Chapter 16: The Lakebed Temple Part 2
After Link and company obtained the Clawshot, they decided to resume their exploration of the watery dungeon and find that third Secret Text. After exiting the area where they fought Crayk and the Angler Fish they came across a room with another large group of Helmasaurs milling about.
"Now to show you what the Clawshot can do," commented Link.
Link fired the device at a Helmasaur and the claw latched on to the armored plate covering the Helmasaur and as the chain retracted the Clawshot yanked the armor off the little beast making it squeal in shock. Link did the same with the other Helmasaurs in the room while Zelda and the others made short work of the beasts.
"I think I like this new tool," remarked Alex.
"Indeed, it does make dealing with those little pests a hell of a lot easier," added Chun-Li.
Link and others found a large overhang area with vines coming down from it but stopping well short of the height they could jump up to latch on to them.
"This is another spot where this will come in handy," said Link as he aimed the Clawshot upwards and latched onto the vines with it. The Clawshot pulled Link up to the areas with the vines as he climbed up and touched foot onto the ledge above the others; he tossed the Clawshot down to them allowing the others to do the same to get up to where he was.
"Crawling up walls like I'm a spider, man you gotta love it," stated Ken as he climbed up to the ledge.
After all six heroes got up to the ledge they opened the door that was in front of them and found another room filled with water that they'd have to swim across to progress.
"If it weren't crawling with monsters, this place would be excellent training ground for Olympic swimmers," remarked Ken.
"I'd have to agree with you there," chimed in Chun-Li.
"Let us move on now," said Zelda as she dove into the water. What Link and company found upon entering the water was a good number of Shell Blades in addition to a school of Bari.
"The Shell Blades are easy, but those jellyfish might pose a problem," piped up Ryu.
"Not really, the Clawshot gives us something to combat them with finally," replied Link as he fired the weapon at one of the Bari extracting the jellyfish's core and making the monster go up in smoke.
"You take care of those, we'll handle the Shell Blades," called Alex out to Link as he Flash Chopped a Shell Blade into oblivion.
"I'm all over it," stated Link as he fired his Clawshot at another Bari promptly dispatching of it. Some of the Bari put up an electric force field to deter Link from attacking them, but Link just waited until they lowered the force field before firing his Clawshot at them. Meanwhile, Zelda and the others easily dodged the Shell Blades' tackle attempts and then once the clams exposed their soft innards, they were promptly disposed of right as Link finished off the last Bari.
"Well that was quite simple," commented Zelda.
The six continued swimming through the room to see what else they'd possibly find. Under the water they found a chest containing Water Bombs allowing them to replenish their stock since they had used quite a few of them through the course of their temple exploration. Link and the others resumed their swim through the submerged room and soon found a few boulders blocking a path through to the next part of the temple. Link pulled out a Water Bomb and placed it near the boulder. As the bomb exploded and cleared their path they found another tunnel filled with Bari.
"No problem at all," remarked Link.
Link took out his Clawshot and once again fired it at each Bari taking their cores out and making them vanish clearing the tunnel for the others to swim through. Upon coming out the other side, they found a caged room with no clear way of getting out visible.
"Did we just hit a dead end or something?" asked Alex.
"You got the dead part right!" shouted a screechy voice from out of nowhere.
Just then, a rather lean man leapt down from the ceiling into the cage. He discarded the scuba gear that was strapped to his back and tossed it to the side. He had a rather odd orange hairstyle along with a yellow headband and blue and yellow shorts along and his fists and feet were all taped. He let out a high pitched laugh as he gazed at the heroes.
"Oh great, we're fighting Adon the parrot boy," grumbled Ken.
"You are right, he does sound like a parrot," said Chun-Li.
"Never mind that, he's on the attack now!" exclaimed Link as he rolled out of the way of one of Adon's kicks.
"He's probably under mind control as well. Just shatter that crystal on his head and we should be ok," called out Ryu.
Adon leapt at the heroes with a kick and started throwing out numerous elbows to each of them. Zelda used Nayru's Love to knock the Muay Thai fighter back however Adon quickly retaliated with his Rising Jaguar attack nailing Zelda twice with two powerful knees. Ryu fired his Hadoken at Adon while his back was turned nailing him, Adon turned around and then focused his assault on Ryu.
"Jaguar Kick!" shouted Adon.
Adon leapt into the air and did a flipping kick to Ryu sending him staggering back. Ken rushed at Adon and threw a roundhouse at the mind controlled warrior making him dodge the attack. Chun-Li also leapt at Adon with a flying fist making him leap right back into Ken who hit him with a three hit flaming Shoryuken knocking him back into Chun-Li who juggled him with her Spinning Bird Kick.
"Jaguar Tooth!" shouted Adon leaping back and then zooming at Chun-Li with his foot jutting out ready to kick her. Link leapt in front of Chun-Li and placed his shield up making Adon leap around holding his foot while howling in pain. Alex grabbed Adon and hit him with a head butt leaving a crack in the mind control crystal. Adon nailed Alex with a Rising Jaguar and then leapt at Link with a Jaguar Kick narrowly missing the Hylian. Link bashed Adon in the face with his shield making him stagger back into Alex who slammed Adon on the ground. Zelda then threw a Din's Fire at Adon who rolled out of the way just before the attack connected. However, Chun-Li and Ken then kicked Adon in the head simultaneously making the mind control crystal shatter completely. Adon yelled out in pain for a brief moment before taking a moment to gaze about his surroundings.
"What the hell am I doing in a place like this?" asked Adon.
"You were placed under mind control sir, we were able to destroy the device that was doing that to you," answered Link.
"I suppose I should thank you, but I'm more pissed off that I allowed some chump to do that to me," said Adon with a huff.
"No need to thank us, just get yourself out of here," stated Link.
"Yeah, I'm not gonna waste any more breath on you guys, I'm outta here," grumbled Adon tossing a key out of his shorts and then grabbing his scuba gear and diving into the water and swimming away.
"That guy is a jerk," said Chun-Li.
"Yeah, I will admit, he is a bit abrasive," added Zelda.
"Forget about the parrot, he left us the boss key, now we can go and face off against the big ugly monster here," chimed in Ken.
After surveying the room, they found a spot that seemed loose in the cage. Link equipped the Iron Boots and then shot the Clawshot at that area. Instead of Link being launched at the cage, the loose panel fell to the ground allowing them to escape the caged area. Link then took off the Iron Boots and placed them back in his pouch. The six heroes all ran forward and saw a room where they had to leap across rocks being shot up by geysers. A few Keese littered the room. However, Ryu and Ken quickly dispatched of them with a few Hadokens.
"Let's not waste any more time here," suggested Link.
The others nodded in agreement to what Link said and then to leapt across the rocks as the geyser shot up and quickly got across to the other side of the room and opened the door to a waterslide leading them back to the spiraling room. Link and the others quickly slid down with Chun-Li, Ken, and Alex shouting in excitement as they slid down the waterslide.
"WHOOOOOOO-HOOOOOOOOOOO!" screamed Chun-Li, Ken, and Alex in unison.
"I take it you find this enjoyable," said Zelda.
"Hell yeah, waterslides are fun!" exclaimed Alex.
"Never been on one until now, but I'm liking it," chimed in Ryu.
After they finished sliding down, they looked at large shell shaped room sitting in the middle of a pool and saw the large lock on it denoting that this was the boss room. Link and the others leapt into the pool and swam for the platform where the room was sitting. Link took the boss key out and placed it in the keyhole making the lock fall off the door allowing them access into the room. Inside the shell was a large circular room with a large gaping hole in the middle.
"Looks like the boss is waiting for us down there, let's not keep him waiting too long," suggested Link.
Link leapt down the hole and the others quickly followed suit landing in a large submerged room with lots of seaweed and coral lying about in addition to the floor being mostly all sand.
"Keep your wits about you, something's lurking in here," called out Zelda.
Right when Zelda finished speaking, the ground around them began to shake, and a green scaled creature emerged from the sand with numerous tentacles swirling about him. He let out a warbled roar and gazed at them with his lone eye.
"Morpheel, he's looking to make us sleep with the fishes here!" called out Link.
"That's not going to happen," replied Zelda.
"Just how do we beat this guy though?" asked Ryu.
As Ryu finished his question one of the tentacles wrapped itself around him and tried to swallow Ryu, however, Ken rushed forward and kicked the tentacle with enough force to drop Ryu and the two swam out of the tentacle's way.
"Aim for the eye!" stated Link as he fired the Clawshot and Morpheel's eye pulling the eye towards him and then promptly slashed it making the eye leap back into the ground. The others all looked to see where the eye would appear next while avoiding being grabbed by the tentacles.
"Ha! I got you now!" shouted Alex as he grabbed a tentacle that the eye was in and smashed it with his elbow. Morpheel's eye then leapt into its gaping maw and sunk back into the sand. Then soon afterwards, a giant eel like creature rose out of the sand and began to swim around letting out another warbled roar as he charged at the six heroes with his mouth wide open in an attempt to swallow them. He narrowly missed the attempt as the heroes began to swim after Morpheel. The giant monster eel whipped its tail at the heroes swatting some of them away.
"He's gonna be one difficult catch," remarked Ken as he resumed his chase.
Morpheel continued to whip its tail about violently to keep the heroes away from him however Link was able to get close enough to latch onto him with his Clawshot. Link then mounted Morpheel and began slashing at its eye with ferocity until the angry eel bucked wildly throwing Link off of him and then whipped him away with his tail.
"It shouldn't take too much more to bring him down!" hollered Link as he resumed his chase after regaining his composure.
Chun-Li threw down a Water Bomb which exploded right near Morpheel spooking the monster and allowing Link to use his Clawshot to mount the giant eel again and begin slashing his eye. The monster hit the ground with a watery thud as Ken swam down after him.
"Shoryureppa!" yelled Ken.
Ken decked Morpheel with three powered up Shoryuken's back to back hitting him with a powerful fire Shoryuken at the end of it. Morpheel began to thrash about violently and ultimately wound up crashing into a wall making a large hole in it and draining all the water out of the room. When all the water was drained, Morpheel vanished in a large puff of smoke and lying in the middle room was yet another Secret Text.
"All right, that's one more for us!" exclaimed Alex.
"But I wonder just how many of these we have to collect," added Chun-Li.
"I'm sure we'll find out sooner or later," chimed in Zelda.
"At any rate, we've played Jacques Cousteau long enough," stated Ken.
"I agree, let's get out of here now," piped up Ryu.
"Yes, we must not dawdle in finding the remaining Secret Texts," affirmed Link as him and his allies entered the shining blue light in the room teleporting them out of the Lakebed Temple.
Author's Note: All right, we're done with the Lakebed Temple. Not too much else to say here other than I already know where the others will be heading next but I just have to get it written down. Until then, please read and review.