Through the Fire and Flames

Slowly, the figure rose from his knees on the platform -- his chants grew louder and louder, before ultimately culminating in an exclamation of her superiority to the other three.

Given the steady rise in volume, it wasn't a shock to anyone; Julius, at least, expected as much. Whether or not such fervent prayer was widespread across her disciples was rather . . . questionable, at least; Tent was the expert here. Either way, the figure eventually turned to face the other two, and could they see the face behind the horned helmet that sat atop its head, they would have seen a rather embarrassed individual.

"Err.. How long, exactly, have you two been in here?"Julius responded, "Though I'm unsure of the exact time... ever since your prayers were loud enough to be heard over--" He stopped for a second, the distant roaring becoming ever louder -- "ALL OF THIS ROARING." It was beginning to become somewhat agitating -- he merely wanted to explore this rather dilapidated temple, intrigued by all of the history behind it. Obviously, the acolytes of Din had built it. But when? How? There were so many questions to be answered, but.. He didn't necessarily have time to sift through all of the knowledge here, and given the scroll tucked away in his Adventure Pouch, he was rather dubious of their exact ability to write and record accurately. They seemed to be more inclined to record imprints and relative feelings through drawings; not that there was anything wrong with that, but given Julius' specific interests... Well, it made it difficult to research, to be sure.

"Roaring? Oh--" the armored figure was interrupted by another "that. I suppose I must have been so enraptured by prayer that I did not notice it." He began to inspect the two before him. "Hm.. Well, the short one looks like an acolyte. You.." He inspected Julius carefully. There was a strange absence of many 'traditional' markings of Din's order upon him -- most markedly, the various hues and shades of red that almost assuredly marked members of her order. But... There was more than enough blue. What was more -- the man was just as armored as himself, and chose to obscure much of his personage... Unlike the rather prominent canid features that you could see through his helmet. The first was the snout, and next were the piercing red eyes, usually attributed to Darknuts and Shiekah. "Brother! Why do you hide your face? Why do you associate with those of Nayru's following? Have you forgotten your true allegiance? Come! We shall do what all acolytes do to settle matters of faith -- a contest which we do all too well!"

Julius began to open his mouth to speak to the figure, but before he could, it continued, "We shall lock hands, and test the strength of our arms! We acolytes call this... arm-wrestling." Julius mentally sighed. How long had this particular being been out of communication with the rest of... whatever? Just how long had this place been abandoned? "Come, come! Today we shall see who is stronger," the armored giant continued. He was... certainly an impressive sight, at least, not failing to bring a sense of pride to Din. Indeed, he was a truly massive figure -- at least a foot taller than Julius -- and a good deal wider as well. He almost reminded Julius of some of the trees he had seen around Hyrule as well -- particularly those in the Kokiri Forest...

"Alright then, let's get this over with." There was a certain aspect of apathy to Julius' voice -- he knew Darknuts were far stronger than... really, just about any other beings in Hyrule; save for, notably, Lynels, and Ganon himself, of course. Without question, he would lose; but for how long could he entertain this... slightly deranged warrior? It would be difficult to say for sure.

Julius grunted as he set his elbow upon the table. He took the Darknut's hand into his, and began to grasp it firmly through his gauntlets. The Darknut responded by squeezing back, and already Julius knew that he would lose... but how long could he entertain his opponent?

Tent gave the starting signal, and the Darknut immediately began to push with such force that Julius thought the Darknut's plan was to simply throw him onto the floor. As he grasped the side of the table for support, he managed to stop his hand halfway to the table. He was at a clear mechanical disadvantage here -- he had to fight up, against gravity as well as the Darknut's incredible strength. Sweat began to bead down Julius' forehead as he grunted with all his might, just barely managing to keep his hand at where it was at. He began to shrink lower to the ground, as his hand steadily began to go lower and lower against the table.

"I would have thought you stronger than this, brother!" A smirk spread across the Darknut's lips, no sign of strain in his voice. The warrior before him was miles above Julius in terms of strength -- he could hardly believe it! The Darknut looked to the side opposite of the referee, giving a great huff of breath before single-handedly throwing Julius' form -- armor, weapons, and all -- nearly a foot from the table. He began to laugh as Julius collapsed into a heap on the ground.

"By Din's nurturing womb, I wasn't expecting that." Julius sat up, his face feeling cooler -- his helmet had fallen off. "Oh, uh," he began looking to the Darknut for a reaction. "I guess I wasn't really your 'brother'. Sorry about that," he spoke, lifting his helmet and replacing it upon his head.

The Darknut's face began to spell disdain, and then mild humour. "Well, for a Hylian, I suppose you are strong enough -- perhaps one day, you may yet be worth Din's notice." As those words left his jowels, the Darknut let out something resembling a laugh, however you'd describe it.

"So, my armor was what you were asking about earlier. I used to have silver armor -- it was just plain steel, really, with some gold details and such. The stuff I have on now, though, is Zora mail -- I bought it a few months back with what I'd saved up during my day-job. Lets me breathe underwater and all that jazz -- really a great investment. I couldn't recommend you a specific maker, but I do know this one Deku armorer -- even if she is, uh..." Julius struggled to find the right words. "Well, I guess by your order's measure, she'd be an... extremist, I suppose. Psychopathic and always searching for... something, anything to kill. It's... I would say scary, but not exactly. It's just discomforting, I guess. My point is, she does good work." Of course, all this conversation about Sienna was beginning to make him desire to change the topic. "Anyways, we can talk about, uh, her some more later. How'd you come to be here?"

"Well, I--" The roaring suddenly grew to an apex, and an indescribably loud shattering sound reverberated through the room as a figure came into view.

For a lack of better words: it was, in short, a motherfucking dragon. It wasn't lithe or thin, or delicate, or anything else that might portray something akin to what you might expect -- no, it was, much like another dragon Julius had already slain, beefy and brawny and... getting ready to breathe gouts of flame right down their necks!

Julius watched the red flow from the dragon's gullet; in one movement, swifter than you'd think someone of his stature as being able to move, he drew his blade, readied his shield in front of him, and prayed to the Goddesses with all he could muster. He started towards one of the heavy pillars as quickly as he could -- even as he ran as quickly as his legs could carry, him, he still felt the flames of the dragon hot on his tail, before diving low to the ground, behind one of the solid pillars.

He felt the flame wash over him as he gritted his teeth in pain. He could feel the metal of his armor growing hotter and hotter, even through his tunic, and eventually his sword grew so hot that it was impossible for him to hold any longer. Hissing in agony, he stood from his prone position behind the pillar. Gradually, the room began to cool, though it was still rather hot in the area surrounding him -- even through his tunic, he imagined that this must be the heat felt on a particularly harsh day in the Tantari.

"Tent!" Julius yelled out, clearing from behind the pillar, shield raised and sword in hand as he watched the ceiling. The dragon had moved from the hole it had created, but he knew it was still near, as the roars were so loud they were ringing in his ears; they needed to move on, and fast, before they got cooked, or eaten, or . . . any number of unfortunate things, really. Hearing the Deku Scrub yell back, he was quick to respond: "I've got something, at least, but we might want to get somewhere where we won't cook like bulbos!"

He found another doorway easily enough, yelling back to the Darknut, "You can either come with us, or stay but that dragon might eat you either way!" He could thing of several reasons as to why he should come -- the first of all being that he was fucking strong, with many of the others... not quite falling into Din's domain, but close enough that he figured they would help.

Regardless, Julius moved into another corridor. They needed to... well, to get out of this temple first, especially if they were going to fight a dragon. He remembered himself, Guy, Gustav, and Wiki taking one down some time ago -- that was, of course, with largely advantageous terrain, and Guy's extreme mobility working in their favour... whether or not they could find good terrain was a different story, and since none of them were especially mobile, it seemed like they were further at a disadvantage; but, perhaps with Julius' Hookshot, they may yet stand a chance.

Moving through the corridor with Tent no doubt behind him, he ducked into another room as it became clearer that the stretch of corridor ahead of them lacked a roof, for whatever reason. They were safe, in a smaller room than many they'd been in so far -- but, maybe that would just make it easier for the dragon to eat them... "Alright," Julius said, turning to Tent. He rummaged through his Adventure Pouch for a second, before digging out his Hookshot. "Here. Use this to get on the dragon if it rears its head again -- I've tangled with one before, and I don't think we can fight it here. We're going to need..." Julius muttered under his breath for a second as the source of the roaring seemed to pass over them. "We're going to need good terrain, for one; somewhere open so that its breath doesn't fill the room and cook us alive like it almost did back there. Two, we're going to need mobility... which is what this is going to provide us -- or, at least you." He tossed the bladed contraption at Tent, explaining how to work its controls. "Just slip it on and press the trigger when you're aiming at wherever you want to go."

Julius looked around the room, noticing a way to go above the temple, possibly onto whatever bits of ceiling remained -- or lower, if they so desired... Either way, they still needed to clear the temple itself -- but, with the dragon being such a threat, it might be hard to eliminate it in the current situation. Still, the decision was Tent's to make, as Julius himself clearly didn't have an opinion on the matter.

Julius grunted as his run turned into an outright sprint, clearly aware of the dragon's intent -- he knew this might perhaps be his last fight, but if he was going to go out like this... he might as well last long enough to do something.

Bringing his shield up and over his face, Julius kept blindly sprinting towards the dragon -- he couldn't Sense it yet, so it must still be some distance away... He kept running and running, far faster than his legs could carry him at this point -- this was his last charge, his last stand for valor. If he was going to die, he was going to die fighting a Din-damned dragon. The dragon came into the range of his preternatural senses -- straight ahead. But, as he came closer to the dragon, so too did the intensity of the heat grow -- this was it! This was the flame that would surely burn him alive!

Blindly, Julius ran through it, charging through what he thought was fire. About seven feet left.. He could already feel the burns upon his body. He leapt into the air -- he knew what he was doing, and perhaps the onlookers did as well -- he began to bend over the crest of the dragon's head, his blade striking deep into the dragon's skull. Frozen midway through his Helm Splitter, he forced his blade deeper, deeper, and deeper still. It felt like an eternity to Julius -- as his blade pierced the dragon's skull, but eventually his blade left his grasp, buried too deep into the dragon's skull to have followed him out. He flopped onto the dragon's back on his stomach, expecting the creature to take off at any moment.

He thought he felt its wings beat, Julius himself all too focused on hanging on for dear life -- but, what he thought was the dragon taking off was.. no. It was slain. The dragon thrashed around even as Julius' sword prodded its brain, the weight of the Hylian upon its back barely even noticeable at this point. It tried flapping its wings -- and for a while, had succeeded -- but, just as it had managed to take off, it came crashing back upon the earth, finally.. defeated.

Julius opened his clenched eyes, steadily looking around himself. No, he was still on the ground... Finally, it dawned upon him. The dragon had been slain.

Hastily, he climbed the up the dragon's corpse, drawing his blade from its... rather soft skull. Tent had said something about Din guiding his fist, he realized; perhaps whatever he had done had softened its skull enough for his blade to penetrate it and pierce its brain. Whatever was afoot here had clearly worked, even if Julius didn't necessarily know the complicated things like how or why, simply that they had worked -- and that was enough for him.

After procuring his blade from atop the dragon's skull -- if only he had a pictobox to capture the moment! -- he collapsed upon the ground, beside Tent, though he was obviously not nearly as strained or as tired as the Deku Scrub who was, at most, perhaps a quarter of his mass.

He moved himself so that he was facing the structure in the distance. "What do you think that is? It looks so... fancy, I guess is the word I'd use for it. It's strange, though; why do all this fabulous and lavish construction and design in the middle of... well, nowhere? It's a bit fishy, if you ask me, but I'd rather it be a Temple of Din than something dedicated to... I don't know, Ganon, or something." He had a suspicion that there was more than likely something akin to that out there -- merely that he had yet to find such a thing. "Anyways, uh, I think it's safe to rest here... for now, at least. Who knows how many more there are of those around here."

Julius grunted as a sneer spread across his face. "Darknut, you would do well to not forsake those who other control your mind and spirit. There's a specific mantra I've grown attached to -- it's something along the lines of, 'May Din give me the strength to defeat my foes, may Farore give me the courage to stand face-to-face with them, and may Nayru give the wisdom and knowledge to resolve conflict without violence.' Perhaps that second phrase would do well for you, considering how... What's the word I'm looking for?" He stopped for a second in a mock-pause of his continued mocking of the over-zealous Din acolyte. "Inept you are, that's it. You have all that strength, but you're too cowardly to use it-- you have all that strength, but you're too shortsighted and narrow-minded to solve anything that can't be resolved through brute force and violence." Julius continued spitting vitriolic poison at the incredibly strong (yet cowardly) Darknut that stood before them on the bridge.

Finally, after a long period of silence, the Darknut spoke up once more. "Haera. That was the name of the one who summoned me, at least-- she usually referred to me as . . . Darkhammer."

Another long period of silence followed this, though in Darkhammer's case, it must have been more in somber remembrance. "She... Thought of me as her child, would be the best way to put it, I suppose. That may be the reason for my apparent cowardice as well -- I wasn't created to guard anything, but to simply... not get hurt." He took off his helm and looked to the ground of the mountain. He then shifted towards the citadel in the distance.

"I... am far older than it may appear to either of you. I inhabited this temple in its prime, and I've inhabited it until... now. I suppose that means the two of you would like to know the story behind this place, as well." He sniffled his snout, looked at the body of the dragon, and then towards Julius and Tent.

The Darknut sighed as he tried to recollect his memories of the temple. Laughs, smiles -- fights and battles, too. There was simply so much history that the warrior had no idea how to relay it all; simply, he looked back at the two, and began to cry.

Silence shrouded the group as Julius reclined onto the body of the beast. Really, it was no bigger than an Aquamentus, Julius guessed, and those things were... well, rather easy to kill, as long as you knew how. Hell -- Julius could probably kill one with a wooden sword himself.

Eventually, Darkhammer stopped shedding his tears. Julius watched from the comfort of his dragon-skin couch as he exposited about the history of his order -- how generally kind they had been, how exuberant life was within the comfort of the compound -- and then, one day, of how they all began preparing their equipment -- many of them astride in full plate, checking and rechecking their arms and every last inch of their armor. And then, of how his creator -- his mother -- of how she took him, told him of everyone else in the order 'going to meet with Din', and then being sealed away for "a long time."

Generally, what it sounded like to Julius was: "I'm ignorant to the outside world and my summoner locked me away in a room while everyone else got slaughtered in some kind of battle." He didn't have a particular reaction -- on the contrary, he was actually quite interested in the history of this temple, just as he was interested in the history of many things. But Darkhammer was so... blissfully unaware. Julius smiled, looking at the sky from atop the dragon, his helmet at his side.

How he wished to be so innocent again.

But it couldn't be so. Not after... everything, especially Ganon's invasion, that had happened within his lifetime. Well-- it would certainly take some doing, but perhaps there would be hope for this Darknut yet.

"Hey.. Darkhammer." He rolled his head in the direction of the canine warrior, a surprisingly stern and serious expression spread across his face... yet somehow, it still seemed simply... languid. "There's still hope out there, for you. There are other orders of Din -- hell, if you went to a follower of Nayru, they might be able to help you find out about what happened here, even. After all, I... don't think that everyone in this particular order 'ascended', as you say. It's possible that they simply... forgot about you, and left. After all, if there were just a few members of the order left, why would they stick around? Surely, they'd spread elsewhere... whether to simply spread teachings, or word of what had happened here, or... something else altogether. Who knows, really. If you really desire some kind of answer -- however unsatisfactory it may turn out to be -- I'd advise to leave here, and wander for a good while. See if an acolyte of Farore won't teach you of steeling your own spirit. Hell, it wouldn't even need to be a follower of Farore -- I've heard of hermits in the mountains who are supposedly legendary swordsmen. Surely they'd be able to teach you... something, at the least. Maybe one of them can teach you how to use that trident you have -- or, hell, maybe if you regroup with another member of a different sect of Din, they'd take you in. You wouldn't even necessarily need to fight -- just help around. They'd probably accept you more than... really, anywhere else in Hyrule, at the very least." Julius doubted he needed to explain the stigma against Darknuts to Tent, at the very least.

"Either way, whether you choose to remain here or venture out into the world, I think this should be where we part ways for now. Perhaps later, we'll be able to meet again." The Darknut would be an enemy to dread in the future, if he truly gained courage. However, for now, it would be more interesting to Julius to see whether or not the Darknut would find an ally in fellow acolytes, as he had Tent -- or whether he might fall to the darkness of Ganon's forces. Of course, there could always be other, more unexpected outcomes.

He lazily rolled off the corpse of the dragon, holding onto his helmet. "Still, though, if you're going to leave you're probably going to want to hide your face, and not let anyone see that you're actually a Darknut. Even then, there are still more than likely a few individuals who can tell you're a Darknut just by being around you. I won't go into details about it right now, but that's pretty much how it pans out. Be careful of who you associate with out there, because it's crazier than... well, anything in recent history, at least. Just... be careful, if you do go. It was nice meeting you."

He put his helmet back on his head, and began walking to the smaller -- or maybe larger? -- citadel in the distance. While they still had to clear out whatever remained of the other temple, it would perhaps be best to get this one out of the way now, rather than later.

Almost wordlessly, Julius opened the door into the throne room, utterly unaware of what perils may lie within.

But, in truth, it was not simply ignorance that brought about his confidence -- it was the fact that they had both just slain a fucking dragon in what was, more or less, one or two solid blows. It highlighted, to Julius, the fragility of life -- and also the fact that he and Tent may as well have been certified badasses. There would be more time to revel in their camaraderie later, however, as he slowly pushed past the rust-red doors into the inner walls of whatever citadel they had only recently discovered.

...

Far away -- farther than any of them could see without assistance -- a group of red-robed acolytes sat, perched high atop rocks in the distance. One of them, a tall, rather lanky fellow simply watched the duo through a telescope, idly relaying the events of their journey to his (presumed) compatriots. All of them looked rather bored -- they had done this same test, this same experiment, nearly ten times now. They all already knew what would happen -- they would need to attempt to further improve their subjects, strength, speed, agility... And whatever else they could conclude had gone wrong with the hatchling this time. Fortunately, it seemed to mature in only a matter of weeks -- a massive improvement over their typical month long wait.

"Incredible," the one spying upon the duo commented, watching their almost effortless take down of the dragon. "One punch -- and then the armored fellow sunk his blade in and it died. Just like that! Of course, we'll need to improve the durability of its skeleton... A Warlock Punch, however impractical it may be in real combat, simply should not be able to mush the skull of our dragons like that. No, we'll need to adjust this -- start... I don't know; fortifying their diets with iron, or something. I'm sure she'll be able to figure this one out on her own." The thought of that witch left a sour taste in his mouth -- he had signed on to this project to be an adviser, not be turned into some warrior-esque meathead acolyte! Of course, he wasn't able to lie -- with how... forceful she had been in her persuasion, he was certainly afraid to leave now.

But what of her child? Assumedly, like the last dozens of times they had conducted this same experiment, she would simply happen upon him, and without feeling remorse or anything of that sort, effortlessly reprogram her creation with a myriad of different memories, personality traits... The list went on. It was, mostly, a relatively closed environment; these two were an example of the odd interruption, but it only added to their increasing data about many things.

First of all, was their attempt to produce the 'perfect' warrior. Darkhammer served as good a test subject as any for this. Second, they were also attempting to breed an utterly unstoppable force of dragons -- nearly unstoppable, at least. Both he and the queen knew that there were some things that were nearly impossible to protect against.

"Well, we've observed all we needed this time around. Let's make our way back."