I realized something important. You'll see.

Sorry for taking as long as a month. You know me, though, that's about regular. On the bright side, I'm making a special chapter that will be Christmas based. (Sorry for those that don't celebrate Christmas)

Anyway, I'll upload that one or a day before or after Christmas.

Chapter 11

Link yawned, bored, as he and Midna traveled across the land. Suddenly, a thought occurred to him. He stopped walking.

Midna stopped too, and looked back at him. "What is it?" She asked upon seeing the thoughtful look on his face.

"Why don't we just teleport?" He asked.

Midna was silent for a moment. "Good question," she finally responded. "Then let's go." Link changed into a wolf, and she snapped her fingers. They turned into Twilight Particles, flying through the air.

The duo arrived instantaneously in the next town. Link removed his bow from his pouch. He started to inspected it as he said, "It's nice to know that you can actually get from town to town like that. Maybe we can wrap this up in the next 5 days or so."

Midna snorted. "5 might be pushing it. There are a lot of towns, you know."

Link paused and glanced back at her with a frown. "Don't spoil my fun," he said. "How many towns are there, anyway?"

"I never kept track," Midna replied somewhat sheepishly.

Link sighed and turned back to his bow. "That's annoying."

"Yep. Let's get a map after freeing this town."

"Do we really have to free them all?" Link asked. "I mean, I'm all for helping people, but if there are more than 6, can we just go straight for the final boss? It's not like I have to go searching for any more magic macguffins, right?"

"The hell's a 'macguffin?'" Midna asked as Link finished his inspections, drawing an arrow from his quiver and preparing his sleeping potion.

"It's something I read once. A 'macguffin' is basically a magical plot device for stories. They're there to advance the story, nothing more, really."

"So you're comparing our adventures to a story in a book?"

"Yep," Link said as he took aim, pointing the arrow to the first soldier.

"Fuck this noise!"

"Link, there are seven. Get over it."

"NO! I told you if there are more that 6 we'd skip them!"

"Link, there are 7, counting the one we just freed. Technically, there are 6."

Midna sighed, frustrated, as she and Link leaned over a spread-out map.

Link frowned. "I never said that it didn't include this one."

Midna scowled. "Seriously?"

"Seriously."

"Link, just fucking do it. We have to give Zelda some time on her end to come up with a better plan than 'storm the enemy's stronghold and hope for the best.'"

"But I don't wanna…" Link complained like a child.

"Link…" Midna said threateningly.

Link pouted unhappily, but said, "Fine."

"Honestly, what am I, your mother?"

"I certainly do hope not."

Midna raised an eyebrow, and choose to not say anything about that, instead moving on. "So, let's focus on this town next." She pointed to the second largest town on the map.

"That place'll be crawling with soldiers," Link commented.

"True, but it has nearly half of the available supplies. Freeing that will go a long way."

Link nodded in understanding. "Where's the other half?"

"In the town in front of the castle," she answered, pointing to it.

Link nodded again. "We have to save that for last, huh?"

"Yes."

"…Should we focus on the smaller areas first? Build up a resistance group, before the enemy catches onto what we're doing?"

Midna thought for a second before sighing. "Yes, I guess that is the more strategic option in this kind of warfare. I kinda got used to just jumping into a big stuff, and doing the small things as we go, thanks to you."

Link grinned. "Well, that's how I prefer how to do stuff. I guess it rubbed off on you." He paused for a moment in thought. "Did you know Zelda's blaming her swearing on you?"

"What?"

"Yeah, she swore, and I pointed it out to her. Then she contradicted herself, saying that she was chucking swears left and right directly after the invasion started, but picked it up from when you two were bonded."

"What a bitch," Midna said jokingly.

"I know, right? So how much time do we have left in the day?"

"A couple hours."

"Let's go free some towns then!"

"Shouldn't we recruit some soldiers first?"

Link frowned, wanting to get moved. Then, he snapped his fingers. "Let's get Kage to handle recruitment!"

"But what about the town he's defending?"

"We'll get the standby guards at that first town to do it."

"Don't you mean the second town?"

"No, the first we freed."

"Oh. Sure, let's go do that."

The two teleported right there, not announcing they were leaving. They shocked the inhabitants of the village because their saviors suddenly vanished with no explanation.

In the first saved town, Link gathered up all the spare soldiers and Midna teleported them to the village Kage was staying at.

Similarly to what happened when they first arrived, the villagers freaked out upon finding people teleporting into the town. Kage rushed out, sword in hand, ready to defend the town. His eyes widened upon seeing the number of his supposed enemies.

Upon saw Link's wolf form come into existence, Kage let out a long sigh of relief and lowered his weapon. He approached them.

"You guys damn near gave me a heart attack," he told them when they finished reforming. "In fact, I think half the population of the town just died from fright."

"What about the other half?" Link asked.

"Probably in a coma, again from fright."

Link snorted briefly before moving on. He pointed behind him, to the soldiers. "These guys are going to watch over the village for a while."

"What about me?" Kage asked. "I was doing just fine." He almost seemed wounded.

"We need you to handle recruitment," Midna answered. "We're stepping it up and moving faster because we suddenly remembered that teleportation was a thing. As such, we don't want to wait around in each town for all the soldiers to wake up, figure out which ones will be easy to convince, and so on and so forth."

Kage seemed to perk up. "Yeah, I can do that! I'll be home that much faster! I'll go tell the mayor, and then we can be on our way!" He ran down the street, rushing into the mayor's house. Two minutes later, Kage and the mayor emerged from the house.

The mayor looked weary, but after a moment of talking to Gimlet, who was almost unnaturally perky, he loosened and was assured that the soldiers weren't going to harm them. The mayor took the soldiers away to show them around town.

Link looked to Kage. "Ready?" He asked.

"As ready as I'll ever be. Where'd you get all those guys though?"

"They were all at the town with the swordsmith. Actually, that's only half of them. The other half is guarding the other town."

Kage looked worried. "That's a lot of soldiers for a mere outpost."

Link thought for a second. "I guess that's true. They're going all out in this attempt to murder Midna and take over the kingdom."

Midna nodded. "It's probably something to worry about, but let's not be concerned with it until we have to actually deal with the main force. By then, we should have a force that's at least a third of it."

"Shouldn't we aim for half?" Link asked.

"I can't just get half the whole force, Link. And it's out of my hands how many we can get anyway."

Link nodded. "Right. Let's go then."

Midna nodded, and they teleported.

In Town #2, (with the other towns now to be known as #0 & #1) Link first remembered to get a shield. He went to the shop and got the only one that wasn't cheap Twilight wood equivalent.

With that out of the way, he ushered Kage into the room with the chained up soldiers. The poor guy seemed shocked by the large number of people.

"Is there a third tribe I wasn't aware of?" He asked. "Seriously, I don't think there are enough men in our tribe to cover all this."

"Did anyone come to your tribe at any time?" Link asked.

"A couple came to escape a calamity that was happening over here a couple weeks back, but there were only a couple and they seemed pretty lifeless, muttering about beasts and seeing their families mutated."

Midna frowned. "There'd better not be another force at play here, or else someone is going to die!"

"Someone's doing to die anyway," Link pointed out.

"Someone really important."

"Someone really important is going to die anyway."

"Fuck off, you know what I mean!"

Link smiled. "I know. I just can't help but be a smartass about it."

Midna scowled for a moment before laughing. "You're annoying."

"Same to you, buddy."

"Uh, guys?" Kage said. "Shouldn't you be going?"

Link chuckled sheepishly. "Oh yeah, we should."

Kage rolled his eyes and waved as they disappeared into particles.

A couple hours later, Link was about to shoot the final two soldiers, who were standing tensely, carefully watching the surrounding area. He reached for his arrows. His hand grabbed air. Confused, he looked down, and found he didn't have any.

"Shit!" He hissed.

"Guess you'll actually have to fight," Midna commented.

"But… that means I have to be mindful of the fact that I need them alive," Link complained.

"Suck it up, you big baby. You got that sword for a reason, you know," Midna said, pushing him into the open.

"There you are, you fucker!" One of the men shouted, drawing his weapon.

"Oh joy," Link said sarcastically, pulling out his sword. It took all of two seconds to disarm the men. "Surrender."

The men's eyes twitched under their helmets.

"How the shit? What are you, the legendary blue-eyed beast of this land's legend?"

Link raised an eyebrow. "Wow, correct on the first try. That's a new one."

The men seemed shocked. "No way, that's a pathetic legend our tribe doesn't even believe in!" The second yelled, incredulous.

Link shrugged. "Huh. Good for you. Now surrender."

"Fine," the first said, resigned.

Link smiled and ordered them to gather their unconscious comrades up. They begrudgingly did so. While they did that under Link's supervision, Midna teleported to Town #2 to get Kage. She came back a couple minutes later and said, "He's knee-deep into convincing the other town's guards to join us. Actually, it's more like ankle-deep. He hasn't gotten very far."

"Should we just call it a day then?" Link asked.

"Unless you have some more arrows lying around in your pouch, which I highly doubt."

Link chuckled. "Oh yeah," he muttered. "I need more arrows. Forgot about that. I'm so used to being stocked up all the time."

"It's not often that you go and shoot two towns worth all around the place, snapping half of them after just one use. Seriously, Light Realm materials are so flimsy."

"They are not. They're just a tad more expendable, and so I don't take care of them as well as I should."

The two surrendered men came back. "We're back, sir," they muttered dully.

"You got them to call you 'sir?'"

Link shrugged. "It wasn't my idea."

The men held out a number of broken arrows. "As you requested, sir," one of them murmured monotonously.

"Your broken arrows? Why, I thought you said they were expendable?"

"They are," Link answered, shoving them in his pouch. "But I'm a farmboy. I know that we as a race rely heavily on the Earth. So leaving any materials in another realm where the materials won't go back to where they should be is bad to me."

"I don't understand you."

"Nor I you, my friend."

Midna shrugged, then thought of something. "So, wait. If that's your rule, are you ever going to return that toy you took with you to the Light Realm?"

Link frowned. "I threw it under my bed to keep it out of Rusl's sight."

"And you couldn't just hide it under your covers?"

"Apparently not."

Midna raised an eyebrow at the Light Dweller's apparent inability to think quickly when it didn't come to combat. She was unable to come up with a decent response, so she just moved on. "So, let's go then."

"Where?"

"Back to Town #1, where else? Their beds were really comfy."

Link smiled. "Alright. Let me just take care of these two first." He jabbed his thumb in the direction of the almost lifeless soldiers.

After chaining the two men up alongside their comrades, Link walked over to Midna. "So, with the addition of the magic that is your teleportation ability, how long should this whole ordeal last?"

"For me, five days… maybe."

"And for me…?" Link asked, confused.

"Twice as long."

"WHY!?"

"Because you have to live a day here, then a day in the Light Realm."

Link paused in thought. "Never thought about that."

"It's a wonder that you don't. I know you're more muscle than brain, but that's ridiculous. You're traversing Realms here without any restrictions other than what time you go to bed! Don't you wonder how that works? I mean, you stay awake for the same amount of hours here as I've seen you stay awake in the Light Realm, so technically the times where you're awake should overlap! Aren't you curious at all?"

Link raised an eyebrow. "When you mention that my waking hours should overlap, yeah. But otherwise, I'm just considering it the Goddesses taking pity on the poor, tortured soul of a hero who's lost a companion."

"Didn't I read somewhere that the other incarnations lost their companions too? The Hero of Time and his fairy friend, the Hero of the Sky put his companion to rest or something, and the Hero of the Minish and the tiny mage-turned-cap."

"Where'd you read that?"

"Zelda slipped me a royal book about the Hero's various incarnations."

"Why couldn't she give me that? I'm the Hero here, shouldn't I know about my own soul?"

"I think she assumed that your memories are imprinted there, and you can just recall them if you so desire."

"I don't think it works like that."

"It probably doesn't, but that's my best guess."

Link yawned. "Yeah. I'll ask her when I get back. Speaking of which, are we going to go, or stand around talking?"

Midna sighed. "Fine, fine," she said, teleporting them.

Back at Town #1, Link scratched out a to-do list on a piece of paper he had with him. He needed arrows, and to make more of that sleep potion, beat down another dumbass that thought he could beat the Hero of Twilight, and then go searching for Twilight Shards.

Satisfied, he returned the paper to his pouch and fell asleep gripping it.

The ending's a little lame, but I'm tired, and this got to 2,400 words, so I figured it was good enough, considering I was worried that it might not break 2,000.