Clash of the Elements Part 4: The Ocarina of Time

by mewmaster93

The first story in the "Travel of the Overlord" arc of Clash of the Elements, which sees our protagonist venturing to the land of Hyrule...Only to find that it has been conquered by the mighty Ganondorf, and it appears as though the one destined to stop him has been gone from this world for 7 years. Can Ganondorf be stopped? And just where is this so-called Hero of Time? Find out.

13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13: Serenade of Water II: Dark Reflection

Leaving the Zora princess Ruto to her own affairs for the time being, the two heroes look at the room in front of them to try and determine what they should do next. "A single dampened wood torch, two steel torches in the corners…And a barred stone door…" Riku lists off the interesting objects in this room before saying to Link "We can't do anything here, not yet anyways." Link agrees with this sentiment with a simple nod of the head, and upon looking up at the hole in the ceiling that Ruto swam through he decides "Lets go up there. Its our best bet right now." Moving to the center of the room, the Hero of Time switches boots and lets himself float up, while Riku swims beside him. Along the way, the teenage Overlord asks Link "Say, do you know how to swim?"

Link, with a curious glance of the eyes, replies to Riku with "I can keep myself afloat on the surface…But besides that, I was never taught how to swim." "Well that explains a lot…" The teenage Overlord comments as the two of them pass by a room with a cracked wall in front of them. The Hero of Time takes note of that crack as they enter another passage, and then he says to Riku "There was never any water deep enough in Kokiri Village for me to practice in, and I haven't really had the time to learn because of this quest." Shrugging his shoulders, the teenage Overlord says to Link "I wish I could help you, but you're right…The importance of our quest is too dire to focus on swimming lessons. Maybe afterwards though, if you're interested." Smiling out of thanks for his ally's concerns, the Hero of Time says to Riku "Alright, I'll try and remember that."

After that, the two heroes make it to the water's surface and pull themselves onto relatively dry land. The floor is covered with slimy water droplets that make movement a little slick, and its possible that they came off of Ruto's fins once she emerged. Taking note of the doorway in front of them, the two heroes decide to investigate what's behind it and walk over to it. Detecting their presence, the stone door slides into the ceiling, its solidified form grinding against the sides of the slot until the two heroes enter the room behind it, at which point it slams down shut with iron bars locking the heroes inside. Speaking of iron, there are four balls rolling around the room with multiple spikes protruding out of them that are made out of that exact same material.

Knowing right away that the Master Sword is worthless against these creatures, Riku thrusts his right hand out in front of his body and flings out four fireballs from his palm to strike the creatures and hopefully melt them. However, despite the intensity of the flames that come in contact with the iron, the spiked orbs merely gain a superheated crimson glow for a couple seconds instead of melting down. "Well, forget that plan…" Riku says, his hand withdrawn as a look of surprise encompasses his face. Reaching into his tunic to pull out his Hookshot, whose hook is also made of iron, the Hero of Time says to the teenage Overlord "This will probably be more effective." With a click of the trigger Link shoots the chain and hook at the closest orb and watches as the tip punctures the metal coating and causes it all to retract into a sea stone sphere in an instant.

Flinching out of surprised remembrance for this creature's particular weakness, Riku stands in place and watches as Link deals with each iron orb one by one, using two shots of the Hookshot to destroy the vulnerable stone spheres until the room is cleared of enemies. In the aftermath of Link's ingenuity, a large chest appears from a swirl of magic in the center of the room. Walking over to the chest after putting away his tools, the Hero of Time pops the lid open and from the light he pulls out a roll of brown paper. Unfurling it in front of his body with his hands grasped onto both sides, the Hero of Time notes to his unknowing companion "It is a map of the temple." Riku, curious to know what is on the map in regards to floor structure and all, walks beside Link and glances down onto the front of the map.

Examining the map closer himself, the Hero of Time says with his eyelids slanted in slight annoyance "Geez, this place looks rather difficult for one person to navigate…" Though the maze-like structure of the temple did little to dampen Link's desire to get through the area, as he folded the map up and tucked it away behind his tunic for safe keeping he found himself thankful for the fact that Riku was with him at the moment. "Say, did you get a good chance to memorize that map?" He asks the teenage Overlord with his head turned slightly to face him. Taking a step back to get a good enough distance between the two of them, Riku replies to the Hero of Time with a puzzled "Yeah, why?" "I'm thinking that we will be able to cover a lot more ground if we split up for a bit." Surprised by Link's suggestion, Riku says to him with a smile on his face and not a hint of reluctance on his mind "That's not a bad idea actually." After thinking about it a little bit though, the teenage Overlord comes up a slight flaw in the plan, and with a tilt of his head and a more neutral expression he asks "But wait, what am I going to do if I come across something that requires your equipment?"

Taking note of Riku's point with a hum of deep thought, the Hero of Time folds his arms in front of his chest for a moment and after a few seconds of silence he says "How about this? If you need my equipment, go back to the central tower and wait for me there, and we'll tackle the problem area together." Though the idea sounds like it would waste more time than it would save, Link says with a smile of confidence towards Riku "But honestly, I believe you'll be able to handle most problems in here, even if your limited powers." Nodding his head in agreement, Riku says to the Hero of Time "Alright, but don't go fighting the monster without me. Lets promise to meet up again when the time comes to confront him. "Agreed." With Link's one word response, the two heroes turn to face the now open door and move back to the prior room. From there, Riku leaps into the water with his veil of air active, leaving Link to examine the nearby plague that has the mark of the Triforce on it.

Now that Riku has left, Navi emerges from behind the Hero of Time and says to her friend "Its been a while since it was just the two of us adventuring, Link." Link flinches in surprise upon hearing Navi's voice, since he was more focused on the plaque than he was anything else, but as he turns towards the fairy with a warming smile she misinterprets the Hylian's reaction as a sign that he had forgotten about her traveling along with him thus far. "…" Navi slowly flaps her wings in a melancholy manner as the Hero of Time says to her "Yeah, it really does feel that way, doesn't it?" Hesitantly responding with "Y-Yes…" Navi flies down as Link turns to the plaque and says to her "This looks like the plate that I had to stand on to open the way to Zora's Domain…I wonder…" Thinking to himself while reaching into his tunic, Link takes a moment to pull out the Ocarina of Time and recall how to play a specific song.

With his mouth blowing air into the instrument, the Hero of Time slowly plays Zelda's Lullaby in front of the plaque, the melody causing a reaction within the very temple itself in the form of the water draining from the passageways behind him. As Link puts the Ocarina away he hears the gushing of the water as it drains, and turns around to see that the rooms below have become completely devoid of water. This in turn has caused the wooden torch to re-ignite on the bottom floor. "Alright Navi, lets get moving, we got a lot of work ahead of us." Link says with enthusiasm as he leaps down the central hole and with Navi trailing close behind, her voice going silent as she descends…

Meanwhile, back over with the teenage Overlord, we find him swimming through the waters around the central tower until Link's efforts cause them all to drain through grates lying around the bottom of the tower. Moving his feet so he'll be standing on the soft sand as the buoyancy brought by his air veil leaves, Riku says to himself "Looks like Link has already played Zelda's Lullaby…" He doesn't have to keep his thoughts contained at the moment thanks to not being in the presence of the Hero of Time, and he is quite thankful for this since he is going to kick his memory of the Water Temple into overdrive if he wants to clear out the later parts long before Link is actually supposed to be heading to them. "Alright, I'm down to three elemental powers and my flight…Though considering how tight some of these rooms are, I'd be better off just not flying for the time being."

Clarifying things over with himself, the teenage Overlord looks to the right of his location and quickly runs towards the tunnel at the northern end of the room. Its one of the few parts of the temple currently filled with water, but that wouldn't prove to be a problem seeing as Riku didn't have to be weighed down with the burden of constantly switching boots. "Alright…Memories don't fail me now." Taking a confident plunge into the underwater tunnel, Riku swims through it with a rapid flap of his legs and arrives in a rectangular room with stone spikes preventing him from latching his hands onto the ledge…For a few fleeting seconds, because as soon as he establishes a good floating position in the center of the water with the help of his legs the teenage Overlord focuses on the two centermost spikes and with a thrust of his hands out of the water he uses his powers to rip the spikes from the ground and impale them into the ceiling above. The strong impact causes bits of rock to patter against the water as cracks form along the ceiling around where the spike struck.

Riku then pulls himself out of the water, only to be immediately greeted by a steel locked door similar to the ones he encountered in the Fire Temple. "Oh yeah…I need a key to unlock this…" The teenage Overlord, sounding rather sorry towards himself for forgetting such a crucial detail, is swiftly revealed to be faking his attitude as he spits out air through the side of his mouth and says with his arms folded firmly against his chest "Pfft…Not in this lifetime." Unfurling his arms and focusing entirely on the links in the chain closest to the lock itself, Riku concentrates deeply on the inner workings of the links, using his powers to weaken the structures to the point that they will be easily shattered. With his feet firmly placed on the ground, the teenage Overlord moves his arms outward from the center of his chest while emitting a strong magnetic force from his tightly clenched fists that pulls on the weakened chain links and, in a matter of seconds, tears them away from the main lock, removing any possible hold the chain and locks had on the stone door and giving Riku free reign to continue on to the next room.

But it did take the teenage Overlord a bit of effort to destroy that lock, as evidenced by his slight pants and the miniature sweat drops trickling down the sides of his head. "I…I should really consider practicing the magnetic aspect of the Earth element…Its really strenuous on my body to keep such a prolonged field up…" After promising to train his control over magnetism at a later date, Riku takes one last breath to get himself back to normal and corrects his pose so he can enter the next room after turning the doorknob. "Alright, so what am I up against now…" Speaking in a somewhat cautious yet simultaneously curious tone, the teenage Overlord looks ahead and sees a average-sized square body of water that had within it two very strong currents leading towards rapidly spinning whirlpools. Gliding on the surface were six aquamarine colored Tektites, who were trying their hardest to avoid being crushed by the giant boulders rolling out from two separate tunnels that were also slowly depositing water into the room.

"So…Basically nothing challenging again." Riku says with a merry sigh as he closes his eyelids and blindly bombards the water surface with hundreds of fireballs to disintegrate the unaware Tektites, all the while causing the area to become engulfed in a thin veil of fog due to the amount of heat making contact with the water. As the teenage Overlord opens his eyes and sniffs in the moisture and charred flesh, he thinks to himself "…Might have overdone it a little." An understatement if there ever was one. But still, the fog would prove to not be an impediment as Riku kicks himself off the ground and flies straight through the air to the other side of the room, his body being so perfectly center that he avoids both boulders rolling in the water at the moment. He lands on the ground and opens the nearby door, entering a fogless room where the water below reflects onto the walls.

Leaping off the nearby ledge and flying off to the left to go over to the next one, Riku glances down at the puzzle he just avoided and smirks, though said feeling of joy caused by breezing through the Water Temple slowly subsides as he lands and thinks to himself "…Geez, I thought this would feel a lot more cathartic to deal with this place so easily…But now I just feel like I'm robbing Link of a chance to see some of the beauty and danger this temple has to offer…Hmm." Shaking his head to disperse the thoughts on his mind, the teenage Overlord says to himself "I can't be thinking like that. I never intended to come to these video game worlds to get petty revenge on a temple…After all, the memories I have of this place are Mew's, not my own…Heh, here I am wasting time talking about such a minor issue. Better stay focused, otherwise I'll fail to catch up with Link back at the center tower."

Turning around and climbing the stairs to head on through the stone door, Riku finds himself in a new room that is completely straight in design. It has a pit that holds within it three light geysers that would support Riku's weight if he were to jump onto them. First off though, the teenage Overlord swings his arms across the front of his body to call forth two fireballs, both of which curve back and forth across the air until they reach the Tektites on the other side and burn right through their bodies, leaving only their charred legs lying on the ground. Once he places his arms against his hips and swings the hands to dispel the remaining bits of fire, Riku turns to the right and steps on the nearby switch in order to activate the geysers, preferring to leap across them in rapid succession instead of simply flying over and reaching the door on the other side.

Going through it without realizing that he was on a time limit to get there before iron bars sealed him inside, Riku finds himself in a small tunnel that leads to the current where the closest boulders were coming out from when he entered that one room not too long ago. Remembering that there is a secret passage in the water, Riku waits for one boulder to roll on by, questioning in the meanwhile how an infinite number of boulders could possibly keep coming down this passage, and then he leaps towards the back wall of the passage with air veil at the ready and lands in the pool of water floating above the underwater passage. Quickly sinking down before a boulder falls, Riku swims through the water with great dexterity until he meets a large clam with pointed lips and a craving for human flesh judging by its snapping maw and its movements towards the teenage Overlord.

Of course, since his current array of elements won't do much to stop the clam, Riku takes forth his sword and quickly cuts through the hardened shell of the beast to reach the delicate membrane holding both parts together, and as the creature splits its activity ceases and allows the human to pass on as its halves float to the ceiling. Rising up to the surface, the teenage Overlord finds another door blocked by a lock and chains, and once he stands on dry land with sword withdrawn he utilizes the same technique he did before in order to bust his way into the next room. All that lies in this quaint, square hold is a gold and blue chest that Riku already knows the significance of. Opening the lid up and peeking into the array of light inside, the teenage Overlord pokes his right hand in and pulls out the golden Boss Key.

"Haha…Glad I decided to go for this instead of the major item in this temple." With a flip of the key into the air, Riku tightly grasps the item in his right hand and swings his arm before his chest triumphantly before he puts the key away into his pant pocket. "Hopefully things are going well on Link's end." He then says as he turns to face the door and begins to make his way back to the first room of the temple, dodging boulders and more Tektites until he swims through the underwater passage to arrive close to the central tower. Contrary to when he left though, the place has been filled with water up to the lip of the tower's third floor, meaning that Link was more than likely somewhere close to the tower. Swimming up post-haste, the teenage Overlord catches a glimpse of a figure in blue standing on the eastern corner of the tower with a speck of light following him around.

Smiling at the fact that the Hero of Time appears to be fine, Riku pokes his head out of the water's surface, only to be met with a tense Link pointing a bow and arrow straight at his face. Flinching in surprise and declaring hastily to the Hylian "Whoa! Hold up there Link, its me, Riku!" The Hero of Time, recognizing his ally's face as he appears to be a second away from letting go of the string, slowly composes himself and loosens his pull on the bow as he stands up and says in a nervous, apologetic tone "Sorry about the mix-up Riku, I thought you were an enemy attempting to ambush me." With his bow and arrow stored away, Link watches as Riku pulls himself onto dry land with the help of both hands and says to him "Well I don't see why you would go and assume that…" Standing up to face the Hero of Time and noticing a hint of tension sticking to his face, the teenage Overlord asks "What happened to you since I left?"

Shivering slightly at the thought of what he endured, the Hero of Time folds his arms in front of his chest and says bravely to Riku "Well besides switching out boots multiple times, I had to go through a bunch of rooms filled with Tektites. Normally, I wouldn't mind that since they are very weak and all, but most of the time I kept missing one Tektite that ends up jumping on me as I switch boots. Let me tell you, its not fun having their pointed legs on your body…So I was a bit on edge when I came here, hence the bow and arrow almost piercing your skull." Understanding Link's reasoning, the teenage Overlord says with a nod of his head and a gesture of his hand beside his face showing just how casually he is shrugging off the matter "No big deal Link. At least you're still alive. So what type of progress did you make item wise? I managed to get the Boss Key, but I don't think we'll be able to do anything with it yet."

Link, reaching into his tunic pockets and shuffling his hand around his inventory to find some specific items, pulls out two silver keys and holds them flat against his palm as he rests his hand in front of his chest. "I was just about ready to head into that locked door over there…" Link gestures to the door to the left of him that has a lone stone plat forming floated on the water in front of it "So do you still want to stay split up or do you want to come along with me to see what lies beyond that door?" "I don't think I'll find anything since you appear to have covered most of the temple, so lets get going and see what we can find beyond that door." Riku replies, dictating in a sense what the two heroes shall do from this point in. Link leaps over to the platform and uses one of the keys to unlock the way, while Riku follows him close behind into the next room.

Inside is an inclined waterfall leading into an empty void, and a series of stone platforms with Hookshot-able marks descending down the face of the water after they slowly emerge from a thin slot near the other side of the room. Taking out his Hookshot in preparation to traverse the platforms, the Hero of Time walks off the edge and lands on a solitary stone platform suspended in place by the solid rock wall behind him. Leaping down onto the slowly moving one below that, Link tries to line up his Hookshot with one of the marks in front of him, his eyelids closing as he tries to pay attention to the movements of the platforms before him along with the one he is currently standing on, waiting just the right moment until his Hookshot is able to reach the other side and lock into place on the mark. Gripping his hand around the main part of the device, Link trusts the Hookshot to hold up as he is dragged through the air and brought towards one of the platforms, where at the last second he works against the momentum and swings his left hand out in order to grip the top of the mark and get a steady enough hold as he puts the Hookshot away and uses his other hand to begin climbing onto the platform.

Once he stands on top of the platform, the Hero of Time uses the Hookshot to keep climbing, culminating in him reaching the other side with one final shot at the mark below the ledge. He then climbs up and sees another locked door, but decides to turn around and wait for Riku to join him. He looks back at the entrance and finds that his ally has vanished from view, so Link looks down and watches as Riku quickly leaps across the gap and makes his way up the platforms as if they were a simple staircase to him. When he lands down in front of the Hero of Time he quickly says to him "Alright, lets keep moving." He doesn't even acknowledge the swiftness through which he completed the room, and as far as Link is concerned it didn't really matter to bring it up. Thus, the two heroes faced the locked door and head on through it after Link uses up the last of his keys.

In this room are a few dog-headed stones poking out of various sections of the floor, with a small pool of water crawling with Tektites lying just below the platform the heroes currently stood on, and a small crystal suspended on top of a stone pillar that looks like it could be activated by Link's Hookshot. But before he tried it out, the Hero of Time took out his bow and arrow and dealt with the Tektities using precise shots through the eyes. He then put the weapon away and drew out the Hookshot, using it to turn the crystal on and give it a glowing yellow tint on the inside. The water level rises, and the dog-headed stones rise up to reveal that they are actually totem poles with Hookshot marks imprinted on the front of their bodies.

Link uses the aforementioned device to cross over to the platform to the left of him while Riku leaps over. The Hero of Time then turns to the crystal and uses the Hookshot again to lower the water level and totems, revealing off to the side of the second totem another mark that Link connects to with the hook of his item and drags himself to the ledge on the other side. After climbing over the dog-head the Hero of Time watches as Riku jumps to the corner of the ledge that he is on and steps off to the side so Link can get a clear shot at the crystal again. Another activation gives Link yet one more mark to Hookshot to in the form of the final totem in this room. After crossing over to the other side, Link causes the water and totem to sink so he can jump on top of the totem head and uses the Hookshot one final time to raise himself up onto tunnel. The Hero of Time puts the Hookshot away after a job well done, while Riku leaps over to the last totem and uses his Earth based powers in order to lower it on his own and rise up to where his Hylian ally is currently at.

After leaping off the totem, Riku asks Link "How did you know what to do so quickly?" Responding swiftly to the inquiry, the Hero of Time says "I just had to see what the switch does and it was easy to figure things out from there." "Huh…Fair enough." The teenage Overlord says after accepting how simplistic Link's answer was. When the Hero of Time turns around, he notices a Like Like guarding the way out of the room behind a wall of giant spikes. There was a Hookshot mark on the ceiling, but Link would simply fall into the Like Like's gullet if he used it. But as he prepared to take out his bow and shoot the creature from afar Riku simply gestured his right hand through the air in front of him to lift one of the spikes up and fling it at the Like Like with such force that the creature is impaled against the door and the spike itself crumbles apart into many little pieces that fall against the ground. The gooey remains of the Like Like become one with the sea stone floor, while the area where the spike once was is now an open pathway to the exit. After taking a quick glance over to the teenage Overlord Link notes his polite gesture of the arms towards the door that says to him verbally "After you", and the two of them move on their way into the next room…

However, both heroes are greatly surprised by where they arrived it. This room has a far different aesthetic touch to it than all the other ones prior to it. It a large, seemingly endless room shrouded in a light green fog that reflects off of the ankle deep water and gives it a pale-ish hue. There is a lone, leafless tree on a thin island in the center of the room, and there is both a stray rock and a submerged fragment of a hollow stone square that appear to serve no purpose in this room. There is a strange building on the other side of the room that Link felt required investigation, so with his mind cautious of this mysterious area he walks across the water to go check the building out with Riku following close behind. The teenage Overlord currently has his arms folded in front of his chest as he tries to recall just what was so special about this room compared to all the others they had gone through up until now.

As he thinks, Riku looks down at the water's surface and finds it rather odd that Link's reflection has a more blackish tint to it while his shares the same colors as his body. But before he could comment on it the Hero of Time steps onto the thin stone platform set around the mysterious building and says to Riku "Hmm…Its locked…" Referring to the iron bars covering the stone door with that sentence. Turning around to face the teenage Overlord, the Hero of Time says to him while drawing his Master Sword and shield cautiously "I'm going to investigate around. Could you stand here and let me know if the door opens?" Nodding in compliance with Link's request, Riku says with a kindly gesture of his right hand "Just be careful, alright?" And as Link in turn nods, the teenage Overlord steps onto the stone platform and watches as the Hero of Time heads straight out towards the lone tree.

As he sets foot in the water, Riku notices the black tinted reflection once more, only this time the reflection itself is thicker, and it appears behind Link instead of in front of him like it should be. "Hmmm?" Finding himself curious upon facing this shadowy reflection again, the teenage Overlord once again tries to remember just what this room's secret is. "…Wait a second." As the dark reflection freezes in place with the Hero of Time walking away from it, the teenage Overlord watches as the water begins to ripple and a shadowy head begins to poke its way out from the surface. Swinging his right hand out beside himself to call upon his sword, Riku quickly declares to Link "Link, behind you!" But as he tries to get the first strike on the shadowy being emerging from the water the teenage Overlord runs head first into an invisible, magical barrier that perfectly surrounds the edge of the platform he is on. Wondering now in a panic if Link actually heard him, Riku steps back and watches as a dark, pitch black copy of the Hero of Time steps onto the water and draws a blasphemous replica of the Master Sword from his sheath to strike down Link.

Link, still moving towards the tree, appears unaware of his dark copy as it moves across the water like an assassin, his footsteps mimicking that of the Hero of Time to avoid drawing suspicion on himself. With a sneer crossing the face of the shadow, he takes his sword horizontally at the hilt and holds it above his right shoulder with his vision aimed at the area of Link's back where the heart lies behind the flesh. The assassin doesn't say a word, only letting his sword speak for him as he lunges it forward while Riku yells the Hero of Time's name desperately in a final attempt to alert him of the danger behind him. The blade's tip draws closer and closer…But is not allowed to reach its destination as Link swings his body around and uses his Master Sword to strike against the sharp blade of his copy, hitting it with such force that the assassin's limb is pushed to the left against his will, causing his eyes to widen briefly in surprise as his target looks at him with courageous eyes and asks vehemently "Who are you supposed to be? And why have you taken my appearance?"

The shadow, upon coming face to face with his target and his plan having failed, decides to completely mirror Link's actions, up to and including his lip movements while staying mute. The Hero of Time takes note of this and stands straight up, keeping his head turned towards his dark copy as he walks to the left. The shadow follows, his feet making the exact same sounds on the water as Link, confirming to the Hylian as to just how the shadow was nearly able to kill him. "Very well, if you won't speak…" The Hero of Time stops in place and swings his sword out beside himself, the copy repeating this action perfectly but this time adding in a slight smirk to his expression as he awaits Link's first move. With sword grasped tightly and eyes arched firmly, the Hero of Time dashes across the water with the Master Sword grasped in both hands, his arms swung out to the right of his neck as the copy does the same.

Making sure that his shield doesn't get in the way, Link swiftly swings his blade diagonally downward in a mighty arc, the peerless steel meeting the blasphemous black metal of his copy's blade mid-swing and causing the two to lock blades a few inches above the water, both figures grunting as they use their physical might to try and overpower the over to no avail. "Great, so this guy not only has my appearance copied, but my strength as well…" Link notes to himself as he pulls his blade back slightly and straightens his body to position the Master Sword below the center of his waist before he leaps back and takes a moment to catch his breath. "How am I supposed to overpower myself…" Link asks himself quietly as he sees Navi flying around with a concerned demeanor about her.

"Link…Are you all right?" She asks with a couple flutters of her wings. Giving his fairy companion a very warm smile, the Hero of Time replies with "Yeah…I'm perfectly…" Pausing briefly in the middle of his sentence, Link turns towards his dark copy as a look of realization crosses his face upon noticing something that the shadow is missing. "Fine…" Finishing his sentence off in a tone that matches his moment of realization, the Hero of Time notes that his dark copy doesn't have a fairy floating around him. It didn't take long after that for Link to realize one important thing about this dark copy, and as he bravely slants his eyebrows and sheathes the Master Sword much to Navi's surprise he thinks to himself "You've only copied the parts of me that you can see…You can't mimic what isn't visible to you. Which means…" As he ends his thoughts off just like that, the Hero of Time notices that his copy hasn't sheathed his Master Sword, more than likely because he is interpreting his actions as a sign of surrender.

Smirking at the prospect of ending the legendary Link's life, the shadow rushes forward without a care in the world and raises his blade high above his head so he can assure the hero's death with a clean cleave straight down through his body. But as he leaps into the air, he leaves himself completely defenseless, and Link smiles courageously at this prime opportunity given to him while he reaches into his tunic and pulls out the familiar form of the Megaton Hammer. The shadow flinches in surprise, but continues to descend while swinging the blade downward to hasten the process of Link's demise. It was far too late for him though, as the Hero of Time grasps the hammer with both hands and performs one mighty swing to the right that clobbers the shadow in the side of his body and launches him across the air like a bullet as the full force of the hammer's impact ripples across his form.

The dark replica crashes against the water, bouncing back into the air quickly as he is flipped onto his back and forced to hit the water once more, another bounce causing him to impact the side of this seemingly wall-less void with enough force to put cracks in the white veil that has been hiding the truth about this room. The dark copy falls belly first onto the ground a few seconds later, his blasphemous sword clanking against the ground as he snarls and lifts his head up to see what his opponent is up to now…Only to met by a rain of three already lit bombs, all of which land around his body just as he grasps his right hand on the handle of his Master Sword. The fuses burn down into the confines of the bombs themselves, and the shadow only has a second to grit his teeth in anger as a series of explosions consume his body.

With smoke covering him as he is launched the air, the shadow lets out its first noise in the form of a quiet hazy shriek as the damage wrought on its body have caused his appearance to distort and break apart at the seams. The shadow lands on the water's surface on his knees, the upper part of his body leaning forward in defiance of gravity's wishes for a few brief seconds until he slowly creaks his head up to face his opponent with an angered glare on his face…And finds himself quickly impaled through the forehead by a single arrow shot from the raised bow of the Hero of Time. The anger on the shadow's face is turned into one of utter shock as he feels himself slowly becoming a hollow, lifeless shell, his appearance fizzling around with a static-y texture as his fake Master Sword drops out of his trembling hands and falls to the ground, disintegrating without a trace left behind.

Looking over at the Hero of Time with most of his body frozen in place, the dark copy widens his eyes to a rather creepy size and glares madly at the Hylian as a dark, bloody fog leaks out of the arrow wound. "It is only the beginning…Hero of Time…" He says in a raspy, echoing voice very similar to Link's own. "The events set in motion seven years ago…The very freedom you granted our master…It will all be put to good use soon under the guidance of the King of Evil…It was fun to take on your appearance, Hylian, even if it was for such a short time…After all, what better form for a shadow to take than that of the herald of Kakariko Village's destruction?" Fading out of existence with only those cryptic words being spoken, the dark copy leaves the Hero of Time with one last coy smile, and the arrow that ended his life falls through his now ethereal body and falls onto the water's surface below.

The barrier keeping Riku out of the battle dispels, while the Hero of Time slowly puts his bow away and thinks to himself about what his dark copy said upon departure from this world. The teenage Overlord clearly didn't hear what was said though, considering he walks over beside Link and says to him "Whew, glad you managed to beat that fake Link…I'm sorry I couldn't do anything to help." Lamenting his ineffectualness, the teenage Overlord looks over as the Hero of Time smiles and says to him "Actually, I heard that faint warning of yours. Had you not tried to warn me, I probably wouldn't have noticed the fake me approaching. And Navi…" Turning to his fairy companion with a thankful smile on his face, Link says "Were it not for you, I wouldn't have been able to figure out his weakness." The fairy is surprised at her friend's show of thankfulness, especially after her earlier doubts that he had forgotten all about her, and with a slowing flutter she says quietly "L-Link…Thank you." With the white fog fading away to reveal a normal, sea stone covered room, the heroes turn towards the building while the Hero of Time says "Alright, lets keep moving…"

Next Time: The Monstrosity within the Water Temple