Mi Shen chased around the graveyard with staff in mouth, running on all fours, cursing in long strings at the intruder and the great number of poes. Link ran in a panic and was surprisingly doing a decent job of keeping away from Mi Shen.
“Mi! Would you get your sorry ass over here instead of laughing at me!” Mi Shen said in a muffled way. Mi Stopped, and her eyes narrowed perceptibly as she got a wicked smile on her face.
Link suddenly raised into the air, his feet spinning for lack of ground.
“Thank You!” Mi Shen says happily, raising his staff above his head.
“That’s my job!” Makera runs into the graveyard in a fury, holding her kokiri sword in front of her.
“You want help?” Mi Shen asks.
“Sure!” Makera says in a cheerful way. Makera walks up to the Airborne Link. “I shall punish you for pushing me off that bridge!” Makera yelled.
“Bridge?” Mi Shen asked.
“Oh! This kid here pushed me off the bridge near Kokiri forest ... he could have got me killed!” Makera explained.
Mi Shen, in the process of pushing a tombstone back in place says, “Okay ... whatever.”
Makera took a whip she made of the vines in Kokiri forest and pulled it tight. “Time for punishment!” she grinned.
Mi, by this point had begun to shrink the loose poes into nothingness using her magic. She inched over to Mi Shen to whisper, “She’s Scary.” into his ear.
“Well Kinda, but she’s punishing the little d*khead. I don’ care.”
Mi looked back over at the newcomer with a look of mild disgust, but hid it by turning to catch another poe.
After several lashings that she gave Link, Makera turned around and noticed Mi Shen, whispering under her breath, “He’s cute!”
Mi could hear a challenge to her territory a mile away (though the enchanted bat ear hairpins did help). She stomped towards the new girl, her annoyance obvious on her face.
“Now Hear me you stupid hussy! Mi Shen is mine and you can’t have him! You even bat your eyes in his direction and you’re dead!”
Makera turned around, whip in hand, and lashed it at the girl in front of her. “Hell no! Mi Shen will be mine, and I will stop at nothing to get him ... even you!”
Mi jumped back from the crack of the whip near her head. She glared back at the girl, and declared simply, “That’s it!” Her eyes darkened to navy blue as the gravity sphere began to surround the girl.
“Oi! Chotto matte yo (Hey! Wait a second!)! Don’t get so pissed!” Makera tried to calm this girl down.
“Makera, let me handle this.” a voice, Mikara, said within Makera’s head.
“Hell no!” Makera said out loud while she pulled her hands to her head, and rose again; the gravity sphere was canceled.
“Eh?” Mi said quietly as her eye suddenly snapped back to their normal yellow-brown.
Makera shook her head and walked up to the girl. “I’m sorry about that, that was my so-called guardian, she can be such an annoyance!” Makera smiled.
Mi had the look of a cornered cat who’s claws had no effect. There was no way in hell she’d be friends with this girl!
“Get away from me!” she said in an eerily calm voice. She hopped from headstone to headstone, and finally to the yard behind the royal tombstone. She turned back once before running off.
“Where’d she go?” Makera asked.
Mi Shen shrugged and hopped his way to his little part of the fence.
* * *
“Watch me Yu! I’ll show you I’m a bad-ass!” Ax laughed as he killed his third textite and headed for the last one, but he didn’t realize how close the next one was, and ran into it while he was looking back to talk to Yu. The textite jumped onto his back, freaking him out and making him run screaming down the trail.
“Don’t you know I’m the little brother of the Gorons?!”
Yu watched, nearly laughing as Ax ran by her spot on the edge of the upper trail. “Need any help Ax?”
Ax stops dead in his tracks for a few seconds just to scream back, “No!” and then continues down the trail.
Yu couldn’t help but laugh now. The whole time he is trying to hit the textite off his back with his axe.
Makera was running around the corner and bumps into Ax as he is running with the Textite. “Itai!” Makera yelled as she fell to the ground. Ax squished the textite with his weight as he landed.
“Watch where you’re going next time!” Ax yelled at Makera. He looked behind him as he stood up and turned around. “Whoa ... cool!” He ran back towards Yu. “I KILLED IT!”
“All your did was fall on itAx-dear(the ending she always used in hopes of annoying Ax)” Yu was holding a tight smile to keep from laughing.
“Gomen nasai ... I didn’t mean to bump into you.” Makeru said with a sad look on her face.
Ax is jumping around in circle completely ignoring Makera.
“Um, excuse me. Do you know where the Dodongo Cavern is?”
Ax stops in his tracks, and thinks, “Dang, she did help me.” He points to the blocked cave up ahead. Makeru looks exasperated.
Makeru looks at Ax’s Axe, smiling sneakily, saying, “Well, we could use that.”
Ax holds up his axe protectively.
Yu breaks into laughter again, and says to them both, “Your kidding me!You can’t open that cave with that pathetic little thing!” and says to Ax, “Sorry for the insult Ax-dear.”
“Bug off Yu.” Ax says as he looks up towards her. Ax jumps in one leap to where Yu is and says ecstatically, “Let’s go tell Darumia about this!” He grabs Yu’s arm and begins to drag her up the path with him.
“About what? Nothing important’s happened.” She says sarcastically, but smiling.
“C’mon! I’ve killed four textites! That’s good for me!”
“If that’s good I’d hate to see bad.”
Makera needs to know how to get the next spiritual stone, and the people who know just ran off, so she ran off after them.
* * *
Mi Shen walks into the main alter room of the Shadow Temple, and as he looks around he sees nothing-no sign of Mi. He sighs, and walks down towards the torch pedestal. He sits down, legs-crosses, and then falls back onto the ground, hands behind his head, to stare at the ceiling.
Mi couldn’t believe it-he was snoring! Mi looked down from her perch above the inner doorway.
“He’s so cute when he’s sleeping,” she thought to herself softly. “But at the same time he looks troubled.” She frowned slightly as she thought.
* * *
“I killed four I killed four I killed four ...” Ax rambled on excitedly over and over to Darumia.
Darumia picked Ax up by the arms. “Four what?”
“Tetetetextites!”
“Tetetetextites?”
“Textites!”
“Oh. Is this true?” he said, looking towards Yu.
“Yeah.
Makera runs into the room, breathing heavily.
“Ahh! I found you!” Makera smiles happily. “You’re slow when you start up but you get momentum!”
“What do you want?” Ax says, turning around though still held up.
“Uh, why is that Goron holding you up like that?” Makera asks tentatively.
“To calm me down if you MUST know ...” Ax stated to just be ploped down by Darumia. “Ouch!”
“Oh ...” Makera said.
“So what are you going to do now?” Makera asked.
“Go catch Hot Rod!” Ax rushes out, brandishing his axe, laughing insanely.
Yu grabs the back of his shirt, making him fall flat on his face.
“Wait! What about Dodongo Cavern?”
“Ask Big Brother! He knows more than me!” Ax got up and if Yu was still hanging on she would have been dragged with him.
“Hey. Big Brother! About Dodongo Cavern?” Makera smiles.
“It’s infested with dinosaurs. Not only that but you’d need a bracelet to lift the bombplants.” He thought for a moment, walked to the doorway and yelled for Ax.
Ax ran back to the room. “Yes Big Brother?”
“I’m going to need one of your bracelets ...” Darumia grabbed him before he had the chance to run out. “I’ll just take your left one.” Darumia said calmly to the now yelling and wiggling Ax. He removed it and tossed it to Makera.
“Ahh domo.” Makera smiles. “So what’s next?”
“You can ask the squirmer there ...”
Yu cups her hand over Ax’s ear to whisper, “Translation: help of you don’t get your bracer back.”
Ax made a sound that was something between a squeal, whine and growl.
* * *
Mi shen looked up at the ceiling of the shadow temple. Suddenly, and yet no so suddenly aware that he was awake again.
“It’s midnight.” Mi said flatly from her perch over the entrance to the shadow temple.
“Oh. It’s my shift then.” He said as he slowly got up from his position on the floor.
As he walked through the entrance Mi yelled back to him sarcastically, “Love you too Mi Shen!”
“Yeah, yeah ...” Mi Shen waved back to Mi. “I gotta do this ... sorry.” Mi Shen turned around, his face illuminated by the now noticeable fairy lantern on his quarterstaff. “My shift ends at 6 am.” He walked and hopped onto the fence to sit.
“Hey Mi Shen, let me hold this for you.” Mi said from behind Mi Shen as she took the faerie lantern from it’s place on his staff. He began to turn around with a confused look on hi face.
“Why?”
“This is why!” Mi said as she kicked him hard from his spot on the fence.
“Whoa! Humph!” Mi Shen landed on his feet and lauched himself back onto the fence.
“That was not nice ...” Mi Shen crossed his arms and hopped onto the ground in front of Mi.
Mi was still hovering in mid-air with an evil/mischevious grin on her face qual to the bat wings she sported.
“Your lantern” She said triumphantly, holding it out towards him like this was everyday stuff. In the back of her mind she was thinking, “that rebound took all the fun out of kicking him ...”
“Thank you ..” He yawned, taking it.
“You’ve been asleep 12 hours! How can you be yawning?!”
“You didn’t see the double shift I was doing when you purposely landed on my poe ...”
“Purposely? Yeah right! I just go dimensional-hopping all the time; it’s a hobby!” she said sarcastically, and just a little perturbed.
“I noticed! You demission hopped, or whatever, right on my poe, at just the right time!!” Mi Shen yelled.
“What’s the big deal! I got rid of all those other poes while Make-a-bra something or other was here and you couldn’t care less!”
“I was more worried about the tombstones! The tombstones were what the poes were angry about! Put the f*cking stones back and they would go away!” Mi Shen panted.
Mi stepped back then. She turned away, and floated up to a nearby cliff silently. “Okay. I understand ... kinda.” She looked towards him again. “Um ... I’m gunna go. And ...” It was obvious she was searching for the right words, “I’ll not visit the shadow temple if you don’t want me to.” Her head was looking down to where she was clenching her hands. “I’m going to go for a while. I’m gonna help that girl. I need something to do here. Maybe I’ll find a way back.” She said in spurts, the last part very bitter.
His shoulders drooped as he said, “Aw man I’m not the best guy when I’m doing these freaky shifts.”
Mi smiled a little, and Mi Shen wasn’t sure if she believed him or not. Either way it was too late for decent apologies.
“I ... I can’t say ‘I know’,” she gave this a few seconds to sink in before she finished. “I have to find out a reason though. I mean-I don’t even know why I’m here.” She was thinking hard about something. “I’ll be up the mountain.” She hovered slightly above the rock, and began to step backward before pivoting on one foot and leaping into the air.
Mi Shen, looked back and forth between the mountain and his place on the fence, and set his lantern down. “Aw ... shi-” He jumped off the fence and ran of towards the mountain.
* * *
“Oi! A what do we do to open this damn cave?” Makera asked.
Ax looked around. “No bomb flowers around here.” His hand went to the bag of little bombs on his side. He chuckled, “Back off ‘kera ... we’re gonna have ourselves a little excavation ...” He lit the six mini-bombs he pulled out, and tossed them at the rock. He dived behind a rock and laughed as it exploded into a million pieces.
“Heh ... keeping backup stock sure is helpful ... isn’t it?” Makera said.
The pebbles and larger rocks seem to miss Yu, but are actually deflected by an invisible shield around her. She turns around, shakes her head slightly to indicate the direction and and states, “Let’s get this over with!”
Makera simply says, “I agree.”
* * *
Mi Shen was on all fours by half way through the town. With his handy staff strapped to his back, all paws rapidly hitting the ground as he ran through the sleeping town towards Death Mountain, “Gotta get there quick! They’ll be way too far in ...” Mi Shen panted and gasped as he entered the cavern. He kneeled against the wall and passed out.
* * *
Mi recoiled backwards from the explosion ahead of her, and after a few uncontrolled rolls she righted herself again, and stared towards the now smoking entrance to the mountain’s innards. She raced forward, figuring Makera would already be there.
* * *
“Ax, go ...” she was trying to think of something productive for him to do ... Ax was tossing one of his mini-bombs in the air. He noticed a hole high up and threw it in after lighting it. The bomb exploded and the hole lit up.
“Whoa ...” the other two looked at Ax.
“Do that again Ax-dear.” Yu urged him.
He threw it and got it in. “6-points!” the bomb exploded and the mouth dropped down to reveal a door.
* * *
Mi tapped the ground lightly in landing. She raced over as she saw the incapacitated Mi Shen lying at the side of the cave entrance. She only realized as she was standing over him, though, that she didn’t know how to wake him up.
Kick. Kick. She kicked him as she pretended to be counting to three on her watch. On the hird kick he finally woke up.
“Brings back memories, doesn’t it?” she said calmly.
“Shut up.” he said in exasperation.
She stared at the way his arms were crossed over his chest-”Are you undead or do you just suck blood for fun?”
“No. And I only suck the blood of virgins. Don’t worry-you’re safe.” He said, mumbling grouchily.
She knelt on the ground in front of him, lifting her hand backwards; she looked at it carefully, concentrating. “Plotting the trajectory ...” She licked the pointer finger of her other hand, holding it up and wrinkling her brows in mock concentration. “Calculating wind speed, presure and direction-course adjusted! Begining launch.”
Mi Shen looked watched her carefully. “What the-”
SLAP! She bit her lip moticible to hide the fact that it might have hurt her as much as him simply from impact. It was worth it though for the reward ...
Mi Shen’s head collided with the wall. The result: Mi Shen had a red mark on one side of his face and an impact of the wall on the other.
Mi just began to walk down the corridor, saying in an eerily happy voice, “Have a nice day Mi Shen.”
Mi Shen simply uttered a non-verbal sounds of pain.
* * *
Mi walked past the smoking beamos in the center of the cavern to where the skull of the long-slain dodongo sat with it’s mouth open wide.
“It’s you.” Makera said as if it were nothing.
“We killed it! Thanks to my daring efforts of course!” Ax boasted. “Now I can get my bracer back!”
“Daring bombs more like it.” Yu said.
“But I threw them!” Ax said proudly.
Mi blinked rapidly, and then leaped towards Yu, rambling something about “On you’re alive, I missed you, it’s so strange here ...” She was nearly sobbing, she sniffled slightly as Yu tried to calm her down.
Mi Shen hobbled towards the gathering using his staff as a cane.
“No one let me open my eyes or I’ll hurl ...”
Ax hunched down slightly to examine his face at different angles. He tugged on Mi Shen’s ear, who responded with “What the fu-?”
“Whoa! They’re real!” Az jumped back, startled.
Makera was the first to think of the Ruby, but heard a cream as she exited the cave. She ran up to Darumia to ask what was the matter.
“A wondrous hero has saved us! We were about to initiate him s our brother when he ran off.”
Makera’s jaw dropped. “That wouldn’t happen to be an impatient little snot of a Kokiri, would it?”
“Why ... yes.” By this point Ax and the others had joined her. Ax howled towards the sky, “NO---------------------------------! I wasted my precious bombs for nothing! It was good show though ...”
“Especially juggling the bombs.” Yu piped up in the back.
“That’s it! I’ll get that kid!” Ax said as he attempted (and failed) to climb up the mountain.
“Take off the shoes and I can lift you Ax (he wearing very heavy Goron boots).” Ax looked back suddenly at the lack of “dear”.
“No ‘dear’ this time?”
“I’m tired of it ...”
Ax blinked rapidly, “You forgot the ‘dear’”
“Yes Dear.”
“That’s better ... I guess.” He takes off his shoes. “My feet are gonna be really cold by the time we’re back.”
“Tough!” Yu takes him up before he can change his mind.
Ax begins to squirm as he sights Link. “Little f*cker, gimme back my Ruby!” He yelled as if Link could hear. “You little &*%##, and (*$, and #*@$*!” Ax knew a good amount of curses for being so secluded.
“Dear,” Yu said to get his attention. His ears pricked up.
“If you keep moving-you’ll fall, go splat,” she enunciated each segment on purpose.
“But I wanna get the-” He looked down. “I’ll be good.”
Yu smiled and slowly let him down.
“That bastard! Link’s heading for Zora Domain!” Ax said to the air.
“Yeah I gotta get that little shit to get my bracer back.”
Makera threw it at him, hitting his head.
“Ah! Bracer!” He said while rubbing it affectionately against his cheek.
* * *
Mai punches Corqren in the arm saying, “This is your fault.”
“No it’s not!” He whined piteously.
“OK!” She punches Ruto in the arm. “It’s YOUR fault.”
“No it’s not! He does this every once in a while!” Ruto says angrily.
“Every once in a while?! He’s done this every day this week!” Corqren yelled at Ruto.
“What a cute couple,” Mai mumbled.
Corqren screamed at Mai, “Take it back! Take it back! THAT’S SICK!!!!” Ruto decked him after the last remark.
Mai claps slowly, not sure if this is good or bad. “What we need to be worrying about is how do we get outta here?” She yelled at Ruto.
“We have to go out the mouth.” Ruto yelled back.
Corqren kicked a tooth. “Gt any other bright ideas?” Ruto glared at him.
“That’s it! I’m taking offensive!” Mai said as she pointed her bow towards the inside of the fish dramatically.
“I’ll come with! Anything’s better than being with Ruto!” Ruto tried to hit him but ended up missing as Corqren ran down Jabu Jabu’s throat.
* * *
In some other part of Jabu Jabu much farther from the mouth than they started.
“Did you just hear someth-” Mai looked back. “Where’s Corqren?!”
Corqren’s muttered cry could be heard behind a ‘door’; he was pounding on it. “Lemme out! Lemme out!”
“Corqren? Don’t worry I’ll get you outta there!” Mai said as she draws her bowstring back.
“There are electrified jellyfish in here!!” Corqren lets out a scream as he is electrocuted.
“Too--------------bad!” Mai says with an evil smile(she enjoys using her bow for any reason). She lets the bow fly with a fire charged arrow, setting off the entire membranous “door”.
Her eyes grow a few sizes, and her mouth drops a little. Corqren had 4 jellyfish electrocuting him. She shot off the first two with ice-charged crossbow bolts, and tilted her bow sideways as she shot off two arrows from it-each fire-charged.
Corqren sat up and shook violently for a minute, “Th ... thank you!”
Mai was still looking past him into the room, “Big ... blob.” was all she said, pointing at the monster behind him. Corqren turned around and gasped. There was some sort of heart covered in jellyfish there.
“Houston, we have a problem.” Mai said as the jellyfish began to detach and spin around the main heart by tractor beams. “Uh ... run.” Mai said, dragging Corqren to an outter edge of the room.
“Okay,” Mai said as she felt her mind working on an adrenalin-induced overdrive. “We gotta kill this! It’s gotta be the reason Jabu Jabu’s acting up.”
“What is this is normal for Jabu Jabu?”
“Well, then his life will be sacrificed for ours?”
“But how can we be sure?”
“If it were any more obvious it would have theme music and a subtitled name!”
Corqren pulled out his zoraling sword and asked, “We’re gonna fight it ... right?”
Mai went into a coughing fit when she tried to cover up her hysterical laughter. “Well, yeah ... I’ll shoot the middle-you go after those jellyfish!” She pulled back the string of her bow dramatically as the tip began to glow hot red.
“Now!”
* * *
Corqren was twitching-Mai was fine-no one cared abot Ruto. The first two were glaring at their surrounding, whereas Ruto was happy as usual. Corqren sat down on the root bridge to convulse in private.
“I’m done with electricity-that stuff’s evil!”
“Mai-------------------------!” Mai heard a voice shout from somewhere. She swirled around on the root bridge to look towards the entrance. Yu stood there waving her arms over her head psychotically.
“Yu--------------------------!” Mai responded. Yu flew up to the root to see her sister.
“I’m glad you’re okay-though I should have just assumed so if Mi was sent here too.”
“Most people would be hysterical about this. Wonder why we aren’t?” Mai said as she noticed how calm they actually were about it.
“Ah! Kawaii!” Makera said as she noticed Corqren. As she was about to run towards him Mi grabbed the back of her shirt, saying, “Haven’t you stolen enough people’s guys for one day?”
“Makera throws Mi against the wall, saying, “No, I haven’t!” She runs up the root bridge, and as she touches Corqren’s shoulder to say, “Are you okay?” She gets shocked, and falls backwards into the pool.
Corqren blinks after she falls over, and says happily, “I’m not convulsing anymore!”
Corqren dives into the water after a fish, Yu and Mi sit staring blankly at the ensuing scene.
Corqren holds up two still flapping fish, saying, “Anyone Hungry?”
Ruto grabs one, stuffing it almost completely into her mouth; the tail is still sticking out. She looks towards Corqren like “who? me?” Makera takes the other from him. Corqren then sits pouting in the water (because he has no fish now) Makera swims over to whisper the question about the sapphire in Corqren’s ear.
Corqren whimpered and went over to Ruto. “Ruto ... they are looking for spiritual stones ... the sapphire is the last one they need ... so ... can they ... have it?”
Ruto looked at them and back to Corqren. “I’m not supposed to give it to anyone besides the man I’m going to marry!”
Corqren’s face dropped. He looked behind him at the other two guys; they were whistling. Corqren looked at Ruto. “... I will then ...” Corqren mentally smacked himself. You really f*cked up your life right there ...
“Ruto lighted up. “OK!” She grinned and handed the sapphire to him.
“Okay. Now that I’ve sold my soul I wanna get as far away from here as possible!” Corqren says in disgust.
Ax pats him on the back, saying, “Good job kid.” with an evil smile on his face.
Corqren runs off to pout, saying something along the lines of “I’ll meet you out by the waterfall.”
Mi looks around (as she has nothing better to do) and notices a new person hanging around the group. “By the way, who’re you?” Mi asks her.
“Remember that charcoal furball we found in the Dodongo Cavern?” Mi Shen replies.
“Yeah.”
“She WAS that ball.”
“She is known as KI!” Ki says.
* * *
“I remember you saying you’d meet us here, not your maker Corqren!” Mai says in concern.
The entire group looks down at a thoroughly pummeled Corqren who is nearly off the side of one of the rocks leading up to the falls.
“This freak kid in a green outfit jumped me!” He said between grumbles and groans of pain. “I sold my soul for nothing!” He whined.
“We gotta go to the temple of time!” Makera said urgently. “And once I’m there LINK-you’ll wish you were DEAD!” she said as she punched her other hand.
* * *
The group arrived at the door to the temple of time, the eight of them all staring towards the solemn calm of the temple itself. To any onlooker nothing had happened-but the group new better. They knew LINK was here. He had to be.
“Link, your gonna die now!” Makera declared psychotically to the world. She silently pauses for a moment before declaring, “Okay, the drama’s over-KICK HIS BUTT!” They all charge into the temple.
As they rush in they can already see the light of the three stones combining to become white, and link standing ready over the master sword. They realize too late that it is-too late. They can’t stop themselves in time and as Link pulls the sword slowly from the ground they all realize they’re going to be thrown into whatever’s up ahead.
“Hey. That’s the same light she came from ...” Ax, Corqren and Mi Shen think at the same time.
