Evening of Wednesday, June 19, 2019 (comprised of many
raw note editings from May 1 through May 10, 2023 that I really hope sound
consistent because I left it alone for too long) ~ 2
The Abomination
All right, up from the Library, out the upper exit, a run past the Guardian, dodging an attack, under the pillarway, scaling the wall—required slightly more Stamina than I had....
But I made it to the top.
....
I am going into the Sanctum now.
That room. That broad, round room with many entrances encompassing, tiled and pillared and ramped and balconied and hung with crimson banners and run with crimson carpets within, no doubt so stately and handsome once, all reddened under the rupturing sky.
That room with the pulsating thing clung onto the ceiling, like one of Naydra’s gigantic Malice Eyeballs.
That room from which I had so desperately fled before.
I stepped into it now.
And I stepped further.
And further....
Mercy, Game, when would you just take me and—
Ah.... There was the blackout at last....
The visuals came back unmercifully focused on that.... thing. That ball, that orb, that wiggling, pulsing abomination, rooted to the ceiling by unholy burning tendrils, sapping who knew what life from the very stone. Its globular, blood-colored surface, bound in by sickly-looking iterations of the ancient Sheikah constellation motifs, constricted and recoiled with a slushing sound.... and then the light came.
Golden Light, ringing like a bell, beamed from the center of the mass, while the raging sky silently blew glowing hot fire and hell beyond the high windows.
I stood near the center, eyes cast upward and trained on the demonthing—
A muffled sound—
“...
Link...
Link.”
Zelda.
“I’m sorry...but my power isn’t strong enough...”
She sounded strained.
“I can’t hold him...”—A darkening, another slursh—and a LASER EXPLODED FROM THE GLOBE—bright, blinding, shrieking, it cast about so quickly, violently, stone and pillars crumbling and flaming and smoking in a ruinous wake behind its frenetic trail about the chamber—again—again—
I barely had time to react, casting up two warding forearms as the beams sliced through the stone about my feet—but it never hit me—
A second of silence, and then—more controlled this time—an entire array of penetrating lasers seemed to come from within, swirling smoothly around the globe’s surface in efficient, sweeping arcs—and then their light finally dimmed as well, as smoke poured from the sickly Sheikah stars—
I looked up from behind my warding hands.
My help—Hyrule’s help—was exhausted.
With a final obscene wriggling and gurgling, the pulsating sac ruptured with an almighty SPLURT—dark liquid exploded from within, raining putrid globlets to the floor with a gelatinous splattering—and a form—some incomprehensible, monstrous form—fell out like an unholy birth, crashing onto the stones below—the stones that were cracked and fissured by the lasers—
The dust of a hundred years had sprung up at the impact, obscuring the thing almost immediately—now the floor began to buckle under its weight with a cracking, a rumbling, a grinding and grating—
I only caught a glimpse of it for a second: a flash, a streak of red, like hair—something long and gangling—
The floor dropped out.
And I fell with it.
Stones and rubble and debris and rocks.... Plummeting, plummeting—what was this shaft?
The monster rhooshed into the yawning dimness below, still unmoving, still limp, still nondescript in the dust and rubble, I only a heartbeat behind and above it, stones big as horse-stalls raining down around my head—
The tubular tunnel opened at last onto an immense half-dome chamber, its sectioned ceiling splayed with a heaven of Sheikah constellations.... but all still stained so blood-magenta red....
The monster dropped through and slammed into the final floor.... and at last began to move.
Peeking through the smoke and the dust as it rose, as it turned and roiled....
Oh gosh what is he, what is this monstrosity—what—I don’t—what—
Strong arm. Flaming blade. Legs. Spider legs.
I had caught myself—my paraglider—I was coming down now—there was nowhere else to go—
The demon turned in the darkness. Insect-like. Spider-like. Mismatched—Cobbled—A perverse mutation—A sick amalgamation of all that Ganon’s Malice had consumed—
I touched down and skidded coolly to a ready halt.
Blue blades, Guardian legs. Stomp went one foot.
Hair. Mane. Abdomen like a vinegaroon. MORE legs. HAND?
It turned....
Head....
Skull-like....
A man’s face?
LOOKING—AT—ME.
The demon reared—
So many grabbing, flailing arms.
Scourge of Hyrule Castle
CALAMITY GANON
We faced one another....
....as the scene blacked out—
But....
As the demon’s apocalyptic choir hung onto its dark caesura.... elsewhere a clarion bell rang out. The orchestra’s strings swelled in Revali’s teal glow where he perched in sleepless vigilance atop Vah Medoh—
The Champions!!
“Now my moment has finally come,” the rapier twirled as Revali threw out one wing-arm. “Brace yourself, Ganon, for the sting of my revenge!”
And Vah Medoh BLASTED the mind-bogglingly powerful laser it had been keeping trained upon the demon for this very moment—the blue-white, all-destroying column shaking the earth as it bored through the skies—all melting into white—
“This will be our final opportunity.” Mipha’s hands were gently clasped as she stood serene and beautiful on Vah Ruta. “We will not fail!” Her voice actually cracked as she thrust her arms forward—
Vah Ruta likewise emitted a bolt of such devastating power.... What on earth could withstand....? So blinding.... so blinding....
“Let’s go, little guy!” Daruk POUNDED his mighty fists together. “Now! Open up wide, Ganon!”
Vah Rudania blasted the air from its entire, open, flowered head. The center of the beam.... blacking out.... as though it were all too much and so bright that it had clipped the game’s camera.
“A hundred years in the making...” Urbosa stood cool as ever. Collected. Her waiting was over. “Hold on, Princess.” She didn’t even take the weight from her hip, but only extended her arm, her fingers ready to snap—“Our moment has arrived!”—which she did—
And Vah Naboris’ laser BEAMED out into the sky, burning shadows into the very air behind the Divine Beast....
The Choir and the entire Orchestra marched gloriously into the melting white light.
And the four giant, ancient, incomprehensibly powerful beams CONVERGED UPON HYRULE CASTLE.
They did know I was in here too, didn’t they?
Bright blue, thick, huge, thunderous blasts so violent I was afraid they would shatter the castle and blow the stones to dust and steam.... the bright white light growing and growing....
But the architecture remained undamaged.
Rather, as the demon and I stood face to face, the mere radiance of the Divine Beasts’ power came spearing down through the shaft, down into the very basement half-dome chamber, gleaming like sunrays, and drawing even the Calamity’s twisted attentions.
It looked up.... and we both saw what followed:
The energy of the four combined beams came down the shaft like a glowing blue bubble. Filling up the space, squeezing downward, pressing closer, coming for its target.
And before it had entered the half-dome, it reduced for only a split second to a much smaller, white-hot glowing sphere.... and then exploded into a divine rain of bright, piercing, penetrating, decimating white-blue light.
Down, down, down.
Pummeling.
Relentless.
The Calamity shrieked beneath the cascading downpour of bolts; the earth shook at the continuous battering of every blistering strike; gleaming blue spheres and plashes danced off the demon’s filthy hide like the impacts of raindrops, magnified a thousand times and set with a righteous luminescence.
Calamity Ganon’s life meter, there at the top of the screen already, had begun to drain.
Beneath the barrage it dropped and dropped and dropped as the monster howled, down and down and down.... until with a final blue explosion and a following cloud of charged blue smoke.... it had dropped to the halfway point.
Calamity Ganon was already half dead.
But he remained the Demon yet....
The smoke dissipated, the Calamity stirred again, raised itself from the floor.... and with an eldritch fury howled twice as loud as before, fit to rend the very air. The rippling burble of a Malicey roar gurgling somewhere beneath the scream....
That wild fiery red mane and.... beard?.... surrounding his dark-surfaced, monstrous skull-head with the glaring, glowing orange eyes.... that jewel still set in the center of his forehead, even now.... so many spidering limbs.... each ending in fire-red blade or Guardian-blue sword or sharp-clawed hand, or wielding other incomprehensible horrors.
My gosh he was terrifying.
I....
Stood Firm.
And drew my blade.
And the battle for Hyrule was on.
He pulled back enormously, and slashed at me with the giant blazing sword that was his foremost right arm. I leapt away. The numberless terrors of all his thinner, ganglier spider-legs groped creaking after me with their snipping blades and fidgeting claws—
How could I do, here?
Difficult to get close....
Arrows, then.
And there was no point holding anything in reserve anymore.
Bomb Arrows it was.
But the Demon had its own projectiles. The Piano had long since fled before the pounding Choir and Orchestra now filling up the space, and so I did not hear that most reliable of aural cues—but I did recognize that beeping. That was a Guardian laser.
I could dodge those....
I ran, I jumped....
The monster tromped and shuffled and heaved and—
“OH MY GOSH GET DOWN FROM THE WALL!” I hollered.
Ganon had crawled up onto the constellation-covered dome-wall and begun creeping round to flank me at an alarming speed.... for something so large....
I could see the whole of his.... ancient-tech.... segmented.... vinegaroon-back.... bulbous and bloated and sagging like an overfed arachnid’s abdomen. His legs clutched the wall; his dorsum was toward me—then how did—? —And yet somehow he still faced me. Somehow a putrescent shape which might in nightmares be called a torso still rose incomprehensibly from the mass to set his grinning, scowling, hateful visage toward me, its own attendant arms splayed wide in screaming violence. Crawling.... CRAWLING....
The Calamity’s arsenal was broad and varied. From his higher position he cast his glowing blue spear at me, again and again as it reappeared in his wicked grasp—Moblin’s Magic Spear, I again thought ridiculously.
The cannon fused into his flesh fired rapid volleys of laser pulses, as well as strange, warping bursts of air.
Above his wicked head he conjured fiery meteors.... and sent each one plummeting down toward me with nightmarishly slow-moving finality—these I could not dodge—the fiery blasts so all-engulfing—run as I might—
And there was always that accursed Guardian laser.
But I could dodge that....
When the Demon jumped down from the wall, he landed in a ponderous pounce of weird blue light spread over the floor—a dangerous radius in which to be caught. And I found he needn’t always come from the wall to employ it.
The giant flaming sword, however, was strictly a ground-level implement. A closer-range, tree-sized melee weapon. Its swipes were enormous and far-reaching, trailed by flame, and casting flames out wherever it swung, its terrible downward-chop blowing up infernal jets like dragonfire on the rebound.
I ran and leapt—
The Demon crept—
We harassing each the other with incendiary affronts to the face—I dropped him from the wall—he speared me to the floor—I cut him—he burned me—
Were not these the Champions’ weapons?
He had all the Champions’ weapons here, just as he had had them in the Divine Beasts....
What were they?
That giant flaming sword was surely a reflection of Daruk.
The spear for Mipha.
Those pulses for Revali.
And...
What, those grabbers? So many limbs ended in a sharp, Guardian-blue gleaming—at least one of them was a blade.... for Urbosa....
The Demon’s pulses chased at my heels—
My Bomb Arrows exploded again in his face—
His own erupting missiles blasted me to the floor and set my hair alight—
I let him feel his very Bane in the Master Sword—
We tasted every species of wrath and pain that we could inflict upon the other until—
!!
Oh no....
....
Of course he had a second stage....
Having had enough of my quiver, steel, and fury, the Calamity reared up and with a ferocious roar conjured a flaming, blazing sphere around itself—just like his Fireblight had done—
But no—the sphere disappeared after only a moment—
But the bright blazing glow remained.
The Calamity had turned golden. Its demon body shining a hot and fiery radiance.
Oh no.
Well I’d had enough of his fire as well. But now he looked hazardously hot, and so I quickly donned my Flamebreaker Armor—
However, his color seemed to have been all that had changed. No new firestorms arose, no Fireblight bomb trickery went off.... He hadn’t changed tack. He still swiped his gigantic sword, still beeped his Guardian laser after me, still body-slammed a moderate pool of flashing blue pain into the floor to catch me—
But no, that wasn’t all....
I noticed that none of my Bomb Arrows were affecting him anymore.
No....
Then that glow.... that brazen fire.... wasn’t a fire—it must have been a shield, then.
I put off the Flamebreaker and returned to my Champion’s Tunic.
Really?
I fired again and watched his life meter closely—
Really.
I couldn’t penetrate his stronger defenses.
But he could still penetrate mine—a number of hearts evaporated from my bottom row, and I chowed apples to regain them—
How could I do, here, now?
My arrows were ineffective.
If I couldn’t stun him....
And I dared not get too close....
How could I do....?
At whiles he still hurt me. The laser pulses, the giant blade with its flames, those bloody meteors—whatever it was—
Some terrible blow caught me.
“I NEED MY GREENS!” I howled, groping for another cooked Hearty Radish to eat—
Even the music seemed to recoil in horror before the invincible Beast. It was the same music that had played during my battles against the Blights, really—or it had been. Only now, some of the notes, some of the intervals.... were off, wrong, disoriented. As if the music track itself were screaming in petrified terror, only straining to channel what sounds it could manage into performing its accompanying duty to the conflict.... a tempo-increase borne of fear nipping at everyone’s heels....
The brazen, flaming Demon now stomping, now crawling, now screaming, all its hateful wickedness casting down at me in the tearing mad cackle of ten thousand years of stewing, boiling evil, as it spun round and round and round the room like a great malevolent crab....
So wrong....
So wrong....
How could I do?
That beeping came again—the Guardian laser.
I could dodge those.
But—
!
I could dodge those....
Though.... could it be?
The laser?
Beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep—
It was always easier at close range....
I stepped toward the Devil.... steadied myself....
Be-be-be-be-be-beeee—
Was this the right distance?
The first twining glimmer of light began to coalesce—
Now!
I pressed forward—swung my arm—the laser’s vortex charge completed, discharged already—my shield flashed at the apex of its arc—the blue-white bolt came—
AND I PARRIED IT.
LIKE I HAD TAUGHT MYSELF TO DO SO VERY LONG AGO AND PRACTICED SO MANY MANY MANY TIMES.
AND IT REBOUNDED.
AND IT PENETRATED HIS SHIELD AND HE WENT DOWN.
AND I RAN IN AND MASTER SWORDED HIS FACE!
But every stroke of the Master Sword dealt such a tiny amount of damage to his life meter....
But it was damage nonetheless.
The Mouse could bite, Ganon.
This repeated for a few cycles....
The winning culmination of so many trials prepared for and so many hardships overcome pounded through my veins like a war-drum. I was so PUMPED at the simple learning, the earned advantage, the flashing leap in understanding—that I was dreadfully tempted to say “EAT MASTER SWORD, B[let us kindly redact the remainder of this word]!”
But.... No, I mustn’t.
Besides, Mother is here with me.
Dang you, world and your catchy vulgarities.
Chip by chip, piece by piece, I whittled the demon’s interminable life meter away.... I would bring you death if need be by a thousand cuts....
Striking and slicing and slashing—until at the stroke that proved to be one too many, the Calamity reared back and away from the blow, screaming an unholy, shrieking howl that melted all into the blinding white Void....
.... Dang it I forgot to take a pictograph....
.......
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