The Waters of Nayru
Chapter 50: The Man Inside
By, Frank Hunter

"Mutiny," Tydus growled as Rigo came around out of his periphery. "Desertion." He shifted his glare straight to Link for the last, which came out in a sort of purring snarl. "Treason."

As Rigo again took the brunt of the monster's attention, he could almost feel instability running off of Tydus in waves. It was as though a single crack in his new, solid form would set off a chain reaction and splinter him into pieces. Mentally, anyway. It would be too ambitious to expect such a turn of good luck in the literal sense.

"You did this," Tydus said, straightening himself and towering up to his full, impressive height. "You've been responsible for all of it."

"You did it yourself, Tydus," Rigo said. "You didn't need my help. You did just fine on your own. Betraying your Queen. Stealing the Waters. You imprisoned me in the first place. Take responsibility for yourself."

"Lies and slander. I have done nothing but protect my home from you and your people."

"But at what cost? Look at yourself!"

The single-minded, hate-filled expression on Tydus's face told Rigo everything he needed to know. Argument was useless. So was rationality. They were beyond that now, and this situation had no other choice but to erupt into violence. It was only a matter of moments.

Rigo felt a tap on his shoulder and glanced over. Link held out his bow and quiver. An offering, the magical arrows. It took Rigo a moment to put together that in a minute, Link would be too busy with his sword to make decent use of the projectile weapon. He took the gear and began strapping the quiver to his back. Tydus made no move to stop him, obviously unthreatened by anything they had to throw at him now.

"Look at him, then, please," Rigo said, gesturing at Link in an effort to plead one final case. "This is the Hero of Time! He's the symbol of everything you say you want to protect, and he stands here next to me! Something is wrong here, Tydus. Can you at least consider it?"

"Yes, Gerudo," he responded, taking one threatening step forward, unnervingly covering much of the distance between them. It took everything it Rigo's power not to flinch.

"Something is wrong," he went on. "That you have so capably been able to disperse my army. That you have corrupted even the Hero himself and coerced his allegiance. This tells me that you are the channel for some dangerous kind of magick. Something very dark indeed. Something that does not belong in this world."

Rigo's shoulders grew heavier with every word. This was it, then. There was no turning back.

"I stand with the will of the goddesses on my side. No matter what power runs in you, I have Nayru's strength in me. And as long as this is so, you will never…"

But Rigo never found out what he would never do. He figured he wasn't gonna get another clear shot like this one, so like a coiled snake, his arm shot back, grabbed an arrow from the quiver, and let it fly straight into Tydus's oversized face.

The familiar flash-bang went off as the arrow connected and Tydus again stumbled backward, dazed.

Link wasted no time. The Master Sword was unsheathed and he was moving before the arrow had even connected. Feet placed one in front of the other as though the very winds carried him, the Hero charged Tydus with everything he had and then some. When the distance was covered, he plunged the blade straight into the creature's belly.

A muffled "Yes!" escaped Rigo as Tydus cried in pain, but the big man didn't go down. Something was wrong.

Link pulled the blade out from where he had lodged it, where it should have been buried to the hilt. Instead, the wound had taken maybe seven or eight inches of steel before Link's charge was abruptly stopped short by the sheer mass and density of Tydus's new body. His skin was like armor, too thick to be run through. Where the sword came out there was an injury, a smoking black scar on his otherwise white features where the magic of the Master Sword had worked against him. But it was only just that. A cut, not an injury.

Rigo was struck by a terrible realization. This was Nayru's magic here that the Sword opposed, not Din's. Nayru's magic was one of the same forces that imbued the Sword with its power in the first place. Its mantle as the Blade of Evil's Bane did not mean that it could be turned so easily on its own forgers. Against the agents of Din and the Triforce of Power, the Sword excelled. It was designed to fight them first and foremost. But against an enemy that drew its power from the same source, it was a whole different story.

The intricacy of the plan from a goddess's standpoint dawned on Rigo for the first time, inciting a spark of newfound fear. This was the purpose to which the Chalice had been found, why he had been drawn to it all those years ago. This is why Din specifically brought this artifact back into play instead of retaining Ganondorf as her pawn, or even making any sort of move for the golden triangles. She was acting indirectly. She was turning her enemies' weapons against them because the rules that govern magic prevent exactly that. Farore and Nayru would not be able to bring their traditional, powerful spells or artifacts to bear against an enemy imbued with the Waters of Nayru. Link's ability to fight this battle were more limited than they ever had been in the past. And, for the Hero, defeat and even death were very possible outcomes here. And Rigo doubted he even grasped the scope of the situation.

Link bared his teeth and took another quick slice at Tydus's gut, eliciting an even less effective injury than the first time. Tydus, now aware, responded in turn, sending a closed fist down at his opponent. Link ducked and rolled as the monster's fist hit the ground, shattering tile and kicking small shards of ceramic up into the air. He turned back and swiped again at the fist, erupting into a flutter of back and forth as he tried to cause some kind of meaningful injury as Tydus tried harder to crush him into a puddle on the floor.

Rigo grabbed another arrow and let loose, but due to a fortunate stumble on Tydus's part, this arrow flew high and erupted against the ceiling, raining a powder of plaster down over them. Tydus noticed the shot though, and took a moment out of his dance with Link to lash out.

He reached into the floor, his fingers pushing through the tile and stone as though it were nothing but wet fiberboard. He came up with a large chunk of the ground the size of Rigo's torso and with no hesitation flung it at the Gerudo.

Rigo swore and dove to the side, sparks of pain erupting in his vision as he fell on his wounded ribs. He really was in no condition for this.

Link caught Tydus's attention again, and so Rigo had a moment to stumble to his feet, slipping once on the dusty floor while he did so. He moved, quickly but cautiously, to take cover behind the marble structure of the stairwell and glanced over his shoulder to take a quick inventory of his stock of ammunition. He was disheartened to see that he only had three of the arrows left.

This is fruitless, he thought, a sense of dread washing over him. Following the line of logic that had taken him this far, the only source of power that might be able to threaten the Waters of Nayru was Din's. The Triforce of Power, specifically, being the only artifact that came to mind. And not only was that already both spoken for and lost, even if it happened to materialize right then and there, there were rules about claiming specific pieces of the triangles. Rigo didn't think he had the personality necessary for it.

Tydus knocked Link off of balance and looked about to score a tragic blow against him, so Rigo took aim and fired again, ducking behind the bannister as the arrow erupted in Tydus's face. A shout from the Hero a moment later told Rigo that he was still going, and he silently cheered the small victory.

It was going to be impossible to beat the monster here in the Temple. Only the man inside the shell was still vulnerable. Tydus himself was unstable, Rigo knew. He was irrational and illogical and insane, but if there was some way to get at him psychologically, they still might be able to put him down for the count without breaking his body. Rigo thought furiously. He wasn't susceptible to argument or threat, but what else was there…

It came to him in a moment of clarity.

Rigo thought of the desert, of the battle at the pueblo. He thought of all the advice he'd gotten thus far from Nabooru. He chanced a quick glance over the stairway, and saw the first sign of good news all day.

The Silver Gauntlet was still there.

That meant they still had a direct channel into Tydus's mind, one they had not made him aware of. One that could be exploited.

A plan formed, and Rigo allowed a small blossom of hope to spring up in him. There were only two things that he knew of that brought Tydus to the brink of anger and losing control. Those things were Rigo himself, and the man's own inflated sense of superstition. And Rigo thought he knew how to hit him with a little bit of both.

Nabooru? he asked inwardly with a slight smirk. I need you one more time.