Shades of Blue

Windblight Despair

The moment the Slate's screen touched the surface of the terminal, all hell broke loose.

Smog, thick and pungent, poured from the terminal in a swirling, twisting spiral of pink and black. An unholy screech followed it, no sound that any living thing would ever have made—and wholly other from the sounds Medoh had made as he activated the terminals and took back control. This was not a sound from Medoh—it was from whatever had held claim over her for the past one hundred years.

Link stumbled away from the terminal as the cloud of malice and smoke continued to build, a miasma of bloody pink and black tar. It cloaked the entire bud of the main terminal, rising endlessly from the interface and hanging heavy around the base. Like the storm clouds always surrounding the Castle, it swirled dangerously and threateningly, lashing out at him as he stepped away.

The whole body of the terminal flared that same garish pink, chasing away the warmer orange as quickly as the smog had poured from the terminal itself. From somewhere in its center—or perhaps from the air itself, he really couldn't tell—blue lines began to form and trace themselves in the air, flying past him as they formed.

He turned and watched as those lines collected themselves in a massive ball of blue just in front of the entrance to the lower rooms. It grew and grew, until it loomed over the doorway and the pillars around it, until it was surely larger than the main terminal, and certainly three times his size, at least.

As its twisted shape took form, he found himself stepping back toward the main terminal, in some instinctive need to be further away from the threat growing before him.

But the threat only became more defined as he stepped away. Arms, twisted and covered in malice, formed on either side of the swirling blue mass, one ending in a gnarled hand, the other less an arm and more a cannon, greatly resembling the ones they had destroyed hours ago. Its chest—if it could be called such—formed next, broad and armored in Guardian pieces and glowing ancient material. It had no feet; rather, it floated a few feet above the ground, its chest tapering into another strange smattering of ancient materials and malice.

And finally, the head—or at least, the face—small in comparison to the body, and oddly shaped, wearing something like a mask, made of the same stolen ancient materials as the other parts of its body. The eye at the center, the same as those on Guardians, glowed and flashed as the thing swayed and swung. It seemed to struggle to orient itself for a moment, knotted, reddish hair dangling over its face and blowing in the wind as it turned its head.

The confusion was short lived. Only a moment after its body had fully formed, it caught sight of Link near the main terminal. Its eye glowed blinding blue and it shrieked, the same sound that he had heard when he tried to activate the terminal. Hardly taking a moment to pause, it raised its cannon at him, already swirling with blue and red.

Find cover—quickly!

He didn't need to be told twice. As the cannon whined and charged, he dove behind the nearest pillar on his right and took the Sword from his back. It was already glowing, white hot and present in his hand (which was strange to think about, but there really was no better way to put it).

Its aim is dead on—you're going to need to avoid that cannon, Revali said, tense and fast. He could still hear the hum of the charging shot, getting closer. The eye is weak—if you can get in the air, it should be easy to get a shot off and stun it, at least.

He nodded, shifting his grip on the hilt of the Sword and waiting another moment. Sure enough, the whine of the cannon reached a fever pitch. With another terrible shriek, the thing fired, and the pillar shook as the blast struck, broken stone and bits of rock pattering on the ground.