As Link stood outside of the large door, he mentally prepared himself. I can do this. I've mastered the grappling hook. I'll be fine.
Much to his annoyance, he couldn't remember the boss at all. But he did remember the the theme for every boss fight. The special weapon or item he gained from the dungeon would always be the weakness of that particular boss.
Thus, Link spent extra time practicing with the grappling hook. It didn't take a long time though, since Link had used it before, and now it just felt natural. The only problem was that it wasn't really a weapon. When he used it on some bokoblins, he found that it snagged their Joy Pendants rather than harming them. In doing so, he realized that in earlier battles with these monsters his hand would always fly to his pocket because he would always steal their spoils before killing them. But it just wasn't much of a weapon at all.
Waiting outside the door made Link too jittery. So, pulling out the boss key, he slid it in the keyhole and turned it. The lock immediately twisted twice before the chains dropped, allowing Link passage to the boss room. Link wondered what the boss would be. A giant Moblin? A huge horde of bokoblins? A monstrous red Chuchu?
It was none of the above. All Link saw was a round pool of bubbling magma in the center of the room, some blue pots along the walls of the round room, and some oddly placed wooden platforms high up on the walls, resembling fungi on the truck of a tree.
Then, directly above the lava was a red, scaled tail. Valoo's tail!
Suddenly, the entire room shook; Link swayed unsteadily on his feet. He had a feeling the shaking wasn't coming from Valoo this time. The door slammed shut, signaling that Link wasn't leaving anytime soon.
Before his eyes, from the magma rose a tremendous scorpion-like creature. It was like the mother of all magtails. It had thick bio-armor that made it immune to the boiling magma. It had two massive front claws with sharp pincers. The bright magma glowed and caused the boss to look golden-orange.
The only part of it that wasn't encased in its natural armor was its single eye. Its irises were teal and the pupil was a bright purple. Its mouth was a perfect circle, with sharp teeth lining it.
The monster screeched and threw its head back, spewing hot streams of fire from its mouth. It then slammed its pincers into the ground by Link. The impact made Link hit the ground.
Any other person would have tried to flee. But the boy was not daunted. The entire Rito tribe, its prince, and Valoo depended on his courage to defeat the boss, not to mention his beloved sister. Though to be honest, he wasn't expecting to have to fight creatures such as this to rescue Aryll. Also, he was determined to just survive and get the pearl. The Rito weren't exactly his first priority.
Link slowly got up and faced the boss. He was already in his battle stance, his blade at the ready. He glared at it, and the boss stared back with its one eye.
The battle commenced.
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Link learned the scorpion's attacks really quick. It tended to slam a pincer down on Link, which he would have to narrowly dodge every time. Link tried to slash at the pincer, but its armor protected it from his blows. Next, he tried to throw the grappling hook at the eye, which was the only vulnerable part of the beast (as it is with most monsters, Link noticed). But whenever he did that, the eye would just close. Link was at a loss.
A pincer came crashing down. Link hopped to the side as stabbed hard into the ground right where Link was standing a moment ago. As the monster tried to pull its claw out of the ground, Link decided now would be the best time to take a picto, since it couldn't attack him at the moment. Also, he had no clue what to do anyway, so he might as well take some pictos. But each picto was blurry, since it kept moving so much.
The monster finally wriggled its claw out of the ground and towered menacingly over the boy. Now that it was standing upright, Link tried another picto. When he saw it though, it was kind of off center, so he tossed it and tried again. The next attempt was a lot better. The monster was too big for the entire body to fit, even if Link pressed himself against the wall. But Link had gotten a picto of its eye, its claws, and most of its body.
Link also noticed how when he was about to take the picto, it was clear, but when he took the actual picto, the image shrunk a tiny bit and blurred slightly. He tried it on a clay pot nearby. When he took the picto, the pot had shrunk just a tiny bit in the image and blurred a little. So when he took the picto of the boss, it too shrunk a little as well.
The monster stabbed its claw downward again. Link moved away just in time. "Hold still, will ya?" Link muttered. "I need a good picto of you." Each time he took a picto, if it wasn't satisfactory, he would have to erase it and risk replacing a decent one with a worse picto, since the pictos of the bokoblin and the Moblin from earlier took up slots in the pictobox. Every time Link took a picto of the boss, he noticed at the very top the tip of Valoo's tail hanging down from a small layer of dried magma on the ceiling. The end of the tail was hook-like, and it resembled quite a bit like his grappling hook.
That's it! Link realized. He was starting to remember how he'd defeated the boss before. So he started with the first step of the plan. He held his grappling hook and prepared to throw it. The monster was already anticipating it and closed its eye, but Link wasn't aiming it at its eye. He was aiming for the tail.
It took a few tries. The first time the tail moved out of the way, so the hook grasped onto empty air. The second time, the tail twitched again out of the way. The third time Link already knew he was going to miss so he pulled it back before it went far. Finally, it caught on. Link started swinging on the rope, high above the boss.
With each swing, Link could hear Valoo bellowing in protest. The force of the tail moving left and right was shaking the bedrock and making it loose. The scorpion looked above and tried to bat Link out of the air, but to no avail. Finally, Link let go and jumped off, the rope trailing behind him. He landed on a wooden ledge and coiled up his rope.
He turned around to see the second part of the plan go in motion. The layer of bedrock plunged right on top of the scorpion's head. The impact of it made the eye rattle on its head and its armor crack. The enraged beast shrieked and struggled under the weight of the rock before it managed to ram it back onto the ceiling and send tremors throughout the room. Link noticed that the tail was gone. Smoldering rock and magma showered down. Link did his best to avoid getting burned.
The tail returned. Link smashed some pots that were on the ledge and collected some hearts to heal up. Then, he tried again. It was a lot easier this time for the hook to grab onto the tail. He swung and landed on a platform on the other side. The rock landed again on the monster. Miraculously, it didn't break. The armor of the boss cracked some more, but otherwise remained intact. Wailing, it heaved and pushed it back on the wall. Link was safe on the ledge from the steaming debris and the monster's attacks.
This was getting easy. It was almost boring. Link hadn't been hurt since he figured out the trick whereas the beast had taken quite a beating. It was just a little frustrating that the armor hadn't been destroyed. After he saw that the rock was back on the ceiling, he threw out his grappling hook on Valoo's tail for the third time and swung.
Sadly, when he let go, he landed short and fell into the pit of magma. He yelped and frantically hopped onto land again. But the bedrock did its job and crashed onto the enemy. From it resounded a screech worse than nails on a chalkboard.
This time, the livid beast crumbled the troublesome rock into fragments once and for all. With it, his natural armor was also reduced to dust. The monster was half-mad by now and refused to take its eye off Link. Furious, it breathed out some flames at Link.
Link did not expect that, since it hadn't used that attack on Link at all for the entire battle, so he was scorched. Thinking fast, he rolled away to escape the next barrage of flames and to roll out the fire on him. Then, the boss stuck both its claws into the ground. It's massive head was at the edge of the pool and was only about two feet from Link.
Link took this as an opportunity to slash its eye. So he did, but not without also falling in the magma. Both of them were hurt and took some time to recover from their wounds. But the monster was faster, and wildly shot out more flames directly at Link. He caught on fire again and had to roll away from the berserk beast.
Link was quite injured and fatigued at this point, so he released a fairy he had trapped in the bottle Medli had given him. It circled around Link and restored his health and energy before disappearing. With his strength renewed, Link tried a different tactic. He threw the grappling hook at the eye, even though he knew it didn't work before. This time, the monster didn't close its eye, so he was able to pull it closer. As it approached Link slashed and cut it as much as he could without falling into the hot pit. Surprised, the monster pulled back, so Link tried again. Right when he was about to drag the eye to him, its pincer stomped down on Link. Link was thrown back. The eye was close by again, glaring at Link.
So in desperation, Link tossed a nearby pot at its eye.
It shattered on it, and the monster flailed about, throwing its head back. It slowly stiffened up as it thrashed, until finally it completely stopped moving and dissolved into dust. The inhabitants of Dragon Roost Island would be troubled no more. All that remained of the beast was a gleaming large red heart with a blue outline. The magma cooled in patches until it all transformed into stone. In the center, the winds swirled around it and sparkles shot upwards where the winds met. A portal.
When Link registered that he defeated the enemy-with a pot, no less-he began hopping up and down in triumph. Then he froze, wondering if he needed separate pictos of the monster with and without its shell. That thought completely killed his mood. Either way, he knew it was too late, so he could only collect up the heart-feeling as if his life energy had increased-and leave via portal. Besides, he only had three slots on his pictobox anyway, so without looking behind, Link stepped into the portal to return to the world.