They walked into the room. Most of it was taken up by an eerie purple pool of water. The rest was covered in grass and moss. There were some strange platforms floating in the water.
Link heard the door shut and lock behind them. Almost instantly, he felt Maple stiffen next to him. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye.
She was slightly hunched over, in a defensive position. Her hands were in balls at her sides. She glanced at him when she felt him staring.
"Are you okay?" He asked when she said nothing. Her eyes responded by flashing some unknown emotion. It could have been fear, but he wasn't quite sure.
"There is a great evil here...I sense it," She said quietly, so much so that Link had to strain slightly to hear her.
Well, she should have known that there was some sort of evil here. She had been the one to tell him what door the Boss Key would unlock. She had explained that some evil creature would be waiting for them, and for the death it would bring them.
He remembered her laughing then, as if the thought of the creature killing them was hilarious. Her laugh had filled him with such joy, that he had wanted to through his head back and laugh as well.
"Well, yeah. That's what you told me," Link said to stop the babble going on in his head.
"Yes, I know. But...it feels different than I expected...as if there is something else..."
At that moment, Link felt the odd sensation of something slithering from underneath him. A moment later, Midna emerged from his shadow. Link had to stop himself from jumping back. She hadn't come out since Maple had seen her, so it slightly surprised him.
"What did you expect?" She said directly to Maple in her odd sing-song voice. "Did you expect a party to be held in your honor for being here?" Midna's tooth appeared as a sly smile spread across her face.
Maple turned to her and glared, but then it faltered. "No, of course not," She whispered.
Link saw Midna open her mouth to speak again, but at that moment, the ground shook.
I felt the tremor before Link did. I instantly spread my legs shoulder-width apart and steadied myself. I felt the ground buckle, and I instantly reached over and grabbed Link to steady him when I saw him stumble. Midna disappeared in a flash. We both looked over to the water in time to see two Deku Baba-like creatures emerge from the surface.
I took in my surroundings quickly, ignoring the impulse to run from the strange, yet familiar evil I felt lingering in the room.
Inbetween the two plants, on a platform, was one of those annoying bomb-bugs that exploded when you got to close to it, or touched it before it touched you.
"Get your boomerang," I said as the tremor faded. "Aim for the bug, and ram it into the plants."
Link nodded as he quickly saw what I was talking about. Instantly, he pulled out his boomerang as he started running toward the water. I felt my body scream as he got closer and closer to the water. I wanted to jump in front of him and keep him safe, even though I knew that he was well equipped for the battle.
I growled as I pushed the protective feeling aside and ran toward him to help.
I saw the boomerang leave his hands, creating a whirlwind below it as it flew across the room, picking up the bug and making it collide into the side of the Deku Baba's oversized head. I watched as the plant coughed and disappeared into the water.
Link threw the boomerang again and hit the other square in the head.
Link straightened as he turned to me and smiled. "Well, that was easy," He said.
I shook my head and walked up to him, pulling him back toward the door with me. "No. It's not over," I whispered.
Just as our backs touched the farthest wall from the water, the ground shook yet again, but with more force. Then, something erupted from the water, creating a wave that soaked both me and Link.
After our vision cleared, we saw the extent to the creature we had to vanquish.
It was the ugliest Deku Baba creature I had ever seen in my life (which was, I might add, very long). It had razor-sharp teeth and, whenever it opened its mouth, a long, snake-like tongue would slither out, an eyeball at its tip.
I automatically grabbed Link's arm and pulled him with me as the creature opened its mouth and spewed out a purple liquid that smelled like a sewer. We ran as the creature's spew followed us until its spew ran dry.
"Where's the bomb?" Link yelled as we ran back the other way as the creature spewed again.
"It was on the platform the creature destroyed when it came up!" I yelled. I felt Link sigh and start to run ahead of me, leading me instead.
"Can't you just like, kill it like you did the others?"
"No! There is a strange evil here that prevents me from doing anything!"
Just then, a screech filled the room. The creature stopped spewing to look up, and we stopped running.
The baboon we had defeated earlier was perched on a wooden ledge high above even the creature's head. He reached behind him, and pulled out a bomb bug. He then grabbed a nearby vine and jumped off of the platform to swing over the creature's head.
I didn't even have to tell Link. Instantly, he let go of my hand and threw the boomerang at the baboon. The bug became caught in the whirlwind, and was thrown into the head of the creature.
The creature flailed, and collapsed on the ground. Its mouth plopped open, and its hideous eye-tongue rolled out with a sickening "plop!"
Link ran up and started hacking away at the eye as I ran to his side. My black magic would not work in the room, but my white magic could.
The creature recovered and instantly started spewing at us again. I spread my arms wide, creating a barrier that the spew merely bounced off of.
"Hurry!" I said, surprised at how weak I sounded. The evil in this room started quickly draining my powers, causing the barrier to get weaker and weaker with each passing second.
Link acted quickly when he saw my distress. He repeated the process, hitting the creature on the side of the head again, causing it to collapse and its tongue to roll out.
Link hacked at it again with his sword until it shook its head and reared.
"Run!" I screamed as it began to spew and I dropped my arms, letting the now useless barrier fall as I did.
"No!" He ran to me, picking me up from the ground and barely managing to get out of the way.
The spew stopped briefly, and Link quickly threw his boomerang one last time, without putting me down.
We watched as the creature fell again. Link was there before its tongue had hit the ground. He quickly set me down and jumped into the air, coming down with his sword, slicing the eye in half.
The creature reared and flailed as the eye popped, spraying eye-juices on us as it did. The creature then began to dry up, as if someone had set it on fire.
Link watched as the creature exploded into tiny black squares, not unlike the falling sky in the Twilight Realm. He expected them to fall to the ground, but they instead quickly gathered above his head, creating a piece of a strange stone helmet much like Midna's.
Link saw Maple stiffen below him as the helmet slowly lowered into Link's outstretched arms.
Link felt Midna slither out from his shadow and appear in front of him, completely ignoring Maple.
"Eee hee hee! Well done! That's..." She pointed at the strange helmet, "what I was looking for." Her hair reached out and took the helmet from his hands. "That's a Fused Shadow. It's what the light spirit called 'dark power'... Do you remember what the spirit said? About how you had to match the power of the king of shadows? Could it really so easy? Is this all there is to it? Eee hee hee!" She smiled. "There is a total of three Fused Shadows. I think the other light spirits have the rest... If you want to know exactly what Fused Shadows are...well, maybe I'll tell you if you find the other two. I guess you'd better do your best to find them, huh? Eee hee hee!" Her hair disappeared, taking the Fused Shadow with it.
"So let's not waste any more time here when we could be looking for the other two..." She created a strange portal made out of the strange black squares. "I'll get you two out of here... You pick up the Heart Container that fell out of that thing." She then hovered over to the portal and waited.
Link turned around to find Maple glaring at Midna as though she would kill her if she could. Link had a feeling that the only thing stopping her was the Fused Shadow, which Midna now kept safe somewhere on her person.
"Are you okay?" Link asked just loud enough for Maple to hear, but no one else.
Maple turned her glare on him, and he had to stop himself from collapsing from the power radiating from her.
"NO!" She yelled, not bothering to keep her voice down. He felt the anger and power in her voice. "That, that...thing! That's the evil I sensed! I can't believe that it's here! I was..." She abruptly stopped, as though she had said too much.
Link watched her slouch over as her gaze became very, very sad. He almost thought she was going to cry, and he felt his eyes water in response.
"What about it?" He asked. She merely shook her head and pointed to something ahead of them, not meeting his eyes. Link looked to see a giant glass heart floating just feet from them.
"Go get it. You'll need it for later."