Chapter 26: The one where puzzle pieces click into place

"You buried half the Lightforce in book-form in the middle of a desert where everyone can find and use it?!" Four nearly screeched, his horror coming out in a half Hylian half English garbled mess as soon as the old man had finished his story. The other Links seemed a bit put off as well at that realization, though they had not as strong reactions because in their adventures they never had to deal with the Lightforce.

Heyne nodded sheepishly: "I must admit I was not thinking straight at that moment. And something like me calls myself a scholar. I must admit, I am deeply ashamed."

Four still seemed murderous, but at least he didn't seem to be ready to jump at the old man any minute to gut him, instead plotting his demise in secret.

Your head was still swirling with all these new information you had received. And honestly, he had summed only the tip of the gigantic glacier up. You had no idea where to even start with getting your thoughts together.

This Hyrule apparently went down the drain because there was no new hero when they needed them to appear. So the people decided to leave through a portal made by a magic book given to them by their goddesses (and did that mean they were real? Were they watching you right now?!) but something went wrong and it broke the book in two, killed Heyne's daughter and spit all the travelers out on the other side, Heyne with only half the book, the other half being stuck…somewhere.

And apparently on the other side they all knew instantly English and those who had pointy ears got normal ones and they all were brainwashed into not remembering their true origins, the exception being Heyne, who only got brainwashed once he got rid of his half of the book.

And now someone must have found the half of the book Heyne buried all these years ago and used it to make these portals. Well, damn.

And Heyne only got his real memories back, once he returned to Hyrule through one of these portals and while here the catastrophe is temporarily stopped, this land is still pretty much ducked cause there still was no hero.

And it did not explain why in your time you had the lore in the form of videogames, but you figured that if some overpowered higher being could make a book that can make portals to other worlds it'd probably be easy to influence some people to make up stories and games about real events (you pointedly tried to ignore the fact that there apparently really had to be some higher being that probably was reading your thoughts at this second as you thought them…maybe even influenced them? Nope, no, not going there, one identity crisis is enough for the next few years.).

Apparently the other Links had trouble digesting the events described, too, because honestly everything seemed like a bit too much. But well, this at least explained a lot.

Especially that freaky little notebook in your backpack. Broken in half meant probably half the power, so no wonder that it suddenly worked the way it did. Through bad luck doing good things.

Probably meant that the other book worked through good luck doing bad things.

Man, this was unnecessarily complicated.

And why did you have the feeling that the unfortunate soul to find the other notebook was Gannon? Gannon, who was then promptly robbed by someone, who used the book's power for truly evil things.

That sucked.

Also, why did the interdimensional stuck notebook end up from all people in your backpack? There were enough people to choose from, even the old man would probably have been a better option.

And wait a minute, the other people…!

"What about all the other missing persons? Beside us there were eight others in the bus! If you ended up in this time and I ended in Wild's, where did they end up?!" you brought out, worry overrunning you.

"Maybe in other times than us?" the Heyne suggested, shrugging helplessly.

Oh god, other times? There were so many! And…

Wait a minute, that sounded suspiciously like an interdimensional fetch quest. Great, just great. You never much liked the fetch quests in the games.

Once Heyne had finished explaining to the non-English speakers, there seemed to be a similar thought pattern, as they seemed to be torn between groaning and worrying.

Fetch quests were just the worst.

"Guess we'll just have to go get them, then" Legend finally stated, standing up from where he sat on the floor because the post office only had like three chairs, one for the postman, Heyne and Time respectively. "Do you know where the nearest portal could be?"

Heyne shook his head: "Well, none that I know of. But postman's heard that west from here monsters have started popping up. Maybe try going there to get a lead?"

The Links nodded and Time stood up and said something that probably translated to "You heard him! Let's go!"

And so the travelling started anew.

But this time there was no space within your already overloaded brain to learn more Hylian or teach more English. And from the silence around you, the others seemed to battle with their own thoughts also.

And the cherry on the top of this gigantic sh*t cake was when you realized that if the notebook in your backpack really was part of that big portal making book so it was thoroughly possible that you had carried your ticket home the whole time on your back with you. Well, damn.

But before you could follow that very frustrating train of thought any further, Twilight suddenly paused, one ear lightly flickering. Okay, now you were concerned. What did Wolf-Boy hear?

And why did he hear something you others didn't? Probably because he transformed that often, but still, unfair.

Apparently you were not the only one wondering that (the first, not second) because some of the Links, namely Time, Wild, Four and Legend had also paused to watch Twilight (well, one guess who also probably knew the furry little secret then), as the ranch hand tensed.

And then Twilight yelled something and instantly the boys pulled out their weapons and then hell already had broken loose.

There were monsters everywhere. And a lot of them oozed black blood once a weapon managed to penetrate through their tougher skin. This was no videogame. This was real and scary, and all these monsters were ridiculously strong.

They had no right to be that strong! And where did so many even come from?!

And why did they work in a formation?! When did they grow the necessary brains?!

"Down!" bellowed someone and instinctively you dropped down as a swipe of a gigantic club nearly made your brains mush. Then a sword protruded from the monster's stomach and it turned to wispy smoke and you looked up to see Legend dirty and sweaty armed both handedly leaning over you: "You alright?" You nodded, breathlessly.

"Good" he stated, nodding firmly. "Then don't get lost in lost in thought again. This can end deadly here. And stay near me, you're a decent fighter but this is years beyond your experience."

You pouted, this was totally unfair, but you could also see his point.

Especially when another smaller monster tried to attack him from behind and he didn't even need to look behind him before decapitating it.

"Are we clear?" he asked sternly. Damn overprotective heroes. "Clear" you muttered dejected.

He gave a curt nod: "Good, then stay close and let's see what good stuff your family send you."

At that you perked up, got back to your feet and started to rummage in your magical bag. This was gonna be fun!

About two and some odd hours later it wasn't as fun as you thought. You were tired, dirty and hurting and enemies still kept coming. A gash on your arm was bleeding through your hastily wrapped bandage and you were also bleeding in other places and hurting in even more.

Apparently on the battlefield there was no time to read a user's manual for stunners or guns and using them without knowledge was a really, really dumb idea. Using pepperspray when wind was blowing in your direction was also pretty stupid, same goes for hastily erected flamethrowers.

At least toothpaste is very effective in temporarily blinding your enemies, though you sadly ran out of it after only two enemies.

And thus you had dropped back on your last resort: brute force.

Legend kindly had loaned you a power bracelet and so you could use the axe to cut through enemies quite efficiently. At first you had been a bit hesitant to use the heavy thing seeing as Legend's blood had still been on its blade, but after a monster nearly took your arm off, any hesitancy died quite effectively.

You were using the axe against another club bearing monster (you had seen too many to care about which of them it was at that moment) when there was a scream and the first Link finally went down heavily wounded, another quickly running to his aid and defeating the foe.

This couldn't go on forever, you realized.

The hordes did not stop and for the foreseeable time wouldn't, while the time the Links would have left was already countable. You had to get away, fast. But how? You were surrounded!

Think, you had to think. You were already woozy with blood loss, but now you really had to think.

And then you realized the answer, as your brain finally rebooted, and an almost reassuring pulse came from your backpack.

"Keep me save!" you yelled to Legend and not waiting for answer you made your axe disappear into your bag, before dropping to your knees to rummage in backpack. Pulling out the notebook, you realized with dread that you had sent your pencilcase away as proof and thus did not have anything to write with because pens did apparently not count as things one needed to survive.

What now?

"A little more warning next time, please?" a voice noted above you as a heavy body fell next to you before turning to smoke. You looked up from where you were kneeling, but only slightly, because Four was pretty small. You gave a thankful nod and a quick glance to see Legend too busy fighting with a very big enemy to come aid you.

Wow, you really needed to be more thoughtful sometimes. Thank god, Four had heard you, otherwise you would have been screwed.

Four gave a short smile, his eyecolours flickering slightly before throwing himself back into battle, the Four Sword gleaming in the light of the sun and mattered with the blood of the foes.

Blood…

That's it!

Wincing as the wound on your arm started bleeding more as you pulled the bandage away, you prepared yourself for the stupidity you were about to do for the greater good. Thankful for the disinfectant your friends and family send you, you dipped a finger in the fresh blood and used it to write in the notebook the sentence"We should be somewhere safe right now", praying that your theory was right and it would happen instantly and that you had just had enough bad luck to finally get a good thing.

For a second there was nothing.

And then the blood dried, flickered and disappeared.

What…?

Then there was a whooshing sound and suddenly the ground beneath you all was glowing in a bright light.

You clutched the notebook and your backpack close and looked up to see the hate filled red eyes of the creepy inky person you had already met in the forest – Dark Link, you realized with a jump – watching you from the shadows of a gigantic monster running straight at you. His gaze seemed to pin you in place, to make you immovable, even as the nearest monster raised its sword…

And then you fell, surrounded by the heroes and only the heroes through a rainbow of light colours, the dark being's gaze burning into you until the portal of light closed right into his face.