Chapter 23: Chipping Away
After figuring out that explosives were the key, I started lobbing bombs at the possessed sculpture (it looked a bit like a cartoony version of one of us) like crazy! Some may have been misses, but as long as there were more hits than misses, it was fine. Thankfully, as I began running low on bombs, knight Link fired a couple of arrows at some of the large icicles that were hanging from the ceiling and both arrows AND bombs fell out of them when they hit the ground. It made me begin to wonder as to exactly how and why there were arrows and bombs frozen in there, but I didn't really have the time to actually think about it.
Instead, I tried to make the sculpture less stable on its feet by destroying one. However, it was a little bit faster than I had expected. When it managed to dodge out of the way, though, knight Link hit it with another fire arrow. In response to this, the sculpture summoned more crystals of ice and launched them at us, although he was mainly targeting knight Link. All of us used out shields to block the onslaught, but slave Link was keeping a much closer eye out for what was happening. Then, when the sculpture suddenly turned towards me, I found that one of the shards of ice had gotten stuck in my boot.
It didn't take very long for me to get it out, but during the small amount of time that I did spend on it, the sculpture had moved MUCH closer to me. All of a sudden, I felt something hit my arm and I took a quick look to find that a certain very familiar hook had clung to my shirt. Knowing that it was coming, I jumped towards slave Link so that the hookshot had absolutely no resistance when it pulled me towards him! It may have been a crash landing that knocked the both of us down for a moment, but it was better than being crushed underneath a giant sword that was made of ice.
After that, I looked over to knight Link and I surmised that he had handled the attack quite well because he was moving around. Then, I turned towards the sculpture and I realized that it was actually trying to 'heal' itself by summoning more ice crystals and adhering them to its body! However, it seemed as though the other Links were not aware of this and they continued running around. Knight Link was still firing fire arrows at it like crazy and slave Link was still trying to distract it. So, I threw a bomb at one of the spots that it was trying to recover!
The shards of ice that had yet to adhere to the spot that I hit started flying off in completely random directions. Thankfully, we all reacted quickly enough with our shields to block them. However, that didn't stop the other two Links from asking me what had happened. The sculpture seemed unable to do anything at that moment because of what I had done, so I took it as an opportunity to let the other two Links know about how it was attempting to 'heal' itself. After that, the sculpture looked straight at us and instead of trying to crush us with a vertical slice; it tried to hit us with a horizontal one that swept across the ground!
As it would figure, I was the only one who didn't jump out of the way in time. The sculpture's sword wasn't necessarily sharp, but it still hurt! I got caught on the side of it as it threw me into the nearest wall. I was honestly surprised that I didn't go flying out of some sort of window, but I was also grateful for that at the same time. I had no idea whether I had lost consciousness when I fell to the floor or not, but what I did know was that I had landed in a very soft pile of snow.
When I was finally able to pull myself up, I saw that knight Link was standing in between the sculpture and me while I couldn't exactly see slave Link. The instant that I made a noise, knight Link turned to me and started helping me up. I began wondering why he could afford to take his eyes off of the sculpture, but then I finally saw that slave Link was distracting it. After I regained my senses, I threw more bombs at it. Seeing that I was alright, knight Link turned back towards the sculpture and, after firing another fire arrow, he came up with a great idea.
He claimed that if I were to throw a bomb straight up into the air and he aimed an arrow just right, then my bomb would catch on his arrow and the momentum would effectively shoot my bomb straight at the sculpture! I was about to say that it was too dangerous (what if it exploded from contact right in our faces?), but then the sculpture finally shook slave Link off and got ready to stomp on him. Thus, without even giving it a second thought, knight Link and I went through with it and we got amazing results. It not only went just as planned, but it also completely got rid of the sculpture's shield, leaving it defenseless! However, our small celebration was short-lived when it used its suddenly free hand to grab and hold onto me, rendering me (the one that did the most damage to it) powerless.