Disclaimer: I do not own Legend of Zelda.

AN: I have changed the rating of this fic to T, for darkness and language. It was changed last chapter but I don't think I said anything, so yeah.

Chapter Ten

Link, Hero of Time

The world swam with blackness, but Link charged the first thing he saw amid the chaos. A pair of gleaming yellow eyes.

"Ah, my amusing little Hero has come to let me toy with him again?" Ganondorf snickered.

"I have come to avenge my brother!" Link yelled.

"Oh, have you? But, my little hero, there's something keeping you apart. Just a little bit of my favorite handiwork, you know."

And in front of Link, between him and Ganon, a massive monster reared from the abyss, crazed crimson eyes glaring down at the tiny hero. Fingers of black and gleaming silver ensnared Link in a grip of metal. It roared visciously, and then chuckled to a deep laugh, grinning as it growled in a demonic voice, "The Hero must be alone."

It dove and prepared to swallow Link whole. With a yell the Hero imbedded the Master Sword into the roof of its mouth. The monster shrieked, and behind him Ganon cursed under his breath and stretched out his hands, pushing the monster forward with the his Power, fueling the beast's blood, which turned to acid as it bled down the sword and unto Link, who yelped, twisting the blade while his skin curdled and burned. But what chance did the Master Sword have? It was a toothpick against rows of teeth.

But the blade of Evil's Bane would not submit. It glared whitehot and streaks of white lit up the creature's mouth, branching out like veins in a block of marble. They spread along the beast, arching up from its mouth and cracking across obsidian scales until the beast throbbed with light. Ganon himself wailed, puppetmaster of the beast victim to the agony of his creation. But the Demon Lord would not yield. Feeling the imminent collapse of his grandeur tool carved from the darkness of his exile, Ganon thrust its blinding mass on top of the Hero, weight crushing Link's human body.

The monster crumbled to white embers, and Link felt himself standing uncertainly amid the black that was left. Midnight overhead, coal chaos below, Link staggered, finding the Master Sword gone. In the realm of Hyrule above, it rang against stone, strident and heart wrenching as dread drove fearful heartbeats into throats.

Link wheeled as an iron fist clasped upon his marked hand. Ganon sneered above him, and the Hylian could feel the vibration of Gerudo Power seeking to wrench Courage from the Hero.

Link's Triforce hand began to sear with flame as the inked corruption of Ganon sneered and loomed above him. The Evil King felt Courage's repulsion and grinned demonically. "Oh, your element can't stand that, can it? Evil? Well isn't that silly, for Courage to fear Power? We must try and give old Farore a taste."

Ganon extended his other hand and Link felt every eerie or detestable sensation he'd ever felt in his life crawling all over his skin, absorbing into his pores, and hacking, as if with tiny fingernails, at his mind. He threw his head back and screamed, his body fighting for a way out, skin leaping free of itself. Without warning, a harsher note hit his cry and it cut to a snarl. His eyes beamed blue but instinct overcame him and he sunk his teeth into Ganon's wrist.

Ganondorf flung him back, appalled, taking a moment to glance at the blood trickling from tooth holes on his Triforce mark. And the sacred beast was hurled away and struck the floor, suddenly canine bones rattling with the impact. But the wolf rolled to his feet easily, titling his head back and howling to the black oblivion, sensing the reek of evil and bounding after a shocked Ganon, taking the opportunity to tackle the Demon Lord and latch lupine fangs into Gerudo blood. Ganon yelped and struck the wolf with mighty fist, knocking Link brutally towards the ground. But the dog was determined, unstoppable, and endlessly nimble on four paws, dashing around the base of the man and snaring his robes in jagged teeth. "Enough!" boomed Ganon, stomping on the wolf with a heavy boot. Link yelped at the impact against his ribs, and Ganon held him there as he enshrouded the Hero with his power. Cold clamps set into Link's bones and he felt his joints forced into different direction, his bones made malleable and coerced into molding. Fur melted from skin as his neck was harshly straightened out, made to face the Demon King, who wrenched one of Link's newly shifted arms at a painful angle, gripping his other and preventing the Hero's escape.

"Hylians truly are weak," the man, if one could call him a man, crooned, inches from Link's face, "are you such a coward, boy, that you only dare face me as a wolf?"

"Are you so weak that you must fear me?" Link retorted, searching for the Light World with his thoughts, at last grazing it, and feeling the presence of the Sages above. Ganon's eyes narrowed at his insult but bulged with rage when he too felt the reach of the Sages extending to their Hero.

"No! You will not escape me what is rightly mine!" Ganon screamed, and Link felt power tear at his very being. It tunneled into his chest and clamped around his heart, seeking to squeeze the very courage out of it. He howled in agony, and Ganon grinned joyously, reveling in all of it. "To have the Triforce is to have power, is it not, boy? And so I, as the bearer of Power, must own the mark on your wrist, for to truly have power is to hold all three. And if the Goddesses have so graced me with the Power on my hand, they must want me to hold the power of all three, don't you think?"

Something had reached inside Link's bones and was peeling each apart into a hundred different pieces. "Don't you think the Goddesses would honor you, boy, if you gave me the piece of the Triforce they want me to have?"

Link answered with a blow aimed at the Demon Lord's face. But Ganon stopped it before it even made contact, proceeding to wrench the Hero's wrist in the wrong direction. "You have no other choice. Give it up, boy." Ganon relished the words.

"Never," came Link's steady reply, his voice even throughout the torture, Courage glaring on his hand, pulsing with the heart of the Hero.

Ganon growled in impatience and reached into Link's mind, unearthing all the horrors the boy had ever seen, recoloring every trauma and playing them all back at once, fists clamped securely against Link's ability to do anything else, watching him wash in the regrets and terrors of his life.

The shriek of a re-dead, the sensation of being thrown against a wall as Morpha softened him up for digestion, and the otherworldy glare of Dark Link's eyes as he stared him down, coolly matching him strike for strike. Link's mind rang with the ear-racking sound of bones assembling into a Stalphos. His legs were chewed by an illusionary blade trap, sharp pain cracking across angry red flesh as Volvagia reared in front of him, trapping him in a body of searing nerves while Koume and Kotake cackled at his predicament, the cacophony of their echoing delight like metal walls closing in, crushing his ribcage like a pinecone underfoot and his hope like a candle drowning in wax.

Malon wailed and sobbed unabashedly as Link promised her that Ingo would never touch her again. The Deku tree, his lifelong friend and protector, the guardian and lifeblood of the Kokiri, died before his eyes. He had failed to save the old tree that was practically his father. Zelda was carried away atop a snowy horse, out of his reach and away into the big dangerous world. Ganon reared to squash him beneath a steed the color of nightmares. And he met Prince for the first time, seeing the shock on Zelda's face when he entered the throne room, the eyes glittered with jewel-like tears and the echo of her feet as she stormed out. The haunted Well surrounded him, filled with the ringing drips of water and the splatters of ominous stains. The spine chilling sound of Skulltulas scratching and scurrying all around him barricaded any ability Link had to think. His reflexes called for him to lash out, his instincts calculated each threat and each needed maneuver, but every sensation was compounded and his legs could not move.

A thousands defenses flared in his frenzied mind, all clashing and sparking for attention. Link felt panic climbing up his chest as he writhed against his mind, but soon the feed from nerve to brain was too great, there was nothing else. It drowned out even his panic.

With a snigger Ganon soaked in the pleasure of Link's destruction, casting the Hero's now limp form aside, kicking the green clad body. The monster of the curse reared anew, freshly resurrected, salivating as it engulfed what had once been the Hero of Time.

"LINK!"

Zelda rushed to the fallen man, Jerome quickly following her.

"Quick, somebody, help!" Zelda called, and Nabooru shouted brusquely to the guards outside the gate. "Hey, we need help in here!"

"We have to take him to the castle," Zelda urged as the soldiers ran up the steps. Without further ado they hefted his body and carried it out of the Temple. He was mumbling, muttering frantically, his face twitching.

"Can't you heal him, Zelda?" asked Ruto hurriedly, remembering the Queen's Wisdom.

"No," Zelda's voice cracked, "I-I tried, but whatever happened to him, it's too strong."

"He'll be all right though, won't he?" Nabooru was desperate.

Zelda could only shake her head and gasp, "I don't know," before the sobs came all at once and she buried herself in Jerome's arms. Sensing something, Impa rushed from the Temple, quickly trailed by Saria. There were panicked voices outside. Chaos was heard from strains bumping the silence of the Temple.

"Put me down!" he was shouting, his voice rough with anger. The two guards hastily set the man down, shocked. Without warning he lashed out at them, punching and kicking them backwards where they reeled in shock and then unconsciousness as his blows hit home.

"Link!" Impa shouted, moving to block the man. He barreled towards her and stuck his fist in her gut, shoving her winded body off as he sprinted towards the rest of the sages. Saria hastily hid around a corner and blinked back terror. No, no, this could not be happening. Link would never—he hadn't—

"Zelda," he seethed, his eyes, blue but alit with a sickening passion, ticking creepily across the courtyard, brushing past Saria's hiding spot where her fairy huddled behind her.

He jerked a knife from his belt and charged into the Temple, a battlecry crossing his lips as he aimed openly for the Queen. With a victorious scream he lunged at her, easily shoving past the shocked Sages and King, brains frozen and malfunctioning. By the extremity of things, the world should have stopped. And they reacted as if it had.

Zelda shrieked and rolled from the attack, but Link continued to chase her, laughing psychotically. "Link, no!" the Queen screamed as he raised his dagger.

"Ganon always gets what he wants," the maniac cackled, wheeling around toward Darunia, who had attempted to sneak up behind him, fist raised. "What? Does Mr. Rock Man think he can outmatch Power? What strength do you wield, over he who can corrupt Courage?" the unhinged Hylian spat, hand rewrapping around the dagger as he prepared to stab Darunia.

"No, Link, calm down, you don't know what you're doing—!" Darunia attempted to reason with the madman, but the lunatic only raised his blade higher. "Where are you supposed to stab a Goron?" he muttered, "Well I guess I'll just have to find out!"

With a dull thud Jerome struck the deranged man over the head with the Zora Sapphire. His cerulean eyes rolled back as the insane Hero tumbled to the floor, leaving the temple wreathed in shocked silence.

And Saria, Sage of Forest, bolted out of Castle Town as fast as her Kokiri legs would take her. The Ocarina of Time was clenched in her hand, a confused fairy bobbing behind her, dancing in his attempt to keep up.

AN: Sooooooooooo...well, I'm gonna be roughly a week late on my next update...so the next installment is three weeks out instead of two...I apologize. But even more than that I apologize that a delay had to happen after this chapter. As I have said before, I have an ending and a way to get Link and Link from here (shudders) to there! Please, don't give up, this story will have a happy ending. I promise. Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a cupcake in my eye.