yunobo." Poump said.
"This can't be, I have a feeling he's here." Link looked around the room trying to find Yunobo. Zhago decided to look through the Eye of Truth again. He looked around the room and eventually noticed the wall next to the cell had a Goron stuck inside of it. As if they were completely encapsulated by the brick walls surrounding them.
"Hey Link, look at this." Zhago showed Link what the Eye of Truth was showing.
"Yunobo!" Link walked up to the wall with the Goron inside of it. He pressed a button on his Sheikah Slate which summoned a blue glowing square bomb that he placed right next to the wall. "Stand back everyone." Everyone stood back and then he detonated the square bomb opening up the wall. The Goron fell out of the wall.
The Goron was coughing a lot. "I've been stuck inside of that wall for I don't know how long!"
"Yunobo! So good to see you again!" Link walked up to the Goron who was still coughing on the floor.
"Oh my goodness, Link, is that you?!" The Goron tried to hug Link but stopped because of his exhausting pain.
"How do we know he is the real Yunobo?" Poump asked with uncertainty.
Link looked back at Yunobo. "Do you remember what we did to get to Vah Rudania?"
The Goron coughed a little more but started to feel better. "Oh yeah, we snuck around some Guardian Skywatchers. And you fired me out of a few cannons at the Divine Beast. Then Rudania climbed into the center of Death Mountain and you glided down there in order to tame it, goro."
"That's exactly what happened. This is Yunobo everyone." Link turned to the party. "This is Poump, Uten, and Zhago."
"Hi guys." Yunobo said, feeling his head. "I haven't eaten anything in a long time. I'd be a burden on all of you."
"It's okay Yunobo. I'll take care of you." Link looked at the party. "Okay guys, you should try and find Teba, the Rito Champion. I have a feeling he might be down that lift we saw. I'll take care of Yunobo right now."
"Alright, we'll deal with finding Teba. You can trust us." Poump said.
"That I do." Link replied. He started tending to Yunobo and the party walked through the door and walked onto the lift and made a descent.