This is a disclaimer. Feel free to ignore it as it has nothing to do with the plotline whatsoever.
Despite the fact that the whole thing was their idea in the first place, the Three Godesses still held their breath and crossed their fingers as the two aspects of Courage met themselves, and exhaled sighs of relief when they didn't decide to kill each other. The Interference Laws meant that they couldn't intervene if something went wrong – which meant that if something did go wrong, they were basically dead because this was their only plan to save the Universe and they hadn't thought of a backup yet.
In their defense, they hadn't had much time to make said plan but still, it was not their best move. Hence the sighs of relief when the plan went according to... well, the plan.
"Good," Farore exhaled. "First introduction down, only about ten more to go. Ish."
"'Ish'?" Din repeated. "Why 'Ish'?"
"The Hero of Light is technically only one person," Farore informed her.
"Yeah... so?"
"So, do I count his one original personality in one body, or the four current personalities in four different bodies?"
Din paused. "...Okay, I see your point."
"Can we not bother with the stupid stuff right now?" Nayru interrupted. "They're bonding, and I want to watch. It's kind of cute."
Her sisters crowded around and peered down at reality, where the five Links were scrutinizing each other and occasionally poking.
"...Yeah, that is kinda adorable," Din admitted.
"Just wait 'til there's more," Farore grinned, then frowned. "I do hope they'll all get along..."
"He's your Attribute, shouldn't you know?" Din asked.
"Look at it this way. If you met yourself, would you like you?"
Din considered this. "...No. I would think I was an overzealous power-freak with violent tendancies."
"My point exactly," Farore said. "So... here's hoping."
"So just to clarify this completely," Green summarized, "we're all Link in some way or another."
"Seems like it," Vio agreed. "I don't know if we're related somehow, or if this might be an alternate dimension, but for all intents and purposes we appear to be to versions of the same person." He looked as though he couldn't believe the words that were coming out of his mouth even though he was the one saying them.
The new boy – Link – scowled at the middle distance. "I really don't know about that. I mean, how do I know that you're not manifestations created by Malladus in his absence to kill me while I'm not looking?"
"Who?" Red asked blankly. Link matched his look almost blink for blink.
"...You're kidding me," he said. "Seriously? You don't know who Malladus is?"
"An illness?" Blue offered. "Malladus, malady... sounds similar."
"You know what a malady is?" Vio asked, surprised.
"Hey, just because I'm not as good at the smart stuff as you doesn't mean I don't know things! I listen to your weird lectures every now and then, okay!"
"Could have fooled me," Vio sighed. "But I'm gratified to know that you learned something."
"Malladus," Link interrupted pointedly, "is a demon who possessed Zelda's body and sent me and her spirit on a country-wide quest to stop him from destroying Hyrule. You remember the evil trains that tried to kill everyone on the rails?"
He received four identically confused looks in response.
"Okay, is any of this ringing a bell for you?" Link asked in exasperation.
"Well, we do know Zelda," Green conceded. "But we left her in Hyrule Castle with the other six Maidens. She should have been safe there... and I really think we would have heard if she got her body stolen, right guys?"
"She got it back though, right?" Red asked in concern.
"Yeah, she did," Link nodded, smiling at the memory. "But how do you know Zelda? She would have mentioned if she knew quadruplets who looked like me, I'm pretty sure..."
Blue huffed. "For the fourth time, we're not quadruplets. We're one guy magically split into four people, okay?"
"...If you say so," Link said doubtfully. Green frowned.
"So you're perfectly accepting of Zelda losing her body, her spirit following you around, a spiritual Train, a demonic Train, and just demons in general, but when one boy splits into four it's suddenly too weird to be true?"
Link turned a bit red. "Well, when you put it like that..."
Vio sighed. "Okay, maybe we should start over. We're the Hero of Light, formerly named Link, but we go by nicknames to avoid confusion. I'm Vio, that's Green, he's Red, and that's Blue. Nice to meet you, what's your name?"
"Link, Hero of Trains," Link said, amused. "Nice to meet you all too."
"Hero of Trains?" Blue repeated, a grin breaking onto his face. "What, did the poor machines run out of coal and need someone to shovel more in?"
"Don't even start with me!" Link snapped. "You didn't even know what a train was until I explained it to you!"
"About that," Vio interrupted. "If we didn't know what a train was despite the fact that living here would make it impossible for us not to know what a train was, why do you still think we might be lying?"
Link stopped mid-sentence and worked his jaw for a few seconds before snapping it shut and scowling at the middle distance again.
"...I don't know," he admitted ruefully. "It was easier to believe than the alternative, I guess."
"True," Green agreed. "It's a lot nicer to think that some people are just ignorant rather than that they're from an alternate universe suddenly connected by voids that are simultaneously eating away at the fabric of reality itself."
Link winced. "Zelda said something about that, but... I didn't really want to believe it."
"I don't think any of us do," Vio said solemnly
They all regarded said hole, which they were a solid fifty feet from, in silence.
"...So, um, I'm kinda curious," Red said. "About what you did, and stuff. Would you mind telling us about it?"
Link frowned. "Uhh... well, I told you about Malladus, kinda. Basically he stole Zelda's body and masqueraded as her while Zelda herself floated around and eventually found me because I was the only one who could see her, for some reason."
"Again, why is our circumstance so hard to believe if that happens to you?" Blue asked.
"I get it, you're telling the truth, point taken," Link said, rolling his eyes. "Anyways, we got into an adventure, lots of complicated stuff happened, there was a Train battle, and then poof! Hole." He motioned vaguely over his shoulder in the general direction of the void. "That's a vast simplification, but the whole story would take a lot longer."
"Alright," Green said, smiling mischievously. "Our turn. A large purple bat named Vaati kidnapped Zelda and the six Maidens and took over Hyule, and in order to stop him we drew the Four Sword which did this," he motioned to his three other counterparts. "We got into an adventure, lots of complicated stuff happened, we climbed a mountain for the Final Confrontation, and then poof! Hole."
"You stole my lines," Link accused.
"Well, it was a vast simplification, but the whole story would take a lot longer."
"I don't think I like you anymore," Link muttered, but with a grin on his face. "So... you're really me from another Hyrule?"
"Pretty much," Blue confirmed. Link took a deep breath as he accepted that, then frowned.
"Er... this is only just occurring to me, but... how did you guys even get here?"
The four Links looked at each other.
"It... kinda started when my sword started glowing?" Red hedged hesitantly. "And then things kinda snowballed."
"We noticed that our weapons glowed in direct correlation with proximity to the void," Vio explained. "So we did some experiments that put Red a little too close, and when his sword lit up correspondingly it startled him a bit and he went over backwards into the hole."
"Then we all freaked out and jumped after him, and ended up here," Blue finished.
"Wait, so they're portals?" Link said in surprise. "Shoot. One of the first things I tried to close it was to use my items on it, and I know I put at least a few bombs and more than a few arrows into that thing before I tried something else. I didn't even think I might be blowing something up on the other side..."
"But if we're the other side, we would have seen evidence of that," Vio mused. "There was nothing to indicate a possible connection."
"So then... what, this is all a fluke?" Green asked worriedly. "One time luck of the draw type thing? How are we going to get back if that's true?"
"We don't know that we can't," Vio reassured his leader, though he looked worried as well.
"You said your swords lit up?" Link checked. When he received nods, he said, "Well, why don't you try that? If they glow, you know you can get back."
"That's not half-bad," Blue said. He unsheathed his sword, so he wouldn't have to crane his neck around, and took slow, measured steps towards the void. Sure enough, the blue stone in the pommel began to light up the closer he got.
"Well that answers that," Green said in relief. Link, meanwhile, blinked rapidly at the glowing weapon. Despite the whole thing being his suggestion, he still hadn't quite accepted the whole situation and was thus significantly surprised.
"...I kinda thought you were making that up," he admitted slowly, approaching Blue and poking a finger at the glowing gem. "That's... weird and kinda pretty at the same time."
Blue wasn't paying attention to this, however. "Dude, yours is doing it too."
Link paused and processed that, then turned his head to get a better look at his own weapon. In the crossguard of the Lokomo Sword, the single golden gem was emitting the same level of light that the Four Sword was. Link's jaw dropped.
"Well," Red offered, "at least you really know we're not lying now."
Link stared at his sword, then at the four boys who he was now really, actually realizing were him in some way, then at the hole a couple dozen feet away.
"...You mentioned something about the Universe dying?" he said slowly. "I'm thinking that there's a possibility that I may be supposed to be involved in fixing it."
"Oh thank goodness," Blue said. "I was beginning to wonder if it was just the four of us again. Saving Hyrule is one thing, saving the Universe is entirely something else."
"Yeah," Link replied, frowing at the hole. "So... what, do we just jump at it?"
The colored Links exchanged glances with each other.
"...No idea," Green admitted. "Let's go with 'Yes' and see if it works?"
"Right. Okay. I'm about to do something stupid and probably extremely dangerous with the vague hope that it won't kill me. Cool."
"So, nothing new then?" Red clarified.
"Pretty much," Link agreed. He then threw himself into a sprint and, eyes tightly shut, ran straight into the void and disappeared.
"...I really hope he's not dead," Blue commented, before screwing up his courage and doing the exact same thing, his three brothers right behind him.
One dimension over, the Hero of Hyrule was debating whether or not he should leave the hole and go find his shield, which he'd already lost – though he wasn't sure when. On one hand, having a shield made him much less likely to die.
On the other hand, once he left the hole in search of his shield, the odds of him finding it again were... basically nonexistent. Link, while adamant that he was not that bad at directions, was also smart enough to acknowledge when he had a problem. And losing the reality-threatening hole would definitely count as a problem.
With a heavy sigh, Link resigned himself to going shieldless for a while longer, and turned his attention back to the hole-
-just in time to catch a glimpse of the smallish, green-clothed boy right before he landed on top of him.
"Ow," Link complained through the face-full of dirt he now had. "What just hap-"
Four more boys abruptly landed on top of the both of them, effectively cutting off anything Link had been about to say and putting a highly uncomfortable amount of weight on his ribcage. He wheezed squeakily as his lungs deflated, but nobody heard it because they were all too busy arguing with each other.
"Vio!" someone snapped. "Get off my leg!"
"I can't, Green's on top of my shoulders," somebody else retorted.
"Well you're both on top of my stomach," a third voice moaned from right above Link, "so maybe we can fix that before anything else?"
"Sure," a fourth voice replied. "I just need Red to get off my torso so I can get off Vio."
"Oh, sorry!" a fifth voice exclaimed, and the weight on top of Link decreased by a bit. A pair of legs shuffled into his vision, and the fifth voice said, "Hey, guys? I think we landed on somebody."
"You know, that would explain the soft landing," the third voice commented.
"Don't be getting snarky now, that's my job," the first voice warned, and then the whole pile on top of Link began shifting. The weight disappeared within a few seconds, and Link drew in a gasping breath as his lungs were suddenly freed.
"Sorry," one of the voices apologized. "We didn't even think we'd land on somebody..."
"No harm done," Link gasped. "I think."
"Want a hand?" another voice asked, extending said appendage into Link's field of vision. He blinked at it, then took it and used the leverage to haul himself to his feet.
"Thanks," he said. "Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but did you just fall out of the hole that's eating the world?"
"No, that's about right," one of the boys said, looking at him. Come to think of it, all five of them were looking at him rather closely.
"...Is there something on my face?" Link asked slowly.
"D'you think?" the boy in blue asked one of the boys in green.
"Not sure," the green-clothed one answered. "Vio?"
The boy in purple gave Link a much more thorough look-over. "Definitely possible," he said. "Lots of facial similarity, which makes up for the hair."
"What's wrong with my hair?" Link protested. Then he frowned and asked, "And why do you all look alike?"
The boy in purple – Vio – ignored this and instead asked, "What's your name?"
"Link," Link said. "Why?"
The five boys (quintuplets, maybe?) exchanged glances.
"You may wanna sit back down for this one," the other boy in green suggested.
"For... what?"
"I'm also Link," the second green boy informed him. "And so are these four here."
"Well, technically we're one boy named Link currently split into four separate personality aspects," Vio rattled off. "But... yeah, we're Link."
"Nice to meet you!" the boy in red chirped.
Link stared. Then, very slowly, he lowered himself to the ground and sat himself firmly on the dirt.
"...You okay?" the blue-clothed boy – did that make him Blue? That was original – checked.
"This week just got exponentially more bizarre than I thought it could," Link decided.
Ten minutes later had Link getting the full story, more or less, and attempting to process everything he'd just been told. Granted, there was a lot to process.
"So you," he said, pointing at the other Link, "come from a world where Hyrule relies on large metal... what did you call them?"
"Machines," the other Link told him. "The specific ones I'm talking about are called trains."
"Right," Link said, frowning. "Your Hyrule relies on... trains... to get around? What happened to horses?"
"...What's a horse?"
Link, and the four other boys he'd learned were named for the color of their clothing, stared at him.
"...What do you mean, 'What's a horse'?" Blue asked incredulously. "They're large farm animals that you can ride to get places faster. You know... a horse."
He received a blank look in return.
"Okay, never mind that then," Link decided, on the grounds that he had more important things to be confused over than an odd lack of livestock. "Back to the trains. You had a Train Battle to save your country?"
"That's a very short version, but yeah," the other Link agreed.
"And you guys," Link said, turning to point a finger at the four colored Links, "were previously one person who got split into four by a magical sword."
"Putting it bluntly," Vio sighed.
"And all five of you," Link continued, "are versions of me from various other dimensions?"
"That about sums it up," Green confirmed.
Link considered this carefully.
"...How good are you with directions?" he asked after a few moments.
"I can read a map just fine," the other Link said.
"Vio's our navigator," Green said, "and he's pretty good at it, all things considered."
"Oh thank goodness, I was worried it'd be contagious," Link sighed. "Okay. I'm up for saving the Universe and all that, but I need to find my shield first and I have a... complicated relationship with directions. Can you guys help me look?"
"You lost your shield?" Red asked in slight disbelief. "But... how do you fight stuff?"
"I improvise," Link replied, shrugging. "And I run a lot. Which also means I get lost a lot, which means I can't usually find my shield because I'm too busy trying to find myself... did that make sense?"
"No," Vio informed him.
"Dang. Anyways, I think it's over there..." he waved his arm in a general 'everywhere' direction, "...somewhere."
"...And here I though meeting you was interesting," Blue commented to the other Link.
8/27/16
Kinda short, but if I go any further with it I'm gonna start infringing on the other chapters, and I don't wanna do that.
The more I rewrite, the more I like this story SO much better. And now the fun parts are coming... I get to rewrite Lore soon.
*Grins*
Changeling
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