[center][h1][color=00aeef]Link[/color][/h1][/center]

[center]Word Count: 1703 [/center]

[center][color=00aeef][b] Level 8[/b] [/color] - (-01/80) +6 [/center]

[center]Location: Carcass Island ~ Kosm's Beach[/center]
[hr][hr]

Bowser's plan ended in catastrophic failure. Royalty fell like rain across the beach, each shadow cast by Kamek and Mimi's magic dissolving in flight as the genuine article was caught by those cats, who began ferrying him to some place far better than this blasted beach. The creature didn't seem to be hurt at all by the Koopa dogpile. In fact it had grown stronger, it's weapon bloated as it stood tall in the moonlight with its makeshift cape fluttering in a sea breeze that didn't exist. Was it still developing? Was this child growing up before their eyes, becoming more dangerous with every second that they fought it? 

It lifted it's head, called out to the sky and the sky answered it. From the dark clouds came a bolt of lightning, striking the creature's mother and sending electricity crashing across the beach. While the rest of them jumped the wave Delsin dived right into it, imbuing himself with power before sprinting at the horror as though he had learned nothing from the previous time he had tried to face the thing one on one.

No, that wasn't right. He had been smarter about it this time. He dashed in, turning wholly into the creature's own lightning as he did. He lashed it, then it plunged its hand into that ghastly weapon and he dashed away. He had recognized what was about to happen. There was no preparing for what happened next, because you would be preparing for the wrong thing. If Link had taken the opportunity to move in it would have caught him too, it would have caught any one of them. The creature plunged the pinkish-red bulb it had ripped from its weapon into the beach, just like it had before. Instead of blowing up the area around it, though, the blast spread out in front of it and blew the surprised man high into the air. Link watched him tumble in slow motion, started moving before the creature itself did but he was too far away. He swore he could feel the air pressing against his skin as he went, slowing him. Holding him back as though he were trying to spring across the ocean floor. It was this world. There was too much world in the way and the creature was so much faster.

The man landed before Link could take two steps. The creature was on him before Link could even take another one, and then there was just the screaming and the sounds of rending meat and there was no miracle, no cats, no hearts, no heroes that could save him now. No, no, the time to save him had come before this. The time to save this man was back at the beach, the real beach, not this impossible place. Back where they had a ship, a ship to fly away from here. Stay on the ship, Delsin. That was what he had said. He had known, even then, that something like this would happen. He had just been too much of a coward to force the issue. He had let this man, who understood nothing, walk into the jaws of death. He may as well have stuck the blade in himself. 

He almost didn't feel the lightning as it slammed into his back. The physical anguish was nothing compared to the pain flowing through his quivering brain, but the combination brought the hero down. First onto his knees, the hero's sword flying out of grip and landing blade down in the sand. He joined it soon after, collapsing face first into the much of the beach dead to the world save the screams still digging furrows through his mind. 

He was paralyzed there for what felt like an eternity, far too long to simply chalk it up to being paralyzed by the electricity. It was a call that drew him out of it, a familiar voice that made him turn his face in the sand and point one eye upward toward the sky to spot the ink chunks raining down on the beach. Meteor?

It wasn’t fear that pushed him up when he realized what they were, nor any survival instinct. It was the pun. A man was dead and Ms. Fortune was still making puns? Terrible puns. It was infuriating. A righteous anger that was, at least for the moment, not directed inward fed power into his limbs and allowed him to try and drag himself away from the pink death that was coming down toward him. 

He didn't dodge the whole blast, but he at least managed to throw himself clear of certain death. The explosion sent him flying across the beach, one arm and part of his face painted an ugnly red and pulsing with pain like a wasp sting, though whether that was from the damage or the gore was acidic he couldn’t know. He landed in a heap, but the shock had knocked the last of the paralysis out of him. He dragged himself back to his feet and looked up to see how the battle was going, only to find that it had gone to the cliffs.The creature was easy to spot, a pale while shape upon the black rocks, and he could just make out Ace before the creature again rained it’s organixc bombs down upon them. He sprinted away, dodging the explosions that he could feel on his back, but this only took him further from where the battle had moved in the time he had been out of action. Just as he started his way back there was another gut wrenching explosion as the entire cliff face seemed to shatter and rain down on the field.

A huge boulder came hurtling out of the sky right at him, and his hand went to the Sheikah Slate once more. As the boulder filled his vision he cast the Stasis rune once more, binding the boulder in the air before him. He could hear every impact it took, see other boulders falling beside him as they struck the back of his makeshift barrier and bounced off. He took note of the time as it began to flash faster and faster, until a couple of seconds passed where there were no impacts. Then he selected a new Rune, one he had noticed when preparing to block the Creature in with ice. 

A bomb appeared in his hands as he did, blue and glowing like a weak lantern. He jumped back, tossed the explosive at the boulder in front of him, and detonated it. At first there didn't seem to be any effect, but once stasis ended the boulder that had saved him flew off, slamming into the cliff face and joining the debris that now littered the beach.

The debris was the only thing he could see, though. Though he could hear the sounds of battle he could no longer spot the melee through the veritable garden of boulders that now separated him from his allies, and even the sounds were echoing weirdly so he couldn't be quite sure where they were coming from. He climbed up on one of the rocks to get a better view, and began running along the tops of the boulders in whatever direction seemed promising. The battle was frantically moving, though. He would occasionally catch flashes of action between the rocks, but besides Blazermate hovering over the battlefield he could not pin anyone else down. The problem was the creature. He could see it leaping about, leading the others further and further from him as it layered the area with constant explosions. His mind reeled, deadly visions of what could be happening flashing before his eyes with every blast that reached his ears.

Finally he managed to catch up to someone, though the sight didn't bring him any relief.He jumped down from the rocks to find Sakura, planted in the dirt. Bella hovered over her like a mother cat. He caught the Seaplane Tender’s eye, sharing a moment of the abyssals' worry and anger before moving on toward the beach, his breathing ragged.

He caught up to the group just in time to witness a combination of explosive attacks. Ms. Fortune, who had bound up the creature with her own body, separated and then came back together like a living bomb before getting out of the way just in time for Blazermate to unleash what he could only describe as point blank annihilation upon it. That was it. That had to be it. A burgeoning hope started to build in his chest as he watched the creature's shadow contort within the beam of light and then…no…no! How?!?

It was still standing. The creature was still standing. Was it even winded? No! It was still on the attack, lifting its head to scream at the sky and call down another of those lightning beams right on Blazermate. 

It wasn’t the only one screaming this time. Link charged down the beach, finding one of the goop trails Junior had left for Rika and skating down it onto the water. Both of his cannons resounded, a full broadside slamming into the creature as he vaulted the wave of lightning that sprung from Blazermate’s position, the noise they made only matched by the primal scream coming from Links throat. He screamed in frustration, at the unfairness of this thing’s sturdiness, but most of all he just wanted this nightmare over and done with before he had to see even one more comrade on the ground. 

The creature turned to face him, swinging its blade out at him as he approached, but his fingers were already on the slate. A column of ice sprung up in the blade's way, shattering on impact but knocking the blade off course. Link didn't slow down and never stopped firing as the distance closed between them. It yanked the black back into its grip and swung as  Link closed into melee range, but he ducked under its swing and rose up fist first. The black iron of the Ro Cestus covered his arm again, and through it he aimed the full force of his desperate charge right at the creature's face.