Chapter 3: Descending Through The Abyss

Both Sonic and Link paced into a circular corridor, the first room that they came across within the Deku Tree. It was rather dark, save for the few torches littered around, their embers glowing giving a sense of minor light and heat to the area. "Huh? What's this?" Sonic looked down. "Ew, that's gross." He said disgusted.

"Yeah, that is disgusting." Link agreed as he looked down. They were both standing on what seemed to slimy white fibres, interwoven and stuck together to become solid. It squelched and gurgled underneath their feet. "What is it?"

"I dunno Link, but whatever it is, it's super sticky." Sonic replied trying to raise a leg up. "Seems kind of like webbing of some sort." Suddenly there was a small rustle nearby, causing both to look around.

"Sonic, what was that?"

"I dunno, sounded like leaves rustling."

"Yeah, but I can't see any, no wait, what are they?" Link stated as he pointed towards several small shrubs surrounding the white patch they were standing on. Link stared at them for a few seconds before they shuffled again. "It's them!" Link shouted pointing at the shrubs.

"What? Shrubs aren't alive."

"That's because they're not shrubs, they're…"

Link was cut off as the shrubs revealed a large purple bulb attached to a large withered stem. "Deku Babas." As Link said the true name of the moving foliage, the bulbs split in the middle revealing lines of razor sharp teeth and a grotesque slithering tongue. "Be careful, they're larger than the ones that I'm used to." Link warned, drawing his sword and shield from his back.

"No problem Link." Sonic ripped his shoes from the slime and threw a kick at one of the Babas. The plant reeled away quickly and countered Sonic with a head butt. Sonic landed quickly and looked back towards his foe. "Damn it's quick." Sonic muttered before attempting another blow, this time connecting with it's bulbous head and sending it flying from the grass covered floor it was rooted into. "YEAH!" Sonic shouted triumphantly before turning towards Link who ran at a second.

"Take this!" Link shouted before slicing his sword through the other enemies stem, sending its head flying to the floor, giving off a hideous screeching sound. "Phew. Well that was pretty easy." Link breathed before sheathing his weapons. "Shall we move on?" Sonic nodded and looked around the room.

"No offence, but where?" As Sonic looked around he released that there was indeed a higher level but no way to get up to it.

"That's easy, we climb."

"What? I'm sorry but unless you're part spider, you can't climb these walls."

"Ah but look closer." Link pointed to patches of ivy on the wall. "It should be thick enough to use to climb up.

So both Link and Sonic used the ivy to climb up to the second level. "Simple." Link bragged. "Hey look there!" Link pointed to a large wooden chest in front of them on the walkway that led around the upper level. They both ran up to it and Link opened it. "Well look at this."

"What is it?" Sonic questioned. Link lifted up a scroll of paper.

"Looks sort of like a map." He looked at the intricate painting on it, moving with the texture of the paper itself, outlining everywhere inside the tree.

"That could be helpful." Sonic said. "How about we check out that door next?" He was pointing towards a wooden door along the platform. Link nodded. They both ran over to the door and Sonic ran in, soon being sent to the floor by a large nut to the temple. "Ow! What's the big deal huh?" Sonic rubbed his forehead before looking up to see yet another type of creature. This one was tall as Link and Sonic and was extremely bizarre. Their skin seemed to be made entirely of wood, with a large snout type object jutting out of its face with a hole in it. Sonic guessed it to be the creature's mouth. On top of its head was a dirty mess of leafy hair, all the leaves were brown and orange in tone. "What is that?" Sonic said before getting pelted with a second nut which the creature seemed to expel from its snout. It began dancing around the room frantically as Link stepped forward. "I actually don't know. Navi do you?" Navi flew in front of Link and looked at the creature.

"That is a deku scrub. A wild creature compared to some of the other members of the Deku family you could find in Hyrule. They're pretty wild but are actually quite weak, Link, try deflecting one of its projectiles with your shield. Link prepared his shield as the scrub paused and launched a seed, which rebounded off of Link's wooden shield and knocked the creature over.

Link and Sonic slowly approached the creature as it turned around with teary eyes. "Ow that hurt!" It shouted. "That's not nice. I knew the queen shouldn't have let me do this job. I only get hurt for it. Just leave me alone!" It cried again as it seemed to disappear into the grassy flooring. "Weird thing." Link sighed before moving to the door it must have been guarding and opening it. "Hey Sonic look another chest." Link shouted in excitement and climbing down the ladder to get to the lower floor and running over to the chest.

"Well?" Sonic shouted impatiently.

"Keep your shoes on." Link shouted in return as he opened the chest. "Woah!" He held up a slingshot of some type and a bag.

"What's that?"

"It's a fairy slingshot and a bag of ammunition, deku seeds, but smaller ones. Not like the ones we just got hit by." Link explained.

"Cool. Now let's get moving. We've got an evil something or other to get rid off." Link nodded and ran to the ladder but as he climbed up there came a creaking sound. Suddenly the ladder broke, sending Link to the bottom again. "Man that hurt." Link frowned rubbing his head.

"Link, you okay?"

"Yeah I'm fine. But how do I get back up."

"Um, let me see." Sonic looked round frantically until he saw a ladder attached to the wall above them. "Hey Link, shoot that with your slingshot." Link did so and the ladder quickly wobbled out of place and flew to the floor.

"Yes!" Link rushed up to meet with Sonic again. "Okay, NOW let's go." They both left the room back to the circular towering room.

"Well, the only way to go is up again." Sonic pointed to more ivy leading up a wall near to where the map was found.

"Yeah but look at those!" Link then pointed to large spider-like creatures clinging to the ivy. They weren't like normal spiders mainly because they were about the same size as Link's face and looked like skulls. "Skulltulas." He pulled out his slingshot, fired a few seeds and the spider-like creatures were defeated. "But the slingshot made it a whole lot easier." Link walked on towards the ivy covered wall, Sonic staring in amazement at Link's slingshot skills and then running up to get to the wall, they started to climb again and they were then standing on the third story of the Deku Tree. Link looked around. "Yes, no enemies what so ever." But as he took a step forward a large creature descended sharply from the ceiling knocking him back. It was another skulltula, however it was much larger, it's yellow and black striped legs and the dark eyes that shifted around with its hideous skull face. It seemed to not be able to concentrate on both fighters at the same time and continuously spun itself every so often to check on both. As it turned, Link spied the back of it to be rather soft compared to the hard shell on the front. "Sonic distract it!" Sonic did so and big running on spot and performing break dancing moves to keep the skulltula's concentration on him as Link slashed the back of it, crippling it and sending it to the floor. "Another easy enemy." Link chuckled.
"I really don't get how you're so good at this." Sonic said as he walked past him not seeing the ledge until it was too late. Sonic fell from the top level and plummeted towards the floor with tremendous speed. "I don't think so." Sonic quickly thought before spinning as a ball. Suddenly, he seemed to slip through the floor. As he changed from his spinning state, he realised he had sliced through the white layer on the floor and was going down to a new level of the Deku Tree, one that was below ground level.

Sonic landed in a large pool of water, surrounded by ivy covered platforms which stood on two levels, one higher than the other. "Hey Link!" He shouted up. "There's a whole new floor to this place, come down here!" Link heard Sonic and rushed downwards, scaling the ivy with ease until finally he was on the bottom level with Sonic.

"Wow, this is awesome." Link said in amazement, walking around, touching the ancient walls but he stopped when he came to the water. "Look!" He pointed to a raised section of the room, too high for either of them to jump up to. Sonic nodded but then realised he may be able to help.

"Hey Link, grab my hand." Link did so and Sonic ran at the water at full speed, quickly skimming the surface and just managing to scale the wall. "There." Sonic said happily. Link smiled before realising they were standing on another web grate. "Looks like it goes down like the other one."

"Yeah but there's no way we can get enough air to break through." Link stated.

"Let's try this. Link stand back." Sonic asked and Link did so. Sonic stamped his foot on the ground propelling him into the air. He quickly curled into a ball and began to spin at amazing speeds. Suddenly, wisps of air could be seen curling around him with a sharp whistling sound coming from him. The white webbing began to thin and soon it snapped sending Sonic hurtling to the bottom, landing on his feet being prepared for the ground. Link jumped down and Sonic caught him, laughter sounded as three deku scrubs, similar to one they had previously encountered, appeared in front of them. They suddenly unleashed a flurry of seeds at the two of them, luckily, they were ready and dodged them with ease and defeated them in no time. "That was pretty easy." Sonic said after they had disappeared.

"We're not that easy to defeat!" A mysterious shrill voice called as all three scrubs appeared again.

"What the heck?" Link questioned.

"I haven't got a clue." Sonic quickly looked around before spying a huge door. On it, the numbers two, three, one were scribed upon the top in red writing. Then he looked towards the scrubs, each had a number on their heads. "Link! Hit the scrubs in the order two three one, after looking at the numbers on their heads." Link did so for the first two and Sonic drop kicked the last, sending it flying through the wooden door, splintered wood flying everywhere.

Sonic and Link slowly walked through into a dimly lit room. A single torch in the gloom. The room seemed even older than the rest of the Deku Tree, cobwebs hung from the ceiling, dust nearly completely covered the floor and the shuffling of small insects could be heard from around them. "Seems quiet. Too quiet…" Link said looking around. A shuffle was heard above them. Slowly they looked upwards, nothing, pitch black. They kept staring but suddenly saw something, a small green object, glittering in the dark.

"I don't know." Sonic replied. The eye opened and giant screech sounded from the ceiling. "But that ain't good!" Sonic jumped as an iron grate slammed in front of the shattered door, trapping both of them inside with the mysterious creature.
"Damn it. What are we gonna do?" Link panicked, as a large crash sounded in front of them. As the dust cleared a large arachnid type creature stood staring at them intensely with its one grotesque eye. It's body was covered in a thick brown shell with larger pincers growing from the front and back of it's body. "What IS that thing?" Sonic shouted. Suddenly, Navi popped out, having remained completely silent up until this point.

"That's Queen Gohma!"

"Queen what?" Sonic replied.

"Queen Gohma. A heavily armoured arachnid that has been legend up until this point. I never thought such a hideous beast could exist in this world."

"Well what ever it is, it's going down." Sonic said arrogantly running at the large spider-like creature and kicking it a position that seemed like a face, but he seemed to do no damage. "What? Not a scratch?" The beast roared a second time before launching at the two of them, it took a swipe at Link nearly decapitating him in one swing. Sonic launched another flurry of super quick attacks, trying to break through the thick hide of the beast, but to no avail. It swung at Sonic knocking him away with tremendous force. It readied and launched another swing to finish him off.

"Ah! Run!" Sonic dodged out of the way grabbing Link also. "The shell is too thick. We need an open spot to attack." Sonic shouted.

"That's it! The eye is open! It's our only shot!" Link said, pulling out his slingshot and a seed. The giant insect stopped, realising it had missed its prey and turned around, ready for another strike. Link released his hand and the nut flew, directly connecting with Gohma's eye, causing it to scream in pain and fall to the floor, screeching, however, it started getting up with extraordinary speed and was about to unleash another attack. "Quick! Link!" Sonic shouted grabbing his wrist and running towards Gohma. "Now!" Sonic threw him into the air and jumped after him. At mid height, Sonic grabbed Link and threw him toward Gohma. Link grabbed his sword and plunged it deep into Gohma's eye with tremendous force from the speed boost before Sonic flew into it with another charged spin, driving it even deeper into the monster. It finally screamed again before starting to smoke. It seemed to be emitting heat as it burst into flame, its armour-like shell shattering and its inner body burning until there was nothing left. "Easy!" Link rejoiced.

"Piece of cake!" Sonic remarked, watching a heart shaped object appear from the spot where Gohma had been before. He ran over and picked it up. "WOAH!" Both Link and Sonic shouted as they felt revitalised. "That's awesome." Sonic added. "Wonder what it was." He dismissed the thought again and concentrated on what they should do next. A new sound came as a glowing circle of light appeared the two heroes and they slowly drifted upwards towards the ceiling before everything went black.