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King Dodongo (Novelization Ch. 33)

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    This is part of my fan-novelization of "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time". I do not own any of the characters or locations mentioned below, all rights belong to Nintendo, etc, etc...

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"Anger is the enemy of non-violence, and pride is a monster that swallows it up."
- Gandhi

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    Link grimaced as the blast from the bomb sent shock waves through the floor, tearing through the collapsed rock, and sending a shower of rubble over him and the Hylian Shield. Turning around, he wondered once more why this room had been so hard to get to. The seal made by the caved-in floor looked far older than the one at the cavern’s entrance, and this particular room looked like it hadn’t been used in years. No footprints disturbed the sandy floor, save for his own.

    Frowning, he walked over to the hole in the floor the bomb had unveiled, and peered down into it. He didn’t see much, and although a loathsome, fat heat uncoiled from the hole, it didn’t seem to be much worse than the cavern’s main room. The rock in the room down below was solid, and before he could think about it, he’d slid into the hole with a cascade of gravel trailing behind him.

    Navi winged her way down after him, the frown on her tiny face aping Link’s.

    The boy thumped to the ground, rolling to redistribute the weight, and sat up just in time to spit out a mouthful of dust and sand. Glancing around, he took stock of his surroundings.

    This room was massive, half as large as Dodongo’s Cavern’s main hall. A colossal pit of broiling lava hissed and bubbled restlessly in the center of the room, though the solid, cooled rock Link stood on now flanked the entire room’s rock walls. It was ten paces wide at the narrowest point, more than enough for the boy to feel secure.

    And then a tremendous, rumbling boom echoed throughout the room.

    Link sprang upright, his sword flying to hand as he whipped around. A second thunderous boom nearly knocked him flat, and his eyes widened as he beheld the source of the sounds.

    The largest Dodongo he’d ever seen, at least thirty paces long and three times his height, was pounding its way along the platform towards him. It was very differently built from any ordinary Dodongo; it had four legs, as opposed to the ordinary two, and its immense shoulders were flanked by horned growths of bone that complimented its armored hide. It was coated with a dark brown hue, a surprising change from the ordinary Dodongo’s green, which Link could barely discern on the horror’s underbelly.

    It stopped less than three paces away, its immense maw opened wide, and a tremendous, bellowing roar rolled out into the cavern. It shook the room, and rocked Link to his very core. It was a sound that made the bravest men recoil on an instinctive level, the howl of an unstoppable apex predator from the dawn of time, when Death Mountain ran hot with constant power and rage, a throwback to an age when the Infernal Dinosaur was a true part of the world, and not a sealed horror that even the strongest race in Hyrule feared to behold…

    “Navi? Is this that… King Dodongo you mentioned earlier?”

    “Yup!”

    “Any ideas?!”

    “Give it a shock, and then finish it off with your sword!”

    “THAT DOESN’T HELP!”

    “Look, that’s just what an old book told me, all right? Look out, he’s about to try something!”

    The monster was immense, but slow; it was pounding its way towards him once more, but Link padded backwards as swiftly as he could, keeping a safe distance between himself and the giant. King Dodongo paused for a moment, as if assessing the situation, and then his great mouth swung open like the door to an oven.

    A great breeze caught ahold of Link, sending his tunic flapping crazily. For a moment, Link wondered where it had come from… and then he saw that all that air was whistling straight into King Dodongo’s maw!

    The horror’s mouth closed up, and on a sudden burst of suspicion, Link flattened himself against the wall. An instant later, a tremendous deluge of flames poured mercilessly from King Dodongo’s jaws, and Link felt the skin on his face tightening as the conflagration roared past him.

    A moment later, the firestorm was over, and Link saw the giant reptile gazing stonily down at him, as if astonished he had survived.

    “Give you a shock, huh?” snapped Link. “Well, take this!”

    A bomb was in his hand, and he lobbed the explosive towards the monster with a newly practiced ease. It thumped into the giant’s face, and then dissolved in a blinding flash with a report that shook the cavern once more…

    A tremendous rumbling sound reached Link’s ears, and he dove off to the side. What appeared to be a colossal reptilian boulder was rolling towards him at an unnerving speed, and as it thundered past, Link realized it was a curled-up King Dodongo. The monster slammed into the far wall and rebounded, uncoiling and turning about in a spray of sand in pursuit of its prey.

    A bomb appeared in Link’s hand once more, even as a frustrated Navi shook her head. “I don’t think that’s going to cut it, Link! His hide’s just too thick!”

    Link ignored her; he was busy concentrating on the monster’s maw, waiting for it to open… once… more…

    Now!

    As King Dodongo’s tremendous jaws gaped wide, inhaling massively to unleash another wall of flame, Link flung the bomb at the fantastic beast. The bomb was caught on the breeze, and the wind sucked it into the great dinosaur’s vile gullet. Suddenly, the vast jaws slammed shut. The monster gulped the bomb down on pure instinct, and Link briefly saw what appeared to be confusion register in the monster’s eyes…

    An instant later, those same eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets as a muffled boom echoed from within King Dodongo’s belly. The titan’s jaw slackened, and a vile black cloud oozed out of the monster’s mouth, a smoke that wafted the stench of scorched flesh over to the boy’s nose…

    And then King Dodongo’s four great legs collapsed underneath him, and his immense body crashed to the floor. His cold, reptilian eyes gazed stupidly at Link, a frozen picture of confusion, shock, and disbelief…

    “YES! Go, Link, go!” cheered Navi.

    Link was already moving, his feet were pounding across the floor towards the stunned dinosaur… and for the briefest moment, he paused. He didn’t know how badly it was injured. Its armored head remained a fearsome defense, and clambering into its mouth was suicide…

    …but there was one place on its head Link could still strike, and with a yell of fury, the boy leapt high and jammed the Kokiri Sword into King Dodongo’s right eye.

    The effect was immediate and electric; the monster’s agonized screech filled the chamber, and it leapt up like a scalded cat. Flailing about wildly, the monster sent another cloud of dust and volcanic ash into Link’s face. The boy grimaced, took two stumbling steps back, and slapped himself up against the stone wall just in time – King Dodongo thundered past in anguish and confusion, his bellowing roars pounding into Link’s ears. The boy stepped out from the wall, and craned his neck around as the dust settled, searching for his monstrous foe.

    King Dodongo’s tail swung blindly overhead, and Link knew what he had to do: he’d found a way to defeat the monster, he had to take advantage of that.

    “Hey, ugly! How about some dessert?!”

    A fist-sized stone flew from Link’s hand, and clattered harmlessly against the giant’s scales. For a moment, Link thought the beast hadn’t even felt the missile, and then the brute’s mighty head swung about to gaze down at him with that sluggish, hateful intensity. One eye still remained, and the beast was still moving, still dangerous…

    “Yeah, over here! Or are you too dumb to… WHOAH!”

    The massive jaws lunged forwards, the great tusks seemed to reach out for Link as the boy leapt backwards on pure instinct. The monster’s jaws missed Link, but the wave of heat and power the beast exhaled knocked the off-balanced boy to the merciless stone floor. One great foreleg loomed overhead…

    …and then it hesitated, and slammed down off to the side like a hellish piston. A little glowing blue dot was whipping about King Dodongo’s face, occasionally stopping to buzz some fairy dust into the thing’s nostrils and eyes. The monster snorted and blinked in confusion, desperate to be rid of this little pest.

    “Navi, I’m clear! Nice job!”

    The fairy zoomed down to the boy’s side like a rocket.

    “You all right, Link?”

    “I’m good! That was pretty gutsy… aw, man, here he comes again!”

    The colossal beast bellowed down at Link, but the boy had been waiting for this. King Dodongo saw the boy make a sudden, swift movement, and then dive away. Something barely brushed the dinosaur’s tongue, and he swallowed blindly…

    Link felt the blast travel through the floor, and he pounded towards the fallen dinosaur once more as the beast’s legs twitched in confusion. Lunging around, he stabbed once more, needling his blade in towards that other terrible eye…

    Link felt his arm drenched in something repulsive this time, but it didn’t matter. King Dodongo lunged up once more, staggering in blind fury as he curled into a ball again, thundering away over the stone, crashing into the wall in a mad carnival of wrath and desperation, rebounding off the harsh stone…

    …and careening straight into the lava!

    The thin crust cracked under the stupendous weight, and the dinosaur was deep in the lethal mire before it could react. A spray of magma flew across the room, splattering the wall as the beast uncoiled, and a mad, high bellow of rage and desperation split the room as the monster clawed frantically for the safety of the cool shore…

    But it was already too late. The beast’s flailing abruptly ended as the vast maw opened once more. In a heartbeat, the entire pool seemed to vent the tremendous heat into King Dodongo as the magma hardened, and the brute was abruptly locked into place as the liquid ripened into stone. The reptile’s head and right arm barely cleared the surface of the flat plain, as though it were being born from the rock once more…

    …but no, the beast had stopped moving at last. King Dodongo was frozen and dead.

    Link gazed silently at the father of all dinosaurs, and then he noticed that sapphire-blue magical ring opening once more upon the stone, just to the left of King Dodongo’s head…

    “Navi, I’ve seen two of those portal-things so far…”

    “Well, this is just a theory,” mumbled the fairy “but I think it’s possible this portal was always here, serving as quick transportation to the cavern’s heart for the goron miners. Maybe the monster’s innate magic sealed it off?”

    “Maybe, but how does that explain the Deku Tree’s…”

    “I said it was just a theory. C’mon, if this thing works the same way, we can get out of here!”

    “Cool. All right, here we go…”

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