HUGE THANKS to Nerdwen, ultima-owner, and Kerriss-Singer-of-Light for reviewing!
To Nerdwen: Y'know, if people didn't know we were related, you'd sound like a complete stalker. Besides, I know for a fact that you're not even in the same state anymore.
Disclaimer: Must we really? I mean, just follow common sense. The site is called , after all.
Edit 6-8-15: not many changes, just a sentence added and some formatting altered. Enjoy!
The entrance to the Water Temple was, instead of a door, a long underwater tunnel. Multi-colored coral and plants lined the bottom, and the slight current that we were swimming against made them ripple serenely. It would have almost been pretty... if not for the giant mutated jellyfish that tried to electrocute us, as well as the even larger mutated fanged clams that had massive jaws like steel traps. Extra-large steel bear traps.
These obstacles were all easily avoided, simply due to the fact that they weren't very maneuverable and we could just swim around them. A couple minutes later the tunnel began to slope steeply upwards, and soon after we surfaced in what looked like some sort of small entrance hall.
"Wha- agh! There's something slimy on my head get it off get it off get it off!"
My observation was cut short as Vaati freaked out, splashing water everywhere and shrieking like a girl. A large purple chu had apparently fallen from the ceiling and landed on Vaati's head, which was then dislodged by the pale boy's thrashing around. The blob was thrown off and landed in the water, where it quickly drowned dissolved into bits of purple goo that drifted slowly to the bottom.
Needless to say, the four of us vacated the water hastily. Then came the other six or seven chus.
"Ugh. I hate this place already," Dark grumbled as he reduced yet another chu to nothing but a purple colored puddle.
"Waa! Great Farore, what is it with this place?! First chus, now stalactites? What else is going to fall from the ceiling, bombs?!"
"Woah! That's treacherous... Whoa! Don't you think you ought to knock down those stalactites hanging off the ceiling first? They don't look to be very stable. I'd bet they'd break pretty easily if you hit them with enough force, don't you think?" Midna pointed out as she popped out of Link's shadow.
"Gee, no duh it's treacherous! Argh, is it just me, or is this temple more annoying than the other two already?" I muttered to myself. Vaati grimaced in agreement, but when I glanced at Dark, he looked almost... scared. His eyes were glazed over and he was twitching slightly, an almost fearful expression on his face.
Then several of the stalactites came crashing down, severed from their stems by Link's bomb arrows. The loud sound snapped Dark out of his stupor and he returned to normal, leaping down and battling one of the armored monsters as the last stalactite fell from the ceiling.
"Whoa. Just... whoa."
"No kidding..."
"What do you think this room was used for?"
"I have no idea whatsoever. But whatever it was, this room is spectacular!"
"You can say that again."
"Okay. This room is spectacular!"
"Hey, Shadow, c'mere! It's that cucco lady again!"
"Oh, good gracious! It's you again!"
"Yeah, us again. How the heck do you keep getting into pots anyway?"
"..."
"Whatever. Let's just pick a door and go find whatever weird piece of bizarre armor that we're supposed to get here and get out, okay? Good."
"Gosh, he's sure in a bad mood today."
"I bet it's all the water. You know how he hates having to wade through anything lower than his ankles for some reason. He's fine if it goes up to, say, his shins, but if it's lower than his ankles he freaks out. It's actually really weird. We've never been able to figure out why."
"Really? Strange..."
"Whoa... awesomest waterslide ever!"
"Shadow, 'awesomest' isn't a word."
"Google docs says it is."
"What the heck are you talking about?"
"Um... actually, I have no idea where that came from. Anyway, let's go down the slide!"
"Shadow, you are such a little kid sometimes."
"Hey, is that a fish in the water?"
"...Correction: Was that a fish in the water? It just got eaten by skullfish."
"Poor fishy. Whoa, look at that! They even eat the bones!"
"Dark, is it just me, or does something here smell really, really, bad?"
"It's not just you. Oh gross, something slimy just landed on my head!"
"...Don't tell me. It's on the ceiling again, isn't it? Seriously, what is it with this place and stuff that hangs or falls from the from the ceiling?!"
As Vaati threw his hands up in exasperation, we all looked up towards the ceiling at the exact same time. A massive dark blob clung to one of the hanging stalactites, and as we watched it shook itself and sent several smaller toadpoli that landed among us. Then it let out a massive groaning/belching/I-don't-even-know-but-it-was-disgusting sound that sent a wave of what could only be described as the absolute worst morning breath ever rolling around the room.
The creature then dislodged itself from its hanging spot and crashed to the ground, causing the entire room to shake. It released that gross sound again and shook itself, sending more toadpoli scattered around the room. Its mini offspring immediately honed in and began attacking us, doing a surprising amount of damage through sheer numbers.
Once all the mini monsters had been killed and were little more than bits of black dust, the massively ugly toad-thing (the name Deku Toad suddenly popped into my head) suddenly sprang upwards, aiming to come down and squish us.
"Scatter!" Dark yelled, rolling out of the way as it came down nearly on top of him with a massive splash. It lay there, stunned for a moment, and the four of us took the opportunity to attack the only part of its body not covered by thick, impenetrable blubber- its tongue.
A second after it heaved itself off the ground and roared again, creating the perfect opportunity for me to throw one of my extra-large bombs into its mouth. It collapsed again, so we attacked the tongue. Then it revived itself and sent more toadpoli out, repeating the cycle once more until it finally died.
By then we were all covered with bits of monster dust, which was actually really gross because even if the water slid off the zora armor, enough moisture stayed for the ashes to collect themselves into goopy black messes. Gross.
What was even nastier, however, was the treasure chest that popped out of the Deku Toad's mouth once it died. It was covered in thick black goo, which slid off and pooled on the floor in a tar-like puddle.
"Ick. No way am I touching that thing. Whatever's in there is all yours, Link." Vaati said in a disgusted voice. I was thinking the same thing. Link stared at it incredulously.
"Ah, actually, I got the items from the first two dungeons, so isn't only fair that one of you guys gets this one?" he asked hopefully. Midna then proceeded to pop out of his shadow and berate him for being a squeamish idiot and to just get the stupid item already.
After a few minutes of this, Link finally surrendered and walked over to the chest, nudging the clasp open with the toe of his boot. Kicking the thing open, he then bent over and removed what looked like some sort of glove with a grabbing claw on the end. Midna informed us that it was called a clawshot.
"Hey, this is actually pretty cool. What's this button do?" Link muttered to himself, squeezing a small trigger. Suddenly the claw was launched out at the wall, trailing a length of chain behind it. Within five seconds it had rebounded off the wall and returned to the base, having not found anything to latch on to.
"Whoa. That is cool," Link breathed, wide-eyed. He cast his eyes around the room and saw a metal grate with a red circle in the middle on the ceiling over the gate that had closed. Grinning widely, the blond hylian aimed and fired the clawshot, then yelped as he was yanked through the air until he was hanging from the grate by one arm. Pressing another trigger he released the claw and landed on the ground, still grinning with exhilaration.
"Come on! There were some more grates over that way, and I want to try this thing out some more!" Link cried from the other side of the gate. Dark grinned and turned ghostly, floating through the bars, while I became a shadow and slipped underneath. Vaati hovered on his purple tornado and just floated over. Then we all went off deeper into the dungeon, Link eager to test out his new weapon some more.
"HOLY F***ING S*** THE FISH EXPLODE!"
"SWIM AWAY, SWIM AWAY!"
"SWEET GODDESSES ABOVE IT'S CHASING ME!"
"OUT OF THE WATER! QUICK!"
"Okay, giant empty room opened by a large key... no doubt the boss room," Dark said to himself as we sank down towards the bottom of the largest chamber we'd been in yet. Just as Link, aided by his iron boots, touched the sandy bottom, the ground suddenly opened up in the middle of the chamber to reveal a giant mouth surrounded by a waving tentacles. Schools of bombfish swam out and beelined towards us, eyes narrowed menacingly.
"Well, looks like that was confirmed. I wonder how big the monster itself is, if the mouth alone is that large," Vaati commented offhandedly as he swiped his dagger at a tentacle that got a bit too close for comfort. Link was trying to pin down the eye that kept traveling between tentacles with a clawshot, but with limited success.
The rest of us focused on keeping the bombfish occupied. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Link slash at the overly large eyeball he'd pulled out for the third, time, which prompted the second phase of the battle.
A muffled screech reverberated through the water, and the Twilit Aquatic Morpheel pulled itself out of its hole to reveal its full size. That thing was massive, probably large enough to demolish Hyrule Castle if it could. I caught sight of a large eye on its back, probably the weak spot, as it swam around the room.
Ignoring the way having an eye on the back of one's head made absolutely no logical sense, since it didn't have any eyes anywhere else (monsters weren't logical. They just weren't), the four of us quickly swam up and tried to get to that weak point.
"Link! Use the clawshot to get to the eye! We'll distract it!" Dark called, his slightly distorted voice sending vibrations through the water. The other hylian nodded and equipped the claw on one hand, holding his sword in the other. Thank the Goddesses he was ambidextrous. Then Dark nodded to us and we swam in front of the giant monster, grabbing its attention while trying to stay far enough away so that it wouldn't swallow us.
Link snuck up from behind while it was chasing us and latched on to the armor with the clawshot, crouching low on its back and stabbing his sword repeatedly into Morpheel's eye. The creature screeched and began to buck, Link hanging on for dear life while its thrashing tail sent already dilapidated stone pillars crashing to the ground.
Once it stopped bucking Link was free to use the sword again, stabbing it until it finally died and swam face-first into the wall. The large hole it created drained all the water out of the room, leaving only a few shallow puddles. It then exploded into tiny squares of twilight, which coalesced into the last Fused Shadow. Midna popped out and eagerly grabbed it, then turned to us with an almost apologetic look on her face.
"There it is! The last Fused Shadow... I'll just take that, thanks! Now, don't resent me for all I've put you through. I need this thing! Besides, we have to do something about Zant, the one who thinks he is the king of shadows... His power is a false one... I'll prove it using these! So... I've done everything I needed to. I'm sorry for dragging you all over the place with me. So... shall we go? Want to go outside? Are you all done here?" she asked. Vaati raised an eyebrow as Link grabbed a nearby heart container.
"Oh, look, a miracle happened! Midna's actually being nice for once!" he teased under his breath. Midna promptly whirled on him, back to her old prickly self. Then a second later we were warped out, appearing back in Lanayru's spirit spring.
Dark, Vaati and I promptly turned around to get out of there, still uncomfortable around the holy and pure light spirits. Unfortunately, we were met with an unwelcome sight.
"Zant!" Midna growled angrily. The fish-headed man turned to her and waved his hand, turning the spring back to twilight. Once again everything gained an orange tint and black twilight squares began to rise from the ground. Midna gained a corporeal form again, not just the shadow she inhabited in the Light World.
"Did you honestly mean to take an ancient and withered power like this and turn it against me? You are a foolish traitor, Midna. Why do you defy your king?" Zant asked, his voice low and dark. Meanwhile, the rest of us had once again been transformed into our beast forms, the sudden change shocking and disorienting us as we found ourselves once more on four paws.
Zant flicked his hand and Midna was suspended in the air as if by invisible chains, hovering over the water. Another flick and he had stolen the Fused Shadows, hiding them away in the depths of his cloak. I struggled to my feet, feeling my muscles get reacquainted with this new form.
The four of us then growled and sprang at Zant, who still had his back turned towards us. Suddenly he spun around and we stopped in midair, and were sent hurtling back towards the ground.
I yelped as I skidded across the dirt, landing heavily on my side. There was a blinding pain in my forehead as I landed and I caught a glimpse of some sort of odd stone sliding into in Vaati's forehead before everything went black.
When I came to, I found myself in the middle of Hyrule Field for some odd reason, and even though the twilight was gone, I was still in wolf form. Beside me Vaati stirred and opened his eyes, still in his panther form as well. On my other side Dark was still a wolf, and in front of my Link was in wolf form as well. Only, on his back was Midna, looking abnormally pale and breathing harshly.
The memories of what had just transpired slammed back into my head and I jerked upwards, looking around wildly for any sign of Zant. There was nothing but the usual monsters.
Link suddenly pricked his ears and listened intently for a minute, then turned to us.
"Guys, we have to get to Princess Zelda. She's the only one who can save Midna!" he barked urgently.
"How do you know that?" Dark asked, shaking his fur out. Link replied that Lanayru had told him.
"Wait, why are we animals again?" Vaati asked, inspecting his paws in confusion. I sighed and nudged his flank.
"Because Zant did something to us, smart one! Remember, we tried to attack him but he just repelled us? Goddesses, that guy is strong," I told him. My brother's eyes lit up in understanding.
"Then... did he do that to Midna too?" he asked, indicating her new color scheme. Dark nodded.
"Most likely, yeah. But according to Link, we need to get her to Zelda ASAP. I don't think she can hold out for much longer," Dark told us. Link nodded and took off at a sprint towards Castle Town, simply blowing past all the monsters. Suddenly it began to rain, the dreary night sky matching the urgency of our mood.
We could worry about how to get back to our hylian forms later. Right now, we needed to get to Zelda before it was too late, or Midna could die. And honestly, however annoying and prickly the little imp was, I had kinda gotten fond of her. I think everyone else had too. Zant would pay for what he'd done.
