Into the Legend of Zelda

|Chapter 44: Nameless Evil|

So Ganon the monster was flying above us. And yes, I did say flying. He had developed a huge pair of batlike wings and was waiting in the air right over our heads.

Before we could do much more than gawk at this unexpected development, the monster swooped down on us. His clawed hands and feet slashed at us while his new fangs glinted in a wicked smile.

Link and I managed to hold him off fairly well for a little while, but it was getting harder and harder by the minute. He had the advantage, being able to fly. We just couldn't keep up with him.

He was wearing us down. We wouldn't last much longer. We prepared for what we thought would be the final blow.

But it never came.

Ganon landed with a thump at our feet. In front of our very eyes, he slowly dissolved to nothing but a black curl of smoke.

I was dumbstruck. What the heck just happened here? He couldn't have just randomly died, could he?

No, no, of course not.

While we had been focusing on Ganon, a man had come into the room. He was apparently the one who had killed Ganon, since Link and I didn't really do anything. He was also the man from my nightmares, the man with the red, green, and yellow eyes, the man who created the disease.

"Hello, heroes," he said in a deep voice that suited his size. He was pretty big. Very tall and quite wide. Like a wall.

Neither Link nor I answered him. We stood tensely, waiting for him to attack. He was not Ganondorf. He was unpredictable. Therefore, he was much more dangerous.

"I have been watching you tear through all my precautions as if it was easy to do so," the big man said, seeming to ignore our silence. "Why, you even defeated yourselves!" He chuckled here, not fazed in the least about our success rate. He was oozing confidence.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Link shift his grip on his sword. He also shuffled his shield ever so slightly. He was ready to fight.

Meanwhile, I was shaking. I looked down at the sword that I still held in my hand and watched it sway back and forth. Not a good sign.

"Even Ganondorf was having trouble with you!" he exclaimed in his deep voice. "Though I admit he was arrogant and was holding a grudge."

Link's brow furrowed in confusion. He must not understand why Ganondorf is holding a grudge. It was interesting to see this in action. In almost all the Zelda games, they'd had a different Link. Not a relative, but maybe some sort of reincarnation. And of course, there were legends of the previous Link, but the current Link didn't usually have extensive knowledge of them.

"He could have been so much stronger if he wasn't so focused on a defeat that was as crushing as it could be," the creator of the disease continued.

I saw Link shoot a glance my way. He probably suspected that I knew what this guy was talking about, and he was right.

"But I will not make the same mistake," said the deep voice. "You are simply annoying pests and you need to be removed. Taking care of you myself was not in my plans, of course, but what can I say? You are especially annoying pests. Vermin, even."

A ball of green energy started to form in his hand and he flung it at us.

We dodged, of course. The ball hit the floor where we'd been standing with a splat and started smoking. It was probably acidic, eating through the floor.

I stared at it in shock. I had just been standing right there two seconds ago. I would be dead now if I hadn't moved.

A voice broke me out of my stupor.

"Heidi! MOVE!" Link shouted.

I looked up to see another acid ball flying toward me. I jumped out of the way, but not quite fast enough. Part of the acid ball touched my ponytail; I could hear my hair sizzling. It stayed in the ponytail though, so it couldn't have gotten too short.

In the meantime, Link was dodging another acid ball that our nameless enemy had fired at him.

The man didn't have any immediately apparent weaknesses. There was no scar, no tail, no sensitive area surrounded by spikes. He was as much a mystery to me as he was to Link. It was beginning to look like we'd have to actually work to figure out how to beat this guy.

So we kept dodging the acid orbs and the evil guy kept flinging them at us. He was laughing as he watched us. We must have looked pretty amusing as we jumped around, trying to stay out of his way while trying to figure out how to defeat him.

But, he eventually got bored. We kept dodging his acid and weren't having many close calls, so this tactic obviously wasn't working.

He switched to a sword.

He held it confidently in his right hand and swung it a couple times. As he did so, a yellow fluid seemed to condense on the sword in little dew-like droplets. The liquid reminded me of what I had deemed "the goo," the stuff that always oozed from the sores of those with the disease. It was coating the blade of the sword until the whole thing was covered in wet, yellow pus.

I wrinkled my nose at the now thoroughly disgusting sword. Please tell me he's not going to come anywhere near me with that thing.

To my absolute horror and disgust, I was the first one he came near with that thing. Oh no, let's not go over to Link, who we're sure will put up a good fight! Let's go over to that girl instead! We've never heard of her; she can't be any good at fighting, and just look at the way she's looking at the sword!

Ugh.

The evil man was grinning as he approached, calmly holding the sword at his side. He looked like he had no intention of attacking. But of course, I knew better than that.

I tightened my grip on my sword and got myself ready to either attack or defend.

Meanwhile, Mr. Creator-of-the-disease continued to advance toward me. His mouth was stretched even more in his broad, evil grin and his sword looked a little readier now than it had been.

He raised it above his head, getting ready to strike me. I watched the sword carefully, preparing to either parry or dodge his blow, depending.

He brought the sword down so fast that I didn't have time to even see clearly what he was doing, let alone react.

I squeezed my eyes shut, fully prepared to have my body chopped in half by his sword. But the blow never came.

I opened my eyes to see that a barrier of golden light had surrounded me. The unnamed evil was standing there in shock, his sword resting against the shield that was now protecting my head. When I glanced at Link, he looked just as shocked.

What. The. Heck just happened here?

I looked all around, up, left, right, down. Down.

Something was glowing. I could see it through the fabric of my dress.

I touched the spot carefully; some part of me was afraid it would be hot. But it wasn't, and I suddenly knew what was glowing.

The winged triforce. I had been wearing it so long without using it that I forgot I even had it.

I looked back and forth from the necklace to my enemy. It was protecting me. It was keeping him from striking me. Now, how could I use that to my advantage?

I pulled the necklace off my head and wrapped it around the hilt of my sword. The evil guy had lowered his sword and seemed to be pretty caught up in thought, so I took a swing at him.

The barrier popped up before my sword even got within a foot of him.

The bad guy arched one of his eyebrows and smirked. Not good.

"So, it seems that we have reached a stalemate. I can't touch you and you can't touch me. My, my."

Suddenly, he was standing next to Link. He had somehow gotten over there without me even seeing him move. Ridiculously, the phrase "fastest in the west" popped into my head.

But Link had apparently followed his movement, for his shield was blocking the man's sword.

"Hmmm. Faster than I thought," the evil guy commented.

I really wished he would tell us his name already. Calling him "the evil guy" and other similar nicknames was starting to get annoying.

Link and the evil guy (ugh) clashed swords back and forth for a little bit. Every time the bad guy's sword caught anything other than Link's sword or shield, the goo ate away at it. Link now had several holes in his tunic - and even his hat - where the bad guy's sword had touched him.

Meanwhile, I tried to think of something that could hurt this guy. I thought that the winged triforce had to have something to do with it. If it could put a shield around me, it should be able to cause some damage, at least in my opinion.

But really, what kind of powers did the thing have? The only things we'd used it for were finding Hyrule and healing things with the disease.

Wait a second.

Didn't this guy's sword practically have the disease? I mean, it had the goo. And maybe if we could "cure" it of the disease, I'd be able get near the evil guy again. And maybe, while we were at it, we could "cure" the evil guy as well. It could work!

It was likely to work!

I ran over to where Link and the bad guy were fighting, placing myself between the two. The bad guy's sword bounced of the golden barrier that appeared when it came near me and he growled.

"Heidi, what are you doing?!" Link hissed from behind me.

"Play the healing song!" I demanded.

"What?"

"Just play it! Trust me, okay?"

Moments later, the sound of the healing song filled my ears. Link remained right behind me as he played and I did my best to stay between him and the bad guy, moving my sword (with the winged triforce still attached) back and forth whenever he moved.

I watched as the goo seemed to melt off the bad guy's sword. Also, he had given up trying to get past me and was now holding his hands against his ears, trying to keep the sound of the song out of his brain, apparently.

So, like any good hero, I took this awesome chance and started hacking at his sorry self.

But, once Link finished the song, I had to stop. There was still no goo on the bad guy's sword, so the winged triforce couldn't really help me out so much anymore. At least, not until Link started playing the song again, since the triforce was needed for it to have any affect at all.

The bad guy removed his hands from his ears and gripped his sword again. He wasted no time in trying to cut Link's arm off.

But Link dodged him, thank goodness.

The coating of yellow pus was forming on the sword again, so it was about time for me to step in.

I stood in the way of the bad guy once more as Link played the song again. While the guy was covering his ears, I attacked him again.

We repeated this process once more, and that's when the guy completely gave up his sword.

Out of the same disgusting stuff he had coated his sword with, he now made armor. He was covered head to toe in the nauseating liquid, and he was laughing. Gross! What if some of that stuff got in his mouth?! Ew!

He lunged at us, acting more like an animal than a man. The goo had completely coated him, and, as an extra special bonus, had given him claws. Yay. I wonder how many box tops he had to send in for those.

Link and I dodged him as best we could, but it wasn't so easy. His new armor seemed to have increased his speed as well. We were falling behind.

After a while of dodging, I noticed that Link was shouting at me.

"What?" I called back.

"Is the triforce still on your sword?" he asked, grunting as he narrowly avoided an attack.

"Yeah!" I replied.

Link directed my attention to the pocket on his utility belt where he kept the pearl ocarina and tilted his head at the evil guy. Obviously, he was going to try playing the song again and he needed me to keep the guy busy. Easy enough.

I dove toward the evil guy, wrinkling my nose at his repulsive armor, and proceeded to distract him to the best of my abilities.

The healing song was heard again, and all of the sudden, the bad guy's armor was melting off of him. He clutched his hands (claws, actually) to his ears and roared in pain. Apparently, it hurt to have that armor melting off.

My sword was glowing. The light from the winged triforce had encased it and it was glowing. I had a feeling that this would be the final blow.

With all my strength, I shoved my sword through the heart of the nameless evil.

He didn't even make a sound as he fell to the floor, dead. Moments later, he dissolved, leaving nothing behind.