Lucia was holding her own against the Darknut before, albeit with some difficulty, but now that the Knight of the Underworld has started using Sword Beams, the fight has turned against her. Regardless of the mana-based technique she's using to enhance her strength or the flashy pieces of metal she's added to her attire since starting the Trials, the woman is simply too small to effectively block blows from a sword that's nearly as big as she is, wielded with supernatural strength, AND wrapped in its own force-boosting energy field besides.
Of course, Lucia was already well aware of that; her primary defense throughout most of the Trials was simply not being there when her opponents' attacks arrived. It's only now, against the Darknut's superlative skill, that Lucia's speed has proven unequal to the task.
In the face of a foe that one lacks the size or strength to trade blows with, even with magical enhancement, and which one is too slow to effectively dodge without sacrificing offensive capability in the bargain, many a fighter would be forced to concede.
Lucia just grins.
"Excellent!" she crows, aura once again swirling into visibility around her. "Now, UP THE TEMPO!"
And then she starts dashing around the ring, riding jets of mana in the same manner that you're used to seeing from Altria.
Or, almost the same. Where Altria tends to use this technique constantly, spending mana almost as naturally and freely as breath, Lucia's method is more conservative - and isn't THAT a word you never expected to use in reference to her? The mother does not have the sheer depth of mana reserves that the daughter enjoys, and to a certain extent, mana usage doesn't seem to come quite as naturally to her, either.
Another difference is that, where Altria's mana jets take the form of fiery plumes of reddish-gold energy, Lucia's are a pure crimson, and seem to break apart into a train of sparkling shards...
...or maybe, rose petals?
...
Regardless, those brief, focused blasts of power are enough to tilt the flow of the battle back in Lucia's favor. She's once again dancing around her opposition, circling the Darknut quickly enough that he can't bring sword or shield around in time to block the spinning, smashing strikes from that great red blade-
!
-unless of course, he uses a Spin Attack. But that takes a few seconds to charge up AND recover from, and Lucia sees it coming in time to abandon her attack and move out of reach of the strike and the deadly little whirlwind it unleashes.
And then she's right back in there, hammering away at the Darknut's exposed back and flanks.
One blow visibly deforms a pauldron.
Another tears loose an entire plate from... somewhere.
And after several hits to the back, something audibly cracks.
Gained Mighty Blow D (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Sunder E (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
Slowly but surely, Lucia peels the Darknut out of its heavy armor, pieces of sundered plate falling to the floor, revealing the layer of mail underneath.
Yet as she does so, you can't help but notice that the monster is starting to move faster and more smoothly, to the point where he's managing to block or deflect a hit here and there.
In response, Lucia's next attack is aimed at the head-
*CRASH*
-and all but shatters that metal crest decorating the top of the helm.
This seems to be some final straw for the Darknut, who throws his shield at Lucia, followed by his heavy-bladed sword - which she dramatically dodges by leaning back, allowing the weapon to go whooshing over her as it spins like a helicopter blade. While Lucia is showing off, the Darknut tears off and discards its damaged helm, exposing a strange kind of armored mask, topped by a row of rounded crosses almost like a crown, and with a t-shaped slot for the eyes, behind which you can see only darkness.
The Knight of the Underworld draws his second, more slender blade, salutes Lucia, and lunges to the attack.
Minus the heavier sections of his armor, the Darknut's speed comes a step closer to Lucia's. By itself, this wouldn't be enough to change things, but the longsword the knight now wields proves a much faster and more responsive weapon than the heavy blade he discarded moments earlier. Between the two points, the Knight of the Underworld is now able to defend against Lucia's swift attacks-
*CLANG*
*CLANG*
-launch more strikes of his own in exchange, some of which Lucia is once again forced to block, getting pushed around for her troubles-
*POW*
-and since the Darknut no longer has a shield to defend with, he can use his off-hand to attack freely, whether striking or grabbing. The warrior's fighting style is almost completely different now, and the changes only serve to make him even MORE dangerous.
Lucia adjusts her mana useage again, shedding speed and most likely going back to the more strength-focused enhancement from before, but not only does it merely serve to put her at a different kind of disadvantage, you can see that she's starting to breathe hard. The physical and magical exertion of this fight, and the six rounds before it, have finally started taking their toll.
The end comes suddenly, when the Darknut parries one of Lucia's blows and reaches out with its empty hand to grab the back of her sword before she can disengage. As Lucia grits her teeth and pulls against the Darknut's strength with all her might, the knight's posture shifts-
*POW*
"Gaaah!"
*CLANG*
-as he leans back and kicks the much smaller woman, sending her tumbling away while her sword drops to the floor.
The Darknut's foot comes down, trapping Lucia's blade, and he extends his own weapon out to his right, energy crackling around it.
Half-crouching and holding one gold-armored hand to her stomach, Lucia gives the knight a defiant look.
"I shall be avenged!" she proclaims, as the Darknut swings his sword across his body, the Sword Beam flying forth not as a single narrow projectile, but a wave of destruction.
So end the Trials of Lucia Drake.
Anna and Altria - and by extension, the little Remlit - are there to greet their mother as she returns to the material plane. Following a couple of hugs and hair-ruffles - and another scratch for the appreciative kitten - Lucia looks over her daughters' heads at her husband.
"I supposed I'm expected to be the one doing the avenging, then?" Arthur inquires dryly.
Lucia flutters her eyelashes and holds her free hand to her chest. "Surely, you're not about to let someone get away with treating your delicate wife in such a rough and un-gentlemanly manner?"
So, a knockout in the Seventh Trial. Does that mean we give her a pet?
This from the woman who just tore through six of Hyrule's major monsters like she was at a dance, and fought one of the realm's verifiably deadliest combatants on almost even footing.
I don't know; I think taking on a Darknut might be worth a bit more, even if she did lose.
"When the wife literally volunteered for it?" Ambrose interjects with a snort. "I surely would."
I wonder what we could have had her fight if she'd won...
"Fortunately, I did not marry you."
Not a whole lot beyond those guys except Ol' Bacon Breath, you know?
Altria shudders visibly at the mere suggestion of that.
Yes, well, that aside, I think I know something she'll enjoy.
Elder Terok steps forth then, and presents Lucia with her prize: three rolls of some kind of shiny fabric, one in red, one in blue, and one in green.
...that's it? Just silk?
You don't know what the material is, but after her handing her sword off to Arthur, Lucia inspects the stuff and starts smiling.
She's an artist with more than just a sword, Farore. And a chance to work with silk from another world?
Then, tucking the red and green fabric under one arm, she holds the third up in front of Altria and unrolls it, visibly taking mental measurements.
Trust me, she'll enjoy that more than anything else we could reasonably give her.
Altria bows her head and groans, while her sister laughs softly and pats her on the back.
The Remlit reaches for the shiny fabric with one paw.
Anna Drake shows mercy to her sister, and convinces their mother that the Ring of Trials isn't really the place to experiment with fabrics and dress ideas - if only because there's too much chance of getting sand in the shiny new material, or having it crinkle from the humidity of the sea air.
As the women of the family make their way out of the arena, Arthur checks the sword that's been hanging sheathed at his side since he came down from the seats - its presence making an odd contrast with his light slacks and loose white shirt, but no stranger in the grand scheme of things than Lucia's blade-and-dress combo. To his side, Ambrose is once again performing a Spell of Summoning to call up Arthur's horse, Maddoc, fully geared up and ready for combat.
It's a curious echo of how Altria readied herself for her Trials, and it extends to Arthur choosing to lead Maddoc into the transportation circle rather than riding him.
UNDERWORLD DRAGON: AQUAMENTUS
The similarity just gets stronger when Arthur takes one look at his first opponnent, takes hold of the unassuming medallion he was wearing tucked under the collar of his shirt, and summons his armor to him.
"Another one?" Aquamentus grumbles. "And knowing my luck, you'd be the whelp's father."
"A good guess," Arthur replies as he mounts up.
"Of course." There is a smoky sigh. "Ganon below, what is this? 'Pick on the Dragon Day?'"
The dragon punctuates that complaint by spitting a fireball at Arthur. Maddoc dances to once side, avoiding the attack with an air of prior experience at that sort of thing, and shows similar expertise as he launches into a charge without his rider even needing to set heels to flanks.
The thing about a lance is that there's really only one way to attack with it: straight ahead. Having been impaled once already today, Aquamentus is understandably uninterested in a repeat performance, and while it hunkers down as if to parry Arthur's weapon with its spiralling horn, the dragon's lack of forward motion and the tension in its legs betray its intention to leap to one side, once Arthur and Maddoc are committed to their attack and unable to change direction.
*WHAM*
The dragon roars in frustration more than pain as Arthur reads its intent and shifts the angle of his lance to catch the beast a glancing blow even as it throws itself to the man's left. The strike tears and shatters scales, but doesn't draw more than a trace amount of blood.
Despite the hit, Aquamentus's neck and tail both lash out, exploiting their length and flexibility to strike at knight and horse from two different angles.
*POW*
Instead, Maddoc carries himself and his rider out of the path of the sweeping tail, while Arthur turns about in the saddle to intercept the dragon's jaws with his shield, half-blocking and half-bashing. The contact is brief, Maddoc's acceleration quickly taking the pair out of Aquamentus's physical reach-
*FWOOM*
-if not the range of its breath weapon. For all that the volley of fireballs looks very dramatic as it goes roaring past horse and rider, two of the burning spheres exploding against the floor in small explosions, no direct hits are scored. The radiant heat and the splash from the groundbursts, meanwhile, accomplishes little against all that armor except to scuff it a bit.
Aquamentus needs scant seconds to recover from using its breath weapon, but in that time, Maddoc's supernaturally-enhanced speed allows him to reach the far right wall, wheel about, and ready for a second charge. This time, instead of coming at the dragon head-on, Arthur and his mount approach from the side, giving them a much larger target.
Aquamentus shifts about to stop presenting its flank to the enemy, but given the sheer mass of that flank and the other body parts involved, this takes just enough time that the dragon has little choice but to brace for and meet the charge it previously wanted to avoid.
*BANG*
This time, Arthur scores a direct hit - and where his daughter and her horse failed to avoid a retaliatory tail-strike, Arthur and Maddoc see it coming with time to spare, and go galloping past the injured dragon. Arthur draws another lance from somewhere and has it set by the time Maddoc has finished their next turn and begun a third charge.
When Aquamentus fought Altria, the time the girl needed to recover from the dragon's successful tail-strike allowed it to tear her lance from its hide. Having failed to connect with that attack against Arthur, the dragon leaves the weapon hanging from its shoulder as it turns about, jaw dropping to unleash not a barrage of fireballs, but a more traditional cone of ravening flame.
Arthur raises his shield and ducks his head, and Maddoc does solely the latter as they charge right into the blast - which washes over both with about as much effect as getting caught in a sudden rain.
Oh, ho. Resistance to fire, is it?
Gained Shield Training D (Plus) (Plus)
It IS the most common method of non-physical attack.
*BANG*
I think he's got resistance to electricity in there, too.
That's two direct hits, and this one seems to have genuinely hurt the dragon, because its attempt to strike back at the knight has more in common with random pained flailing than a planned counterattack.
Makes sense for an outfit that includes that much steel.
One more pass is all Arthur needs to find a vital spot, and deal enough damage to put Aquamentus down.
"I hate your entire family," the dragon gripes as it falls for the third time.
"Harsh, but fair," Arthur concedes, as the First Trial concludes.
Arthur's Second Trial drops him in a new chamber with walls of unworked stone that stand some sixty feet apart. Its sole feature of note is the pool of lava bubbling steadily away at the center of the room.
Protected from fire or not, Maddoc whinnies nervously as he steps back from the molten mass, which reaches out in all directions until it's almost halfway to the walls.
"Steady, boy," Arthur says, patting his horse on the neck with a dull clang of gauntlet against barding. "We won't be going in THERE."
I wouldn't be too sure of that if I were you.
No sooner has he spoken than a spiky, stone-like mass begins to rise from the lava. It's soon revealed to be a shell for some kind of long-necked armored reptile, which spews smoke and flame from its mouth as it roars a challenge.
VOLCANIC WYRM: GLEEROK
Maddoc turns his head slightly, as if to shoot a glance over his shoulder and ask his rider, "You were saying?"
Arthur sighs. "And when I say 'we' won't be going in there, I of course meant to say that 'YOU' won't be going in there."
Maddoc's whicker carries a distinct note of, "No kidding."
Arthur dismounts, draws his sword, and begins circling the lava, studying his opponent.
After a brief glance at Maddoc - half-considering, half-warning - the Gleerok begins shifting about to follow the knight.
Then, of course, it breathes fire at him - for all the good that does against Arthur's warded armor and shield.
This battle lasts a surprisingly long time, in large part due to each side's limited ability to actually hurt the other. While the lava might be a different story, Gleerok's flames aren't powerful enough to overcome the protections worked into Arthur's armor; its only other obvous means of attack is to lunge forward and try to bite the knight, and the monster is simply not a match for Arthur's mana-enhanced speed. On the other hand, Gleerok's armor is thick enough that Arthur would be at real risk of damaging his sword before he penetrated it.
For once, going for the eyes doesn't work. The monster's eyelids are every bit as thick as the rest of its outer skin-slash-shell, and closing them takes next to no time at all - the literal blink of an eye, if you will. Arthur makes three attempts to stab Gleerok through the supposed "vulnerable" spots before giving up and sheathing his blade.
In its place, he takes out a heavy mace, but while the bludgeoning weapon is sturdy enough to not be in danger of chipping or snapping when employed against Gleerok's armor, the most it seems able to do in the way of injuries is rattle the beast's brain inside its thick skull.
Gleerok is the first to lose patience with the standoff; roaring in frustration, it lets itself sink into the lava, leaving Arthur to stand on the "shore" - well, really a few feet back from it - no doubt blinking in confusion behind his armored visor.
Then the room starts to shake.
*CREAK*
*CRACK*
*CRUNCH*
Maddoc whinnies in shock as stalactites suddenly fall from the ceiling, shaken loose by the tremors.
Or perhaps it's not the falling rocks that spooked the horse, as much as the way in which the lava is overflowing the bounds of its pool.
Arthur says something that the Goddesses censor as he scrambles back to the nearest wall.
Fortunately for man and horse, the "eruption" is only temporary, and doesn't quite reach the point of flooding the entire room with molten rock. It does, however, cover the floor in a layer of lava some ten feet across, slowly darkening as it cools and solidifies into fresh rock.
Then the monster re-emerges.
Arthur meets its glaring gaze for a moment, and then sighs. "Right. I suppose that means it's time for me to do something stupidly heroic."
Hooray for recklessly brave!
And with that - and a brief surge of mana - the fully-armored knight leaps right across the lava, and onto Gleerok's armored shell.
Why must you encourage people, Farore?
This time, the monster's roar speaks of surprise and confusion.
Hey, I prefer them to be smart, too, Worrywater, but even stupid heroism's better than no heroism at all.
Arthur stands atop Gleerok's shell for a moment, arms extended for better balance as the monster shifts about beneath him. Then he drops into a crouch, grabs one of the rocky spikes jutting out from the main mass of the shell with his left hand, and raises his mace with his right hand.
*WHAM*
*CRUNCH*
*WHAM*
*CRUNCH*
Gleerok roars and tries to crane its neck around to bite at its unwanted passenger, but Arthur is standing almost directly atop the base of the beast's neck, making its counterattack very much the equivalent of a man trying to scratch an itch in the middle of his own back. Gleerok's neck is long and flexible, but it's not quite long and flexible enough; its jaw snaps shut on empty air just to the side of Arthur's helmeted head.
The knight, meanwhile, has continued hammering away at the monster's shell. While he's done no serious damage that you can see - if for no other reason than a lack of pain-filled roars from Gleerok - his efforts have started to chip away at the chunks of stone clinging to Gleerok's body. Relatively cooled lava, you suspect.
*WHAM*
*CRUNCH*
*WHAM*
*CRUNCH*
Gleerok makes a couple more attempts to bite at Arthur, before growling in frustration and beginning another dive into its molten pool.
Arthur senses the danger in time, leaps clear of the lava pit, and then keeps going as it once again starts to spill outside its bounds. Like before, the "flood" falls short of reaching the walls, and leaves another layer of slowly-cooling molten rock covering the floor, spotted here and there by the chunks of more solid stone that broke loose from the ceiling by the tremors.
When Gleerok emerges, Arthur is on it almost immediately, the heels of his boots glowing faintly red from his dash across the hot stone.
The monster bellows in outrage, but doesn't make to dive again right away. Adapted to dwelling in lava or no, it clearly can't BREATHE the stuff, and recovering from its energetic dives must take a bit of time.
Arthur puts the delay to go use, resuming his aggressive probing of the shell for any kind of weakness. Perhaps aided by a fresh dip in the lava, larger chunks of stone are starting to break off under the blows of the mace.
*WHAM*
*CRUNCH*
*WHAM*
*CRUNCH*
*WHA-*
Gleerok suddenly shrieks as something the color of bright gold is exposed amidst the dull red and black stone clinging to its back.
The next time Arthur's mace comes down, it's wreathed with mana.
*BOOM*
Gleerok HOWLS.
*BOOM*
The monster dives once more, but Arthur leaps clear again, and this time, you notice a distinct difference in the flood of lava. You can't say if it's because Gleerok is injured or didn't get enough air before diving again, or if it's due to all the lava building up on the floor, but the latest spillover doesn't extend as far as the first two. The tremors that rock the volcanic chamber also don't last as long, and when Gleerok emerges once more, you can see a fresh layer of lava clinging to the top of its shell, cooling and hardening with unnatural swiftness.
The monster's attempt to reinforce its defenses only delays the inevitable, however. Now that Arthur has a defined target, he attacks with full force, glowing mace tearing through the still-setting metamorphic rock in one mighty, leaping strike.
*BOOM!*
Gained Leap Attack D
*BOOM*
*BOOM*
The next time Gleerok sinks beneath the glowing surface of its private heated pool, it does so with a cracked shell, a limply-hanging neck, and a dead-eyed, slack-jawed head.
It doesn't reappear.
As soon as he and Maddoc are moved to the chamber of the next Trial, the first thing Arthur does is reach for his (armored) throat. In a flash of light, his armor disappears, leaving the man himself in his beach wear, flushed and perspiring. He's not breathing hard, but takes a deep breath all the same, seeming to relish the cooler, cleaner air.
"Well, that was remarkably unpleasant," Arthur says to himself. Turning to his steed, he asks, "You alright there, Maddoc?"
Maddoc snorts a horsey affirmative. He stayed as far away from the lava as possible for the entire fight, and only got grazed by a couple of falling rocks. The relative lack of exertion, coupled with the protection of his own armor, appears to have kept the horse in better condition than his master.
"Good, good."
"Feeling alright there, Sir Knight?" a familiar voice inquires.
KNIGHT OF THE SHADOWED MIRE: JERMAFENCER
"A bit warmer than I'm used to being, Sir Knight," he admits, "but not enough to deny you a bout. Arthur Drake, by the way." He bows slightly.
"Jermafencer," the tall knight returns the courtesy. "And while I do look forward to crossing blades with you, Sir Drake, it would be remiss of me to deny a fellow knight a chance to cool off after defeating an enemy as annoying as Gleerok."
"...had the questionable 'pleasure' of such an encounter yourself, eh?"
"Oh, yes," Jermafencer says with feeling.
"Well, far be it from me to deny a courtesy. Especially one that's to my benefit."
They share a chuckle.
"Out of morbid curiosity," Arthur asks then, "just how many lava-dwelling monsters ARE there in this kingdom of yours? Because that's the fourth one I've seen today, if we're counting things that just lair NEAR lava as well as those that live IN or are MADE out of it."
"It varies," Jermafencer admits somewhat sheepishly. "The Church, the Sages, and the Crown do their best, but there's always some short-sighted fool who thinks he can get away with summoning a proscribed beast or breeding an entirely new one, or a necromancer who can't leave things better off dead alone, to say nothing of the more conventionally greedy or prideful sorts who look at ancient sealed ruins and see only treasure to plunder and glories to claim."
"I know the type," Arthur tells him emphatically.
The two warriors share a sigh of mutual frustration with the idiots of two worlds.
Another moment passes in silence before Arthur takes hold of his medallion and re-summons his armor. Putting his mace away, he draws his sword, readies his shield, and says simply, "Shall we, then?"
"We shall."
The two knights trade salutes, and begin their match.
*CLANG*
*CLANG*
*THUNK*
*CLANG*
*POW*
This isn't the first fight between two knightly warriors that you've seen today, but for all her impressive skill and power, Altria is still only your age, with a lot of proverbial and literal growth still ahead of her. Her father, on the other hand, is in his prime, and it shows.
Gained Armor Proficiency C
Gained Sword Training A (Plus) (Plus)
From a purely tactical point of view, Mr. Drake would probably have been better-served by leaving his sword in its sheath and using his mace instead. Between its mass and the magically-enhanced strength he can put behind it, his sword is useful against a fellow knight - particularly one who, like Jermafencer, favors the somewhat greater mobility of half-armor over the wholly-enclosed protection of full plate - but those same factors would work even better for the mace, which is explicitly designed to crush armor.
But just as Arthur chose to meet Jermafencer on foot, instead of mounting Maddoc to charge him, he's also matching the other knight's choice of arms.
Some would call it chivalry.
Others would call it a needless handicap.
Either way, it makes for quite a spectacle.
*CLANG*
*CLANG*
*WHOOSH*
*CLA-THUNK*
One way in which Arthur's chosen weapon is unquestionably superior to the mace is reach: the sword is just long enough for Sir Drake to land a blow against Jermafencer's helmet. It takes some caution and clever bladework ahead of time, to make sure that the Knight of the Shadowed Mire's own sword and shield are out of position to block, and that he's not about to spit fire in that moment of apparent vulnerability, but Arthur gets a good rhythm going, and soon enough, takes the first of Jermafencer's "heads" off his shoulders.
As his second helmet phases into existence, Jermafencer salutes his opponent, and starts using the Sword Beam technique in its melee-enhancing mode. Previously, the Hyrulean knight's relatively light blade was only really dangerous to Arthur when making precise thrusts at his joints and visor, or when the hilt or pommel were used to add weight and power to a crushing blow. With the extra force imparted by the Sword Beam, however, Jermafencer can now mix in strikes with the edge of his weapon and still have a reasonable chance of causing damage, even if it's just to rattle his foe through his armor.
Arthur responds to this by sending mana surging along the edges of his blade, and the next time the two glowing weapons cross, there is a brilliant flash of light as both auras suddenly discharge.
Both knights stagger back a step, but neither appears stunned or even surprised by the outcome: Jermafencer simply shifts his shield forward while his sword trails behind, defending himself as he prepares to re-ignite the Sword Beam; and Arthur sheathes his own weapon and takes out his mace once more, to better match his opponent's striking power.
You don't doubt that Din approves.
I do.
Granted, using the short-handled mace in place of a long-bladed sword makes it harder for Arthur to hit Jermafencer's weak point. On the other hand, when he DOES manage to land a blow a minute later, the greater crushing force of the flanged mace-head sends Jermafencer's second helmet flying with just the one hit, rather than the multiple strikes the sword needed.
At this point, with three separate "heads" and a glowing sword firing blasts of flame and force at him from different angles, Arthur really has to step up his footwork to avoid getting caught in a crossfire. His shield starts taking more hits in the process, and you can't see how he's going to be able to get close enough to score another hit on Jermafencer-
!
*SMASH*
-although THROWING his mace at the taller knight does work the one time, and stuns the pale, Fae-blooded warrior long enough for Arthur to re-draw his sword.
Gained Thrown Weapons Training E (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
With his reach restored - and, you think, a little more mana devoted to boosting speed rather than strength - Arthur charges into the fray, getting as close to Jermafencer as possible, so that the knight's fire-spitting helms have as much chance of damaging their master as his enemy. The tactic isn't one hundred percent successful, but Arthur's full armor and relatively large shield absorb the hits that do get through better than Jermafencer's lighter and smaller gear do.
It's not a tactic you'd be able to use all the time, given your personal preference for unarmored combat and accordingly limited familiarity with armor and shields, but with the right spells in place, you think you could make it work...
Gained Crowd Control D (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
The turning point comes, not with a final slash or stab at Jermafencer's face, but a skirling clash of swords that ends with the Knight of the Shadowed Mire losing his blade to a clever disarm.
Gained Disarm F
Arthur raises his blade to his opponent's neck, and asks, "Do you yield?"
Jermafencer chuckles softly. "I yield. A good match, Sir Knight."
"And you, Sir Knight."
The two men step apart, and retrieve their respective weapons from where they fell. One final bow-
-and Arthur and Maddoc face their next opponent.
THE BLUE KNIGHT: LEVOKNUCKLE
Maddoc whinnies excitedly.
"I was wondering that myself," Arthur says, as he puts his weapons away and makes to saddle up.
Levoknuckle waits patiently as Arthur mounts up and arms himself, checking his sword where it sits at his hip, righting his shield on his left arm, and calling forth another lance from wherever it is that he and Altria keep them.
When he's finished, the two knights exchange no words - not that Levoknuckle could - instead raising their weapons in salute.
Maddoc whickers eagerly and paws at the stone floor, while Levoknuckle's floating construct-steed shifts about in a manner that echoes the living horse's behavior.
You're up again, Farore.
Once again, an unseen trumpet blares a two-toned note.
And the knights charge.
Gained Riding E (Plus) (Plus)
*CRASH*
*CRUNCH*
Like his daughter before him, Arthur shatters his mana-fueled lance on the Blue Knight's Hylian shield, but Arthur's superior mass, upper-body strength, and technique allow him to ride out the impact much better than Altria did. Those same factors also enable him to deliver a considerably more solid hit to his foe, who rocks in his saddle as much as the flesh-and-blood knight does.
As before, the Blue Knight holds off his second charge long enough for his opponent to fetch a replacement lance, beginning his attack only when the trumpet has sounded anew.
*CRASH*
*CRUNCH*
The exchange is more even this time, Levoknuckle having gotten a better measure on his foe's skills. Both knights are visibly shaken by the hits, and Arthur's second lance shatters.
Lather, rinse, and repeat.
On the third pass, Arthur does something you hadn't seen before, a tricky-looking little maneuver that seems to involve leaning forward slightly while making a certain twist of the wrist. This gives him a very slight reach advantage over Levoknuckle, and also deflects the enemy's shining steel spear slightly to one side.
Levoknuckle is too good at his business to miss entirely, but the blow he scores is a glancing one against the upper outside edge of Arthur's shield. Unfocused, off-target, and easily slid aside, it has little impact, in every sense of the word.
The same cannot be said for Arthur's weapon, which hits Levoknuckle's shield dead-center and full-force.
*CRASH*
*CRUNCH*
*WHA-CLANG*
The Blue Knight is ripped from his seat and flung to the floor with a deafening clangor of metal upon stone.
Arthur and Maddoc wheel about and pause, taking in the sight. When the Blue Knight climbs to his feet and draws his sword, signalling his ability to continue, Arthur slides down from his saddle, exchanges the butt of his third shattered lance for his sword, and trades another salute before closing.
The melee is once again like watching a more practiced, less mana-hungry version of Altria at work. Swords ring out almost as clear as the invisible trumpet as they clash against each other, against shields, and against armor. Those singing strikes are interspersed will the duller impacts of weighted hilts and pommels striking the same targets, as each knight tries to punch through the other's defenses.
At some unseen signal, no doubt triggered by the lack of progress, both warriors pause and back off. Arthur sheathes his sword and draws his mace, while Levoknuckle charges a Sword Beam.
Another salute, and they resume.
*WHAM*
*BANG*
*CRUNCH*
...it occurs to you that when that small portion of Dracula's army invaded the Drake estate back during the eclipse, Arthur took to the field with a particular mace that Ambrose believed would be able to "take care of" an animated suit of armor carrying explosives before it got a chance to use its payload on the outer wall of the estate. You also saw Arthur using the weapon in question when you scried on his party's counter-invasion of Castle Dracula, taking apart another animated armor like it was so much tinfoil.
Levoknuckle holds up a bit better than those lesser constructs did, but the blows from the flanged mace still seem to be landing with a lot more force than ought to be the case, even with a Mana Burst behind them. In short order, the Blue Knight's armor bears indents and small punctures in a number of places, and his shield has been staved in entirely. His sword remains intact, protected to some extent by the extra power surging around and through it, but it's clear that if this keeps up, he will lose.
Rather than draw things out to the bitter end, Levoknuckle deactivates his Sword Beam, backs off, and turns the weapon around in his hand, offering the hilt to Arthur in a show of surrender.
Sir Drake shifts his mace to his off-hand, and accepts the sword.
"Well fought," he compliments his opponent.
Levoknuckle silently nods.
The Fourth Trial ends, and the Fifth begins.
GUARDIAN OF SORCERY: CARROCK
The shadowy sorcerer doesn't attempt to silence Arthur as he did Lucia, and unlike the last couple of opponents Mr. Drake has fought, he also doesn't extend the chivalrous courtesy of allowing the man to ready himself for the fight. Instead, the Guardian goes on the offensive, vanishing into a teleport that carries him all-too close to Maddoc, who bellows in outrage as he is forced to leap over a rushing wave of force.
"Good tactics, but bad form!" Arthur roars, as he runs towards his horse and their enemy.
The sorcerer has already vanished by then, reappearing across the chamber to launch another attack. Both Arthur and Maddoc dodge this by simply running out of its line of effect, man and horse thinking so much alike that they're not only headed in the same direction, but moving closer together. In mid-stride, Maddoc almost seems to bow, as Arthur leaps up into the saddle.
Against an opponent who's already shown himself to disregard the tenets of knightly honor, Arthur seems not to feel the need to show the little courtesies, like fighting an unhorsed man on foot.
...then again, the Carrock can teleport AND fly, so maybe he's just equalizing things in the other direction?
Maddoc's turn of speed, combined with a few steeplechase-like leaps over the Carrock's wave-shaped force-blasts, is enough to get Arthur within lancing distance of the sorcerer, and while the weapons may be made of ordinary wood and steel, a surge of mana gives it enough bite to pierce the spellcaster's magical defenses.
After being all but impaled by the first of those charges, the Carrock takes to the air and begins raining area-blasting force-bombs down at Arthur and Maddoc. The barrage seems to have been intended more to clear an area than to seriously try and hurt the knight and his steed, because once they've moved off a bit, the Carrock begins casting a spell.
A swirling portal momentarily opens on the ground below, and through it step a trio of Wizzrobes, whose smaller stature but otherwise similar appearance to the Carrock make them look like a bunch of children dressing up like their parent.
Then THEY start doing the disappearing, reappearing-to-blast-you-at-range, re-disappearing trick.
The next minute or so is VERY busy for Arthur and Maddoc. They spear one of the Wizzrobes through-and-through, and literally run down a second, but by that point, the Carrock has summoned another trio of Underworld spellcasters.
Seeing the chamber starting to fill up with teleporting long-ranged attackers faster than he can whittle their numbers down, Arthur changes tactics. Whistling a command to Maddoc, he shifts his grip on his lance, holding it more like a spear as he leans back-
!
-and in a flash of mana, flings the weapon at the Carrock like a cross between an oversized javelin and a missile!
*CRACKOOM*
The lance is blown to splinters, end to end, as it strikes the Carrock, but the blow is enough to not only interrupt whatever spell the flying sorcerer was casting next, it also briefly breaks his control over his flight spell.
And given that he was making a hasty sideways dodge when he glimpsed the lance coming at him, this carries the Carrock straight into one of the pillars. His flight spell is still active, so the shadowy sorcerer doesn't simply fall to the floor, but he's visibly stunned by the crash.
The four remaining Wizzrobes respond to their summoner's distress by teleporting to different sides of the room, and launching attacks in such a way as to make an approach to the side of the pillar where the Carrock is hovering hazardous for any land-bound opponent.
Too bad for them, Arthur isn't trying to get closer. Instead, he reaches into that unseen armory, and pulls out-
What's he got there?
Is that supposed to be a Bomb?
-oh dear, that's a grenade.
That puny little thing?
Arthur pulls the pin, holds the primed explosive for a moment, and then almost casually flings it in the Carrock's direction in a long, slow arc.
The Guardian of Sorcery has recovered enough to see the device coming, and makes another of those sideways lurches.
*BANG*
...okay, maybe it's not so puny.
If this were a Hyrulean Bomb, the Carrock would have cleared the immediate blast radius. His lack of familiarity with Earthly explosives is his undoing, however, and lets out a scream of rage and pain as shrapnel tears through him.
Gained Explosives F
Maddoc, you note, was already moving to put himself and his rider behind another pillar when Arthur made his throw, and succeeded in getting several feet of solid stone between them and the explosion.
Magical shields or no, getting caught in the detonation of a fragmentation grenade would have been the end for most magic-users. That the Carrock is still active speaks to the strength of his protective spells, and perhaps to an undead or heavily-altered physiology. Even so, the grenade clearly hurt him badly, because his next move is to encase himself in a Sphere of Force.
"Bother," Arthur growls. "I hate it when they turtle up."
Rather than expend his energy against such a resilient defense, the knight draws his sword and guides Maddoc towards the nearest of the Wizzrobes, which is still staring in shock at the damage done to its master.
Arthur catches that first, stunned Wizzrobe off-guard, and cuts it down with two quick blows. As that one goes down with a cry of pain, another Wizzrobe drops to its knees; this enemy was standing in the central "aisle" where the Carock hovers, and where the grenade went off, and while the Wizzrobe was at least three times as far from the blast as its summoner is, it seems to have caught some of the shrapnel regardless.
Either the smaller sorcerer was hit somewhere fairly important, or it just isn't anywhere near as tough as its master, because it falls forward onto its cowled face and lies still on the stone floor, slowly fading away.
As the two remaining Wizzrobes come to their senses and resume teleporting about the room, the Carock remains holed up in its sphere of force, working magic. You know a few force-based barrier spells yourself, so you know that spells requiring an uninterrupted line of effect between the caster and the target can't be cast through them; this proves not to be an issue for the Carock, who uses the time to cast several spells on himself.
With your Mana Sight unable to read the auras through the Ring's display mechanism, you can't be sure what those spells do, except beyond the general "make Arthur's life more difficult."
Defenses reinforced, the Carock teleports out of its floating force-bubble, reappearing in mid-air near the exact center of the room. Arthur and Maddoc are at the far end of the chamber, riding down one of the remaining Wizzrobes, but that spellcaster - though wounded - manages to phase out of sight before Arthur can strike the final blow.
Looking around for targets, the knight sees that his main quarry has emerged from behind its stationary defenses and is casting another spell. Understandably uninterested in letting that magic finish taking shape, Arthur raises his sword.
Mana visibly swirls around the weapon-
A murmur of interest goes up among the Hyrulean crowd.
-before a swing of the blade sends it flying across the room.
You're not sure what to call this technique - Mana Blade, maybe? - but it streaks through the air as fast as any Sword Beam you've seen thus far, and retains cohesion quite a bit longer. For an instant, it's almost like a brilliant ray of light connects Arthur and the Carock.
Sword Ray might make a good name, too.
Then a heretofore unseen barrier around the Carock snap into view, ripples traveling out from the point where Arthur's attack strikes and defining another spherical barrier wrapped around the sorcerer's robed form.
A moment later, the Carock finishes its spell and makes a throwing motion at Arthur and Maddoc. A tiny mote of silvery energy flies from the sorcerer's withered, taloned hand.
Knight and horse are already moving, but the Carock's latest attack is swift-
*BOOM*
-and the Fireball-like blast of force that erupts when the seed-sized mote of magic hits the stone floor is alarmingly large. The whole room seems to buck, as wards all over the room flare to life under the strain of the attack.
Maddoc lets out a cry of shock as his hindquarters are caught up by the edges of the blast, but he pushes through whatever pain he feels and keeps going, almost seeming to ride the blast wave as he charges the Carock again - only for the sorcerer to disappear before he's halfway there.
Arthur lets his horse run, looking about to see where the Carock will reappear - and absently ducking as one of the remaining Wizzrobes takes a shot at him.
When the Carock fades into view near one of the corners of the huge chamber - behind his enemy, naturally - Arthur spots him, turns back around, and leans forward to say something to Maddoc that isn't conveyed by the Ring's magic.
Maddoc whinnies as if in agreement, and a moment later, Arthur leaps from his mount's back. Man and horse then go their separate ways.
Arthur runs towards the Carock, as fast as his mana-boosted legs can carry him. While not to the level of a Body Flicker, it's still very fast, especially for a man wearing that much metal, but given the distance involved, it's not fast enough for Arthur to close to melee range before the Carock has let fly with another of those force-waves-
!
-which the knight barrels into and THROUGH without even slowing down.
You'd almost forgotten, but the Drakes DO have access to a technique for spell resistance, don't they?
The Carock is visibly surprised and alarmed by this display, and that hesitation costs it, giving Arthur a chance to LEAP at it on a plume of mana and get in a few blows before the unnaturally tall magic-user calls on his teleportation magic again. The Carock's added defensive measures spare it further injury, but the sheer number of those spreading ripples you see flowing along the surface of the spell-globe make you think Arthur took a fair-sized chunk out of the magic itself.
Maddoc, meanwhile, has been hunting Wizzrobes.
*STOMP*
*WHAM*
*CRUNCH*
The broken, twitching heap he's left of one of the smaller spellcasters is a not-so-mute reminder that a fully-grown, fully-equipped warhorse is a deadly weapon in his own right, let alone when the horse in question is both magically-enhanced AND smarter than the average equine.
The Carock responds to the near-depletion of its minions by trying to summon more, but Summoning Spells are somewhat slower than most other battle-magics, and require the Carock to stay put - visible, tangible, and relatively vulnerable - over twice as long as it prefers to. This was a manageable risk when Arthur and Maddoc were moving around together, since their combined weight made it easy to track their movements even when they were out of sight. Now that they've split up, Maddoc is still relatively easy to follow - half a ton or more of horseflesh driving steel-shod hooves against stone are pretty hard to miss - whereas Arthur's approach is decidedly less audible.
You never would have expected to see a knight in full panoply trying to sneak up on an opponent, much less pulling it off, but that's what happens.
At least until the next grenade goes off.
*BANG*
Gained Explosives F (Plus)
Gained Thrown Weapons Training D
This explosive seems to have been of a different design, because Arthur didn't jump for cover after throwing it, and you don't hear the subsequent whistle and ping of ricochets. Either way, the Carock takes the full brunt of the blast, producing a brilliant flare as its shields absorb the force and then collapse into motes of sparkling energy, leaving the sorcerer covering its head with its hands. The portal-like construct that had been taking shape in front of it falls apart as well, the spell well and truly disrupted by the Carock's loss of concentration.
Then Arthur leaps at it again, sword-first.
Even though Maddoc hasn't destroyed the last Wizzrobe, the Carock's defeat is enough to end the Trial.
For his Sixth Trial, Arthur winds up in another familiar location, albeit one that you haven't seen since your own Trials: a rock-strewn field of dry earth and scrub grass, under a clear, sunny sky.
Arthur takes one look at his newest surroundings and whistles for Maddoc.
"Dragons again," the man mutters as he climbs into his saddle once more. "I must be doing something right."
Then the shadow descends from above.
TWO-HEADED DRAGON: GLEEOK
And fire erupts.
Arthur and Maddoc ride out the Gleeok's first bombardment by a mix of the protective magic of their armor, mana-enhanced toughness, and Maddoc getting the both of them out of the area of the blast as quickly as possible.
"Oh ho!" the Left Head chortles in delight. "They came prepared! I like it when they come prepared."
"I hate it when they come prepared," the Right Head grumbles.
"You have no sense of drama," the first says with a disgusted shake. "Where's your joy in the ancient struggle between dragon and knight? Your appreciation for dinner's struggles as it cooks, and the texture of freshly-roasted knight and horse, as you peel them from their armor?"
"Kind of hard to appreciate 'dinner' when it keeps riding away..."
"I already TOLD you, that was just target practice!"
Gained Draconic D
...yup, that sounds like the Gleeok you fought earlier.
You settle in to watch how Arthur handles this latest flying opponent. The dragon's advantage in that area is even more pronounced than the Carock's was, because the sorcerer, at least, was somewhat constrained by the dimensions of the chamber where the Trial was held. The Gleeok has a whole open sky to play with, and there are no convenient pillars that Arthur and Maddoc can hide behind to take cover from its attacks. And while the Two-Headed Dragon doesn't have the sheer speed that the sorcerer's teleportation afforded it, its scales are probably a fair match for those layered defensive spells the Carock was using.
Given his use of grenades against the Guardian of Sorcery, you find yourself wondering if Arthur is going to pull out a rocket launcher or high-powered rifle to try and shoot the Gleeok down, or if he'll use something a little more traditional; perhaps a dragon-slaying black arrow, if Ambrose has been stealing cues from Tolkien again?
Another possibility that comes to mind is Arthur going to the dragon, rather than bringing it down. It'll be a long time before you forget the briefly-televised spectacle of Altria's father leaping at the face of a corrupted Big Ben, to trade blows with the Reaper; you aren't sure just where the man took off from for that stunt, but if he could get that kind of height from ground level, making it onto the Gleeok's back when it dives to attack him shouldn't be difficult at all. It's also possible that Maddoc's shoes or barding are in some way enchanted to allow for flight - or at least three-dimensional maneuverability - though since you've never seen a sign of the Drakes training their horses for such a thing during your visits over the last several months, you have your doubts about that.
As it happens, Arthur does not resort to modern weapons to fight the Gleeok. Instead, he pulls out a spear - not a jousting lance, this time, but a spear meant for use by a man on foot, long enough to out-reach most other melee weapons and yet with the proper weight and balance to be thrown if need be.
The need is there, and when the Gleeok swings about to make another flaming attack run, Arthur coaxes Maddoc into charging it heads-on.
"Hahaha!" Left roars in glee. "That's the spirit! Look Death in the eye and never blink!"
"Less hot air, more FIRE!" Right snaps, before heeding his own advice.
Once more, twin jets of flame race out and explode into a massive conflagration. With twinned shouts of defiance, Arthur and Maddoc are engulfed-
!
-and then emerge from the firestorm a moment later, trailing tongues of flame, bits of ash that were hopefully just kicked up from the ground, and a reddish, hazy aura emanating from the seams of their armor and the glowing white characters inscribed in the steel.
As they pass underneath the Gleeok, its claws descend, half-grabbing, half-slashing at horse and rider. Maddoc sees the attacks coming, and navigates around them easily enough, while Arthur's attention is directed to his left - and specifically, to the wing that beats there.
Raising his spear in his armored right hand, the knight measures distance and angle, waits a moment as the wing rises out of sight, throws-
!
-and reels in the saddle a moment later as the end of the Gleeok's tail slaps him like an oversized whip, moving too quickly and across too broad an area for Maddoc to entirely get out of the way.
Almost simultaneous with that blow, however, there comes a twinned roar from Gleeok's heads-
"My wing! My wing!"
"You see what it feels like!?"
-as the sail of its left wing is punctured and torn by Arthur's spear. While not up to the level of the great gash you cut into the monster's limb with your Power-infused Blade, the damage is still out of proportion to the size of the weapon that dealt it - a weapon, you note, that is moving on its own, pulling free of the membrane to fall a short distance before an invisible force catches it and propels it in Arthur's general direction.
Even as he grabs hold of the bridge of his saddle with his left hand to steady himself, Arthur raises his empty right hand, catching the returning spear with an ease that betrays a great deal of practice.
"Keep us steady!" Right howls. "Keep us steady!"
"Stop side-seat flying!"
Maybe the Left Head is a better flier than his brother, or maybe Arthur just didn't deal enough damage with that attack. Either way, the Gleeok stays airborne. It's moving slower than before, however, and has lost some of what little grace it had.
The monster probably realized this before you did, because the Left Head snorts in disgust, and proclaims, "That's it, I'm taking us down."
"Wait, what!?" Right protests. "We can't surrender the advantage THIS easily!"
"Do you WANT to get shot out of the sky TWICE in one day?"
"...sliced," Right says defensively.
"What?"
"The first time was a sword," comes the sulky answer. "We got cut out of the air, not shot."
Left shoots Right a flatly disbelieving look.
A moment later, they touch down, making a much easier landing than the crash you forced them to in your Trials. There's still a great deal of force involved - the dragon's body is very large, after all, and it was moving with some speed - but the Gleeok handles its own momentum even more easily than Arthur fielded that returning spear, going from "low flight" to "fast walk" in the space of about a single body length.
Seeing this, Arthur puts the obviously-enchanted spear away and takes out another lance.
At this point, you have to stop and wonder how many trees the Drakes go through in a year, making all of these disposable weapons.
As Arthur lowers the weapon into place, he and Maddoc stare across the field of dust and stones, meeting the double gazes of their foe with what appears to be unwavering calm and confidence.
In response, the scaled eyelids of the Gleeok's Left Head narrow, and its lips curl back in an eager snarl.
Right sighs. "Must you?"
Do you think I should...?
"This is the romance of dragon and knight. I will disown you if you ruin it for me."
Oh, why not?
Once again, that silvery trumpet rings out.
Maddoc rears up and kicks at the air, screaming a challenge.
Left roars in response.
And Right looks up at the sky, exclaiming, "Stop encouragiiii-!"
Then knight, horse, and dragon charge.
Partway to its foe, the Gleeok breathes fire once more, but as before, Arthur and Maddoc thunder straight through the heart of the blaze and emerge on the other side, glowing red but otherwise unharmed. Tongues of fire trail from Arthur's lance like pennons at a tournament as he drives it forward.
The Gleeok's heads twist on their respective necks and curve inwards to bite, the Right Head coming in towards Maddoc's hindquarters, while the Left Head goes for the horse's head.
Seeing the danger, the horse screams and pours on the speed, his personal aura glowing brighter with the exertion. This carries him clear of the Right Head-
*SNAP*
-whose teeth slam shut the length of a full stride behind their target. As for the Left Head...
*WHAM*
*CRUNCH*
Well, that's what the horse puts up with his rider for, isn't it?
Speared through one eye by the broken haft of the lance, the Left Head rears back, howling its agony to the uncaring sky.
A moment later, its neck begins to glow with the black and red energy that presages its self-destruction.
Looking up from chasing Arthur and Maddoc away before they got any fancy ideas about carving away at the body, the Right Head blinks as it catches sight of the damage done to its fellow.
"So much for the romance of dragons and knights," Right mutters. Then it actually snickers. "You look like an Aquamentus right now, you know that?"
Left manages a one-eyed glare before its neck gives way, and the head takes to the air on unseen wings.
Gained Spear Training D (Plus) (Plus)
The battle shifts a bit from there. Now that it has full control over the entire body, Right refuses to give Arthur a chance to set up any more charges; it pursues Maddoc as he gallops away from the first exchange, and while the horse is clearly faster even with all the weight he's carrying, he's not so much faster that there isn't a real danger to the chase.
Arthur narrowly deflects one massive bite with a swing of his shield, then turns and hacks at the incoming Left, sword magically appearing in his hand just as it's needed to knock the floating dragon's head aside.
Then Right breathes fire at them again. With Maddoc trying to run away from the source of the flame, which is also actively pursuing him, horse and rider spend whole seconds under the fire-blast, and when the Gleeok's breath weapon cuts out, you not only see that the fire-repelling wards are glowing much hotter than before, but also that the cloth covering Maddoc's rear has been charred black - in some places, all the way to ash.
Horse and rider are still alive and moving, but they definitely felt that.
Arthur's sword and shield both disappear as, with an interesting maneuver involving both hands and one stirrup, he turns himself around in the saddle. Then the spear he used to shred Gleeok's wing reappears.
The dragon's eyes widen in recognition, but having just spent its flame and with all four legs otherwise occupied and its tail much too far out of position to help, its only available method of attack would be to bite again.
Considering how much damage the spear did to its wing when thrown, you don't blame the Gleeok for looking reluctant to give the weapon's master a chance to wield it with the force of both arms behind it.
The Left Head flies in again, trying to distract Arthur, but just gets stabbed in the face for its trouble and goes flying off randomly, mouth open in a soundless wail of pain from the once-again disproportionately-powerful strike.
At that point, the rest of the Gleeok breaks off pursuit of Maddoc, turning to the right to try and put some distance between itself and Arthur before he can throw his seriously dragon-unfriendly spear again.
Its size works against it, and the monster bellows as the spear flies in to hit it just behind its left shoulder, biting through scaled hide that should have been thick and hard enough to stop a weapon of that size cold, regardless of the magically-boosted strength behind the arm throwing it.
Gleeok's next move is a little surprising, as it throws itself onto its left side, apparently trying to catch the spear before it can return to Arthur's hand and crush it under its weight.
It's a partial success. The spear was having quite a bit more trouble pulling itself free of the dragon's heavy armor than it did the thinner skin of its wing, and it disappears under the beast's green bulk as it hits the ground. But when the Gleeok rolls over and rises to its feet, the spear shoots free, trailing grit and ash but still intact, the strength of its enchantments having spared it any severe damage.
Arthur catches it, tucks it away again, and rights himself in the saddle. Seeing as how Maddoc has carried them clear of the range of Gleeok's flames by this point, the knight gets out his shield and yet another lance, and starts setting up for another charge.
Gleeok doesn't greet this attack with fire; it stands, tense and shifting on all fours as if in preparation to move aside, until Arthur and Maddoc have come in close. Then, with a flex of its forelegs and a sudden frantic beating of its wings, the monster rears up on its haunches, standing almost vertical for a moment before letting itself fall forward.
*BOOM*
Training, instinct, and sheer dumb luck save Arthur and Maddoc from being reduced to a pancake or some horribly squashed pseudo-centaur under the dragon's crushing weight. However, those factors aren't quite enough for the horse to keep his footing, or the knight his seat, as the ground shakes under the impact and a massive gust of displaced air slams into them.
A flare of mana keeps Arthur from getting caught under his mount as the poor horse rolls right over. Already having dropped his lance, the knight sets his shield before him, lands on it, and rolls forward in the sort of acrobatic maneuver most people think a man in full plate armor can't possibly perform - and which does, admittedly, require a certain amount of strength and training to pull off. Arthur has both to spare, and ends the move back on his feet, dragon-slaying spear once again appearing in his hand as he whirls about to confront Gleeok before it can rise.
The subsequent melee is fast and brutal, and ends with Arthur taking a decidedly less-graceful tumble as one of the dragon's claws catches him and smashes him aside - but in exchange, leaving his spear plunged through what is probably the location of the Gleeok's heart.
The Right Head looks down, and simply says, "Oh."
Then it falls to the earth once again.
The Sixth Trial ends, and when the Seventh begins, Arthur and Maddoc find themselves back on their feet, in a circular stone chamber you've been expecting to see for a while.
KNIGHT OF THE UNDERWORLD: DARKNUT
"My vengeance is at hand!" Lucia cries out.
...you can't accuse the woman of not having faith in her husband.
Arthur looks up at the tall, heavily-armored figure before him, and says perfunctorily, "If you would be so good as to allow me a moment to see to my horse, Sir Knight, I would be grateful."
It's a good attitude, but is this really the time?
The Darknut tilts its steel-crested helmet to one side, as if unsure what to make of that remark, but then it nods and takes a couple of slow, heavy steps backwards, before planting the broad head of its heavy sword against the floor and resting both hands over the hilt.
...huh. I guess it is.
"Thank you," Arthur says simply, before he turns to Maddoc.
The Ring doesn't go so far as to cut out what follows, but it does skip ahead a bit as Arthur checks over the damage Maddoc and his gear took from Gleeok. In the process, the greater part of the horse's barding is magically removed, leaving him wearing basic riding tack - which includes a medallion not all that different from the ones Arthur and Altria store their own armor in - and a set of saddlebags. From the latter, Arthur produces a bottle of clear, colorless ointment, which, after removing his gauntlets, he proceeds to carefully rub over the horse's burnt backside.
From a purely utilitarian perspective, such treatment isn't necessary, as whatever injury or loss of equipment one sustains within the Ring of Trails does not carry over to the real world.
But a horse is not just another piece of gear; it's a partner, and moreover, one whose trust will be critical for success in life-threatening situations. That applies even more for a horse like Maddoc, who is physically exceptional, magically capable, and astonishingly intelligent. He can appreciate such kindness on levels that a mundane horse wouldn't, and would likewise be more sensitive to the implications of its absence.
Arthur probably spends the better part of ten minutes fussing over Maddoc, but you see it condensed into less than one minute. As the images projected within the Ring return to a normal speed, Arthur has just finished putting his gauntlets back on, after first wiping his hands clean of any lingering ointment on a cloth that came out of the saddlebag along with the bottle. With those items returned from whence they came and his own equipment back in place, Arthur turns to the Darknut and draws, not his sword, but his construct-crushing mace.
"Thank you for your patience, Sir Knight. I am ready to begin whenever you are."
The Darknut nods and swings its heavy sword up, Sword Beam gathering even as the weapon swings around in a display of martial prowess.
The two knights begin to circle one another, shields raised and weapons at the ready.
The Darknut makes the first move, an overhand swing that Arthur sidesteps, bringing his mace down at his foe's extended forearm. The Darknut pulls that arm back before the blow can connect, the flared end of its blade audibly scraping along the stone floor, and drives its heavy shield straight at Arthur, who shifts his own around to block.
*SMASH*
Both knights lean into the collision, bringing all their strength and weight to bear, and it is Arthur whose sabatons slide back along the stones, if only by dint of the Darknut's greater size.
Gained Shield Training D (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
Then the shield-lock ends, and the weapons come back around.
*SMASH*
*CLANG*
*BANG*
*SCREE*
*CLANG*
*CRUNCH*
The noise is insane, like a blacksmith's forge come to life and subsequently gone to war with itself, hammer against anvil and all other tools taking a side or just getting caught - and crushed - in the middle. Despite its similarity to Levoknuckle, the Darknut is not just a massive suit of armor animated by powerful magic; there is a body under all that steel, and it has a mind and a will of its own. As such, Arthur's construct-destroying mace doesn't have the kind of disproportionate impact it did against Levoknuckle's armor - but that's not to say that the enchanted armor-destroying weapon is having no effect at all. You'd have to see a mundane mace of the same design in action to be absolutely sure, but you suspect that Arthur's weapon is doing somewhat more damage than it really ought to.
Even if that's not the case, he's still leaving pieces of the Darknut's armor all over the place, at a rate that exceeds Lucia's own efforts. And this when he's attacking from the FRONT, an angle at which Darknuts are traditionally considered all but impervious to harm.
From Lucia's cheering, the woman has no problem with this.
That said, Arthur's not exactly coming out of the exchange unscathed. The Darknut's heavy-bladed sword is so massive as to be an anti-armor weapon all by itself, let alone with the monster's physical power and the added boost of a Sword Beam behind it. His shield is not only dented, but has been punched through in two different places where the hooked points of the Darknut's blade hit it dead-on; Arthur has managed to avoid taking a similar hit to his body, but his armor has picked up quite a few new creases.
Finally, the Darknut has had enough and leaps back from Arthur, flinging Sword Beam, shield, sword, and a few clinging fragments of its outer armor at its foe and finally drawing its second blade in their place. Arthur dodges the two serious, sword-based attacks outright, blocks the thrown shield with his own - which he then stows in the same manner as his various weapons, due to its battered state making it more of a hindrance than a help - and just lets the pieces of broken plate spang harmlessly off his mostly-intact armor as he puts away his mace and draws his own blade.
The two battered knights salute one another, and resume their melee.
*SWOOSH*
*CLANG*
*SCREEE*
*CLANG*
*CLANG*
*SWOOSH*
*CLANG*
Lucia isn't the only one cheering as Arthur keeps pace with his supernatural opponent, matching the Darknut blow for blow. Blade-tips fence and flicker, edges clash and cross, several punches are exchanged, and one of those turns into an attempt at a grapple. You're not sure if the Darknut MEANT to grab Arthur's forearm when it palmed his punch, or if it was just reflex, but once committed, the Knight of the Underworld gives its full effort.
Of course, so does Arthur, and the one-armed standing grapple turns into an armored wrestling match with blades. The Darknut has mass and reach, but Arthur's lower center of gravity is an advantage, particularly when he manages to tangle the bigger knight's legs-
*CRASH*
-sending them both to the floor, with the Darknut on the bottom.
The black knight tenses, as if to spring back up, but then freezes as it spots the slender tip of the sword hanging just above the t-shaped slot in its masked helm.
"Yield," Arthur commands tersely.
For a moment, there is no response, and you wonder which side of its nature the Darknut is going to embrace: the knight who can concede a battle with dignity and grace; or the monster that will throw aside the trappings of honor for one more chance to kill. After all, the tenson in Arthur's voice is reflected in his posture; it's taking everything he can muster to hold the Darknut pinned like this, one arm across its throat and the other raised high, sword held like an outsized dagger. The instant he moves to follow through on his unspoken threat, the dark warrior will have the advantage.
Provided, naturally, that it manages not to get stabbed in the eye...
The answer comes with a faint clang, as the Darknut lets go of its sword.
Lucia just about explodes from her seat. "YES!"
Across the Ring, Akkiko smirks and says, "Somebody's getting lu-" before Masaki claps a hand over her mouth.
Arthur's battered armor clinks somewhat unbecomingly as he rises from where he had the Darknut pinned. Looking himself over, the man makes a sound of annoyance, but otherwise does not comment on the state of his gear.
You suppose you can see why. He has one more Trial to face where he'll definitely need the armor, but after that, he might be able to do away with it. After all, if Arthur isn't wearing armor when he faces the Mirror, his clone shouldn't be wearing it either.
Following an exchange of salutes with the Darknut, Arthur moves on to his Eighth Trial. Maddoc is still with him, though perhaps in light of his injury, the Goddesses have put the horse in one corner of the new room, hinting at his non-participation.
This leaves Arthur to face another larger-than-life knightly figure, one whose golden armor was forged in a style somewhat similar to Levoknuckle's, but which is literally twice as tall and proportionately built, with a conical helm rather than a more rounded one, and a massive ball-and-chain instead of sword-and-shield. Also unlike Levoknuckle, there is a living being underneath the metal; most of the face is covered by his helm, but you can make out actual living flesh in the small space left around the eyes.
GENERAL OF DARKNESS: ONOX
"You've done well to make it this far, Sir Knight," the towering warrior declares, as he begins to slowly spin his weapon around to one side. "But you'll not get past me. I would suggest that you stand down."
"I thank you for your advice," Arthur replies, once again taking out his mace, "but I fear I must decline."
Heavy pauldrons shift slightly as the giant general shrugs. "As you will, then."
And then he lets fly with the spiked ball.
There is another flare of light as Arthur leaps out of the path of the massive chain mace. As he moves through the air, you are startled to see the man's armor disappearing back into his medallion, leaving him clad in his tropical daywear. At first, you wonder what the heck he's thinking, but after the initial shock-
*BOOM*
-and the noise made by that huge spiked ball of steely death hitting - and shattering - the floor, you understand Arthur's reasoning.
Even after taking the proportions of its wielder into account, Onox's weapon is absurdly large. The ball is as big as Arthur's TORSO - and that not counting the dozen or so six-inch spikes that jut out from it at equidistant points - and it has the familiar glint of Hylian steel. Couple that with the speed it's flying around at, and its master's ability to actually get it MOVING at those speeds, and the truth is painfully clear.
This isn't a weapon designed to counter armor.
This is a weapon that is meant to DESTROY whatever it hits, with just one swing.
No amount of armor would save a man caught on the receiving end of Onox's chain mace, not unless he was riding inside a tank or other armored vehicle. Even many forms of magic wouldn't suffice, particularly not when Onox's weapon starts to emanate the telltale light and hum of a Sword Beam, and begins leaving massive craters in the floor and walls around its master, or bringing bits of the ceiling down.
The only practical defense against something like that is to not get hit, and to ensure that he doesn't, Arthur needs all the speed and flexibility available to him.
In this fight, even the finest armor would just be an anchor to drag him down, and so, he's discarded it.
*BOOM*
Foregoing armor in favor of mobility has a secondary benefit, in that it puts Arthur far ahead of the General of Darkness in terms of speed.
You're not sure if it's his size, the sheer weight of all that metal, or just natural inclination, but Onox's steps are no faster than a normal man might walk. More than that, while he's able to fling that deadly ball and chain around with alarming speed, it does take him a while to get it spinning in the first place, or to recover it after one of those stone-shattering, tremor-inducing strikes.
In between those deadly blows, a man lucky enough to still be standing would have an opening.
A man with Arthur's mana-enhanced speed has more of them.
Mr. Drake's first tactic is to get in close and start tearing down Onox's armor with his own mace.
*BANG*
That doesn't work out so well. Where one hit from that weapon was enough to cause visible damage to a Darknut's armor, it only seems to scratch Onox's brass plates - and then Arthur has to forego a follow-up hit in order to avoid being crushed beneath his enemy's fist. He dodges the blow easily enough-
!
*WHOOSH*
-but the accompanying gust of hurricane-force wind catches Altria's father by surprise, and sends him tumbling backwards with a shout of startled protest.
"Did that guy just do that with AIR PRESSURE!?" Isshin bursts out.
No answer is forthcoming from any of the fairies or priests, all of whom are keenly watching the fight play out.
With his first approach thwarted, Arthur reaches into a pouch at his side, and produces another grenade. He doesn't pull the pin right away, instead waiting for Onox's ball and chain to swing out again-
*BANG*
-but as soon as that's happened, Arthur pulls the pin and tries to fling the explosive under Onox's armored skirt.
*PING*
"Nice try!" Onox declares, as he kicks the explosive away.
The blast that goes off a moment later is purely concussive in nature, and nowhere near either warrior.
Maddoc is also thankfully out of harm's way, though the blast definitely spooks him.
Arthur doesn't give up on his grenades just yet, though. The next time he gets an opening, he dashes around behind Onox, holding the grenade for a second before rolling the explosive device towards his foe.
Onox must have eyes in the back of his helmet or something, because one of his feet kicks out backwards, catches the grenade, and sends it bouncing away. It's not as accurate a kick as the first time, however, and that combined with Arthur's delay in throwing the armed device means that it's much closer to the General of Darkness when it goes off. Not close enough for Onox to be caught in the blast, but the shockwave still visibly - and audibly - rattles him.
Gained Explosives F (Plus) (Plus)
Turning towards his enemy, Onox raises his empty hand above his head, and then drops into a half-crouch as he lowers that hand to the floor, fingers splayed. The air around him seems to distort for a moment, and then in the next instant, a small funnel cloud has formed, surrounding the armored giant out to a distance of two or three feet.
"Try that again," Onox taunts Arthur, eying the third grenade resting in his hand. "Please."
Arthur briefly considers the indoor tornado, then shrugs, puts away the grenade-
!
-and takes out a freaking machine gun in its place. Not a pocket weapon like an Uzi, not even an assault rifle, but an actual meant-to-be-mounted on VEHICLES and FIXED EMPLACEMENTS machine gun. As he hefts the weapon, Arthur also re-summons his armor.
Quite a few people cry out variations on, "He keeps a MACHINE GUN in his POCKET!?"
Issa's eyebrow twitches. "Oh, that's not even the worst of it..."
Despite the interference of the swirling cloud and the narrowness of Onox's open visor, you can just make out his eyes squinting in puzzlement at the large weapon.
"What does that do?" he asks warily.
Racking the slide, Arthur replies, "This."
Then he pulls the trigger.
*ACKACKACKACKACKACKACKACK*
Whatever good it might have been against a grenade, the tornado doesn't stop the bullets. You don't doubt that overcoming the resistance of the intense winds costs them some of their forward momentum, or that a few rounds end up off-target as a result, but the distance they have to cover is short enough that many start flashing and spanging across Onox's armor all the same.
*ACKACKACKACKACKACKACKACK*
Said armor may actually have deflected a few hits, and absorbed a couple more, but the next dozen or so that come after those punch through it. And the dozen after that... well.
*ACKACKACKACKACKACKACKACK*
Onox falls with a roar and a crash, bleeding from wounds you're honestly glad are mostly concealed behind the ventilated wreckage of his armor.
Arthur promptly holds his fire, which makes you briefly wonder if it's more chivalry, or just trigger discipline kicking in to prevent wasting bullets on a downed target.
When Onox starts laughing weakly, Arthur makes to start shooting again anyway, but the body of the General of Darkness disappears in a burst of magic before he can pull the trigger.
Despite that, Onox continues laughing, and the room starts to shake.
Arthur looks around, and then sighs. "It's going to be one of THOSE, then?"
In the next instant, the walls and ceiling are torn away and ripped into a thousand pieces, which go flying into the fathomless void that is now revealed "outside" Onox's chamber.
Maddoc lets out a scream of pure equine terror as, from out of that seemingly endless darkness, there comes a dragon.
Two great white horns rise above eyes as big as a man's head, black as the nothingness around them but for the infernal flames that burn at their core. Below those hangs a snarling, savage maw large enough to swallow Arthur whole in one bite, armor, gun, and all.
It is that gaping, fang-filled mouth that is the source of Onox's continued, thunderous laughter.
Where the proper dragons that have appeared in the Trials before now all had long necks, this monster is built more like King Dodongo, with a neck short enough that its head almost seems directly attached to the powerful, bulky shoulders. Wings as peculiarly small as Gleeok's rise from those shoulders, while long arms descend from them, ending in grasping, hand-like claws some six or seven feet across - and that again, counting the digits. The rest of the body is like an immense serpent's, each slow, writhing motion hinting at the incredible physical power contained within.
As the General of Darkness descends, Arthur just nods to himself. "One of those, indeed."
Then he raises the machine gun and opens fire.
*ACKACKACKACKACKACKACKACK*
The dragon's mobility makes it harder to hit than its previous form, and at least a third of Arthur's controlled bursts are simply swallowed by the void. Those bullets that do strike the monster draw no blood that you can see, the inherent properties and sheer thickness of the beast's hide doing what even armor such as that worn by Onox's human form could not, and withstanding the attack.
And then Onox exhales a cone of flaming destruction, forcing Arthur to cease fire, stow his gun - which suggests it may NOT have been protected against fire like his armor was - and dive out of the way. When he rolls to his feet a moment later, defensive wards flaring with worrisome fitfulness around him, Arthur has that dragon-slaying spear in hand again, and lets fly.
It definitely penetrates, but like the machine gun before it, it fails to draw blood.
Even as Arthur raises a hand to catch the returning weapon, one of Onox's arms descends, hand crushing a spot on the rubble-strewn floor. Arthur manages to dodge the worst of the blow, but two of Onox's claws catch on his armor for a brief instant, sending him staggering backwards and leaving gashes in the steel.
Arthur is still recovering from that "glancing" hit when Onox's massive tail sweeps out and across the exposed floor. He moves, mana jets flaring-
*SLAM*
-but Onox is just so BIG that Arthur can't quite avoid the hit. This time, he's swept up and carried along by the blow, which ends with Onox flipping his tail and sending the knight flying into the distance.
That turns out to be a bit of a mistake on the dragon's part, as Arthur is airborne long enough to recover some sense of orientation and flare his mana again to turn an imminent crash into a rough landing - but the jets of mana sputter visibly in the middle of the maneuver.
Like Lucia, Arthur doesn't have Altria's sheer depth of reserves. All these high-powered fights have worn him down, and it's finally beginning to show.
Despite that, the head of the Drake Family doesn't surrender the Trial without a fight. Machine gun and enchanted spear both having proven less than effective, his next move is to pull out some kind of ROCKET LAUNCHER.
Oooo! I want to see this!
Unfortunately, after having one modern weapon pointed at him to fairly devastating effect, Onox is not about to let Arthur use another if he can help it. He barks a word of magic, and a rain of lightning falls, faster than the dragon or its flames could have possibly moved.
One bolt hits Arthur dead-on, and though you see the wards on his armor flare, the protective light is feeble and fading. The physical damage to the armor has compromised the very structure of the built-in wards, further weakening their already depleted strength.
As Arthur reels from that blast, you see smoke pouring off the blackened and warped rocket launcher, indicating that it fared even worse. The man takes one look and discards the ruined weapon, not even ATTEMPTING to fire it.
Damn that dragon!
Instead, he draws his spear again, and throws.
For the first time, Onox's true body roars in pain, as Arthur's weapon strikes the red, jewel-like orb mounted at the base of the dragon's horns.
It would seem that, like so many other monsters today, the "eye" is Onox's obvious weak point.
But that discovery comes too little and too late for Lord Drake. With his reserves depleted and defenses breached, all Onox needs to put him down is one more solid hit.
One claw comes down, and is avoided.
The second descends right after it, and Arthur not only escapes the strike, but comes out of his evasive turn by flinging his spear at Onox's face again.
But the dragon's arms, still grasping the ground, suddenly strain with effort, providing leverage as the monster brings its serpentine body around like the largest whip ever seen on two worlds.
*SMASH*
Arthur takes the hit full-force, his armor coming apart at the seams in the process.
Onox roars in triumph, and the Eighth Trial concludes.
A part of you is tempted to openly extol the virtues of Lord Drake, but you settle for joining in the enthusiastic applause coming from the rest of the audience as the man and his horse reappear on the sands below.
It's not like you NEED to explain that the giant, magic-using dragon that tanked machine gun fire like it was an annoyance was a badass. You're pretty sure that everyone watching the Trials was able to figure that much out for themselves.
*WHOOMPH*
Besides, you think to yourself, as Lady Drake leaps into her husband's arms, Lucia can take care of-
Oh my!
That's the way, girl!
-oh.
Oh my.
Ambrose wolf-whistles.
Akkiko cackles. "Oh, yeah. Somebody is DEFINITELY-"
*Masaki Interrupt!*
"Mother, please!" Anna protests, in the tone used the world over by children being embarrassed by their parents. "Not in public!"
Okay, serious question: do we count beating Onox's human form as half a win, or none?
Altria just bows her head, doing her best to cover her face behind her bangs - which her Remlit promptly takes a playful swing at.
Because it's one thing when a boss changes how it fights out of desperation, pride, or whatever.
Some of the Memorian soldiers start cheering - and their officers don't appear inclined to stop them.
It's another when it cheats death and assumes a more powerful form.
Ignoring the audience, Lucia breaks the enthusiastic lip-lock, smiles at Arthur, and whispers something to him that you're honestly glad doesn't carry.
Fighting Onox IS rather like fighting two separate creatures...
Arthur, for his part, just smiles and sets his wife down, then turns to their approaching daughters, who had - with the air of prior experience - let their mother go on ahead.
I DID like the mini-Bombs and the machine gun...
Elder Terok gives the family a minute, and then - after Arthur has had a chance to check on Maddoc and assure himself that his partner is truly no longer injured - steps forward for the award ceremony.
Three for three, then. In that case...
For seven consecutive victories, and pushing General Onox to use his true form in battle, Arthur receives a scroll.
Let's see what he makes of this.
There's an aura of magic about it, including pure Abjuration meant to preserve the scroll and its contents, and a mix of Abjuration, Divination, and Enchantment that you're honestly not quite sure about, at least until Arthur unfurls the scroll and you see the magic react to him.
Are you sure we should be handing that out?
Some kind of user-locked access spell? That's neat.
The boy's already teaching people how to throw Sword Beams; this is just making sure a responsible adult knows the move.
And on a related note, whatever's written on the scroll seems to catch Arthur's interest.
Where it goes from there is up to him.
Thanking the Goron priest, he closes up the scroll and tucks it away in Maddoc's saddlebag. Then, after giving his partner a final stroke on the nose and some words of thanks, Arthur nods to Ambrose, who ends the spell that brought the warhorse to the island.
Once the Drakes have cleared the arena floor, the Shuzen adults start taking their turn. You were expecting Gyokuro or Akasha to go first, so it's a little surprising when Issa comes forward instead, wife and mistress alike giving him little waves of encouragement - or just to tell him to get on with it.
Issa requests Nine Trials, and blows through his first two in short order, defeating the Armos Knights and the Lanmolas with considerably less difficulty than his daughters experienced. And this is when all SIX of the stone warriors come to life at once instead of sequentially, as they did with Kahlua, or when "the" Lanmola turns out to have brought a couple of friends to play.
Issa's third match is against Levoknuckle. He takes a different approach to this enemy from either of his daughters, using his speed to get out of the path of the Blue Knight's Lance Beam-led charge and then come at him from the side, arms spread wide to tackle. Levoknuckle sees the counter-charge coming and manages to land a kick to Issa's face, but while the blow snaps the vampire's head sideways, it doesn't stop him; he slams into the Blue Knight's horse, wraps his arms around the animated barding, and then heaves it AND its rider into the air, up, over, around, and DOWN in a massive and incredibly loud bodyslam.
One move doesn't defeat Levoknuckle, who rises from the wreckage with sword and shield already drawn. His mount, which in all previous Trials quit the field after its master was unseated, just sort of lies there on the stone floor, upside-down and with its empty "head" driven into the hollow "neck" of the armored barding.
With his foe on something approaching even footing, Issa then demonstrates that he's not too proud to steal a good idea from someone younger than himself, and proceeds to "dismantle" the Blue Knight in a manner similar to Kahlua's earlier performance. The main difference lies in the father's lack of Hylian steel gauntlets, which forces him to stay on the defensive until he's got a good enough measure of Levoknuckle's speed to try catching his sword-arm and divesting it of the weapon it holds. Once he's managed that, though, it's almost like watching a playback.
"Go, Daddy!" Kahlua cheers, completely unfazed by the scene.
In his Fourth Trial, Issa becomes the first of the vampires to face the Carock. This is the first match to give the Shuzen patriarch any kind of trouble, largely because the Guardian of Sorcery makes a point of materializing as far away from the vampire as possible, but also because Issa appears to lack a means of attacking at range. It's less of an issue for him, considering how fast he can move, how high he's able to jump, and that vampiric ability to climb along walls like a spider - something that gets put to use when the Carock starts flying around - but it's still an issue.
Once Issa manages to get his hands on the Carock, however, the intense youki behind his blows tears through the sorcerer's magical defenses like they were made of paper.
In his Fifth Trial, Issa enters a new chamber, with brightly painted walls and curious constructs seemingly fashioned from gold and great jewels standing about: some look like oversized jars; others resemble giant-sized clockwork; and several are mechanical hands the size of grown men, just sitting there as if abandoned. At the center of it all stands a limbless humanoid statue of similar construction, its overall design vaguely echoing a Buddhist style, and with a great red crystal located in the center of its "stomach."
That jewel begins to flash steadily, and as it does so, the scattered pieces of statuary first tremble in time with the pulsing light, then rise into the air and arrange themselves around the torso to form six separate arms.
Then dark energy surges through the machine giant, linking all the separate pieces together as one whole.
Smoothly moving its many arms close to its body, the device draws a pair of enormous double-bladed sickles from behind its back, and for the briefest moment holds its empty hands as if forming a series of mudras.
ANCIENT AUTOMATON: KOLOKTOS
"So wait," Akkiko protests. "The alien fairy kingdom Buddhists get their own giant death machine? How the hell is that fair!?"
"EVERY cultural group in Hyrule gets their own giant death machine eventually," you wryly reply to Akkiko's outburst. "For a given value of 'machine,' anyway. It's almost like having your own flag; nobody really takes you seriously until you've got one to wave around and show off."
"Now that's just not true," Briar protests. "Fairies have nothing of the sort!"
"Yeah!" comes the collective outcry.
"You tell 'im, Briar!"
"Why are we cheering?"
"Why do you keep asking that!?"
"And how many people in Hyrule take fairies seriously?" you inquire of your partner. "ASIDE from anyone who's ever met a Great Fairy in person?"
Oh, no.
There is a dead silence among the Fae contingent
Oh, yes!
Then Briar turns to her mother. "You know what we have to do, Mom."
Bwahahahaha!
Navi nods. "Summer, get the kids organized. Robin, get ready to forge like you've never forged in your LIFE. Everybody else: when we get home, we're making a fairy death machine."
"YEAH!"
"WOO-HOO!"
"Go, Mom!"
"BWAHAHAHAHA! Arrogant mortals! You will BOW before the fairies!"
"Oh, sure, NOW you're paying attention..."
Koron takes all this in, including the fierce shout of support from his partner Vert. When his head turns in your direction a moment later, it's with wooden slowness, like a mannequin or string puppet with a jammed-up joint.
"What have you done, Alex?" the Kokiri druid asks weakly.
While the fairies begin plotting what probably - hopefully - won't result in the next Downfall of Hyrule, Issa presses on against Koloktos.
The Ancient Automaton is anchored to the floor, which understandably limits its mobility. That said, the "joint" at the base of its torso is very limber, letting the giant construct turn smoothly in any direction. In addition, its arms are long enough to reach most of the way across its chamber, which they in a variety of crushing overhand swats, sidelong sweeps, and - in the case of the two arms carrying those huge disc-like blades - massive cutting strokes.
As if that weren't enough, the mechanical menace can THROW its weapons, which spin through the air like Hyrule's largest Boomerangs.
The first time Issa sees THAT, his eyes widen in genuine alarm.
You can't blame the man: Koloktos's weapons are wider across than Issa is tall, and could slice him in half VERTICALLY if they hit him right. Even for a combat regenerator like a living vampire, the prospect of that level of injury has got to be disturbing.
Issa's moment of shock is brief, however, and the next time Koloktos lets its weapons fly, he actually runs INSIDE their trajectories, closing in on one of the arms to hammer away at its joint.
That does seem to be the key to defeating the golden giant. You're not sure if it's made of Hylian steel or some other alloy, but the stuff is hard enough and thick enough that Issa's first couple of probing attacks on the arms - delivered in the brief window of vulnerability as they were recovering from striking the floor - had no real effect. Those clockwork-like joints, on the other hand, are of a more delicate construction, and when Issa smashes one of them free of the dark energy field holding the entire monster together, the whole arm below it falls apart with a thunderous clatter.
A few "disarmaments" later, and Koloktos no longer has enough limbs to both attack and defend the glowing red stone that is its obvious weak-point.
Issa takes full advantage of that vulnerability, striking three powerful blows before a cage-like defense mechanism snaps shut over the titan's "heart."
"Now why didn't it do that from the start?" Dave wonders aloud.
Issa tests the bars, and finds them as impervious as the rest of the titan's body - and then he has to get clear, as it summons the pieces of its arms back, reassembles them, and then uses the reforged limbs to RIP its body out of the floor.
Koloktos does, in fact, have legs, and - after drawing half a dozen enormous curved swords from nowhere - it puts them to good use, chasing Issa around the room. The huge blades whoosh through the air quickly enough that you're having a little trouble tracking them.
"On the positive side," Briar notes, "it's a machine, so it can't use Sword Beams."
She's just finished speaking when Koloktos stops swinging its weapons and begins glowing an unsettling dark purple.
"Me and my big mouth," she sighs.
As it happens, the Ancient Automaton DOESN'T suddenly ignite its weapons with unholy magical flame or something similar. It just summons a small band of lurching undead Bokoblins.
"Zombies? Really?" Gyokuro scoffs. "Well, I suppose now we KNOW it's a machine."
Yeah, no matter what they were in life, throwing one of the weakest forms of the undead against a living vampire strikes you as an exercise in futility. Koloktos has no way of knowing what Issa actually is, but a living mind, having seen the speed and strength he's already demonstrated, wouldn't have wasted time or energy throwing something so feeble against him.
As predicted, Issa goes through the ugly undead with brutal, bloody efficiency, and leaves their dismembered forms in a heap as he turns his attention back to the real danger-
!
"Gross!" Tatsuki exclaims in disgusted delight, while more individuals with more delicate sensibilities make sounds of more overt horror and revulsion.
-only to snap back around as the pieces of the "Zomblins" start moving. They seem to be trying to put themselves back together, and while Issa moves in and kicks a few of the gory fragments apart, he's forced to break that off as Koloktos closes in, blades whooshing through the air.
"I don't remember reading anything about Hyrulean zombies being able to do THAT," you say aloud, hoping someone will explain what you're seeing.
"This is a new one on me," Briar admits.
Actually, it's a really old one.
"I think it might have something to do with that ooze," Koron notes, looking greener than usual as he covers his mouth with one hand. The other hand points at the zombie-pile, where the bloody chunks are reassembling into a grotesque mimicry of Koloktos's six-armed form - minus one arm, plus a second head sharing the shoulders with the first, and with three severed legs clutched as grisly clubs in place of shining swords. As the Kokiri said, a quantity of the same darkly-luminous substance that flows through Koloktos can be seen leaking out of the wounds of the corpses, linking together bodyparts that were never meant to be part of the same form.
There are REASONS why we give our Chosen holy swords as soon as we can justify it.
Elsewhere in the room, the pieces Issa scattered are still struggling to reunite with the asura-like abomination.
Fortunately for everyone with delicate stomachs, the fight doesn't last too much longer. Koloktos's mobility and additional weapons make it somewhat more dangerous - proven each time a swing of those heavy blades takes out one of the half-dozen pillars ringing the chamber - but it's not really any faster than before, and its arms are just as prone to breaking. The trick is not getting hacked to bits or crushed to a pulp while waiting for the thing to bring its limbs close enough to the ground to strike.
Issa manages that trick quite well, and after tearing off a couple of Koloktos's arms, ends up turning one of its huge sabers against it. His technique is rough - vampires don't often train with weapons, you recall, due to most simply being too fragile to survive their strength, and this sword is longer than Issa is tall, making it rather awkward regardless of his strength - but it doesn't take a master's skills to smash sidelong through Koloktos's skinny legs, or the golden bars covering its chest.
It takes him a couple of passes, as the Zomblin-thing shambles too close for comfort and Koloktos reassembles itself, but Issa clears his Fifth Trial in good order.
SUBTERRANEAN LAVA DRAGON: VOLVAGIA
His Sixth Trial is simply BRUTAL.
As soon as Volvagia has revealed itself, Issa closes and slams a powerful punch into the dragon's head, rocking it to one side. You can see the smoke rising from his raw, red fist, and it's quickly joined by more as Volvagia snarls and whirls around, bringing fangs, claws, and tail to bear, wrapping the adult vampire in its coils as it tries to tear his head off. For some reason, as soon as it commits to the savage grapple, Volvagia's levitation gives out, sending both monsters crashing to the volcanic floor of the dragon's lair and leaving you to wonder at what happened.
Does Volvagia need its tail extended to properly fly? Did Issa's youki somehow interfere with the dragon's own power? Because as soon as it started constricting him, you saw the familiar surge of bloody darkness that betrays power previously held in check - by seal or by personal will - being unleashed in full. Or was it a conscious choice by Volvagia to drag its opponent down, closer to the lava that he has no real protection from?
However it happened, the crash results in two high-ranking monsters rolling around in the ash and volcanic stone, the entire chamber around them shaking with the force of their blows and the violence of their roars.
Volvagia's scales are shattered, and the flesh beneath torn by vampire claws.
Issa bleeds and burns, the dragon's claws and unreal body temperature taking their toll in turn.
The Ring of Trials is dead silent as every man, woman, child, and spirit STARES at the pure elemental FURY on display.
Then Issa BITES Volvagia.
Oh, of all the-!
There is a sudden EXPLOSION of fiery red energy, which blots out the entire volcanic chamber, leaving only a glaring red light to fill the image-globe within the arena.
Bloody vampires!
"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Sokka exclaims. "What just HAPPENED!? Where'd the fight go?"
You have no regrets about your actions or what they've led to, and you say as much.
Heck, if the fairies are okay with it, you'd be interested in helping out. You have been wanting to learn more about forging and the creation of complex magic items, and this would be great experience.
You don't say that last part aloud, however, as Koron is giving you a blank, empty stare that somehow seems to go right down to your soul.
"I'm sure it'll all work out somehow," you assure the Kokiri. "Probably. Eventually."
Koron stares.
"I mean, if all else fails, Link can always handle it, right?"
Koron continues to stare.
"...please stop looking at me like that, Koron. It's creepy."
"It seems that Mr. Shuzen powered up by drinking the dragon's blood, and shorted out the Ring in the process," you say, both in response to Sokka's outburst, and for the benefit of those of your guests who aren't familiar with how exotic types of blood can affect living vampires. There's a pause, and then you add, "I'm honestly impressed. I didn't manage to do this myself - and that says something."
"Mostly," Briar notes, "that the Goddesses pay enough attention to you that they knew to prepare the Ring for your antics ahead of time. Issa is a bit less familiar to them, and the odds of him trying to drink the blood of that particular enemy in this particular Trial must have been... pretty far out there."
Considering that you had five underage vampires run the Trials without so much as looking thirsty, Issa's choice to go for Volvagia's throat did kind of come out of left field. You're not sure if that's down to the old vampire pride, with the girls not having faced anything whose blood they considered worth drinking, or if age, experience, or even gender somehow played a role.
For that matter, Issa could just have been annoyed that Volvagia beat one of his daughters, and forced another to stand down without a fight.
Whatever the reason behind it, either the glare of Issa's power surge is starting to fade, or else the Goddesses have adapted the Ring to compensate for it, because the red haze is clearing up and the images of the Trial coming back into view.
Issa and Volvagia are standing some distance apart from when you last saw them. The dragon is hunched down on the rocky island, claws dug deep into the ash and stone, fiery antennae and mane bristling with anger and flame all but dripping from its jaws.
Issa, meanwhile, has his head thrown back in laughter, fangs bared and completely devoid of every last drop of blood. His eyes are wide and wild in a way you've never seen before, and they've turned so completely red that you can't even make out his pupils.
"Oh, dear," Akasha sighs.
"Damn," Gyokuro says in agreement.
Then both women rise from their seats and make their way down to the edge of the arena.
"Problem, ladies?" Elder Terok asks.
"Your dragon's blood appears to have been rather rich, Elder," Akasha explains politely. "Darling is a bit drunk off it at the moment."
Though his experience with vampires prior to all of this is approximately nil, so far as you're aware, Terok catches the implications.
It no doubt helps that Issa has resumed fighting Volvagia with a wild glee that wasn't present before, as well as a whole new level of brutality that leaves the Dragon of Death Mountain reeling.
"How bad?" the old Goron asks bluntly.
"It depends on whether or not he burns through enough of the blood to calm down before the Trials end," Gyokuro answers. "If he does, fine. If the effect doesn't carry over because of the magic of the Ring, fine. Otherwise, we may need Alexander to rescind his protection from water, and cool Issa's head."
...okay, that's pretty bad.
You ready yourself to cast a Spell to Dispel Magic as soon as Issa reappears. Hopefully you won't need it, but if you do, even the handful of seconds it normally takes to cast could be too many.
In the Ring, Volvagia collapses with a roar.
Issa moves forward as if to continue attacking - or more likely, feeding upon - his fallen adversary, but the magic of the Ring whisks him away to his next challenge.
Sorry about this next bit, Wonder Boy.
The chamber where he reappears sends a shock of recognition through you. Issa stands atop a square stone stage, some thirty feet to a side and ten feet tall, with a banner or ritual circle of a naggingly familiar design carved into its surface. Four smaller stone platforms flank it, one to each side, almost forming perfect ten-foot cubes but for the statuary that makes up much of their sides. The walls of the chamber are covered by arcane glyphs that shimmer with untapped power.
"Eeeh, hee, hee, hee!" an ancient voice cackles in the gloom, each note wrenching at something deep in your soul. "Isn't he a handsome one, sister?"
"Oooh, ho, ho, ho!" comes the equally gleeful, croaking, and familiar reply. "He is, dear sister! He is!"
"How long has it been since we received such a fine gentleman caller?"
"Too long! Too long by half!"
Magic circles glow on the surface of two of the flanking islands, and from them rise a pair of truly ancient women, withered and shrunken by age until they're the size of mere children. Each wears a dark, flowing robe that has the symbol of the Gerudo Tribe sewn into the hem over and over, a great sash around her frail old hips, and a headband set with one great jewel. Their hair is utterly white, and rises back from their beaky, bug-eyed faces like the bristles of the brooms they carry.
"Well, then," the one Gerudo hag says with a toothless leer, "it would be a terrible shame for us not to show him a good time, would it not?"
Her hair bursts into flame, as does the broom on which she settles herself, even as it carries her into the air.
"A shame and a waste, both," the other responds, as her hair and broom turn blue, and start to emanate a clear white mist.
The two sorceresses whirl about in the air overhead, cackling gleefully.
SORCEROUS SISTERS OF FLAME AND ICE: TWINROVA
"I call dibs!" the blue-haired one-
Kotake, something in you insists.
-cries.
"Eh!? Wait a minute, I saw him first!" the other-
Koume.
-snaps in annoyance.
"You did not."
"I did, too!"
"Well, you got to go first last time, so it's my turn, now!"
"But you went LAST, last time, which means it's my turn again, anyway!"
"That is CHEATING!"
"We're witches, you old bat! Of COURSE it's cheating!"
"Oh, merciful Goddesses," Navi groans. "These old fools haven't changed at all, have they?"
"Hey!" the Twinrova snap in unison, turning-
!
-to glare directly at Navi.
"We heard that, you upstart fairy brat!" Koume barks.
"And who are you calling old, you multi-millennial pixie!?" Kotake growls.
Gained Gerudo F
Any further argument is cut off as Issa - seeing both witches flying close together and with their backs turned to him - loses whatever patience he had left, and takes a running leap at them.
"Whoops!" Koume exclaims, as she dives out of the way. "Almost forget about Handsome, here..."
"Getting senile in your old age, dear sister?" Kotake cackles as she likewise dodges the attack.
"We are TWINS, you ninny! TWINS! How many times do I have to say it!?"
The battle is a curious one. You know from your readings - and other places - that the Twinrova are powerful spellcasters, but much of their threat comes from their mastery of potion-making, ritual-casting, and other non-combative applications of magic. They do have great knowledge of and experience with battle magic, but their advanced age, as well as the power they have bound up in keeping themselves alive and functional in spite of it, means that they can't channel as much power as they once were capable of.
Hence the reliance on brooms for flight, and the self-imposed limitation of using mostly elemental rays.
Issa is too fast for those simple attacks to hit, and has enough lower-body strength to jump quite high, which forces the sisters to maintain as much distance as the room's dimensions will allow. When the realization that he can't catch them this way penetrates the blood-haze in his mind, Issa makes for one of the walls and starts scrambling towards the ceiling-
"Ha!"
-at which point Kotake flash-freezes the section of the stones ahead of him.
Issa promptly loses his grip and falls thirty feet straight down, but what would have been a dangerous fall for a human is nothing to a blood-crazed vampire. He lands on all fours and is scrambling along on them almost instantly.
"Hmmm," the Witch of Flame muses. "The usual stuff doesn't seem to be working, Kotake."
"He IS a persistent one, Koume," the Witch of Ice agrees.
"One of the girls that claims him mentioned wards."
"We'll have to do something about that."
The twin sorceresses rise to the ceiling, hovering over the center of the room, and dismount from their broomsticks. Still floating in place, they raise the sticks together, energy-infused bristles glowing - and from the combination of opposing elemental magics, an eerie, dark energy begins to form.
"Come out, Handsome!" Koume calls.
"We have a surprise for you!" Kotake choruses.
Issa does not appear for a moment, but then you spot him scrambling quietly up the wall behind the witches, as silent as a ghost.
You hold your breath, not wanting to give the witches and their alarming level of demonstrated perception a hint - and ESPECIALLY not wanting to draw their attention upon yourself.
The rest of the audience is likewise silent.
Without turning around, Koume snickers. "Nice try, Handsome. But it takes more than that-"
"-to sneak up on a couple of Gerudo witches!" Kotake finishes laughingly.
The magic gathered between them bursts forth, sweeping the entire chamber.
Issa's grip on the stones momentary slips as the wards you placed on him flare, buckle, and shatter under the wide-area dispelling.
Brooms still touching, Koume and Kotake whirl around, gather their magic anew, and let fly with another combination spell. It starts as a beam of freezing cold, like all the others Kotake has cast before, and covers part of the wall above Issa with a fast-spreading layer of ice and frost, but a well-timed surge of fire from Koume has the natural result.
Issa arches in pain as the spray of water hits him, bolts of dark energy erupting from his body like reddish-black lightning bolts.
"Got 'im!" the Twinrova cheer, exchanging a high-five.
After seeing the effect that exposure to even that modest amount of water has on a living vampire, it's not much wonder that Issa loses his grip on the wall and falls over backwards.
The real surprise is that, in spite of what just hit him, he retains the presence of mind - or maybe just the hammered-in reflexes - to try and control his descent, instead of simply crashing on the floor. Before he breaks contact with the wall entirely, Issa kicks off from it with enough force to push himself towards the nearest of the smaller platforms. This cuts the length of his fall by almost a third, and when he hits the stone, he does so hands first rather than on his head or his back, and tucks into a sort of reverse-somersault.
It's visibly more of a strain on him than the longer dive he took just a minute ago, what with the crackling discharge of uncontrolled youki still crawling over his person, but he manages to avoid going splat, and even gets back on his feet.
"Well," Issa says aloud. "That was embarrassing." Still shaking slightly, he turns to face the witches, and bows. "Thank you for snapping me back to my senses, ladies. And my apologies for that unseemly display."
"Oh my, my," Koume murmurs. "A gentleman even under pressure?"
"Can't remember the last time we saw one of those," Kotake agrees.
"But we're forgetting our manners, sister."
"Indeed, that won't do at all."
The Twinrova curtsy in mid-air - a more involved maneuver than it sounds - and reply, "You're quite welcome, good sir."
"And don't worry your head about before," Kotake adds, with a dismissive gesture. "We've seen much worse."
Koume leers. "I LIKE a man with a little savage fury in him. Why, if I were two hundred years younger-"
"You'd still be two hundred years old," her sister interrupts dryly.
"Yes, I'd-" She pauses, turns to glare at her sister, and swats at Kotake with her burning broomstick. "Stop doing that!"
Issa clears his throat, looking slightly concerned about... something. "Yes, well... shall we continue?"
The Twinrova break off their little quarrel.
"I suppose it IS why we're here," Koume concedes with a sigh.
"But don't think we'll go easy on you just because you're polite!" Kotake adds.
Issa nods. "Then I will return the favor."
The fight resumes, and for the next little while, a different sort of stalemate reigns. Although Issa is now clear-headed enough to think about his moves and plan ahead, he doesn't really have any new options; more than that, his damp clothes are continuing to short out his control over his youki to some extent, making him slower and weaker.
The Twinrova catch on to the difference very quickly, and their heat- and freeze-ray attacks start coming closer and closer-
!
-and then it hits you that Issa is a sneaky, sneaky man when he wants to be.
He's deliberately "dodging" Koume's fire attacks by the narrowest of margins, just far enough away that they won't burn or blister him, but close enough for him to catch the maximal amount of heat.
In short, he's using her magic to dry himself off a lot faster than would otherwise be possible. As the water evaporates away little by little, Issa's control recovers, but he's careful to keep his physical performance at the same weakened level, keeping the ruse going-
"Oh, I see what you're up to!" Kotake suddenly exclaims. "Clever, clever!"
"What are you squawking about, now?" Koume demands sharply.
"Oooh, ho, ho, ho! You mean you hadn't noticed?"
"Noticed WHAT!?"
"He's using you to warm up and dry off! Like a lizard on a hot rock! Oooh, ho, ho, ho!"
Koume shoots Issa a look of what is almost betrayal.
He spares the old woman a vaguely, but not really apologetic expression, and then brings his hands together.
*BOOM*
The report is every bit as cannon-like as the "clap" Issa used to signal the end of your public sparring match with Kahlua, back at her birthday. What's different about this time is how the air in front of Issa visibly ripples, as a focused shockwave expands forward, hitting Koume almost head-on.
The witch is blown backwards, spinning head over heels.
Kotake blinks at her sister's shrieking form, then turns to face Issa. In a downright conversational tone, the Witch of Ice asks, "You realize that she's going to be absolutely TICKED at you for all that, right?"
"I have run into fire elementalists before," Issa replies dryly.
Kotake nods. "As long as you're prepared."
"Oooooooh!" Koume growls, as she recovers and flies back towards her sister. "How dare you!" she snaps down at Issa, hair blazing higher and hotter than before. "Taking advantage and toying with a maiden's heart like that!"
"You haven't been a maiden since-"
"Shut up, and get over here!" Koume snarls.
Kotake falls silent and does as her sister demands, but her amused smirk speaks volumes of her thoughts on this development.
Still snapping and spitting, Koume joins her twin in flying a close, ever-tightening, ever-faster circle.
"Double Dynamite Attack!"
There is a brilliant flash, and when it clears, the two witches are no longer present. In their place stands a much taller, stronger, and YOUNGER looking example of the Gerudo Tribe - albeit still with that greenish cast to the skin. Instead of a robe, she wears a leather bustier and arm guards, and billowing pants gathered below the knee; the hair on the right side of her head burns like fire, while that on the left gleams like icicles; the great jewel bound to her brow is half-red and half-blue; and in either hand, she grasps one of the witches' brooms, their bristles still alight with elemental power.
Twinrova frowns as she looks down at Issa, and then raises Koume's flaming broom in a sidelong motion that unleashes a great plume of fire, which she sweeps across the platform on which Issa stands.
The man is moving before the attack is fully unleashed, racing against Twinrova's reflexes as he stays ahead of the horizontal pillar of fiery destruction and seeks to close with her.
Such is Issa's speed that he succeeds - and then he gets a nasty surprise, as he discovers just how dangerous a Gerudo warrior is in close combat.
Strength second only to a Goron's.
Speed surpassed only by the Zora.
Skill unrivaled outside of the Knights of Hyrule.
After four centuries of life and who knows how much mystical cheating along the way, Twinrova is not only a past mistress of witchcraft, but also near the pinnacle of Gerudo martial prowess. She wields her energized broomsticks like twin scimitars, the one slashing and freezing while the other batters and burns.
Then, while Issa is still reeling from the sheer unexpected skill, Twinrova brings her weapons together and strikes a single, powerful blow. Red and blue energy mingle, merge, and ERUPT as a geyser of conjured water, which blasts the unfortunate vampire back the way he came.
This second, much more focused exposure to water shorts Issa's energies out with considerably more violence, and leaves him visibly sagging in the aftermath, almost paralyzed from the loss of strength.
Before he can recover, Twinrova swoops in and swings her icy weapon at him-
*CRACKLE*
*SHING*
-and like that, Issa is covered in a layer of ice.
The sorceress regards him for a moment, then sniffs. "Maybe that will teach you to have more care for a woman's feelings, you cad."
"I think I could get to like her," Gyokuro notes with a smirk, as she follows Akasha down into the sands of the arena.
"Her, or them?"
"Exactly."
Issa staggers slightly as he rematerializes - and then he does it again, as the two women in his life grab him by the arms, not in greeting, but with clear intent to restrain him if need be.
"Ah, my ladies...?"
"Now, now, husband mine," Gyokuro says with a smirk. "We can't very well let you run around loose until we're sure you're over that shot of dragon's blood."
"We are Alex's guests, after all," Akasha agrees. "It would be terribly rude of us not to handle our own problems when we're able."
"That's... not really necessary, though? I'm feeling much better now."
"I'm sure you are, dear, but we can't take chances. Besides," Gyokuro adds, a note of genuine interest creeping into her words, "this will give your eldest a chance to show off her skills at blood-sealing."
Before the Shuzen ladies drag their man off, they do allow Elder Terok to go through the ritual of rewarding him.
Issa's prize is a bottle of some thick, dark red liquid, shot through with lines and specks of orange. The whole thing glows fitfully, much like the cracked surface of the lava flows you've seen in assorted Trials.
From the way all three vampires stare at the bottle, and how Issa unconsciously licks his lips, you think the Goddesses actually DID give him some of Volvagia's blood.
That's... uh...
If it were just Issa himself, you'd be a little more concerned; he did kind of lose it after drinking Volvagia's blood, after all, and is eyeing that bottle of blood like he would quite like another sip.
But with Akasha and Gyokuro both there to keep an eye on their man and the bottle of blood, you don't see the need to openly ask any of them to be on their best behavior.
...which isn't to say there's no reason to speak with them about this at all, you realize.
You cast the Spell to Send a Message, and quietly advise the three Shuzen adults about the general usefulness of Hylian Glass Bottles.
Considering how fragile regular glass must be to them, the more shatter-proof stuff should be of some interest.
Gyokuro and Akasha proceed to lead Issa out of the Ring, with the girls hurrying down to join them. Kokoa is clearly miffed about leaving while the fights are still in progress, while Moka and Kahlua both look torn between that and curiosity about what, exactly, Akua is expected to contribute to their father's situation. For her part, the oldest daughter projects a mask of calm, with hints of eagerness and mild anxiety at the edges.
If you had to guess, you'd say that Akua is confident she can do whatever it is she's about to do, just a little nervous at the prospect of demonstrating her skills in front of her father's family.
In the absence of most of the Shuzen family, Hakuba Ichirou takes a shot at the Ring. After seeing how the Trials scale in response to challengers' abilities, he decides to leave his new Replenishing Quiver behind, instead going in with his usual bow and quiver, ritually-summoned by Shadow Alex ahead of time.
Ichirou's first few Trials are a mix of standard monster-slaying and aggressive exorcism, and the way he drops the pack of Ghinis in his First Trial and then the Stalfos in the Second suggest that his spiritual abilities have improved a bit since you went questing with him and his father. His third round battle with a grizzled, bow-wielding Bokoblin takes on the air of a duel, both archers maneuvering around rocks and trees as they seek to catch their opponent by surprise.
Then the Goddesses drop Ichirou in a Hylian Shooting Gallery, complete with squinty-eyed, smiling, slightly suspicious-looking Hylian owner/operator. Ten arrows are provided up-front, extra arrows can be earned by making particularly difficult shots - something that makes you think the Goddesses chose this particular venue to give Ichirou a chance to restock his quiver, as much as to test his skills - and the prize for beating the "high score" before time runs out is advancing to the next round.
Despite being on the clock, Ichirou is quite calm as he takes his shots, one after the other. Not all of them are bullseyes, and most aren't even made against the hardest targets, but he scores high enough to clear the round with a few more arrows than he started.
This is a good thing, as Ichirou promptly expends half of the ammo he has left putting down his fifth opponent, a crocodile-headed, red-scaled humanoid identified as a "Daira." The monster's muscular form looks like it would be able to absorb a few arrows without dying, even if it didn't have heavy scales and a shirt of mail on top of that. The fact that it's quick enough to BITE one arrow out of the air, and hack down another with the heavy-bladed axe it wields in one hand, on top of being able to fling "Axe Beams," only compounds the problem.
Gained Axe Training F (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
In his Final Trial, Ichirou is put up against a Gohma - not the giant swarm-mother variety, thankfully, just a "normal" adult, halfway between that especially massive example of the species and the parasitic variety that Sokka fought for his last Trial. Guided by past experience and observation, Ichirou conserves his few remaining arrows and focuses on avoiding the armored arachnid's attacks, until it opens its one giant eye.
Like most monsters, Gohma is somewhat less dangerous once you've had a chance to see it in action.
It still consumes most of Ichirou's remaining ammo to kill the beast, though, so you're not surprised when the Goddesses imbue the weapon in question with a little magic. It's basically the same sort of enhancement Sokka received for his boomerang, and will make the Bow - and the arrows fired from it - faster, more accurate, and harder-hitting.
You comment on that. "The better to kill the next giant spider-monster you run into, right?"
"Amazingly enough," Ichirou answers dryly, "I never seem to encounter such creatures except when you're involved."
"What, not even in Dracula's Castle?" you ask, half-joking and half-curious.
"There were giant spiders there," Ichirou admits with a shudder. "And there were spider monsters. But there were no giant spider monsters."
"...huh."
Hakuba Ginta firmly passes on challenging the Ring, and while Koujiro looks like he's honestly considering it, a warning look from Atsuko changes his mind.
With almost all the other competitors having had their turn in the Ring, a minor argument breaks out among the Hayashi Clan, as Uncle does his best to egg on the younger Elder Mitsuki, while bowing out of the challenge himself, claiming "old bones" and other such excuses.
Perhaps it's just as well that the Shuzens come back before that has a chance to get too far out of hand.
Issa is walking freely, wife and mistress still close enough to intercede if needed, but not actively restraining him. The man seems a bit more pale than before, and looking close, you can make out some kind of red markings on his arms, vanishing up into his sleeves. His youki also feels lighter and more controlled than is usual, which has the overall effect of making Issa seem... less than he was. Less powerful, less otherworldly, even less handsome, somehow - however you care to define it, he's been visibly reduced.
Despite that, he seems quite pleased, particularly with Akua, who is walking alongside her sire and radiating a similar satisfaction.
As Akasha, Issa, and the girls return to their seats, Gyokuro marches towards the Triforce emblem at the center of the arena, telling you to ready nine Trials for her.
Like her eldest daughter and husband before her, Gyokuro's First Trial pits her against a squad of Armos Knights. Her approach to facing these enemies is quite different, however. She avoids the moving statues as they bounce around the chamber, waiting until they have begun to cluster together near the center of the room
Then Gyokuro reaches out, seizes the nearest Armos, and lifts it off the ground with one hand.
Hello!
You know that the Armos are just constructs, acting in accordance with magical programs rather than on any thoughts or emotions of their own. Despite that, you can't help but get the impression that the Armos Knight being held aloft by Mrs. Shuzen looks both shocked and alarmed.
Bwahahahaha!
It's a brief impression, because she throws the unfortunate stone warrior straight into its companions as they cluster together.
Oh, I like her style!
The noise of the impact is incredible. Two of the Armos Knights are destroyed outright, and all but one of the remaining four take some degree of damage. The survivors actually halt their routine bouncing, and seem to stare in Gyokuro's direction.
No holds barred, and full force from the start!
A moment later, they abandon their circling "attack pattern" and begin leaping around at random, crashing down on the floor with great violence.
Now let's see if she can keep it up.
It doesn't help them very much.
Considering Gyokuro's choice of tactics, you aren't the least bit surprised when her Second Trial has her facing Levoknuckle.
Construct or no, the Blue Knight appears to have learned a thing or two from all the vampires he's fought so far today. Rather than try to ride Gyokuro down with his lance, he THROWS the steel spear at her and draws his sword in its place, then starts attacking with Sword Beam-enhanced blows while still mounted. The added momentum of his charging steed makes those strikes even more dangerous than before, and the sword is a lot more flexible in close-combat than the lance, honestly making it the superior choice against enemies like vampires that have repeatedly managed to get in close.
Gyokuro picks up Levoknuckle's lance and has a go at "fencing" with him using it, but after a few exchanges, it's clear that the weapon really is too unwieldy for that, at least in her hands. She breaks off and falls back in a blur of motion, from which she emerges with her right arm drawn back, lance in hand and ready to throw.
Even though Levoknuckle takes the subsequent hit on his shield, the force behind it blasts him right out of his saddle.
As with the group of Armos Knights before him, one strong hit isn't enough to put the Blue Knight down permanently, but Gyokuro is on him before he can get back to his feet, hammering away at the armor. Caught between her fists and the magically-reinforced floor, Levoknuckle can't bleed away the force of Gyokuro's attacks by being knocked around, and his steel body eventually buckles and breaks.
For her Third Trial, Gyokuro faces the Carock. Dealing with the teleporting sorcerer is more difficult for Gyokuro than it was for Issa, because instead of its usual floor-sweeping force-waves, the Carock casts defensive spells on itself the first couple of times it blinks back into view. The brief, colorless gleam that outlines its robed form after the first spell suggests some variation on Mage Armor - though if the Carock didn't have at least the basic version on itself already, you'll eat your sword - and the way its movements become quicker and smoother after the second spell hints at the Spell of Cat's Grace.
The third magic the Guardian of Sorcery casts is a mystery to you, having no immediately apparent effect, but the fourth - which is aimed at Gyokuro - was clearly a Spell of Slowness, because the lady drops from vampiric speed to merely extremely fast human levels as soon as it takes hold.
Only then does the Carock proceed to its actual assault, unleashing the familiar force-blast. Gyokuro manages to get out of the way, but you can see her gritting her teeth in frustration at not being able to move with her accustomed ease.
At one point, while she's ducked behind one of the stone pillars that line the hall to break the Carock's line of sight, you spot Gyokuro giving the architecture a few experimental taps. After what she did to the Armos Knights, you wouldn't be at all surprised to see her tear a column out of place and throw it at the Carock.
Fortunately for the Guardian of Sorcery, that whole room is sufficiently warded against damage that Gyokuro has to abandon the idea as impractical, if not truly impossible.
Instead of conducting some aggressive renovations, Gyokuro focuses on staying out of her opponent's sight, apparently hoping to wait out the duration of the annoying spell it cast on her. Knowing the Spell of Slowness yourself, you're aware that its duration tops out at around two minutes in the hands of the most powerful casters; the Carock, which was able to contest with you on a pretty even footing, ought to be able to get it to last around ninety seconds.
Of course, that assumes the Carock was using the standard form of the spell, with no modifications. A creature worthy of the title "Guardian of Sorcery" ought to be capable of adjusting spell parameters on the fly like you are - at the very LEAST - so it's entirely possible that this particular bout of deceleration could last longer.
Then again, the standard Spell of Slowness is only third-tier. You've never sparred with any of the Shuzen adults, but considering how strong their auras feel relative to their daughters', Gyokuro ought to have been able to shrug off magic of that level before it could take effect. That she failed to do so suggests that the Carock devoted extra power to the spell, giving it enough bite to penetrate a living vampire's natural defenses. Depending on how MUCH power that took, there may not have been enough left over to meaningfully extend the magic...
Whatever the case, after about thirty seconds of being unable to keep Gyokuro in its field of view, the Carock summons a trio of Wizzrobes. A sharp gesture from the greater spellcaster has the lesser monsters waiting there, in plain sight, as their master casts the same spell again, calling up another batch of its flunkies - and then it does the same thing AGAIN, getting just two Wizzrobes that time.
Only then does the Carock gesture for its minions to spread out, which they do in a worryingly tactical fashion, one Wizzrobe materializing in each corner of the room, two more at equidistant points along the longest walls, and the Carock itself appearing at one end of the central aisle.
A collective blink seems to pass around the room, as the Wizzrobes find no trace of their opponent.
Then Gyokuro drops on one of them from above, crushing pointy hat and the head beneath it under her feet.
The Spell of Slowness affects the muscles and the nerves. Gravity still works just fine.
The Wizzrobes were clearly unprepared for an attack from above, and those that have line of sight to Gyokuro stare openly as their compatriot collapses beneath her. Kahlua's mother is not a particularly big person, but with all of her weight and the momentum of her fall directed onto her enemy's head, it makes sense that the relatively-fragile spellcaster would go down.
It's not dead, though. The body would have disintegrated if that were the case.
The other Wizzrobes recover from their shock and let fly with their smaller versions of the Carock's force-waves, but Gyokuro was already moving, springboarding off of her fallen foe to scramble up the side of the pillar.
The conscious sorcerers teleport en masse, with the Wizzrobes repositioning themselves around the base of that column, while the Carock hangs back a bit.
As one, they look up, raise their hands above their pointy-hatted heads, and gather their magic.
Above them, Gyokuro pushes off hard from that pillar as she leaps toward the nearest wall.
She times it well; of the four Wizzrobes that can see and shoot at her, two miss outright.
The third, however, scores a glancing hit on her trailing leg, and the fourth, which held its spell for a moment, fires at Gyokuro while she's in mid-air, with no way to maneuver - except, of course, for the same ridiculous vampire cheating that Kahlua used to avoid a ring-out, back in your very first match.
But with her reflexes slowed by the Carock's magic, Gyokuro can't react fast enough to use that trick in time. The Wizzrobe's spell catches her across the back, drags her through the air at an awkward angle, and slams her against the wall she was aiming for.
In spite of whatever pain she feels from that hit, Gyokuro doesn't lose the presence of mind to grab hold of the stone in front of her, slipping only a foot or so before really getting a "grip." Just as she's about to start climbing again, however, the Carock's contribution arrives, a force-wave that sweeps along the wall, slams into Gyokuro, and throws her sidelong into the wall that stands some ten feet to her right.
This time, she doesn't catch herself before she falls.
That dubious honor goes to two of the Wizzrobes, which audibly squawk in surprise as Gyokuro lands on them. As all three go down in a heap in the corner - nearly squashing the unconscious Wizzrobe in the process - you see the vampire's hands lashing out at slightly more than human speed, with a rough edge that speaks as much of instinct as of training.
One of the Wizzrobes manages to scramble free before Gyokuro can really get her hands on it, though it's left with a bleeding slash across its chest all the same. The other spellcaster goes down gurgling and clutching at what's left of its throat, before its body dematerializes and does not return, "death" having ended its summoning.
While that little scrum is going on, the Carock and the five uninjured Wizzrobes reposition themselves again, setting up another crossfire. Gyokuro sees or senses it coming, grabs her still-unconscious first victim, and flings it before her as a living shield while she starts moving along the shorter of the two walls, out of the Carock's line of fire.
The three Wizzrobes standing in her way don't hesitate to attack their comrade, whose body absorbs two out of three rippling blasts before it dissolves. Gyokuro narrowly dodges the last shot, hair rippling back as the force-blast passes all too close by, but she isn't quite able to reach the nearest of her assailants before they disappear once more.
When the sorcerers reappear this time, there are two in the corner behind Gyokuro - one crouched low in front of the second - while the Carock materializes in the center aisle, flanked by the remaining two Wizzrobes - one of those being visibly injured.
For a moment, it looks like Gyokuro is caught, but then, her movements visibly stutter. In a span of time that she should only have been able to take one stride, she takes two instead, with her other movements being sped up to match. It only lasts for a second or so, but it's enough to carry her out of the Carock's line of attack once again, and also throws off the aim of the four Wizzrobes that still have a bead on her: two miss outright; the third has his spell countered by one of his cohort; and the last scores only a glancing hit.
Then the sorcerers have to disappear in a hurry, because Gyokuro is too close to some of them for comfort, and the Spell of Slowness is starting to wear off.
The Carock attempts to re-cast that spell, understandably wanting to keep Gyokuro disabled, but whatever it did to enhance the spell before doesn't work this time; the stuttering effect surrounding the vampire matriarch just grows more frequent and longer-lasting, until it finally breaks entirely.
Gyokuro takes another, more direct hit from the Wizzrobes before then, but it's not enough to put her down, and as soon as the magic wears off, she makes a point of hunting down and destroying ALL of the smaller spellcasters.
With her speed restored, it doesn't take her very long.
Then she turns her attention to the Carock.
At a guess, that spell the Guardian of Sorcery cast on itself which you couldn't identify was probably some variant on the Spell of Bear's Endurance. Even accounting for its increased defenses, Gyokuro has to hit the looming spellcaster several more times than Issa did in order to finally put it down.
Despite the numerous hits she took dealing with the Carock and its minions, vampiric regeneration ensures that Gyokuro is looking more or less normal by the time she completes her Third Trial and moves on to the next. Her hair is mussed, and her clothes a bit askew, but otherwise, you wouldn't ever know she'd been hurt.
You'd say something about how unfair that is, but you really have no room to complain.
In her Fourth Trial, Gyokuro is placed in a dim, dusty stone chamber that looks like it's been abandoned for centuries. The only object of real note in the room is the sword that's been driven into the floor at the center of the room, a massive slab of black steel tied down by an array of ropes that are positively festooned with wards.
Absently, you clench your right hand.
Gyokuro eyes the set-up for a long moment, and then says, "For the record, I want it known that if I happened across a weapon THIS obviously cursed in real-life, I would not be stupid enough to unbind it."
...that's fair.
Then the woman sighs. "However, given the circumstances..."
Without another word, she reaches out and slashes through one of the ropes with her fingernails, hissing slightly as the wards snap at her in response.
For a moment, nothing happens.
Then strange characters in an unfamiliar, almost sharp-looking script begin to glow deep red along the buried blade. The weapon twitches, and the ropes holding it down suddenly burst into flame, which consumes them and the paper wards hanging from them in a matter of seconds.
Dark steel rasps against stone as the weapon slowly, fitfully pulls itself free. The blade, already some five feet long, reveals itself to hold another two feet of length, and is nearly a foot wide at its broadest point. The air whooshes as the immense weapon swings around, as if some invisible giant were limbering up.
Gyokuro narrows her eyes, staring not at the weapon, but at the seemingly-empty space next to it, where that theoretical wielder ought to be standing. As the sword swings down at her - digging into the floor, which unlike previous chambers, is clearly NOT invulnerable to harm - she sidesteps and lunges forward, grabbing at something that is at once unseen, and yet clearly real, if the way it drags Gyokuro off her feet in response is any indication. She and her invisible foe thrash around for a few moments, before something seems to seize Gyokuro and fling her away.
And then it appears. An inhumanly tall, almost skeletal figure in dark robes, its head little more than a fleshless skull, bearing two huge, gnarled horns and eyes that burn red in their sockets.
"Whoa!" Isshin yells.
It SCREAMS.
PHANTOM OF THE CURSED BLADE: DEATH SWORD
Then the phantom rises into the air, adopting a ready stance as its huge blade glows, not with the familiar energy of a Sword Beam, but a cold, dark purple flame.
When the black blade swings a moment later, some of that evil energy shoots forth as a vaguely spherical mass, trailing a long tail of spectral energy behind it. It looks less like a Sword Wave than it does some unholy take on your Power Ball, and if you were facing this creature, that resemblance might have led to you trying to volley the attack back to its creator.
Gyokuro has no Hylian sword, and so doesn't make the attempt, instead side-stepping the blast and launching into a charge. As the projectile hits the wall behind her - spreading out along the surface with a whispery hiss before it dissipates, leaving a black, steaming mark on the bare stone - Gyokuro closes with her phantom foe, ducking one blow from her right side that would have easily taken her head if it connected, and then catching the back of the massive blade with her left hand as its wielder swings it back with uncanny speed.
Vampiric youki and tainted spiritual energy clash at the point of contact, blood red against poisonous purple, but Gyokuro doesn't falter or release her grip on the weapon; fingernails screeching as they scrape against the black steel, she drags the phantom down as she steps forward, right hand flashing forward-
!
-to sink into and through Death Sword's robed, withered chest with almost no resistance.
The skull-headed phantom leers at Gyokuro, and lets out a shrieking cackle as it flies backwards, the "hole" in its chest closing up as soon as the vampire's arm is withdrawn.
"Go for the mask, woman!" Isshin cries. "The mask!"
Several members of the audience glance at Isshin in confusion.
Perhaps tellingly, Masaki and Akkiko are not among them.
As it happens, Gyokuro does take a shot at Death Sword's skull-like face, though she only does so after stabbing her hand into its chest a second time - aiming for the heart, you guess, or whatever equivalent the entity might have.
Regardless of where Gyokuro strikes her opponent, however, the spirit's wounds close up as soon as she withdraws whichever hand she had stabbed into its ethereal form. The way the specter flinches at the moment of contact tells you the vampire's attacks are having SOME kind of effect, but it doesn't seem to be enough to hurt the thing, much less kill it.
With her attack on Death Sword's manifest form proving largely pointless, Gyokuro adjusts tactics, and focuses on the only other possible target.
Namely, the black blade itself.
From the way the horned spirit SHRIEKS the first time Gyokuro strikes the flat of the blade with the intention of doing actual damage, rather than merely deflecting a blow, this is the correct choice.
It's not quite that easy, of course. Death Sword does everything it can to preserve its weapon - its body? - lashing out at Gyokuro with the claws of its empty hand, conjuring more of that unholy fire to throw at her, and channeling even MORE evil energy onto the blade, turning the thin sheath of dark purple that's already there into a roaring flame.
That last move manages to singe Gyokuro's hands, but she responds by reaching past the burning blade, seizing the hilt of the sword - her own hand passing through the spirit's as easily as any other part of her body - and making to tear it free of its wielder's grasp.
Surprisingly, she can't do it. It's not even a question of strength; the phantom simply can't be separated from its blade.
That suggests... interesting things about the two of them.
Regardless, Gyokuro proceeds to smash the black sword against the floor and the walls as hard as she can, wrestling with Death Sword every inch of the way.
Stone shatters, fragments fly, dust billows up in great clouds that are subsequently swept from the air, and dark steel and darker spirit scream in unison, louder and louder with each successful blow. The cutting edge dulls, and then chips, and the mighty weapon starts to bend.
And then, with a final, ear-piercing shriek, it simply breaks.
Death Sword goes rigid, and abruptly disintegrates into motes of light, which fade away to nothing. In the same moment, the red markings on the black blade go out.
Shifting her shoulders, Gyokuro hisses in pain at the dark burns that mark her form, and which are healing far slower than they ought to. She hefts the bent and broken half of the sword still in her grasp and eyes it thoughtfully, before giving the weapon a few quick, experimental moves.
When it's clear that she means to hold on to what's left of the blade for now, the Fourth Trial ends.
For her next bout, Gyokuro is sent to an entirely new locale, on the deck of a large sailing ship. There are no crew, of course, but one look at the state of the vessel suggests this would have been the case even if it wasn't appearing in a Trial. The wooden planks are weathered, warped, and in some cases rotted through, with jagged-edged holes scattered across the deck. The sails hang limp, canvas stained and torn to the point where it looks like one good breeze would shred them entirely anyway. Elaborate scrollwork appears to have once been carved into the hull, but it's scratched and chipped now, and if it was ever painted, the colors have long since faded away - though that hardly seems to matter with all the mist around. The stuff is so thick that you can't tell if it's supposed to be day or night in there.
The presence of the fog, the absence of any life, and the rickety state of the vessel do not make for a reassuring combination, least of all when the rocking motion of the craft and the lack of any tied-down ropes is taken into account. The ship is definitely adrift, and from the look of things, it wouldn't take much to make it start coming apart at the splintered seams.
Even with your Spell of Protection From Water still up, Gyokuro casts a wary glance towards the edges of the deck, and the water that lies beyond.
Then she pauses, cocking her head slightly and frowning.
You hear a giggle, and a moment later, four ghostly figures shoot up from different spots across the floating wreck, gathering above Gyokuro's head. Clothed in tattered cloaks and wearing leering horned masks beneath their raised hoods, the beings are almost identical, but for the color of their respective shrouds: red; yellow; green; and purple.
"Oh, she's pretty."
"I'm jealous!"
"Tee-hee!"
"Will you play with us, pretty lady?"
Gyokuro raises an eyebrow. "Do I have a choice?"
"Tee-hee!"
"Nope!"
"Not really!"
"Let's play!"
DIABOLIC FOUR: CUBUS SISTERS
And then the mouths of their masks fall open, and they spit FREAKING LASER BEAMS at her.
Death Sword had little choice but to get close to Gyokuro, if it meant to use its blade for anything besides a launching platform for that dark fire. The Cubus Sisters do not share that particular weakness, and are free to fly as far over the vampire's head as their deadly magic attacks will reach - and that proves to be a good thirty feet.
Gyokuro could cover that distance easily enough with a leap, if not for the rotten state of the decking under her feet. She makes one attempt to do so, and at the moment she puts her foot down to kick off, the wood gives way.
And while she's cursing and yanking her foot free of the new hole, the red-hooded phantom flings something that looks like a washed-out Power Ball at her.
Maybe Gyokuro remembers how you turned one of the Gleeok's fireballs against it. Perhaps she's recalling how Kahlua used her newly-given birthday gift Gauntlets to turn your own Power Ball back at you.
Either way, it's a good thing that she brought Death Sword's broken weapon with her, because she swings out with the flat of the blade and bats the projectile straight back the way it came.
"Uwaaa!" the red-cloaked Cubus Sister cries out, as it takes the hit.
"Oh, good return!"
"You need to work on your defense, Sister!"
"Hey, are you okay?"
It goes from there. Three of the masked phantoms will spit out those continuous energy beams, sweeping them back and forth across the deck, while the fourth charges up and lets fly one of those glittering spectral spheres. Gyokuro sends them flying back without fail, but after her first hit - which seems to have caught the four phantoms off-guard with its accuracy and speed - the Cubus Sisters start mixing up their flight pattern. A good third of the returned shots miss entirely, sailing off into the fog without hitting anything, and the remainder almost never hit the same Cubus Sister twice in a row.
More than that, where the red one was unable to defend herself against the counterattack for whatever reason, the other three prove they can deflect the projectiles without harm. In fact, whenever one of them does so, all three fall into a routine of passing the ball back and forth between them, making it fly faster and faster, before one will suddenly spike it at Gyokuro.
"Are they fighting, or are they playing volleyball?" Sokka asks.
"You don't get to talk, Mister Boomerang Champion," Katara rebuts.
Although it takes a while, Gyokuro gradually whittles down her opposition, one Cubus Sister after another vanishing in a puff of spectral smoke when too many hits get past her guard - or, in the case of the red one, just hit her.
When their numbers have been cut in half, the surviving Sisters step things up, launching two additional projectiles alongside their Power Ball-like attacks. These cause Gyokuro a bit of frustration, as they don't "bounce" off her broken sword, instead breaking apart with a sound like shattering crystal and sending energized fragments flying in all directions. As fast as everything is flying around, it's a bit difficult to distinguish those blasts from the Power Balls, and it doesn't help that the trajectories of the simultaneous attacks are fairly close together, so that hitting the correct target may still set off one of the secondaries all the same.
Gyokuro gets caught in a couple of those mini-explosions, but she tanks the hits and eventually brings the last of the Cubus Sisters down.
For her Sixth Trial, Gyokuro lands on another boat. This one doesn't appear to be a sailing ship, but it's hard to be sure, because it's much more heavily damaged than the first vessel, broken in half almost straight down the middle. There is no eerie fog, but the sky overhead is dark with stormclouds.
Then the ship shakes as something HUGE hits it.
Part of the deck heaves, cracks, and is torn apart as a massive tentacle shoots through it, and is joined in quick succession by half a dozen more.
Akasha yelps.
Before Gyokuro can take sword or claw to the wriggling, tree-sized limbs, they all withdraw as rapidly as they appeared.
Then, with a colossal eruption of white spray, the owner of those tentacles rises from the dark sea. Its fat, blubbery body is one of the largest monsters you've seen all day, rising some forty feet or more above the broken deck - and this is just the part that you can SEE. There's undoubtedly more to the monster below the waves. Purple along the back and pale across the face and belly, the beast appears very roughly humanoid, except that in place of arms, it has two tentacles as long as it is tall, and over five feet thick. A nest of smaller tentacles crowns its rounded head, almost like thick braids of hair except for how they waggle about.
Like so many other Hyrulean menaces before it, the aquatic titan has only one huge eye, burning red iris around a slit pupil. The orb sits dead-center on the face, above a maw large enough to engulf a whole car, and filled by spade-shaped teeth as big as shields and sharp as swords.
ABYSSAL LEVIATHAN: TENTALUS
Gyokuro regards the bellowing oceanic cyclops with distaste. Before she can give it more than a dirty look, however, the monster keels over sideways with a tremendous splash, diving back underwater.
There is a brief pause, broken only by the sound of the storm overhead, and then Gyokuro MOVES as tentacles start to erupt from the decking again. Most of them take the easy route through the preexisting holes - the water that had been welling up there spraying outwards, displaced by the masses of living tissue - and several come up over the sides of the vessel - driving home the point of just how HUGE Tentalus's whole body must be - but a couple punch through relatively intact areas.
If that keeps up, that blubbery behemoth is going to sink what's left of the ship before Gyokuro even gets in an attack!
Perhaps driven by that realization, Gyokuro hacks at the nearest of the tentacles with her stolen blade. Despite being chipped, broken more or less in half, and having its enchantments shut off or destroyed outright, the black cleaver is still long enough and sharp enough that - when driven by vampiric strength - it should be able to cut right through the writhing mass of muscle.
And it does.
However, this doesn't work out quite as well as Gyokuro might have hoped. The pressure it would take to pump blood through such a massive body is such that the severed ends of the tentacle ought to be spraying gallons of the stuff all over, and yet that doesn't happen. All you see are brief, narrow jets of blue-green and weirdly clear, colorless liquids, most of which clot over almost as soon as they're exposed to air.
Gyokuro spares the few oozing blood vessels a look of absolute revulsion before she leaps out of the path of the dismembered tentacle as it crashes down on the deck. It doesn't just conveniently shrivel up and dissolve in a burst of dark energy; instead, it thrashes around like a tremendous snake, wounded and dying and determined to take its killer with it. The damaged planks creak and groan under the roiling weight, and when the sundered limb collides with one of the other tentacles, it wraps around its partner in some kind of reflexive reaction, squeezing purple scales and fat flesh like a titanic python.
Tentalus's attached limb just sort of bulges above and below the crushing coil, which goes limp a few seconds later and falls lifelessly to the deck. Only then does the severed limb finally start to wither away, leaving its grappled counterpart looking none the worse for wear.
While that's been going on, Gyokuro has been alternately slashing off other tentacles and dodging their attempts to swat her into the deck, sweep her off it entirely, or just grab hold of her and squeeze. It's a dangerous balancing act: given the number and size of the tentacles, relative to the amount of deck space Gyokuro has to work with, she can't afford to cut too many of her opponent's limbs off at once, lest she get caught up in their thrashing; but at the same time, she can't leave the tentacles alone for long, as their every movement seems to crack and splinter more fragile timber, leaving her less and less to stand on.
At some point, Tentalus gets fed up with having its arms hacked off, withdraws all its tentacles, and surfaces to what you think is the port side of the ship, roaring angrily. For a moment, its red eye glares down at Gyokuro, and you can't help but think that would be a perfect opportunity to attack it - but as far as you're aware, she has no weapon or special attack capable of hitting that target, unless she throws her sword away.
She doesn't do that, but you do catch her empty hand reaching towards the cross-shaped clip in her hair for a moment, before Gyokuro catches herself, takes a deep breath, and pulls her hand back down.
Tentalus growls and swings one of its main limbs down at her, the impact further deforming the deck-
!
-and then the monster stares in bulging-eyed shock as Gyokuro leaps ONTO its arm and runs up to its shoulder.
The hair-like tentacles wreathing Tentalus's crown move, reaching out, around, and down-
!
-splitting open at the ends to form snapping maws, halfway between the jaws of eels and the bird-like beaks of squid.
Akasha makes a sound of genuine distress.
Gyokuro starts swinging her stolen sword back and forth, yelling, "Just because I don't have Akasha's trauma about tentacles doesn't mean I appreciate this sort of thing, damn it!"
Duly noted.
Bits of biting tentacles fly in every direction, but as with the severed limbs before, there's little blood. Worse, you can see the damage healing, the stumpy tentacles regaining their original length in a matter of SECONDS.
That kind of regeneration is competitive with what the VAMPIRES have, and seeing it at work actually gives Gyokuro pause.
Then she's cast into shadow, as Tentalus's OTHER arm rises up and smacks down atop its shoulder.
For a moment, you lose sight of the lady vampire, but then Tentalus reels backwards, bellowing in pain from the sword blade sunk hilt-deep in its eye.
As the Abyssal Leviathan thrashes, Gyokuro lands on the deck below, once again reaching for her hairpin. This time, she doesn't hesitate to pull it free.
Another wave of vampiric power momentarily fills the Ring, the red so deep and dark it's almost black. Unlike the power surge when Issa fed on Volvagia, this one doesn't short out the images, and when the view clears up a second later, you see Gyokuro raising one hand-
"Why is there an eye in her palm?" Akkiko asks in a remarkably even tone.
-towards the stormclouds above her.
S-Skyward Strike!?
With a wordless cry, she calls down LIGHTNING, which homes in on the length of steel still sticking through Tentalus's eyeball.
...I did not know she could do that.
The monster's entire body gives one huge spasm as the current blasts through it.
BWAHAHAHAHA!
Regardless of the details, Gyokuro's ability to bring lightning bolts to bear against an enemy floating in the ocean makes the rest of the fight rather short. Somehow, Tentalus not only survives the first thunderbolt, but retains enough presence of mind to dive out of reach of any more direct attacks of that nature. The boat subsequently starts to shudder, groan, and crack under Gyokuro's feet, as the beast below works on taking it apart and dragging her into its element, where her newly-unveiled trick will be as dangerous to her as to it.
This just makes Gyokuro bombard the area around the boat with repeated high-intensity lightning blasts, which EXPLODE when they hit the surface, the resulting pressure waves only adding to their shock value.
After a few hits, you swear you can see the water starting to steam.
Enough of the violent discharges must get through to Tentalus to stun it, because the ship settles. Once again, there is a moment of relative peace, where the only sound is the storm above - now punctuated by discharges of more natural lightning, stirred up by Gyokuro's manipulation.
Then Gyokuro's eyes - all four of them - blink and stare directly downwards in alarm.
There is no other warning before, with a tremendous roar, crash, and eruption of water and broken wood, Tentalus RAMS the ship from below, smashing headfirst through the hull and shattering the deck in half. Gyokuro sensed the monster's charge in time to get to... what is that, the rear deck? The roof of the cabin? Whatever the proper name is, it's the highest, rearmost part of the ship, and it's about all that's left above the waves after Tentalus's latest attack. It won't enjoy that status much longer, either.
Fortunately, it doesn't need to.
Bringing both hands together above her head, Gyokuro calls down the biggest lightning bolt yet, blasting Tentalus while it's still shaking off the daze of the collision.
There's no sword stuck through the monster's eye to conduct the blast this time, the remnant of Death Sword's weapon apparently lost to the deeps, but that hardly seems to matter. The lightning looks and sounds like it came out of the storm you flew into months ago, a blast more powerful than anything you've seen outside of those crazy conditions.
Tentalus takes the hit and falls over backwards, trailing huge amounts of steam and smoke, head-tentacles blasted to chunks of takoyaki, and a massive electrical burn carved across its head and torso.
But though it's burned, dazed, and reeling from the blast, the thing is STILL not dead.
That comes when, with a snarl of frustration, Gyokuro leaps onto Tentalus's fat stomach, races up the length of its blubbery body, and tears into its eye with her hands.
She ends up getting thrown into the sea by the beast's death throes, but the Trial is still her win.
For her Seventh Trial, Gyokuro is sent to the Twinrova's chamber.
"My, my, my," Koume murmurs. "Two guests in one day? That must be a record."
"Dear, dear, dear," Kotake sighs. "And this lovely young lady looks like she was caught in a desert storm."
"So she does, so she does."
"Would you like to sit down and take a breather, dearie? Maybe dry off a bit?"
Gyokuro starts to say something in response to the overly-familiar tone, but she stops short and looks down at her still dripping-wet clothes.
"...actually, yes," she admits. "I would like that."
Kotake raises her broom, and a moment later, there's a chair in the room. A perfectly ordinary wooden chair.
"Don't just hover there, Koume," the Witch of Frost scolds her sister. "Get the poor girl some tea!"
"Buh- you-" Koume sputters. "Don't order me around, Kotake!"
But she pulls a battered old tea kettle out from somewhere all the same, and holds it over the end of her broom.
"...the heck?" Tatsuki mutters. "What's with the sudden nice old granny routine?"
"Hush, child," Kotake chides, giving the half-oni girl a glance.
"...sorry, ma'am."
Akkiko's question has you shrugging.
"When in Rome, maybe?" you offer. "Although, on a related note, nobody's allowed to complain about Hyrulean monsters having eyes in weird places anymore."
Akkiko considers that for a moment. "Eh, fair enough."
"Good thing Cecilia's still out walking around with her sister," Cordelia notes.
That probably IS for the best, yes.
Meanwhile, Issa has stepped up to explain how it is that Gyokuro is able to throw lightning around, when that kind of elemental manipulation is not an ability that's ever been associated with vampires.
It comes back to that technique of hers, Enemy Zero, which you heard mentioned in passing during the preparations for confronting Lady Takara. It's primarily a sensory skill, giving Gyokuro an awareness of her surroundings that is both wide-ranging and highly-detailed. When combined with the power boost of her unsealed youki, it becomes even more effective, allowing her to analyze the special abilities of other youkai, and with enough time, replicate them.
"The lightning is something she developed by working with a raijuu who's part of our security forces," Issa adds, smiling down at the Ring, where his wife has just given Tentalus the greatest and last shock of its life.
The images in the Ring skip ahead a bit, so you miss out on what, if anything, Gyokuro and the Twinrova talk about over tea. When the view is restored, the kettle and conjured chair have vanished, Gyokuro looks to have dried off from her fight with Tentalus, and the two witches have taken to the air on their brooms, hair and bristles gleaming with fire and ice.
"Right, then," Koume declares.
"Here we go!" Kotake cackles.
SORCEROUS SISTERS OF FLAME AND ICE: TWINROVA
The first half of this fight is a contest between fire and ice on one side, and lightning on the other - a match-up that, for some peculiar reason, strikes you as eminently appropriate.
From the first exchange of energy blasts, it's clear that Gyokuro is not using the level of raw power she was throwing at Tentalus. At first, you wonder if that's a tactical or strategic consideration on her part; after all, the witches aren't nearly as physically hardy as the Abyssal Leviathan, which would make throwing one of those sky-rending thunderbolts at them overkill and a waste of energy. The latter has to be a particular concern for Gyokuro, because however renowned for the strength of their youki living vampires may be, converting her native energy into an elemental type she doesn't have an innate affinity for can't be cheap or easy, and she would have already used up a fair amount of energy blasting Tentalus...
...and thinking on that, and how all those lightning bolts came from the stormclouds, rather than Gyokuro's hands as the ones she's casting at the witches are, makes you start to suspect that there's another factor at work.
Still wobbling in mid-air from taking one of those shocking blasts almost head-on, Kotake starts casting a spell. Gyokuro immediately flings more lightning at her, but Koume shoots in, broom extended and blazing brighter than usual. When the red-tinted lightning hits the heat-haze, it explodes, and though that sends Koume reeling away with a shriek, it leaves Kotake untouched long enough to finish her spell.
Both sisters are briefly illuminated by magical energy, and when the Witch of Ice is hit by electricity a moment later, she shrugs off the crackling bolt as easily as if it were water - and not all that much of it, at that - making it obvious that what she cast was a Spell to Resist Energy.
Gyokuro frowns and brings her hands together, static crackling around them as a ball of bright, jagged power forms in the space between her added eyes.
"Oooh, ho, ho, ho!" Kotake cackles. "Challenge accepted, dearie!"
And then SHE starts charging up Ice Elemental energy for her freezing ray attack.
You're not sure if one of the two women adjusted the pace of her energy-collection to match that of the other, or if it's pure coincidence, but they both release their attacks at the same time.
Gyokuro's being a lightning bolt, it crosses the distance in a blink, blowing over, around, and quite likely through Kotake - but as fast as the attack is, and despite being visibly larger and more intense than the smaller shocks Gyokuro was throwing around before, it's clearly not in the same league as the sky-splitting thunderbolts she dropped on the Abyssal Leviathan.
And really, why would it be? Gyokuro's not out in the middle of a thunderstorm on the open ocean, but inside an enclosed chamber that's either underground or deep inside an ancient ruin. There's no abundant external source of electricity she can tap into here, which means the full cost of every zap is coming out of her own reserves. As much as living vampires are renowned for the strength of their youki, the cost of converting that power into an elemental type can't be trivial, and Gyokuro would have used up a certain amount of energy in the previous round, even with the "environmental discount."
As such, while Kotake is blown backwards through the air by the blast, her defensive spell, centuries of spellcasting experience, and sheer strength of will combine to keep her from losing her own attack.
The witch's freezing ray hits Gyokuro's left leg, and then slashes diagonally up across her body, leaving a trail of thick ice crystals in its wake.
Gyokuro gasps - as much from the sheer cold of the strike as anything else, you expect - and then wrenches herself forward, ice shattering and falling away.
It's telling that she doesn't try to match either of the sisters like that again. The next time one of them - Koume, as it happens - starts channeling Elemental Magic while she's charging her lightning attack, Gyokuro lets fly right away, sacrificing a measure of striking power to ensure she doesn't take another direct hit from those deadly rays.
It takes a while, and Gyokuro has to dodge some water-producing combo attacks after the Twinrova dispel the wards protecting her from it, but the lower-powered lightning bolts resulting from these exchanges do appear to be strong enough that at least SOME of their energy bleeds through the witches' defenses.
"Well, there you go," Kotake says, shaking off the latest such hit.
"Come on, Kotake!" Koume orders.
"Here it goes!"
"DOUBLE DYNAMITE ATTACK!"
Gyokuro uses the opportunity to charge up a lightning bolt without interruption. When Twinrova's merged form finishes manifesting a moment later, the vampire fires off her attack at full charge-
!
-and the warrior-witch's brooms-turned-energy scimitars come up with flashes of red and blue, crossing before her to intercept the bolt. The lightning snaps and snarls in all directions, and Twinrova's arms are tense with effort as she somehow PARRIES the attack, but her teeth gleam as she grins.
"Yes! Hit them while they're distracted, and as hard as you can! That's exactly right!"
And then she raises her weapons high, dragging the lightning along with them and casting it at the shadow-shrouded roof, which is - very briefly - illuminated.
As the report and dust of that blast settle, Twinrova smiles delightedly down at Gyokuro. "You'd have made a fine Gerudo, dear."
...they CAN see the eyeballs in her hands, right?
"I don't know what that is, but thank you," Gyokuro replies.
Eh, what's a little monstrosity between sisters?
And then they scream war-cries and try to kill each other, lightning-wreathed hands and feet against blazing and freezing blades.
In closing with an opponent that can match her for elementally-charged melee attacks, and who outmatches her in most physical parameters, Twinrova proves to have made a tactical error. Her long combat experience minimizes the damage for quite some time, letting her match and even outdo Gyokuro for the number of hits she manages to land, but where the vampire's injuries heal over time - if somewhat more slowly than usual, where magical damage is involved - Twinrova's don't.
She realizes that and breaks off from the wild melee, floating up and away to begin firing elemental blasts, but Gyokuro leaps onto the taller woman, absorbs a couple of hits from enspelled broom-blades, knees, and even a headbutt while gathering as much electricity as she can hold, and then, with a shout, discharges all of that power at point blank range.
When the flash-blindness clears a moment later, you see three figures fall from the pocket of smoke.
"Ow, ow, ow," Koume gasps and wheezes, as she bounces along the stones.
"Damn it, damn it, damn it," Kotake choruses, while going in the other direction.
Gyokuro manages to land on her feet, though she promptly drops to one knee, smoke rising from her form where her control over the unleashed lightning was clearly not wholly up to the task.
"...definitely need to work on that one," she mutters.
"Ergh," the Witch of Flame grunts, as she floats unsteadily upwards. "That was a good trick, girl, but don't think we're done just yet!"
"Yeah, now the REAL battle be- oh, for the love of the Ancestors."
"Eh?" Koume blinks and turns to her sister. "What are you complaining about, now?"
Wordlessly, Kotake points at the air above her sister's head.
Koume glances up, and spots the little gold halo hovering above her.
"This again?" she sighs. "Really?"
Yes, really.
"You three are not as funny as you think," Kotake says, scowling up at the light that's begun to shine down on her and her sister.
That's a matter of opinion.
"...well, that's that," Koume shrugs. Turning to Gyokuro, she adds, "Good fight, girl."
"Yeah, if you're ever in Hyrule, look up the tribe. Even if we haven't broken out of the afterlife by then-"
"Say WHAT?" Isshin blurts out.
"-the girls will give you a warm welcome."
"Especially if you bring that handsome husband of yours along!" Koume adds, leering.
"I will... keep that in mind," Gyokuro says evenly.
"Eeeh, hee, hee, hee!"
"Oooh, ho, ho, ho!"
And with that, the Sorcerous Sisters rise towards the light.
Their last words are a call from Koume: "I hope you enjoyed the tea!"
In the brief moment between the Twinrova's disappearance and Gyokuro's advancement to her Eighth Trial, you cannot help but wonder who or what is left for her to face. Whether you measure them by raw power, personal influence, or sheer longevity, there are few creatures that truly equal Koume and Kotake in the hierarchy of the Underworld, and only one that really outranks them - and you don't think for a second that the Goddesses are going to throw one of Ganondorf's various forms into the Trials. There are just too many ways that could go wrong.
With your thoughts drifting among the pages of the Hyrulean Bestiary, you are rather taken aback when the Ring is filled, not by the sight of some dark chamber in the Underworld, an ancient, haunted ruin, or some remote, desolate corner of Hyrule where the forces of darkness lurk in isolation, but by the image of Hyrule Castle. Gyokuro has appeared in the courtyard, where the flagstones of the front approach are lined by the castle gardens; judging by the state of the well-tended lawn, flowerbeds, and hedges, it's late spring or early summer. Colorful banners bearing the Royal Crest hang from the towers and battlements, while the white walls and flagstones, carved with symbols of divine blessing and arcane protection, all but glow under the light of the midday sun - though that radiance fades somewhat, as Gyokuro's unleashed aura starts to make itself known.
Ignoring light and darkness alike, Gyokuro directs her attention across the courtyard, where her opponent has just walked into view.
The young woman wears an elegant dress, consisting of a rose-hued bodice over a long white skirt. Thin white gloves cover her arms almost to the shoulders, upon which rest pauldrons of some golden metal; these are linked across the breast by a pendant of a somewhat avian design, inset with a single ruby, with sapphires dangling from the chain to either side. The ornament is paralleled by a belt below and a tiara above, both of the same sapphire-and-gold design: suspended from the former is a long strip of fabric bearing the Royal Crest; and the latter rests amid neatly-coiffed brunette locks, almost seeming to be a part of the overall hairstyle.
From an impassively beautiful face framed by long braids and elfin ears, eyes as blue as the sapphires meet Gyokuro's own ruby-red gaze unflinchingly, as the newcomer raises a slender blade in salute.
CHOSEN OF WISDOM: PRINCESS ZELDA
...
...okay. Definitely not who you were expecting to see at this stage of the Trials.
Then again, the Princess usually is a Triforce-bearer, or at least has the potential to become one, so...
...er, wait. She doesn't actually HAVE the Triforce of Wisdom in there, does she?
As the battle begins, Gyokuro opens up with her lightning attack, probing Zelda's defenses from a distance. The Princess responds by "parrying" the electrical blasts with her sword, which glows with a golden light and leaves a faint trail as it carves through the air and the elementally-charged youki with equal ease. As Zelda is doing that, you see her lips moving in a chant, and fiery magic gathering about her left hand.
Gyokuro notices it as well, and starts attacking faster to try and disrupt the coming spell, but Zelda continues to defend and cast concurrently.
You feel a particular pang of envy, and briefly wish that you were in there, so that you could see how she's doing that.
With the more-or-less magical stuff not working, Gyokuro shifts over to the physical, racing not towards Zelda, but the nearest of the trees that dot the grounds. The unfortunate plant groans and cracks as it's ripped out of the earth and - in a somewhat ironic move for a vampire - flung at the spellcasting princess.
Zelda watches this with surprising calm, making no move to speed up her attack, or even to dodge. Only when the tree is flying at her does she raise her sword, golden aura darkening to blue as a crystalline shell forms around her.
There is a ringing sound as the arboreal projectile slams into that translucent sapphire shield, only to be stopped as surely as if it had collided with one of the castle walls.
An instant later, Gyokuro drops to one knee and ducks her head as the tree comes flying right back at her, every bit as fast as she first threw it - and then she snaps one arm up, flinging a blast of lightning into the path of the sparkling red fireball that Zelda let fly in the shadow of the reflected tree.
Zelda flips the first two fingers of her left hand up and then down, and her attack changes trajectory in response, curving over Gyokuro's counterattack, and then arcing back down towards the vampire herself.
The attack isn't nearly so fast that Gyokuro can't dodge it-
*BOOM!*
-but when it hits the ground where she was standing and detonates, the ensuing capital-F Fireball proves harder to outrun.
Trailing smoke and dust, Gyokuro emerges from the flaming cloud on a direct course for Zelda, who readies her sword to intercept the charge.
*HISS*
*CLANG*
*CRACKLE*
*CLANG*
*SCREE*
*CLANG*
*WHOOSH*
You find yourself wondering when, exactly, world-class fencing skills became one of the requirements to be a princess. Because in all of your scattered memories of different Zeldas, you can recall exactly TWO who even picked up a sword, and neither of them were anywhere NEAR good enough to fend off a living vampire in close-quarters.
Can you blame her for getting fed up with all those kidnappings?
She's not trying to match Gyokuro strength for strength, of course; that would just be stupid. But between trained reflexes, Hylian steel, that defensive golden glow, and whatever other mystical tricks Zelda's able to bring to bear - and from the way she's managing to anticipate Gyokuro's attacks, you're not ruling out combat precognition - the princess is at least managing not to get smashed to pieces, slashed apart, or even particularly stung by Gyokuro's electricity-wreathed strikes.
For all of that, though, Zelda is still getting pushed back, and hard.
Which makes it little wonder that she casts another spell, summoning swirling ribbons of green energy that spin her around and lift her into the air, dragging Gyokuro along for the ride. At the peak of her ascent, Zelda suddenly vanishes, leaving Gyokuro to kick off of empty air with a burst of youki, spinning about so that her feet are at least beneath her as she starts to fall.
Zelda reappears across the courtyard, making a short, graceful descent before landing with her back to her opponent.
Gyokuro lands more quickly, and immediately launches herself at the princess. Hearing or otherwise sensing the imminent attack, Zelda turns around, sword lifting towards the sky.
A huge figure almost twice as tall as the princess rises from her shadow, darkness coalescing into heavy armor, square shield, and massive sword. When Zelda's blade comes down a moment later, the Phantom - which is neither Ironknuckle nor Darknut, though there are clear similarities to both - rushes forward, counter-charging Gyokuro.
The clash between them is brief, and results in the spectral warrior dispersing back to the darkness it came from, but it does stall the vampire - just for a moment. But that is long enough for Zelda to discard her sword with a burst of golden energy, and draw forth a seemingly plain white bow in its place. Almost as soon as it's revealed, the new weapon starts to glow, strange patterns of pure light appearing all along its surface.
When Zelda draws back the bowstring, motes of golden energy rush towards her from all angles, burning away the darkness casting by Gyokuro's unleashed youki as they coalesce into a single, gleaming form.
Your chest suddenly aches.
Just beyond arm's reach of Zelda, Gyokuro FLINCHES, all four eyes desperately looking AWAY from the manifesting Light Arrow.
"Oh, wow," Briar says. "She's not screwing around."
"What is-" Issa begins.
In her opponent's moment of blindness, Zelda fires.
The Light Arrow SINGS as it blazes through the air, becoming a laser-like beam.
Gyokuro tries to dodge, but at point-blank range, facing a weapon that strikes with what could almost credibly be described as "the speed of light," and with not only her senses but her youki undoubtedly impaired by the sheer purifying power of one of the three most sacred relics in all of Hyrule, she has no chance.
The Light Arrow hits her square in the chest.
And then, it's like a second sun came up.
You wince, absently rubbing an sudden ache in your chest.
The Ring goes dark.
Gyokuro reappears on the sand, back to normal and blinking in confusion.
"What... just happened?" she asks, holding one hand to her chest where the Light Arrow hit her.
"You took a direct hit from one of the two most powerful divine weapons in all of Hyrule," Navi tells her frankly. "They're customarily used alongside or in place of the Master Sword when there's a Demon King that needs to die."
Gyokuro stares at the Great Fairy.
Whatever Gyokuro's feelings about being blasted with the Light Arrows, they're set aside as her daughters and Issa reach her. Akasha, Moka, and Akua are just behind them, the Dark Lord giving the other two adults a bit of space, even as she stays close to Issa for formality's sake.
"Are you alright, Mother?" Kahlua asks worriedly.
"I'm fine, Kahlua. No one else has been genuinely injured coming out of these Trials, have they?"
Kahlua bites her lower lip.
"I believe what our eldest is getting at is that no one's been shot with an Anti-Demon King attack during their Trials before, either," Issa says smoothly, after giving his wife a careful once-over. In a quieter voice, he asks, "Are you sure you're alright, Gyo?"
"I'm fine, Issa." The patient tone of Gyokuro's reply is similar to the one she used answering Kahlua, but there's a note of what may be appreciation underneath it. "Just a little annoyed that I apparently drew the short straw for my last opponent." Then she smirks, and adds, "Though I did last one round longer than you, which is a nice consolation prize."
Issa coughs as, behind him, Akasha laughs softly.
"Did it hurt, ma'am?" Akua asks nervously.
Her sisters glance at her, then up at Gyokuro, their faces reflecting similar degrees of concern.
"Like a son of a bitch," Gyokuro admits frankly.
No one comments on her bad language.
Elder Terok trudges up alongside the family of vampires, then. Before he performs the award ceremony, Gyokuro asks him frankly if "magical warrior-princesses" are at all the norm in Hyrule, or if she just "lucked out" in her final opponent.
The Goron admits that the "warrior" part is fairly uncommon; it's part of the job of soldiers, Knights, Royal Guards, and Heroes to keep royalty from having to take the field in the first place, much less often enough to get really good at it, and Hylians are not unlike Earth's human population in their desire to keep the women and children out of harm's way whenever possible.
On the other hand, the "magical princess" part is pretty common, to the point of being nearly ubiquitous among the ones that are given the name Zelda.
You hear a funny squeaky sound from the direction of your family's seats.
"The magic is a consequence of the royal family being descendants of the mortal avatar of Her Grace, the Goddess Hylia," Terok explains. "And of her reincarnating into the bloodline as a Zelda every few generations."
"Say WHAT!?"
"...are you telling me that was a goddess?" Gyokuro says slowly, ignoring the outcries from some of the audience.
"An image of one of Her Grace's mortal incarnations," the Goron clarifies. "And not one that was a conscious avatar, either. Most of the princesses never develop their awareness that far - which is only fair; they have enough problems to be getting on with, just dealing with their mortal duties."
"But she WAS a goddess," Gyokuro presses.
"At one time, yes," Terok admits.
There is a pause.
Then, suddenly grinning, Gyokuro turns to Akasha. "Did you ever...?"
"There were a few unfriendly kami when I first came to Japan," Akasha replies, "but they never did anything like THAT." Her gaze turns towards the Triforce emblem on the arena floor, currently dark and depleted of magic.
Catching the look, Gyokuro firmly says, "I fought her first. MY nemesis."
For a second, it looks like Akasha is going to argue with her.
Elder Terok clears his throat, ALSO looking like he wants to say something on the subject. Possibly a remark about how a certain Demon King has dibs.
Better leave it alone, Terok.
Then he shakes his head and makes with the magic, which incidentally distracts the two vampire women from their impending argument.
Gyokuro's prize for clearing seven out of nine Trials is a small wooden box, less than a foot wide, half that in length, and only a few inches deep. When she unlatches the cover and flips it open to inspect the contents-
You didn't.
"Is that tea?" Akasha wonders, peering inside.
You did.
-you see the Gerudo Crest carved into the lid.
I got the twins to swear an oath not to try breaking out for a while in exchange.
"It was very good tea," Gyokuro admits, before looking up at Terok. "But is this batch poisoned?"
And how long is "a while," Din?
"Wait, the tea was poisoned? You were poisoned!? Why didn't we see that!?"
Oh, probably just until they get bored.
Gyokuro brushes that off. "It didn't affect me. They don't have vampires there."
...so basically, whenever.
"But still, you were their guest! What happened to hospitality?"
I'll... just go check the security...
"They were witches from a tribe of desert bandits, Akasha," Gyokuro replies. "And they were about to fight me. They were obligated to try it at least twice over." She pauses. "And it was still very good tea."
"This batch shouldn't be poisoned," Elder Terok says, finally getting a word in. "At least... I think so."
The vampires collectively turn to him, but it's Issa who says, "...you think so."
Stony shoulders shrug. "It would fit Din's sense of humor. She can be a little rough, at times."
The Shuzens glance at Gyokuro's box of tea.
...you wonder if you should offer to inspect the tea.
Yeah, no. Unless one of the Shuzens invites you to inspect the tea - which, as both a friend of the family and a good host, you'd be twice-obliged to do - you're not going to poke at the tea and risk being the one who spoils Din's joke.
As it happens, none of them do ask.
...you're not sure what that says about them in general, or Gyokuro in particular.
Giving a quick hug to her daughter, and then to the rest of the girls just because they're there, Akasha turns to Issa.
"A kiss for luck?" she suggests, smiling.
"You hardly need it," Gyokuro says.
"True," Issa admits. But then he takes Akasha's hand and kisses the back of it anyway.
Smiling brightly, Akasha looks up at you. "Nine Trials, please, Alex."
"Yes, ma'am."
Once again, you charge up the Ring.
For her First Trial, Akasha is deposited in another arena-like structure. This one covers a larger area than the Ring of Trials you helped to build, centered around a slightly elevated circular stone stage that looks to be two, maybe three times wider than your own sandy fighting pit - which is, admittedly, rather undersized for its apparent purpose, relying as it does on Summoning Magic. There's another twenty feet of space between the outer edge of the stage and the stone wall that encircles it, atop which stand a few columns - some tilted and others broken by age - and a literal wall of greenery. What must be decades' if not centuries' worth of ivy covers the upper portion of the arena, leaving only a few of the pillars even partially exposed, and above those crawling vines rise tall trees, supporting a canopy that is broken only directly over the center of the ring.
Through that gap, you see a bright sun in a clear sky - and also hear a deep, droning buzz that is rapidly approaching Akasha's position.
A moment later, the sun's light is eclipsed as a massive insect flies into view, a green and brown beetle that must be a good thirty feet long, and better than ten feet wide or tall - and none of that counting the legs. Its chitinous shell is thick enough that it looks like it could compete with a knight's armor for sheer protective value, while the massive forked horn rising from its helmet-like head poses an obvious offensive threat. Curiously, much of the monster bug's hind portion is unarmored, exposing a throbbing, purple abdomen.
The beetle hovers overhead for a moment, the many facets of its luminous green eyes seeming to squint down at the vampire, and then it descends, the easy landing betraying more of the disproportionate agility that seems all-too common among Hyrule's giant monster population.
Akasha almost attacks then, but as the beetle folds its wings away, clouds of vapor begin to leak from its bare abdomen; too thick to see through, and colored an almost toxic purple, the stuff wreathes most of the monster's obvious vulnerable section, descending to the stone floor like a slow, gaseous waterfall of poison.
From the way Akasha gags and claps her left hand over her mouth and nose, the miasma must smell even worse than it looks.
As Akasha reels back from the stench, the beetle rears up, horn stabbing towards the sky as its mandibles part in a chittering roar.
ARMORED COLOSSUS: STAGNOX
The horn comes down-
!
-and Akasha catches it easily with her right hand, much to the insect titan's surprise and dismay.
Then, holding her breath as she brings both hands to bear, Akasha lifts the monster into the air. The fact that its horn doesn't snap from supporting all the weight of its body is a testament to just how tough Stagnox's exoskeleton must really be; at the same time, the alarmed thrashing of its legs and the unfurling of its wings make it clear that the behemoth does NOT care for the experience of being hauled aloft by any force other than its own strength.
Then Akasha smashes it against the stone floor.
*Crick*
And then she does it again.
*Crack*
The Dark Lord of the Orient looks like she's about to heft the Armored Colossus overhead a third time, but she abruptly releases her grip on its horn and falls back. In its panic, Stagnox's production of that noxious gas went into overdrive, and the frantic flapping of its wings has spread the stuff outwards in all directions - but especially Akasha's, since the bug WAS almost directly above her.
While Akasha retreats from the fumes, Stagnox gets its legs under itself again. Shooting what is most definitely an angry glare at the woman, the monster roars, extends its wings, and takes to the air again. Instead of trying to spread its toxic spray all over the arena, it shuts off whatever biological system produces the foul stuff, and activates another one, flinging blue, worm-like larvae in Akasha's direction.
There are sounds of disgust from the audience at that.
Each over a foot in length, the limbless grubs' fat, fleshy bodies endure the thirty-foot drop from their "parent" with ease. Shaking off the impact, they orient their bulging, multifaceted eyes in Akasha's direction, and then start writhing towards her.
As it happens, there are several clay pots scattered about the edges of the stage, and Akasha inadvertently headed in the direction of one of them when she backed off from the cloud of poison. She reaches for that jar now - showing an impressive level of situational awareness in the process, as the thing was behind her, and she didn't even turn her head - and flings it at the nearest of Stagnox's squirming larvae.
*CRASH*
For some reason, the sound of a pot shattering strikes a chord of familiarity with you.
The way the grubs swell up into spiky balls after being hit, whether by the pot or by its flying shards? That's different.
Akasha spares the two immobilized larvae a deeply suspicious look, then heads over to the nearest of the remaining pots, which she throws at them as well.
*CRA-BA-BOOM*
"Of COURSE the insects are explosive," Akasha sighs. "Because why wouldn't they be?" She glances up at the hovering Stagnox, and adds, "You are a TERRIBLE parent!"
The giant beetle responds by swooping down at the vampire in an aerial charge.
Akasha meets it halfway, leaping into the air, grabbing the monster's horn again, and pulling herself up and around the protuberance and onto the back of the bug's head.
Stagnox roars in renewed alarm and starts flying about as wildly as it can manage, but as it doesn't seem to be able to invert itself, its thrashing and rolling isn't enough to dislodge someone with a vampire's strength. Akasha navigates the Armored Colossus' shell, moving from being perched on the back of its horn to more or less sitting atop its "shoulders," just ahead of where the shell has opened up for the wings to beat.
Then she reaches up and tears those outer casings right off.
And then, while Stagnox is bellowing and reeling from that, Akasha tears its wings off.
The monster immediately plummets, shrieking and trashing in protest but completely unable to stop its descent.
Its last offspring has enough time to look up in confusion before being crushed under its parent's massive bulk.
Akasha, having leapt clear in mid-air, catches sight of this before she lands, and shakes her head. "Absolutely the worst."
Then she charges the stunned Stagnox, grabs hold of its pulsing abdomen with both hands, pulls-
!
-and the Goddesses thoughtfully censor what happens next, interposing a glowing Triforce emblem surrounded by three caricatured versions of themselves: little blue Nayru covering her eyes; little red Din covering her mouth; and little green Farore... pointing and laughing?
...you are horrible.
Despite that, you can make out Akasha ripping a very large SOMETHING off of Stagnox's prone body.
The monster dies very soon after that.
There are some unsettling stains on Akasha's green sundress as she advances to the Second Trial. The exact shade of green is fairly dark, so the Stalnox's blood and other fluids are not as obvious as they would have been if she were wearing something lighter - much less white - but even so, that dress would probably be a complete loss without magical assistance.
From Akasha's chagrined expression as she picks at the ruined fabric, she's aware of that - though the brevity of that look, and the dismissive shrug which follows it, shows that she hasn't forgotten about the temporary nature of the Trials.
Also, that she isn't particularly bothered by being covered in the blood of her enemy.
You guess it just goes to show that even a really nice vampire is still a vampire.
Akasha's next match pits her against Levoknuckle.
So far today, you've seen the Blue Knight unhorsed in a variety of ways, ranging from traditional jousting and melee to wrestling maneuvers and a borderline absurd "parry." You've even seen him dismount of his own accord, after winning that joust with Altria.
Akasha unveils yet another method. When Levoknuckle throws his lance at her, Akasha does as Gyokuro did, dodging the attack and circling around to retrieve the weapon, which she holds high, as if to thrust at the Blue Knight when he wheels back around and comes at her with his sword. The difference comes in at the last moment before the charging construct knight and steed are inside the range of the spear, when Akasha - ducking and weaving around the Sword Beams that Levoknuckle has been flinging at her - suddenly shifts her grip on her appropriated weapon, planting the butt against the floor with one foot half on it, and raising the shining tip.
Levoknuckle pulls back on the reins, but his mount has built up too much speed to stop, and-
*CRASH*
-crashes straight into the shining point of the spear, Hylian steel armor against Hylian steel weaponry.
The armor deforms at the point of impact, and the spear punches through. Not as deeply as it might have, were weaker materials involved or Levoknuckle failed to rein in his mount at all, but still enough to at least take a mortal horse out of the current fight.
"And that is why you never charge a pike formation head-on," Arthur Drake declares, shaking his head.
With her sheer strength and the leverage of the lance, Akasha is able to wrench the construct horse sideways, off-balance, and onto the floor. Levoknuckle tumbles free, rolls a bit, and then gets back to his feet.
As with the other adult vampires, once the Blue Knight is dismounted, Akasha proceeds to take him apart in fairly short order.
Seeing as how Issa, Gyokuro, and even Arthur Drake faced the Carock right after fighting Levoknuckle, you aren't surprised when Akasha is pitted against the Guardian of Sorcery as well.
Once again, the Carock begins the fight by casting spells other than its force-wave attacks. The first one creates a Resilient Sphere around the Guardian, and while Akasha eventually smashes through that, she doesn't manage to do so before the Carock has cast several more spells on itself.
One of those surrounded the Guardian's looming form with a cloud of lookalikes, all wavering back and forth around and through one another and making it extremely difficult to tell which one of them is the real thing. When Akasha breaks through the Resilient Sphere and lands a blow on the Carock, one of the swirling images disappears-
*BANG*
-with a burst of force that blows the vampire back a step, and doesn't seem to disturb the remaining false images or the true Carock in the least.
Disappearing and reappearing elsewhere, the Carock casts another spell. Akasha closes with her opponent and strikes it again before it finishes casting, but for the second time, she hits one of the exploding images-
*BANG*
-and while she's staggering from that, the Carock finishes its spellcraft, summoning a construct of pure force in the shape of a long, twisted sword.
The weapon weaves a complex pattern in the air as it manifests, and then makes a swift strike at Akasha, who narrowly dodges. When she tries to retaliate, slamming a punch into the flat of the blade, the force-sword isn't even rocked sideways; it just twists along its lateral axis and cuts sideways, trying to slice her hand.
When the Carock next teleports, it remains fairly close to Akasha. She immediately moves to exploit that-
*SQUELCH*
-and is promptly slashed through the middle by the shimmering plane of force, which cuts through her flank almost clear to her SPINE.
Despite that, Akasha doesn't stop or even SLOW her advance, which is probably what spares her from getting cut right in half, her forward momentum pulling her free of the floating blade before it can finish its deadly stroke.
Damn, woman. I'm impressed.
Arms half-extended in the familiar gesture that precedes its force-wave attack, the Carock freezes, staring in shock at the woman who SHOULD be crippled as she slams into it, fists first-
*BANG*
-but unfortunately, what Akasha hits is yet ANOTHER of those exploding images.
And while she's recoiling from that, the sword swings around and comes at her again. The movements of the strangely NOT bloodstained blade are too rote and mechanical to be those of a master, but the strength, accuracy, and especially the speed with which it strikes are all on that level - you've seen enough masters in action today to make that statement with confidence.
Although it puts Akasha on the defensive, the attack falters unexpectedly when the Carock disappears, the sword pausing in mid-stroke before flying across the chamber to the spot where its master reappears a moment later.
Akasha is right on the weapon's proverbial heels, showing no sign at all that she was injured just a few seconds ago. The only reason you can think of for why she doesn't outrun the sword is that she's not sure where along its flight path the Carock will emerge.
When the Guardian DOES appear, however, Akasha is in the perfect position to strike. She dodges another brutal cut from the sword and LEAPS at her opponent, arms spread wide.
*BANG*
Although the flying tackle triggers another of those detonations, the blast isn't enough to overcome the force of Akasha's jump, and the Carock doubles over as the vampire slams into its midsection. The familiar aura of a Spell of Mage Armor flashes across the points of contact and impact, but only soften the blow a bit; worse, now that Akasha actually has her hands on her enemy, the exploding images seem to do nothing. Despite the sorcerer's greater size, Akasha easily drags it down into the kind of brutal scrum that has Tatsuki sitting up, taking notes, and cheering.
Seriously, I mean it. GORONS aren't this tough.
Twice, you see the Carock's body flicker, as if trying to teleport free, but each time, it fails to take.
Having a ticked-off vampire at your throat certainly can't be good for one's concentration, but you wonder if such close proximity to Akasha's youki isn't creating interference - intentionally or otherwise.
After hovering above the grapple for a moment, as if hesitant about possibly hitting its master, the conjured sword plunges in and lands another brutal hit on Akasha right. It impales her through one shoulder, and only seems to be stopped from pinning her to the floor because of the damage-preventing wards built into the room.
Akasha's reaction to being RUN THROUGH is a grunt and a moment's pause-
Sweet Din, what kind of pain threshold does this woman HAVE?
I'm guessing "Yes."
-which is just enough time for the Carock to openly SHIREK a word of magic.
The resulting force-blast blows Akasha halfway across the chamber, and rips the shimmering blade out of her body in the process.
She gets right back up, the gaping through-and-through healing over so fast that you already can't see the exit wound on her chest.
The Carock, in contrast, is a ragged mess, in too much pain for it to even stand up straight.
Akasha looks it over, winces, and says, "You could surrender?"
The Guardian of Sorcery shoots the Dark Lord of the Orient a dirty look.
Then he blows up the room.
Cries of protest echo around the Ring at the Carock's display of bad form, but the noise dies down a bit when the whited-out image within the scrying field is replaced by a familiar rocky wasteland.
Akasha seems remarkably untroubled and unscathed for a woman who just had a massive explosion go off in front of her. You're not even sure what spell or variation of a spell the Carock decided to go out with; it may not even have BEEN a spell, per se, just an uncontrolled release of all of the battered Guardian's remaining magical power, in a spiteful attempt to take his opponent down with him. Regardless, you definitely saw Akasha swept up by the blast wave before everything was lost to the glare.
That whole round really drove home that Akasha is an abnormally fast healer even by vampiric standards, but even so, the damage caused by an explosion of that size shouldn't have faded this completely, this quickly. That absence of injury, along with the suspiciously pristine state of Akasha's dress - which no longer bears any trace of the bloodstains and tears it picked up in the previous Trials - tell you that the Goddesses stepped in to censor the feed again, and may have even gone as far as providing a replacement outfit.
We were going to, but it turns out the Dark Lady has a few tricks she hasn't shown off yet.
Looking as fresh and ready to fight as she did for her First Trial, Akasha sweeps the sky, looking for the Gleook.
The Two-Headed Dragon makes its appearance tactically, swooping down with the sun at its back, hidden by the glare until the last few moments of its approach.
From what you know, Akasha doesn't have Gyokuro's level of sensory perception, but she clearly picks up on something, because she dashes clear of the firestorm that falls from above.
"Would you look at that?" Left declares. "First a knight, now a princess! We must have done something right in a previous life!"
"Can't imagine what that could have been," Right muses, craning around on its neck to peer at Akasha. "What makes you so sure that she's a princess, Brother?"
"She must be! She's not using weapons or armor, she doesn't have the aura of a sorceress, and she got as far as facing US in the Trials! What sort of two-legged female could do that without being a princess?"
Akkiko chuckles. "I like this definition of a princess."
"A Gerudo," Right says frankly.
"...okay, yes. But she looks nothing like a Gerudo."
"...fair." As they wheel around to begin another strafing run, Right adds, "But on the subject of auras, didn't hers seem kind of monstrous to you?"
"Monsters can be princesses, too," comes the stubborn reply.
"Yeah!" a number of little monster girls - and some not so little - declare in unison.
Right shoots his partner a look of disbelief. "...name one."
There's a pause, and it's not confined to the extra-dimensional battleground.
"Stop ruining things for me with your logic," Left grumbles.
Before either head can say more, something small and moving very fast hits them in the belly.
"Ow!" Left exclaims.
"What was-!?" Right growls, looking around.
Below, Akasha has scooped up a few of the larger fragments of stone laying about the field, and begun flinging them at the dragon.
Considering how much force she can get into a throw, this is not as pointless an endeavor as it sounds, but while it might be possible for Akasha to put out one of the dragon's eyes or punch a few holes through the sails of its wings just by throwing rocks, her aim doesn't really seem up to the task. That, or the unbalanced mass and non-aerodynamic shapes of the stones are screwing things up.
She scores a dozen hits, easily, but they're all against parts of the dragon's body that can take it.
"Yow!"
"Hey!"
"Ouch!"
"Quit that, already!"
If not without complaint.
As the Gleeok climbs a bit higher to try and get out of rock-throwing range, Akasha shrugs and lets the small handful of stones remaining to her fall back into the dirt.
"It was worth a shot," she says to nobody in particular.
Then she takes hold of the golden band wrapped about her upper right arm, and slides it off.
Holy-!
The Gleeok staggers in mid-flight as a BLACK aura sweeps over the battlefield. Not red, not red so dark that it's almost black, but ACTUALLY black.
Are we sure she's not really a demon?
"Sunnova-!"
If she was, she'd be the nicest one since Batreaux.
"Daughter," Right dryly corrects his sibling.
That's not actually a denial, Sis.
As Akasha discards the sealing armband, wings erupt from her shoulders - six vaguely bat-like wings, the topmost pair about as long as her arms, the next set easily twice that length, and the last two that long again.
Akasha stretches her wings to their full extension, a slow, almost lazy movement that puts you in mind of how it feels to get out of bed some mornings. Then she hops lightly in place, once, twice, three times, as her wings beat - somehow not getting in each other's way in the process - lifting her a little higher off the ground each time.
Crouching low, Akasha puts her real strength into the final leap, and blows a small crater into the dirt as she launches herself into the sky.
"Bat-winged princess, five o'clock low on the starboard aft!" Left cries out.
"Ganon damn it, we are not a ship!" Right barks. "And what does the TIME have to do with this?"
"JUST SHOOT HER!"
Grumbling about insane relatives, Right leans around to spit a barrage of fireballs at Akasha, trading the area coverage of the usual fireblast for greater range.
The vampire sees the attack coming and dodges gracefully, wheeling to her left and more directly into the dragon's massive slipstream. With its bulk taking the brunt of the air resistance, Akasha rapidly cuts down on the distance between them - at least until she gets into range of the tail, which the Gleeok does not hesitate to snap at her like the world's biggest whip.
Avoiding the wide sweep of that attack costs Akasha some distance, and she moves to make it up. In order to get out of the striking zone for the dragon's tail, she has to come in at a higher or lower angle, which will force her to deal with the air resistance without a buffer, but you doubt that will be much of a problem. There's absolutely no reason why a vampire's wings wouldn't be as ridiculously strong as the rest of their body.
Sure enough, as Akasha banks upwards, wings beating more rapidly than before, the distance between her and the dragon starts falling off at least as fast as before.
"Above, above!"
At least until fire once again explodes into being, right in front of her. This time, it's a wide cloud of orange-yellow flame, too big to dodge at the speeds involved, and Akasha can only cross her arms and uppermost wings over her head as she plunges inside-
"Got her!" Left crows.
-emerging from the "back" of the fire-blast a second later, trailing smoke in a few places, but otherwise unharmed.
"Didn't get her!" Left corrects.
"Maneuver Y!" Right barks, right before, with a great beat of one wing, the dragon's entire body rolls over.
From Left comes a drawn out cry of, "Whyyyy-!?"
...the inspiration for the name of this maneuver, perhaps?
In any case, the dragon doesn't remain inverted for very long. Its wings simply don't work that way, and even the inherent magic that monsters of this size use to cheat on standard physics will only keep it aloft for so long without an actual Spell of Levitation or Flight being cast.
But as it turns over, all four of the dragon's claws lash out in a synchronized attack-
!
-and Akasha, possibly caught off guard by the maneuver, certainly shaken up by what it must be doing to the air currents, and maybe just not as good at air-to-air combat as she might like to be, takes a hit from one of the Gleeok's hind legs, which rips clean through the largest wing on her right side. Her own flight momentarily destabilizes, and before she can regain control - or regenerate the wing, which you can SEE growing out even as the severed third or so is whipped away on the breeze - Gleeok's Left head lunges forward.
*SNAP*
The bite misses Akasha's head and torso
It tears off her left arm below the shoulder, and the top two wings on that side.
*FWOOM*
And then Right concludes the combo with another blast of its deadly breath.
Akasha sees that coming in time to spread her remaining wings wide, letting air resistance and the heat radiating off the dragon's fire sweep her backwards.
You can't get a much closer look than that, because the Goddesses are censoring stuff again, though this time they're just blurring the image rather than blocking it out entirely.
Once again, all eyes turn to the Shuzens.
Gyokuro facepalms. "We should NEVER have let her watch The Thing..."
Images of non-Hylian, Hyrulean princesses past flash before your mind's eye.
Ruto of the Zora.
Midna of the Twili.
You don't speak their names aloud, though, because for all that they're not human or near-human, they're not monsters, either. Not by Hyrule's standards, at least, and possibly not even by Earth's; you're too uncertain of the ultimate origins of both races to make a definitive statement, which leaves you defaulting to the cultural one.
Besides, none of the monster girls in the audience would recognize the names anyway.
Instead, you offer, "Kahlua?"
The Vampire Princess blinks, and then blushes.
"Yeah!" Zelda chimes in.
"...not a princess," Kahlua demurs, holding up her new pet bat as if she wants to hide behind it.
Gyokuro smirks at her eldest.
Issa is biting his lower lip for some reason.
"Then, I'm a princess, too!" Kokoa proclaims.
"Yeah!" her new fairy partner declares in support.
It seems they're off to a good start, anyway.
That's about the point where Akasha starts throwing rocks, drawing everyone's attention fully back to the fight.
Right takes the opportunity to launch a snap-shot fire-blast at the falling... object.
Lacking wings, it's unable to maneuver conventionally, and it doesn't seem to be able to use that "double jump" trick you first saw Kahlua use, and which most of her family has demonstrated greater or lesser skill at since then. It may not even be aware of the danger, come to that.
Regardless of the reason for it, the falling lump of vampiric flesh is engulfed by dragonfire.
Nothing but drifting ash emerges.
"Yuck! Ick! Ptooey!" Left complains, spitting and hacking. "Oh, that was horrible!"
"Out of curiosity," Right inquires, "do you still think she's a princess?"
"She's a MONSTER!" the dragon exclaims in horror.
That really says it all, doesn't it?
While those two have been otherwise occupied, Akasha has recovered from the bulk of her injury and her rapid retreat. She's climbed again, much higher than the previous approach, and is now keeping pace with the Gleeok from about a hundred feet up.
Her wings fold, and Akasha dives.
Both of the Gleeok's heads suddenly snap around, and then twist upwards.
"Keep her away!" Left yelps, his side of the body thrashing frantically. "Keep her away!"
"Quit that!" Right snaps, as the dragon struggles to maneuver out of Akasha's path.
*THWOCK*
The sound as she slams into them anyway, high on the left shoulder and ahead of the wings, is distinctly underwhelming. Akasha doesn't blow a hole through the dragon's body, nor does the collision cause the beast to stagger in mid-flight; she didn't have anything like the mass or speed necessary for that kind of impact. Were it were not for the sudden cry of alarm from the Left head and the intensified flailing of all the limbs under his control, you'd think they hadn't even registered the contact.
"Get her off, get her off, get her off-!"
"Idiot, you're going to crash us!"
Despite his words, Right leans up and back, trying to tear Akasha off their conjoined back with his teeth.
*SNAP*
He misses, falling almost half a head's length short of his target.
One of the disadvantages of size, it seems.
On the other hand - or in this case, head - dragons can breathe fire.
Left cranes around, mouth agape and glowing as he takes wild-eyed aim at Akasha-
*POW*
-only to get clocked from ABOVE by another dive-bombing vampire. The head being a much smaller target than the body, it actually registers the impact, pitching far enough down and to one side that the subsequent fire-blast flashes out along the dragon's flank and into empty air instead.
Now where did SHE come from!?
For a split-second, your brain locks up at the sight of a SECOND Akasha Bloodriver crouched atop the Left head.
Then you remember that the dragon ripped off half of her largest right wing early in its rollover. Sucked away by the slipstream, that piece apparently grew into a whole new body before it hit the ground, and rejoined once the REAL Akasha had both heads' full attention.
...at least, you THINK that's the real Akasha.
Regeneration is NOT supposed to work like this, damn it! Trolls would have overrun entire planets if it did!
Whatever issues she has with mid-air combat, Akasha proves to be a master at working with her second self. Without a word or even a glance at one another, the vampire and her clone tag-team the Two-Headed Dragon-
"GANON SAVE ME, SHE'S MULTIPLYING!" Left screams as he thrashes about, trying to throw off his most recent hitchhiker.
Jaws agape, Right snarls, "Hold still so I can- oh crap!"
-Akasha clawing her way along the dragon's armored back to strike at the Right head, while her doppelganger wraps her wings about Left-
"OH, DEMON KING, I'M BLIND!"
-to anchor herself as she brings her hands together over her head, and then brings them DOWN.
*POW*
The entire left NECK rebounds under the force of the hammer-blow, exploding into black and red flames. Possibly not having expected the head to "die" that quickly, Clone Akasha makes a sound of surprise as her wings are singed by the effect, even as she releases her grasp on the disintegrating neck and allows herself to tumble away from both the body and the freshly-severed Left head.
From the glazed look in its eyes and the roughly fist-shaped imprint over its brow, it may be a while before that head re-enters the fight.
Akasha doesn't give it time to recover, pressing the attack while she has the advantage in number of (conscious) heads.
Through some contortions of its remaining neck, the Gleeok manages to get Akasha into grabbing range of its right front claw, and pull her off. Unlike before, the dragon doesn't try to tear the woman apart - indicating that he's figured out her ability to spawn functional copies from severed body parts - and instead just tries to hold her in place long enough to build up another burst of fire.
Vampire strength against dragon strength almost seems to be a draw.
Then Clone Akasha hits Right with a flying right cross.
Shortly thereafter, Gleeok's entire body bursts into black and red flame. The two vampires break contact and start to fly towards each other-
!
-only to stare in shock as the dragon's HEADLESS SKELETON charges towards them, somehow still flying on wings that are nothing but bone, smoke, and tatters of disintegrating skin.
The surprise value of this unexpected "third phase" attack lets the now-undead dragon get in a hit on what you think is the real Akasha, and keeps her and her clone occupied long enough for both severed heads to fly back into the fight, spitting fireballs as they come.
In the end, however, it just drags out the inevitable conclusion. Shattered bones and lifeless heads still end up falling from the sky, and exploding well before they hit the ground.
When the Fifth Trial begins, there's only one Akasha to be seen, and no indication of what happened to her clone.
She recombined. It was kind of gross.
You don't spare a lot of thought on the topic, because now that Akasha's removed a seal, the Goddesses have taken things up a notch.
When you defeated Gleeok, it was your last bout before facing your Shadow.
When Arthur Drake defeated Gleeok, it was a precursor to battling a Darknut.
Akasha's defeat of the Two-Headed Dragon has brought her face to face with a certain Hylian princess.
CHOSEN OF WISDOM: PRINCESS ZELDA
And she already has the Light Arrow drawn.
"Are you KID-!?" Gyokuro exclaims.
She's cut off as Zelda fires.
Once again, the Light Arrow FLASHES through the air, too fast to follow as anything except a streak of golden light.
And for the first time in these Trials, Akasha dodges as if her life depends on it.
Desperate speed saves Akasha from a direct hit, but her wings, trailing behind her body like the train of a dark, elaborate gown, are not so fortunate.
The Dark Lord lets out a scream of pain as the Light Arrow blows a hole through the space behind her, purging an area over five feet across of youki and vampiric flesh. All but one of her wings are severed from her back, leaving only ragged, scorched-black stumps a few inches long hanging off of her back, and smoking, curled-up lengths on the ground.
The remaining wing is the right-hand one from the topmost pair, which had been pulled forward to shield Akasha's eyes from the brilliant flare of holy power as Zelda fired the Light Arrow; it's intact, if rather singed about the base where the purifying aura came too close for comfort. That same exposure has left Akasha's green sundress blackened, as if it had been thrown in a fire, and what you can see of the skin beneath is red and raw, like a bad case of sunburn.
In spite of what has to be truly incredible pain, to make a woman who previously didn't so much as grunt when getting whole limbs ripped off by a dragon's bite, Akasha keeps moving, circling Zelda at her current distance. You see her right hand clench, not into a fist, but to deliberately drive her fingernails into her palm; they come away bloody, and Akasha slashes her hand at Zelda, flinging a spray of her own blood at the princess.
What flies through the air is not red liquid, however, but a scattering of black, metallic pellets.
And when they hit something-
*BOOM*
-they explode violently.
A suddenly wide-eyed Hylian princess falls back, gold-tinted blue aura surging up as she twirls her gleaming bow before her, a haze of golden light trailing in its wake. She manages to evade much of the cloud - Akasha's counterattack was not the most accurate - and the blood-bombs that come into contact with the shining shield she spins for herself are purified out of existence before they can detonate.
*BOOM*
The ones that land AROUND her are another story, and you can see the princess flinching as defensive fields flare about her, their magic probably woven into her dress along with the expensive fabrics.
While that was going on, Akasha was spilling blood from her left hand, creating a shining sword. The weapon is still semi-liquid as the vampire breaks off her circuit of Zelda and lunges straight at the princess.
Even disoriented by the cloud of explosions, Zelda senses the danger, and vanishes in a twirl of green and gold ribbons of light right before Akasha's blood-forged blade slices through the air where she'd been.
Akasha skids to a halt and spins around, sweeping the courtyard for a sign of Zelda's reappearance. As she does so, you hear a collective hiss of shock from the vampires in the crowd - and a choked-off cry from Moka - at the sight of the burned stumps of Akasha's wings, which in contrast to every other injury the Dark Lord has suffered in her Trials, have NOT healed in the slightest. You glance away from Akasha, looking in the direction of the severed lengths of her wings, but the current view within the Ring - staying as close to centered on the combatants as is practical - does not let you see the area where the burnt sails fell.
On the other hand, there isn't a regenerating mass of flesh or a blurry censor wandering around the battlefield, either.
Maybe it just hasn't been long enough?
...or, maybe the Light Arrows neutralized Akasha's youki-fueled regeneration.
You're not sure which is the more likely possibility.
Your ruminations are cut short as Zelda reappears - not in the courtyard, but on top of one of the TOWERS of the Castle's outer wall.
"Smarter than trying to fight her on the ground," Gyokuro muses.
Spotting the princess, Akasha makes for the wall in a blur of movement-
Akasha runs past a curled-up heap of ash and bone on the courtyard stones.
Looks like there won't be any cloning shenanigans in THIS battle, or at least not as a result of that attack.
-and doesn't slow down at all as she hits the wall and starts climbing up the side-
*ZAP*
-at least until the wards built into the white stone register the presence of monstrous energy, finish charging up, and throw the startled vampire OFF the wall with a flash of pale yellow light, sending her flying a good ten or fifteen feet.
Akasha recovers from the unplanned flight readily enough, but it robs her of any chance to reach Zelda before the princess recovered from her brief, post-teleportation daze.
And then Akasha starts running again, as the golden aura of the Light Arrows builds once more.
Something of a shoot-out ensues then, Zelda's slow-firing but unstoppably powerful Light Arrows against Akasha's blood-based explosives - the first of which is her SWORD, flung at the battlements behind which Zelda is sheltering.
*BA-BOOM*
The weapon's detonation is considerably larger and more powerful than the blast produced by any of those pellets Akasha flung earlier, but it has far less effect against the magically-warded stone fortification than it did the grassy soil and walkway of the courtyard. Another flash of pale yellow contests with the red-hued explosion, and when the smoke clears, there's barely even a scorch mark on the stone.
Akasha adapts tactics and starts converting her blood into baseball-sized spheres of black metal, which she tries flinging in ballistic arcs that will bring them over the battlements and down on Zelda's head - or at least the roof around her.
The princess's defensive magics flare the first time that happens, which is followed by her SHOOTING the next grenade out of the air with a barely-charged Light Arrow, and then - when Akasha throws two of the spheres at her together - by her summoning that blue crystal shield you saw her use against Gyokuro, deflecting both incoming bombs back at their maker.
After that exchange, the battlefield goes quiet, Akasha having disappeared into the hedges.
Zelda remains in her tower, blue eyes - and more exotic senses, assuredly - scanning the grounds below.
Then she does something very surprising: she puts her bow AWAY, brings her hands together as if in prayer, and bows her head.
And then the Princess of Hyrule, the Leader of the Sages, and the Reincarnation of the Goddess Hylia proceeds to cast a spell beyond the relatively simple and straightforward battle-magics you've seen her use. Although you can't read the flow of power in her aura, you know enough about the Hylian magical system to recognize some of the words and gestures involved.
Quite a lot of the words and gestures, in fact. That's the Greater Spell to Dispel Magic that she's casting.
Zelda finishes her chant uninterrupted-
What is Akasha doing down there, you wonder?
-and without a moment's hesitation, points at a section of the hedge-maze, which is subsequently engulfed in a short-lived dome of silvery magic.
There's no verbal outcry from Akasha, but considering that this is the Chosen of Wisdom you're looking at, you suspect she was pretty much on-target with that spell.
For her next trick, Zelda reaches into a pouch at her hip, and pulls out a small golden lyre.
And then she begins to play.
As the first notes of the melody sing out over the castle courtyard, the scene displayed upon the viewing globe within the Ring of Trials splits in an unusual fashion.
To your left, you see Zelda, head bowed slightly as her hands move over the lyre.
To your right, you see Akasha - now wearing a suit of armor you vaguely recognize as the inspiration for Moka's costume on Halloween, and whose presence explains a bit about what the Dark Lord was doing while she stayed out of sight - look up in surprise as the Song reaches her. She doesn't stop adjusting and securing her gear, but a faint smile crosses her lips, even as her brow furrows in confusion.
If you lean to your left, you can just make out Akasha's image being shown over there, too; likewise for Zelda's picture, if you crane your neck to the right.
Then Akasha looks up sharply, eyes widening in renewed surprise and genuine concern, and the display splits again.
The top of the viewing globe is filled by a shot of the sky above Hyrule Castle. The bloodstained negative of a clear, sunny day produced by Akasha's partly-unsealed power is quickly being overtaken by gathering clouds - thin at first, but in mere seconds they've grown large enough to obscure the blackened sun. Shortly thereafter, stormclouds fill the sky from horizon to horizon, the dark taint of overwhelming youki making them all the more menacing.
Lightning flashes within the thunderhead, followed swiftly by the rippling crack of a storm that's entirely too close for comfort.
And then the rain begins to fall. It's not a fine mist or a light drizzle, but the sort of downpour where water hits the ground hard enough to bounce, particularly off of rigid surfaces like the stones of the courtyard.
All that saves Akasha from an instant short-circuit is the huge shield she conjured up from her blood in the scant seconds between her realization of the threat and its arrival, and which she now holds above her head. Almost at once, you see that this defense is not going to last, as the metallic shield - which could probably take a hit from a battering ram without denting - is starting to MELT under the downpour. Each droplet that smashes against its face - and there are DOZENS of them every second - is accompanied by a wisp of smoke and the slightest deformation of the once-smooth metal.
I was not expecting that to happen.
Akasha recognized the danger well ahead of you, because she was moving for the castle proper before the first drop of rain came down. She's crossing the courtyard now, hissing and growling almost like a large cat as black energy crackles about her feet and lower legs, rain splashing off the stone pathways to soak and cling and purify.
Possibly in more than one sense of the word. This is the Song of Storms, played by the Princess of Hyrule; there's a high possibility that Hylia's Grace has seeped into the magic, turning rain into HOLY rain, or even that the Song itself is sacred enough to produce such an effect.
Whatever the case, Akasha's shield is a sagging, dripping mess by the time she reaches one of the castle's side entrances. While not nearly so grand as the main approach, the servants' entryway does include an overhang for situations such as this, and Akasha ducks under it with a sigh of relief.
Good move, but where does she go from here?
The sound turns into another pained hiss as she looks down at her legs, where the greaves of her armor have melted slightly, and the skin beneath is twitching from the ongoing discharges of power.
She can't stay there forever, she can't hit the God-Princess from that angle, and going inside-
Tossing her ruined shield aside, Akasha turns around, smashes open the door with one well-placed, lock-shattering blow, and enters Hyrule Castle.
-would be a bad idea, so of course that's what she does.
Zelda looks up at the noise - and perhaps at the sudden fading of Akasha's aura, as she moves inside the heavy stone construction and powerful wards of the Castle proper - but she doesn't stop playing the Song.
In fact, she smiles.
It's... not the friendliest expression.
"Why is she smiling like that?" Moka asks, frowning.
"Just watch," Thistle the fairy tells her from where she sits in Kokoa's lap.
The view in the globe changes again, Zelda disappearing as the image re-centers on Akasha as she makes her way through the Castle's halls. The Princess's presence is not entirely forgotten, as her summoned storm continues to rage outside, rain a constant rolling beat on the roof and walls, punctuated by the occasional flash and roar of a thunderbolt.
The interior of Hyrule Castle is, appropriately enough, like something out of a fairy tale. Even the servants' passage that Akasha entered the building through was lined with white stone and furnished with fine woods, bright silver, comfortable-looking chairs for a maid or footman to take a break in, and the occasional work of art or shelf of books near to those plush seats, all kept in good order. Once she gets into the chambers that are actually MEANT to be seen by the residents and visitors, things get even more astonishing.
Most of the light comes from lamps, candelabrum, and chandeliers of spun gold and crystals that glow like little constellations. The stone surfaces, partly exposed in the back passages, are here covered by marble flooring in black and white, elaborately carved wooden panels decorated with traces of precious metals and stones, and thick carpets woven in complex patterns. Painting, sculpture, metalwork, and more exotic forms of artistry fill every niche, and brightly polished suits of armor line the halls, swords raised in silent, eternal salute, looking ready to spring to life at a moment's notice.
At Akasha's approach, some of them do just that, stepping down from their stands as wards flare to life, sealing the doors and passages.
"...oh," Moka exclaims softly.
Although there are definite stylistic similarities, the animated armors aren't on the level of Iron Knuckles or Darknuts when it comes to skill, power, or toughness. Not one displays any comprehension of the Sword Beam technique, for a start, and Akasha is able to destroy most of them with one good hit, two if her target has a shield or manages a parry.
What they lack in individual quality, the guardians try to make up with quantity. Against a lesser opponent, it'd probably work, but they barely suffice to slow someone on Akasha's level down.
That happens when she starts running into the rooms with puzzle-locked doors, particularly the ones that are double-, triple-, or even quadruple-locked, and require her to circle back into other chambers to find the necessary keys. Every single one of those chambers seems to host a collection of traps, ranging from chandeliers that fall without warning to floors that crumble away underfoot to magical fires that roar up out of nowhere and sweep across the room.
A LOT of divine editing starts happening at that point, as the Goddesses jump-cut between chambers without showing Akasha backtracking, and speed through a few stretches besides.
"How the heck does anybody LIVE in that giant deathtrap?" Sokka demands in amazement.
"It's not usually anywhere near this bad," Navi says. "This is just what happens when the Castle's security wards are turned on." She pauses, and adds, "Some of them, anyway."
Sokka glances at the screen, where a rather frustrated-looking Akasha is dodging a laser-like beam shot from the eye of a cyclopean statue. "...only some, huh?"
"Akasha hasn't run into any actual guards," the Great Fairy points out, "let alone the Knights, battle-sorcerers, or warrior-priests that should have been called in by now. And at least some of those animated armors should be Iron Knuckles, if not Darknuts."
THAT sends a murmur through the crowd.
"...so instead of the Magical Warrior-Princess, her Magical Deathtrap Castle, AND her entire Magical Royal Army, it's just the Princess and her castle?"
"Seems so."
As that conversation is going on, you notice that Gyokuro and Issa have their heads together, and are discussing what they see in the viewing globe, occasionally pointing at some of the more flashy or exotic booby traps.
You suspect that Castle Shuzen may be in for some... interesting renovations in the not-too-distant future.
After about ten minutes in real-time, and probably three times that long in Trial-time, Akasha finally makes her way to a sort of gallery high enough up in the keep for its three stained glass windows to look down at the tower where the Princess took refuge. She's still there, calmly playing her lyre and maintaining the storm. For all the water that's fallen from the heavens in the last however long - the courtyard is flooded, the lawn looks more like a marsh, and the hedges and trees are positively sagging from all the water that's bombarded them - Zelda herself appears almost perfectly dry.
Having picked up a few spears from a display case a while back, Akasha "opens" the middle window with a certain air of catharsis, smashing aside colorful panes and ripping the steel frame free of the wood and stone around it.
Either hearing the noise or sensing Akasha's aura, no longer contained behind multiple layers of warded stone, Zelda looks up at the gallery and smiles.
"Did you enjoy my castle?" she calls out, in a musical voice that nonetheless makes your head ache to hear.
Gained Hylian F
"It's officially the third most annoying I've ever had the displeasure of visiting," Akasha retorts.
Then she raises one of her appropriated weapons, takes aim, and flings it down at her opponent.
The spear flies straight and true, Hylian steel tip and wood haft largely untroubled by the rain, particularly with Akasha's youki-enhanced strength behind it. Even so, Zelda sidesteps it, the point of the spear glancing off her defensive spells with a flash of blue and gold. Her lyre disappears in the process, replaced by the golden bow.
Akasha gets in two more shots with her stolen spears before she ducks clear of the window-
*ZA-BOOM*
-and recoils anyway as the Light Arrow blazes through the opening, smashes into the wall on the opposite side of the corridor, near the ceiling, and bursts into a rough hemisphere of white-gold energy over ten feet across. The detonation shatters the remaining windows, but when the dazzling flash has cleared, there's no other damage, only a fading golden haze hanging in the air.
Muttering to herself in a language you don't recognize, but would venture is not being used politely, Akasha summons up a new weapon from her blood, creating her own bow and arrows - black, traced with glowing red lines that don't immediately appear to be runes or other symbols of mystical significance, but which nonetheless give the impression of power.
The Song of Storms having ended, the rain has ceased, and the clouds are starting to break up. This means that Akasha's blood-arrows are in no danger of melting before they reach their target - though considering how much power a bow built to handle vampiric strength can get behind it, and the resulting speed of Akasha's shots, that might not have been an issue regardless.
The duel of archery echoes the previous exchange of Light Arrows and thrown explosives. Zelda has the more powerful weapon and is arguably the more skilled markswoman, but Akasha can get more attacks in the air - she seems to average between two and three shots for every Light Arrow - and their explosive nature more than makes up for any lack of accuracy.
The tower's wards do their best, but under the focused fire of a Dark Lord's... considerable vexation, if not precisely wrath, they eventually start to flicker.
Zelda gets off one more shot before teleporting away from her vantage point, which has a rather large hole blown through its battlements a moment later.
"Has to be the second most annoying princess ever," Akasha mutters, eyeing the broken windows and the small stone ledge outside, as if considering jumping or flying out.
"Who was the first?" Gyokuro wonders in amazement. "And what did she DO that tops all of THAT?"
"I have no idea," Issa admits, in much the same tone.
What follows the archery duel is a game of cat-and-mouse, as Akasha and Zelda hunt each other all through the castle: the princess passing over, around, and/or through the various traps like they aren't even there; and Akasha having to deal with all the annoyances in full, however minor they may be to her.
Zelda clearly knows the terrain better, and combined with her recognition of and by the magical security, and a little bit of teleportation here and there, this lets her set up a couple ambushes. The problem is that she needs a couple of seconds to charge up the Light Arrows before she can fire them, and while she can hold such a charge for a time, she can't seem to do so indefinitely.
Given how fast Akasha can react and move, a couple of seconds is time enough for her to get out of the way, or get something else IN the way, like a convenient wall.
In addition, while she doesn't seem to have Gyokuro's level of sensory perception, Akasha is still a vampire. While you haven't exactly done a detailed scientific analysis, a year of association with the Shuzens has given you some idea of how much more acute their various senses are than a human's, to the point where you usually take a quick shower or use the Spell of Prestidigitation to clean yourself off before visiting, and certainly after working up a sweat in all those spars.
The holy energy, mundane light, and shimmering hum given off by a Light Arrow is hard to mistake for anything else, and each time Akasha encounters that aura and DOESN'T get purified, she gains a little bit more familiarity with its subtleties.
This level of intensity means Zelda just started powering up the attack, and Akasha has time to get off an attack of her own - or a series of them - while moving to cover.
*BOOM*
*BOOM*
*BOOM*
*BOOM*
*ZA-BOOM*
That level means Zelda's about halfway through charging her next shot, so getting to cover is probably the best idea-
*BOOM*
-though she could get ONE attack off in the process.
*ZA-BOOM*
That level means she needs to dodge RIGHT NOW.
*ZA-BOOM*
And so on.
It's the same for reading Zelda's aura and actions, though the Princess of Hyrule is also figuring out more and more of Akasha's tells in turn.
Although Hyrule Castle's interior is warded against damage, and the stone walls every bit as solidly-reinforced as the overt fortifications outside, the interior decor is another story. The protective spells do their best, but as more and more Light Arrows and "Blood Arrows" flash back and forth, the place starts to look like a disaster area.
Upholstery bursts, filling the air with burnt feathers and scraps of fabric.
Wooden panels and furnishings explode into clouds of splinters - and if Zelda's dress wasn't as heavily enchanted as it is, or Akasha armored in turn and capable of such crazy regeneration, they'd both look like they'd been mauled by porcupines.
Paintings are burnt to ash; glass, crystal, and pottery shattered; and even the hardier metallic conversation pieces end up sporting interesting new dents and holes blown through them, where they aren't rent asunder.
Another ten minutes pass this way on the outside, but how long it's been for the two combatants, only they and the Goddesses know for sure. There was a lot of editing going on, long periods of Akasha and Zelda stalking each other on the "split-screen" globe compressed into a few seconds or just cut out entirely, so that one of them enters a room where the other was already laying in wait, and things start blowing up.
At various points, Zelda foregoes the Light Arrows in favor of casting spells, but Akasha reveals a new facet to her incredible resilience and bulls her way through many of these spells, youki aura visibly crackling and tearing at the energies involved. Fire, lightning, thunder, even a bolt of dark energy you recognize as the Spell of Enervation; Zelda runs through every element's direct offensive uses, and a bevy of indirect ones whose purposes you can't be entirely certain of, and Akasha shrugs off just about everything that isn't based on Water or Light Magic.
You catch all four of the Shuzen girls watching this display of spell resistance with EXTREME interest, the three youngest casting considering looks your way during or afterwards.
If you relied on direct blasts and debuffs to win your spars with them, you might be worried by that.
...though you do wonder how your various Power-based skills will react to such a defense...
In the end, the battle goes the same way that so many past encounters between Hyrule's Royal Family and invading Dark Lords have. Zelda puts up a hell of a fight, especially compared to some of her less warlike incarnations, but being the Chosen of Wisdom doesn't give her the kind of direct boost to her fighting potential that Power or Courage do. Even with the soul of a goddess, there's only so much mana that her mortal body can channel before it starts wearing out, and as that fatigue builds, it starts to take a toll on her performance.
Light Arrows take just a second longer to charge, and are a finger's breadth off-target.
The "moment" of disorientation following that whirling teleport is more like two moments, and includes a brief spot of dizziness besides.
Reactions in general are a little slower.
And all the while, Akasha doesn't slow down at all. If anything, now that her opponent is showing signs of weakness, she intensifies her offensive, firing off more arrows and getting closer to the Princess, pushing Zelda harder and harder.
At last, in the throne room, comes the final confrontation. It's with trembling fingers that Zelda draws back on her bow, and the Light Arrow that appears in response flickers. When Akasha's arrows start exploding around her, Zelda is staggered enough to lose her focus, and the golden projectile dissolves back into particles of pure Light, which fade away to nothing.
Akasha charges in-
!
-and with a final cry of defiance, Zelda raises her right hand before her, fingers spread wide as a golden glow emanates from the back of her hand.
For a brief instant, divine energy fills the entire throne room as a large golden triangle appears in the air before her.
As Gyokuro did upon seeing the very first (and in her case, final) Light Arrow, Akasha flinches at the sight - and the feel - of the Golden Power, but she doesn't stop.
And before Zelda can finish whatever it is that she's trying to do with the manifestation of the Triforce of Wisdom, Akasha slams into her and drags her the rest of the way across the room, slamming her into her throne.
The Triforce winks out, and the two women stand - or sit there - red eyes staring down at blue.
"Are we done?" Akasha asks, armored left arm braced across Zelda's shoulders, right hand raised and ready to strike, knife-like, at her throat.
Zelda sighs, and wordlessly nods.
"Good."
And then Akasha smiles, releases Zelda, and helps the Princess back to her feet.
Chosen of Wisdom or not, Zelda clearly has no idea what to make of that.
Don't feel too bad about it, Princess.
But she does say, "Thank you," even if it does come out sounding kind of confused.
Yeah, she's probably the nicest Dark Lord any of us are ever going to meet.
With the Fifth Round having run rather long, Akasha proceeds to her Sixth Trial without delay - or at least none that the Goddesses show the audience.
Still wearing her armor, but with her conjured bow absent, Akasha now stands in a room that could be somewhere in Hyrule Castle, if not for the vaguely menacing decor. The stone is dark rather than bright white, and more of it has been left exposed than in the royal palace; the stained glass panes in the four windows - two in the wall to her right, two in the wall opposite - are mostly in shades of dark purple and red, giving what light penetrates them from outside an unpleasant hue; and while the carpet is a reasonable shade of green, there's something sinister about the circular crest sewn into the material.
It's probably the staring eye.
Things are not exactly helped by the fact that the flames which provide the bulk of the light in the room - two small torches flanking the doors in the "north" and "south" walls, with larger braziers about halfway between them and the "east" or "west" walls - burn an unnatural shade of green.
A visible aura of darkness appears on the far side of the room from Akasha, first as a widespread, wavering cloud, which quickly coalesces into a humanoid figure. He wears the purple cloak of a sorcerer over a pale violet tunic, a gold-linked ruby-buckled belt, and red breeches that cut off below the knee. On his head rests a long cap - banded by gold inset with a single large ruby at the front, mirroring the belt below - and from beneath it descends a long flow of pale hair, in a shade that verges on white but is just a bit too violet to pass. Most of the sorcerer's hair falls down and around his shoulders, parted only by his distinctly Hylian ears - though overall, the man is on the short side for that people, to the point where Akasha could rest her chin on his cap, if either of them were inclined to get that close to each other - but a thick fringe juts down and to the right, hiding nearly half of the sharp, sallow face.
The left eye, nearly as red as a vampire's, shines brightly.
THE WIND MAGE: VAATI
Akasha is not the sort of person to judge someone by their size, and proves as much by going straight for the throat of her latest opponent as soon as he's finished materializing-
"Heh heh heh!"
-but Vaati responds by raising one arm and summoning a powerful gust of wind that blows Akasha back the way she came.
Compared to the fight with Zelda, the following battle is surprisingly brief. Vaati moves around the chamber through a combination of flight and teleporting, using powerful blasts of wind to throw Akasha around and corrosive blasts of Dark Magic to attack directly. He's not limited to those two elements, mixing them up with other attacks and effects just as Zelda did as he probes for a weakness - and when the Wind Mage realizes Akasha is vulnerable to Water Magic, he starts using that almost exclusively.
The rug gets rather soaked towards the end of it.
Despite all of that, Vaati only has so much room to work with in this one chamber, and there's nowhere he can go - not even hovering near the ceiling, which he DOES try - that puts him beyond Akasha's reach. Nor do any of his attacks do enough damage to overcome the Dark Lord's incredible regeneration - that is, when they even manage to physically CONNECT, much less penetrate her magic resistance. Light Magic seems to be the one element that Vaati DOESN'T have up his sleeve - which is understandable, given his prodigious use of Dark Magic - and by the time he figures out that Water Magic works almost as well, Akasha has already bounced him off the walls too many times.
The sorcerer's robes are at least as heavily warded against harm as Zelda's dress was, but against a living vampire, Mage Armor and its ilk can only absorb so much punishment-
"Heh heh heh heh!"
-but even as his defenses fail, the Wind Mage is still chuckling in dark amusement.
Before Akasha can deliver a final blow, Vaati raises both arms above his head, causing his body to darken, distort, and ultimately transform into a new and more menacing shape. Twice as tall as before, he looms over the armored vampire, his simple cap transformed into a horned crown, while his robe has grown longer, fuller, and more ornate - and also appears to be half made of smoke, and half on fire.
VAATI REBORN
This stage of the battle echoes the first, as Vaati hovers around the room, unleashing a variety of ranged magical attacks: barrages of fireballs that spread out in all directions, the flames clinging unnaturally to whatever they hit; singular blasts of coherent darkness that dissolve matter on contact; free-floating eyeballs - ew! - that circle him like a living barrier, periodically blasting away with lasers; and of course, high-pressure jets of water that slash through the stone of the increasingly-damaged room. Vaati's magic seems stronger in this state, with about half of his spells overcoming Akasha's resistance.
One of those is a Spell of Slowness, as the Carock used to catch Gyokuro, but as this brings Akasha's even greater speed down to roughly normal vampiric levels, it's not quite the success it could have been.
Initially ignoring those floating eyes except to avoid whatever they're shooting at the moment, Akasha closes with Vaati to resume taking him apart directly, only for her strikes to pass through the sorcerer's form like it isn't even there.
That startles you a bit. You know that the Spell of Gaseous Form - something you'd expect a titled "Wind Mage" to know quite well - can make the target highly resistant to mundane sources of physical harm; you're likewise aware that ghosts and other incorporeal monsters enjoy similar protection. At the same time, you also know that magical weapons can overcome that sort of defense - and while Akasha's youki-empowered fists aren't strictly magical, in this particular instance, they're close enough that you should be seeing some kind of reaction from Vaati.
The Wind Mage merely laughs again and disappears in a blink, moving to a different spot of the room and unleashing criss-crossing water-blasts from his orbiting eyes.
Even as Akasha loses a pauldron to one of those scything jets, she conjures up her sword again and moves to see if that has a different effect on the sorcerer than her hands did.
It does, and it doesn't. Vaati himself is no more affected by the blade than he was by the hand that wields it, but the mostly-horizontal slash carries the edge of the blade out of the sorcerer's body and into the orbit of the eyes - one of which is cut by and recoils from the sword.
Given a set of targets she can actually damage, it takes Akasha mere seconds to cut them all down. Doing so seems to break whatever defense Vaati had up, or at least disrupt it, because as the sundered halves of the last eye drop to the floor, the Wind Mage staggers, cloak parting-
!
-to reveal yet another giant, staring red eye where his lower body should be. This one opens horizontally rather than vertically, because why not?
It's still staring around, as if trying to get its bearings, when Akasha drives the point of her sword into the iris - or tries to, as this time she encounters the familiar resistance of more conventional magical barriers. A flurry of blows doesn't manage to take them down before Vaati teleports again, but the recoil does knock him back.
When the sorcerer summons his orbiting weapons array again, the eyes are wreathed in small clouds of that corrosive black mist. It has no effect on the floating spheres themselves, but when Akasha's sword comes into contact with the stuff, there is a sudden, fierce hissing; when she pulls the blade back, the metal is steaming, bubbling, and corroded, and no damage appears to have been done to the eye within the murk.
Akasha deals with that by transforming her off-hand into a wing, and sweeping it at the eyes to create a little wind of her own.
The dark mist clings to the objects it's intended to protect, but the sail of Akasha's wing catches a fair amount of air, and her strength gets it all moving at considerable speed; three good sweeps in rapid succession is all it takes to clear the air for the nearest eye, at which point her damaged sword has no trouble cutting it down.
Vaati hisses at that, and casts another, fairly focus-intensive spell that punches through Akasha's resistance-
!
-hits her sword when she raises it to block, and transforms the entire weapon to stone, rapidly spreading to the hand holding it!
Akasha swings her wing across her sword-arm just above the elbow, the suddenly-sharp edge of the sail severing the cursed forelimb before Vaati's Spell of Petrification can spread beyond it.
The Wind Mage's eyes - all seven of them that he has at the moment - blink in synchronized shock at that.
He's still staring when Akasha regenerates the arm as another wing, spreads both such limbs as wide as possible, and sweeps them forward, blowing all the black mist to the far side of the room.
Vaati teleports again in the middle of it, but when he reappears, his orbiting eyes are still clear of their deadly protective clouds.
Akasha doesn't give him time to renew that protection, tearing all four orbs to shreds and then closing to do the same to the sorcerer himself.
Vaati is still laughing as he explodes with a flash that whites out the viewing globe.
"I must commend you, miss," he declares, as the light fades to reveal a much larger and emptier chamber. "You have some fight in you."
Gained Picori F
"Let me guess," Akasha sighs, as her wings become arms again, one of them carrying a sword. "This is where you boast about your power and turn into your 'true form?'"
The sorcerer reappears, regarding her quizzically. "You've done this before."
Akasha nods. "Fairly recently, at that."
"...I'll skip the usual banter, then. BEHOLD!"
And then he transforms again.
Vaati's third form is a floating orb some ten feet across, seemingly composed of a dark, purplish metal. The horns of his "crown" have grown into the arms of a roughly crescent-shaped crest at the top of the body. Directly below them is a huge eye as big as Akasha, red pupil within black iris within red sclera, lined with gold almost like some kind of Egyptian artifact. Darkness clings to the entire mass, and from out of it emerge eight smaller spheres, ringing the main body at a distance of about a foot.
VAATI TRANSFIGURED
"This guy's like a Dragon Quest endboss," Ichigo observes.
Wreathed in that cloud of darkness as it is, Vaati's current form is both largely invulnerable, and a deadly threat. He makes use of the latter by pursuing Akasha around the chamber, trying to slam into her.
Given her speed and the slow, almost lurching pace of his levitation, that doesn't work out too well for him, but the black aura is far from his only method of attack.
Energy periodically gathers along the crest atop Vaati's spherical body, shooting forth in omnidirectional elemental barrages. Sometimes, the projectiles are manifestations of Earth Magic, dark purple crystals that remind you a bit of the material you've seen Beryl conjure for her battles-
That thought makes you look around, but Beryl and Cecilia haven't returned to the Ring. At this point, you figure they're deliberately staying away until all the fighting is over, and the chance of seeing any more monsters with unnecessarily large or disturbingly placed eyes is gone.
-and which exhibit sudden, explosive growth whenever they hit a solid surface, leaving behind starburst-shaped clusters of spiky menace to clutter the battlefield and get in Akasha's way. Even when she smashes them with her sword, the broken fragments linger, posing a small but ever-increasing hazard.
At other times, Vaati's attacks manifest as coherent spheres of crackling plasma, roughly akin to ball lightning. He doesn't appear to be able to guide these in any meaningful way, which definitely contributes to Akasha's success at evading them - though as the chamber gets more cluttered with dark crystal and the broken bits thereof, she starts having some trouble with that.
On the other hand, the spray of glittering shrapnel that ensues whenever an electrical orb smashes into one of the crystal growths and blows it to pieces is much harder to avoid, even for a vampire. The resulting cuts aren't deep, and Akasha's regeneration heals them as quickly as they're made, but they're a problem all the same.
And of course, having discovered Akasha's aversion to Water Magic, Vaati doesn't stop using it. Some of the "crystals" scattered around the room are ice, which is problematic when THOSE formations are the ones that get blown to smithereens by lightning. Some of those fragments, flash-heated by the lightning, hit Akasha as water instead, and while others are still frozen, she has to pull them out before her body heat melts them - earning a few prickling shocks in the process anyway.
Even that is less of an issue than the shimmering, not-quite-spherical masses of water that Vaati sends flying around the room. Each one is nearly as big as Akasha's torso, and when they burst on the floor, walls, or ceiling, the resulting puddles only further her navigational problems.
Corrosive aura aside, though, Vaati's attacks are not continuous. There's enough of a pause in between each elemental bombardment for Akasha to respond in some manner, and she doesn't waste any chance to do so.
Not all of Vaati's body is enveloped by his deadly aura; the orbit of the smaller spheres carries them slightly beyond the edges of the cloud, so that only wispy grey tendrils cover their outermost faces. Akasha makes a few probing attacks on those with her sword, to inconclusive results. Her blade takes no real damage from the outer edge of the mist, but Vaati takes no more than scratches in return, if even that.
Akasha's next move is to throw her sword at the warped Wind Mage, and cause it to explode on impact.
In spite of his lack of anything resembling a mouth, Vaati manages to roar as his body reels back from the force of the blast, but the black haze surrounding him isn't dissipated or disrupted. That tells you it's not a gas or vapor like the clouds that protected Vaati's barrier-generating orbiters in the previous phase of the battle; it's something more ethereal, possibly even Vaati's own magical aura, somehow weaponized.
The thick cloud makes it difficult to see what physical effect Akasha's explosive arrow had on Vaati, but after a moment, you can see that one of the orbiters has turned around-
Oh, come on!
-revealing a much smaller red eye, which stares balefully in her direction-
*BA-WEEEEM*
-before it starts shooting laser-like blasts at her, similar to the barrier of floating eyes Vaati's previous form employed.
Akasha brings out her bow, and returns fire.
*BOOM*
*BOOM*
*BOOM*
*BA-WEEEEM*
*BA-WEEEEM*
Some facts emerge from the exchange.
Point the First: Hitting one of Vaati's drones with an arrow will make it turn around. And it has to be the ARROW, not the accompanying explosion; at a guess, the Wind Mage's unrestrained aura is powerful enough to muffle the youki-based blasts, whereas when that same power is still concentrated into a single object and has Akasha's strength behind it, it can punch through.
Point the Second: Vaati's current set of eyeball orbiters either can't or just won't use the sort of continuous beams his last form's batch did. They're sticking to short, focused bursts instead - there and gone, appropriately enough, in the blink of an eye. This isn't entirely detrimental, as the spheres can charge these attacks more rapidly, and as Akasha strikes more of their neighbors and forces them to reveal their eyes as well, the number of rays she has to avoid increases considerably.
Point the Third: Hitting one of the revealed eyes with a second arrow - and again, it needs to be the ARROW - causes it to hide itself once more. The hits do appear to hurt the eyes, but the damage also heals very quickly. Akasha tests this by deliberately singling out one of the orbiters and shooting it three times in a row, leaving just enough of a pause between arrows for the eye to finish turning around.
*THOCK*
No explosion this time, as the struck sphere turns around to glare at the vampire-
*THOCK*
-only to take a second arrow to the sclera, which makes it turn back around-
*THOCK*
-and so take the final shot to its "back," which makes it rotate around to glare at Akasha once more. There's no hole, no blood, not even a visible scratch.
*THOCKABOOM*
Point the Fourth: Shooting an exposed eye and detonating the arrow while it's still partly inside the target CAN destroy it, but this doesn't seem to harm Vaati, who restores the lesser parts of his body within a few seconds. Sometimes, the blast doesn't even completely destroy the drone.
Point the Fifth: Vaati only seems to be able to manifest four lesser eyes in total. The remaining orbiters are just blank spheres, incapable of attack, and apparently only there to draw attention and fire away from the eyes - which suggests that those really are this form's weak-point.
Akasha takes all of that into consideration, and then notches two arrows at once.
*THOCKABOOM-BOOM*
Her aim is off, but she still manages to take out two of the eyes with "one" shot.
Vaati's regeneration is a little slower that time, and thereafter, he speeds up the spin of his little constellation, making the eyes harder to hit.
Akasha smiles-
The image in the scrying field skips ahead, that image of the Triforce and the variously shocked, disgusted, and laughing tiny Goddesses briefly appearing again.
-and suddenly, there are four bow-wielding Dark Lords facing down Vaati.
The Wind Mage lets out a distorted, inhuman sound that is nonetheless recognizable as a groan of frustration.
Akasha's arrows drive home and blow their targets to pieces nigh-simultaneously.
*THOCKABOOM*
*CRASH*
The sound as Vaati's main body hits the floor carries a definite metallic overtone-
*THOCKABOOM*
-though any subsequent clanging is drowned out by the four-point explosive harmony.
When the flash clears, Akasha is alone with herself (and her other self, and her other, other self) in the room.
"I thought for SURE I had you when I saw that you didn't have that damned Four Sword," Vaati growls from nowhere.
Gained Picori F (Plus)
"He's STILL not dead?" Tatsuki exclaims.
"But this time, there'll be no escape! UUUUWOOOOAAAAHHHH!"
The heavily-damaged, debris-strewn chamber where the battles against Vaati's previous forms played out vanishes, and is replaced by a large, open stone stage that appears to be floating in an empty space. The four Akashas take one look at that not-quite-void and immediately start growing wings - though you notice that one of them is slower at this than the others, her wings forming in fits and starts.
You wince, rubbing your chest sympathetically.
Then Vaati reappears. His newest form resembles the core of his previous one, though it's considerably larger - at least fifteen feet across in all directions - its crescent horn and menacing eye larger and more heavily adorned with gold. The previously dark purple metallic material of the body has shifted to a writhing blackness that almost looks like pure condensed energy.
Huge arms extend on opposite sides of the sphere, each ending in a gold-banded wrist, from which jut three heavy golden claws. A cluster of four eye-spheres - all closed - manifest beneath the main body, vaguely resembling a belt or a necklace.
VAATI'S WRATH
"How many forms does he HAVE?" Moka demands.
"This should be the last one," Navi assures her.
"It had better be," the girl huffs, offended on her mother's behalf by this particular choice of opponent.
