Disclaimer: I do not, nor will I ever, own Sonic the Hedgehog.
(Wait, what? That isn't my typewriting... where'd that come from?)
To the significant dismay of Demise, none of the Incarnations in his head were musically inclined in any way. And while this normally wouldn't be much of an issue, the villains were currently seeing if bad music would work where improbable card games had not. The problem lay in the fact that they were using banjos, and Veran and Picori Vaati were the only ones who had hands small enough to even attempt the necessary fingering.
Majora didn't even have hands, Malladus could only pluck so hard before his claws snapped the strings, Bellum could only strum tunelessly because his tentacles had no fingers, the Ganondorfs simply had too-large hands, the Ganons had sausages for fingers, Demon Vaati was in the same boat as Majora, Zant was trying to play his banjo in reverse (he was strumming the frets and trying to finger the hole), and Onox was wearing a full suit of armor and thus had all the mobility complications that went with it.
Put very, very simply, the resulting din was quite possibly one of the worst things Demise had ever heard.
"WILL YOU ALL SHUT UP!" he roared. The cacophony abruptly cut off with a strangled twannngggggg of off-key strings.
Will you release us in return? Veran asked sweetly.
"You never had freedom to begin with," Demise scoffed.
So be it. On three everyone, and Bellum, do try to keep the beat this time?
There was a brief spout of irritated bubbling, though the squid sounded more annoyed at the instrument rather than Veran, and the 'music', if one could even call it that, started up again.
Demise just gritted his teeth and, in an attempt to distract himself, imagined a Cucco horde descending on the villains. He smiled at the thought.
Abruptly, one of the banjos let out an abused screeeeech of breaking strings and Malladus asked, Is anyone else seeing the evil-looking poultry?
He sounded significantly surprised.
That is called a Cucco, Hyrule Ganondorf informed him. Truly a vicious creature. Do not antagonize it or we are all doomed.
Did you know you have livestock in your head? Onox asked Demise.
Demise narrowed his eyes thoughtfully and imagined the Cucco attacking. A loud squawk resounded through his brain, followed by the sound of breaking banjos.
WHAT IDIOT DECIDED TO HIT THE CUCCO?! Twilight Ganondorf bellowed.
NO-ONE DID!
WELL SOMEONE MADE IT ANGRY!
I believe, Majora said, sounding remarkably calm amidst the chaos, that this bird may be the result of our captor's wishes. We should regard this as a great success; we have driven him to imaginative defenses.
Why don't you come over here where the bird actually is and say that?! Veran hissed.
No, thank you. There are certain forces that one should not mess with.
Zant's messing with it, Onox pointed out.
Zant is insane.
Who's a pretty birdie? Zant cooed. Who's a monstrous bringer of death and destruction? You are! You are!
There was another squawk, which was immediately followed by screaming.
...and he's made it angrier, Ocean Ganondorf sighed.
You know, all this needs is some musical accompaniment and this whole thing could be hilarious, Malladus mused.
I'm on it, Picori Vaati said. One single surviving banjo began playing, and since Picori Vaati was one of the two people who could actually play, it didn't sound too bad. The tune he was playing, however, was a bouncy whimsical thing that made Demise cringe.
You know you're right, that really does make it funnier, Veran commented.
Demise gritted his teeth. For on brief, beautiful moment he'd thought he could punish his Incarnations for their insolence... but of course that would backfire on him. Why ever would it not?
Zant let out a shriek, accompanied by furious clucking and a sudden tempo increase in Picori Vaati's soundtrack. Demise twitched.
"Alright," Farore said, flexing her hands. "The wolf aspect is on his way, the first six are still looking for the directionally challenged aspect's sword, and since we've got some meantime in between time..."
"We can have some fun looking in on alternate universe?" Din suggested. Farore blinked at her.
"Um... no, I was going to say that I could work on getting another one of my Attribute aspects heading towards his relevant hole-in-the-world."
"That's not nearly as amusing," Din grumbled.
Meanwhile in an alternate universe where Hylians and Cuccos have switched places:
"Don't... make... any... sudden... moves..." Link clucked quietly to his partner as they slowly backed away.
Thankfully, the mob of Hylians were too busy squabbling with each other over the movements of small green pieces of rock to notice them.
"Somewhere something hysterical is happening, I just know it," Din huffed.
"While here, something world-ending is happening, I can see it," Farore retorted. "Can you please concentrate?"
"Yeah, fine, I'll just bookmark it for later," Din sighed, tossing a bright-red sphere over her shoulder where it vanished into thin air (and presumably somewhere significantly funnier). "Which aspect did you have in mind next?"
Farore smiled nervously. "The one whose sanity is... questionable."
"Isn't that the one who ended up in all those different countries?" Nayru checked. "Labrynna and Holodrum and that?"
"After saving Hyrule, yes," Farore confirmed. "But he just got done saving some place called..." she squinted at reality for a moment, "...Koholint?"
Both her sisters frowned in confusion.
"Okay, I'm the one who made all the land and I can tell you right now I didn't make that one," Din said bluntly.
"Apparently it's not actually real," Farore replied, sounding just as confused. "From what I can tell it was all a dream of some sort..."
"He saved a dream?" Nayru repeated. "No wonder he's a bit off..."
"How does that even work?" Din wondered, peering at reality. "...Hang on, is that Levias?"
"It is!" Nayru agreed. "So that's where he went for his vacation! I did wonder."
"I believe he goes by the Windfish now," Farore commented. "Or at least, that's what my Attribute has been told."
"Geez, you take a few millennia off and suddenly you're a hippie," Din remarked, rolling her eyes. "So if this aspect just finished saving 'the Windfish', what's he doing now?"
Farore paused.
"...I believe he's cursing in five different languages."
Link, the Hero of Legend, finished insulting the Windfish in Hylian and moved straight into Labrynnian, which was his personal favorite simply because of how many descriptive adjectives he could string into one sentence. Once he ran out of insults in Labrynnian, he moved onto Holodese and spent a few descriptive minutes on the Windfish's appearance before branching into a sub-dialect of Holodese called Subrosian and cycling back to the descriptive adjectives because Subrosian had some reallygood ones that the Windfish absolutely deserved to be on the receiving end of, and finished it all off with a single choice word of Darkling that he'd learned during his time in the Dark World.
He knew a few other languages, such as Ancient Hylian from the time he'd been to the past and back, but he'd already said everything he felt like saying at the moment.
"Flipping useless fish," Link growled in a foreign accent that he hadn't had before he'd started the Hero gig. He wasn't entirely sure when he'd altered his vowels like that, but he liked how it sounded and had never bothered to try and change his speech back. Besides, with the amount of languages he knew and tended to pick up, he'd doubtless gain a different accent right as he got rid of the first one.
Which he didn't want to do, obviously. He liked his current accent, and there was no way to tell if he would like the next one. Therefore, he wasn't going to try.
It made perfect sense... to him, anyways.
Link sighed and muttered "Yūvūtōneegirh-Ai teah," which basically translated to 'I hate everything' in Labrynnian, before turning his attention to his situation, which quite frankly was begging to be paid attention to.
He was floating on a splintered piece of the remains of his boat – he could remember being caught in a storm before 'waking up' on the shores of Koholint – but surprisingly nothing else seemed to be damaged. His bag was still closed, his hat was still on his head, and none of his items were floating away in the ocean.
Or at least, he hoped none of his items were floating away in the ocean.
He could see the Windfish up overhead, not that the whale was paying any attention to him. Highly ungrateful, in Link's opinion. Even if it hadn't been real time Link was spending, he'd still spent a danged long time rescuing that whale's subconscious from nightmares. And that wasn't even getting into all the junk he'd had to do to wake up the darn fish in the first place!
Link wasn't even sure he'd been musical before this whole fiasco, but digging around in his memory informed him that yes, he actually did know how to play all those instruments now. A bit more thought on the subject revealed that yes, he really could play all eight of them at once despite how anatomically impossible that ought to have been, and a quick check in his bag showed that somehow, he actually had all eight of the instruments.
Had Link not been an adventurer with years of experience and a distinct lack of caring about such things like logic, he would have spent a few minutes sputtering over how impossible that was. However, he was an adventurer with years of experience and a blatant lack of caring about such things like logic. So he simply noted that the instruments were there and proceeded to ignore them.
What Link was really miffed about, he decided, was two main things. One, he was now the only speaker of Koholish – which he supposed was a made-up language anyways at this point – but he was only intermediate-level! How was he supposed to become fluent if all the native speakers were no longer in existence!?
...but, Link conceded reluctantly, that was beside the point. The main reason he was peeved was that the Windfish had just swam (flown?) off into the sky, leaving Link behind without a single backward glance.
Link, who was stranded in the middle of THE FLIPPING OCEAN!
At the very least the stupid fish could have provided a tow! Or if not a tow, then directions would have been just as good! Link wasn't the worst with directions – he had to be at least a bit competent, given all the foreign countries he ended up in – but he was not good enough to navigate a featureless body of water with no landmarks and a lack of a waterproof map.
"Thanks for absolutely nothing," Link grumbled, and pushed his very sticky-with-seawater ginger bangs out of his face. There had to be something he could use to find his way.
First things first, he needed to choose a direction. The Windfish was heading into the sun, and Link most definitely was not going to follow that ungrateful excuse of a marine mammal. But that was fine, because the sun was heading down in the sky, which meant that the Windfish was heading in a generally western direction. Link, from what he could remember, had left Hyrule heading in a generally western direction, therefore to get back to Hyrule he needed to head generally east.
...Of course, he had no idea how far it was to Hyrule by this point. Link was fairly sure he'd been asleep inside the Windfish's dream for at least a few days, if not more, and who knew how far he'd drifted in that time. But he'd rather do something than just sit and wait to die of sunburn, dehydration, and the dreaded (and possibly mythological) Sea-Cucco. They were regular Cucco birds that could swim, but with teeth.
Link shuddered and pulled himself up onto his driftwood remains in order to get out of the water, and sat on the part with the least amount of splinters, then rummaged in his bag and pulled out all the aquatic equipment he had.
His options were: a pair of Zora Flippers, or a Mermaid Suit.
After careful consideration of such things like coloring, ability to wear while still looking dignified, and whether or not wearing one or the other would attract a lovesick seahorse, Link decided on the Mermaid Suit on the grounds that nobody was actually around to see him look ridiculous and that the coloring clashed less with his snazzy green hat.
There was also the design advantage, the better maneuverability, and the magic that made it impossible for the Suit to fall off (it fused with his skin and quite literally gave him a mer-tail while in use), but really, those weren't nearly as important.
With that done, Link rummaged in his bag again and pulled out a coil of rope, trying one end around his waist and the other end to his wrecked ship. While the Mermaid Suit definitely made swimming easier, he couldn't tread water indefinitely. He would need something to float on every now and then while he caught his breath.
He finished tying the knots and gave the rope an experimental tug. When nothing fell off, Link beamed at it.
"You're a brilliant piece of rope, you know that?" he said.
The rope did not respond. This did not bother Link in the slightest.
"Good rope," he praised. "Now, onward!"
He ducked beneath the waves and started swimming, glancing up every few seconds to make sure he was going in the right direction. Unfortunately, he got bored of this within the first ten repetitions, and in an effort to keep himself occupied began singing the Ninety-Nine Potions of Health on the Wall song.
In Holodese.
And in every other language he knew, as well as some he didn't.
"Dang," Din commented.
"I'm quite impressed," Nayru said. "Mortals usually only know a few languages at best. He seems to be fluent in at least five, intermediate in four others, and knows at least a few words of basically every other language he's ever come across."
"He's one of my more unusual aspects, that's for sure," Farore said. "Anyways, he's going in the right direction, but it's gonna be a while. He's got a whole ocean to cross."
"Makes sense," Din agreed. "Who's next then?"
"The wolf-one is getting close," Nayru reminded them.
"Oh, that's right," Farore said, snapping her fingers. "He should be arriving at his relevant hole any minute now. Thanks, sis."
"No problem," Nayru replied.
"Awww..." Midna whined, looking up at the distinctly-not-trapped-in-a-barrier Hyrule Castle. "I wanted to blow stuff up too..."
Link rolled his eyes.
"It would have been epic and you know it, little wolf," Midna retorted.
"Epically terrifying," Link corrected, secretly relieved that she wouldn't have to use the Fused Shadows after all. He'd been prepared for it, of course, but he much preferred this version of events.
Midna just huffed irately. "Oh well, at least getting in will be easier," she decided. "Shall we?"
"Shadow first," Link instructed. "Remember what happened last time?"
'Last time' had been when Midna, so used to being outside of Link's shadow during dungeons and temples and whatnot, had forgotten to conceal herself as she usually did and ended up causing a mass panic that had ended in the largest mobilization of the Hyrule Guard force to date, which was now considered to be one of the most impressive response times in history outside of outright war. Midna had found it hilarious. Link, who'd had to deal with the fallout, had not.
"Fine, spoilsport," Midna sighed, and vanished into Link's shadow with her trademark fanged smirk. 'You'd better relay my comments, though,' her voice sounded in his head. 'I still want to see the reactions.'
"I make no promises," Link replied, and walked through the Castle doors. Midna grumbled in response, which was slightly distracting as the sound was passing through Link's mind as well. Sure, he had practice now, but keeping a conversation while a running commentary from Midna ran through his head was never an easy task.
The Throne Room was basically straight shot from the doors, thanks to the Castle Guard having removed the various bits of obstacles and rubble left from Zant's invading force. Link had to admit, as bad as the Guard was at things like fighting, they could clean up like nobody's business. The actual Throne Room itself, however, was a bit of a different story.
"Hero!" a soldier exclaimed as Link walked into the room. "Oh, thank the goddesses. You were the only one we could think of that might qualify."
Link raised an eyebrow at that statement. "Qualify for... what?"
"Well sir," the soldier began. "The Princess Zelda, she won't wake up, you see. We've tried everything we could think of. Smelling salts, foot massage, bucket of water..."
'Wait, they threw a water bucket on Zelda?' Midna repeated. 'That's amazing! Oh, I wish I'd have been here to see that...'
"You threw a water bucket on Zelda?" Link said in lieu of Midna's physical presence, though he left out the second bit. The solder flushed awkwardly.
"Not me, sir, but one of the others did. My idea was the hot sauce."
"The... hot sauce," Link said flatly as Midna cackled with laughter.
"On her tongue, sir," the soldier explained. "It didn't work."
"Okay, what exactly do you need me for?" Link asked, now becoming somewhat concerned about where this conversation was headed.
"Well sir, one of the boys had an idea, that... well... maybe it was like those spells in the old tales, you know? Maybe she needed a kiss from a noble prince to wake up."
Link's jaw dropped, though he closed it quickly, and his face turned bright red. "Excuse me?" he sputtered.
"None of us are prince material, you see," the soldier informed him with an embarrassed expression. "And we don't really have one just lying around, so we thought you might be the best match given our lack of actual male royalty."
Link sputtered some more, his face now the color of a ripe tomato, and failed to produce any words whatsoever. He'd never been this tongue-tied in his life.
"...I'm a goatherd," he finally managed.
The soldier shrugged. "My dad was a farmer. Best man I know."
"I just... I... You... You want me," Link said, excruciatingly slowly, "to kiss Princess Zelda?"
"On the mouth," the soldier clarified apologetically.
Link moved from a ripe tomato to an overripe tomato.
"Or not," the soldier said, observing this phenomena. "There's probably another way, after all."
"...yeah," Link said weakly. "Probably. Hopefully. Please."
"Well, sorry to bother you with it, sir," the soldier said. "I'll just leave you to... recover. If you need me, I'll be over with the boys trying to eradicate the lost Keese flock. Sorry to bother you, sir."
Link watched the man leave and took a deep breath, trying to cool himself down. Yes, he admitted that he... may have a small crush on the Princess, but that did not mean he wanted to kiss her! Well... maybe eventually, if it was her idea and he was sure she wanted to, but not right this second! Oh, his face felt so hot...
'Wow,' Midna snickered. 'I knew you had it bad, but I didn't think it was that bad. You're about as obvious as a black wolfos on Snowpeak, you know that?'
"Shut up, it's not like that," Link muttered, face in his hands. Midna was never going to let him live this down.
'Of course it's not,' Midna said in a tone which told Link that she didn't believe him in the slightest. 'But, I think I know why she's not conscious. Remember when she gave me her... essence, so to speak?'
"Yeah," Link said.
'Well, I've still got it. I think it's time I returned the favor, don't you?'
Link opted for saying nothing on the grounds that it was probably the safest option and made his way over to the Princess in response. She was, indeed, out cold.
Midna spun up out of Link's shadow and surveyed Zelda with her one visible eye. "Wow, she's really zonked there. You sure you don't wanna try the kissing idea? Even if it doesn't work I doubt she'd know."
"MIDNA!" Link sputtered. His partner snickered uncontrollably.
"Kidding, little wolf," she told him. "Lighten up, eh?"
"Just return the stuff," Link groaned. His face was still a bit pink.
Midna landed lightly next to Zelda's shoulder, reached out, and touched Zelda's hand with hers. What looked like large fireflies gathered on Midna's skin and crossed over onto Zelda's, where they vanished into her body as though they'd never been there in the first place.
"That should do it," Midna said decisively, jumping back into the air. "Now come here, I want to have my armrest ready so I can look all casual and nonchalant."
"You know, gratitude isn't entirely out of the question," Link informed his partner as she perched her elbow on his shoulder.
"Are you kidding me? If you let these people know you owe them, they'll take the clothes off your back before you can even blink."
"I doubt Zelda is that kind of person," Link pointed out dryly.
"Maybe she's not, but I'll bet my helmet that the lower nobles are."
That, Link admitted, was probably an entirely valid point, but before he could say anything about it Midna said, "Hey, I think she's waking up."
Zelda's eyes twitched, then opened in the manner of someone who has gotten far too little sleep and is having trouble dealing with it. She blinked a few times at the ceiling, then took a breath and sat up with excellent posture, looking wide awake in seconds as though she'd done it through sheer willpower.
"Midna, that was supposed to be a gift," she scolded lightly. "I appreciate your thoughtfulness in restoring me, however, but still."
Midna scoffed. "Yeah, like I'm gonna owe somebody for any longer than absolutely necessary. Not happening, Princess!"
"Midna, please be nice for once," Link pleaded. She merely flashed him her trademark fanged smirk and proceeded to ignore his request entirely.
"Oh," Zelda said, looking surprised. "So then that means..." her gaze locked onto Link's face and he felt himself turning red. "You are the wolf, correct?"
"Yeah," Link managed. "Nice to be able to speak to you."
Zelda continued to to scrutinize him with very, very blue eyes. "Indeed," she said. Then she smiled. "This is a good look for you."
Link frowned. "Er... my clothes?"
"Among other things. Green is your color, I think."
This conversation was going in a direction that Link knew would end badly for him. Namely in that he was encroaching on tomato status again.
"So... this is amusing and all," Midna said, rescuing Link from his embarrassment, "and I do like the word green, but aren't there more important things to talk about? Like, I dunno, the fact that Ganondorf's gone missing, or that large gaping hole in the world over there?"
"Hole in the what?" Link repeated in surprise, and followed his partner's pointing finger. Sure enough, up where the throne ought to be was an utterly black void that, to Link's eyes, was defying all laws of causality and logic simply by being a thing. It was the type of object that was completely unmissable.
"How in Din's Name did I miss that?" he boggled.
"You were a bit distracted," Midna said slyly. "I think there was this pretty girl with bright blue eyes?" Link shot her a look that very clearly said, Not now, dangit!
"You know," Zelda said, seeing the brewing argument, "it comes to my attention that I have been unconscious for a good few weeks. If you will excuse me, I believe I shall question my Guard about what has happened in my absence."
She nodded to both the Hero and his partner, then stepped past Link, paused, leaned over and quietly said, "Green is your color, but I more meant your humanity. It suits you," into his ear.
Link revisited his previous status as an overripe tomato. Zelda smiled at him, tucked her hair behind her ear, and continued on her way towards the cluster of soldiers – who for some reason, appeared to be badly losing a fight to a flock of Keese of all things.
"Wouldja lookit that," Midna mused. "She likes you back."
"We are not talking about this right now," Link growled, moving past tomato territory entirely and encroaching on eggplant status.
"Whatever you say," Midna smirked. "So then, what are we talking about if not this?"
"That," Link said, pointing to the void.
"...Yeah, that's a pretty good alternative topic," Midna admitted. She floated a few feet closer to the hole and examined it as much as her instinct to stay away would let her. "What even is this thing?"
Link picked his way over a pile of rubble to join her, and she yawned pointedly at him. Link raised an eyebrow and mildly said, "Not all of can float, you know."
"You should fix that," Midna told him. "But seriously, what do you think about this?"
Link gave the void an appraising look. It was bigger than he'd first thought, well on it's way to the ceiling – and the walls in the Castle weren't exactly short either. From the looks of things, it appeared to be getting slowly but steadily larger, and as Link watched the edge of the void crept out and touched a nearby rubble chunk.
Said rubble immediately proceeded to vanish from all visible existence.
"...Did you see that? Tell me you saw that," Midna said, staring
"I saw it," Link replied.
"That's not good."
"Nope."
"Any ideas?"
"Doubtful. Weapons will probably be just as useless as the rubble," Link guessed. As a side effect of dealing with a ridiculous amount of protective Temple measures that almost always manifested as some sort of massive puzzle-system, Link was now a rather strategic thinker as far as riddles and things went.
"Magic?" Midna asked.
"Equally doubtful. This doesn't seem like the type of thing to be affected by spells."
"...I could manifest a Cucco on it."
"...Okay, keep that one in mind as a last resort. We only use Ultimate Evil if absolutely necessary."
Midna huffed. "In that case, I'm fresh out of ideas."
"Same," Link admitted, running a frustrated hand through his bangs. "I can't believe-"
"Link," Midna interrupted, eyes narrowed. "Do that again."
Link tilted his head in a gesture remarkably similar to a confused canine. "Uh... do what?"
"Put your hand through your hair."
"What does that have anything to do with-"
"Just do it," Midna snapped.
Link gave her a highly confused look, but complied and raised his hand to his hair again. Midna watched the movement like a hawk.
"...I think your hand is glowing," she said.
"It's what?" Link asked intelligently.
"Glowing."
"Why should touching my hair make my hand glow?"
"It's not that!" Midna retorted. "The light's behind us and your face is in shadow, and when you put your hand in the shadow it looked like your Triforce was glowing!"
"It is?" Link said, bringing his left hand up to his eyes to check. ...He supposed that might be called glowing... maybe...
"But why is it doing that..." Midna mused, putting a hand to her chin. "Link, we're going to play a little game."
Link twitched.
"Hey, it'll be fun, trust me."
"The last time you said that, I spent the next hour being chased by Wallmasters," Link reminded her bluntly. "I don't care how you look at it, that was not fun!"
"You're just a wimp. Everyone knows Wallmasters are the best players for Capture-the-Sol."
"It was legitimately terrifying," Link argued.
"Well lucky for you, we're playing Hot-or-Cold instead. Just walk where I tell you to."
"That's it?" Link asked suspiciously.
"That's it," Midna confirmed. "Now do me a favor and move to the left."
Link dutifully – though cautiously – moved to the left. Nothing happened. Midna scowled and had Link move to the right instead. Nothing insisted on continuing to happen.
The next ten-to-fifteen minutes consisted of Midna placing Link in every spot she could think of that wouldn't get him killed in various violent or painful ways. The longer they went, the more frustrated she got, because no matter where Link stood nothing happened. At this point, Midna was almost convinced that she'd been imagining the glowing of his Triforce-
Midna's eye widened as an idea occurred to her, and Link, currently balancing on top of a partially-collapsed pillar halfway up the wall, glanced at her apprehensively.
"That's not an expression that ends well for me," Link muttered.
"Shut up, I'm thinking," Midna ordered. "Link, climb down from there and go stand next to the void."
"I thought you said this wasn't going to turn out like the Wallmasters," Link sighed, though he did as instructed and slid down the column.
"It won't!"
"It's a hole in reality, I really don't think you have the authority to decide that," Link replied. He jogged back to the rift and brought himself to a halt about ten feet or so from his target. "There are some things you can't control, you know."
"Now that's only because I haven't figured out how yet," Midna said lightly. "Now quit distracting me and show me your hand."
Link rolled his eyes and raised his left hand up for Midna to see, fully expecting another annoyed outburst at the fact that nothing was there. Instead, he got-
"Ha! I knew it!" Midna crowed. "It's totally glowing!"
Link blinked in surprise and glanced at his Triforce. Sure enough, though it was rather dim compared to the other times he'd seen it active, the bottom right triangle was lit up like a lantern. Link's mouth formed an 'o' of surprise.
"It's only ever done that the first time I entered the Twilight and when I pulled the Master Sword..." he murmured in astonishment.
"Well I can tell you there's no Twilight here," Midna informed him, drifting around his head and perching her elbow on his shoulder. "Personally, I think it's because of this hole here. The only time your Triforce has glowed so far has been when you're close to it. Why don't you step closer and see what happens?"
Link considered that, then took a single solitary step forwards and stopped. His hand glowed slightly brighter in response, but nothing else happened.
"...That was pathetic," Midna said bluntly. "One step? Really? That's all you're doing?"
"I am not interested in being erased from reality, thanks," Link said.
"You'd have to touch it to do that, and I don't see you touching it," Midna pointed out in a false-sweet manner. "Get closer, little wolf."
Grudgingly, at Midna's urgings, Link took progressively closer steps until he was standing literally right next to the void. His left hand was shining like a star at this point. Midna stared at it, then moved her gaze to the hole. She tapped her chin contemplatively.
"No doubt about it, this is what your mojo's reacting to," she decided.
"That's nice," Link said, leaning backwards a bit as the hole grew ever-larger. "Can I back up now?"
"Of course not," Midna scoffed. "You're going inside to investigate."
Link spun around and gave his partner a glare. "Excuse me?"
"Your glowy hand is a gift from the gods or whatever, right?" Midna asked. "Let's go over what happened the other time it lit up. Instead of being cursed into a formless phantom by the Twilight, you were turned into a wolf instead who could actually dosomething about the problem. You were protected. It's pretty obvious to me what that little triangle does for you, and if it's glowing now, I think that's a pretty obvious indicator."
"We don't know that for sure," Link replied, although he had to admit she had a point.
"Only one way to find out," Midna smirked, and before Link could even think of a reply her hair had shot out and wrapped around his torso, picked him up, and tossed him through the hole. His startled cry of "MIDNA!" got cut off halfway through the word, which sounded absolutely hilarious to the imp herself and she made sure to make a note of it in her mind as she drifted forward to follow her partner-
"Ah!" she gasped, snatching her hand back from the void with three less fingers than she'd had before. She stared at her hand, then the rift. Her eye narrowed.
"I do hope you haven't just killed our Hero," Zelda's voice said, announcing the ruler's arrival. "My Guard tells me that what goes into the void doesn't come out, and you seem to have thrown Link directly into it."
Midna scowled and channeled some of her magic down her arm, forming new digits where her old ones used to be. "Don't give me that, Princess. I know you'd know if he's actually dead, you Triforce people always do. Plus, you'd be muchangrier."
"True," Zelda acknowledged. "No, he's not dead. You, on the other hand, will be if you try and follow him."
"I figured," Midna admitted ruefully, wiggling her new fingers to make sure they worked. "Dang, I just sent him to who-knows-where without any backup... or his wolf form," she realized.
"Not necessarily," Zelda told her. "As a Triforce wielder, I can use some of it's magic to help you send an item after him."
Midna glanced at her. "That's real convenient, isn't it?"
Zelda shrugged. "I have my moments."
Midna, after a few seconds spent considering, decided to go with it and pulled the Curse Stone out of wherever she kept it. After another few moment's though, she materialized a small black bag on a drawstring and dropped the Stone inside.
"He changes as soon as he touches it," she explained to the watching Zelda. "He'll need a way to carry it around while it's not in use."
"Smart," Zelda said, taking the drawstring pouch in her hands and conjuring a golden glow around it as the Triforce on her right hand lit up with similar intensity. "There we go. Would you like to do the honors?"
"Absolutely," Midna replied, showing her fanged grin. She took the small bag in her hair-hand, yelled, "HEADS UP!" into the hole, and chucked the package with all the strength she could muster. "With any luck, that'll clock him right in the face," she said, snickering. Zelda gave her an odd glance.
"You haven't scarred him for life or anything of the sort, correct?"
"Eh, maybe, maybe not. He hasn't run screaming from me yet, and I'll take that as a win."
"...We need to recruit that imp," Farore decided, staring.
"Er... how? Isn't she just mortal?" Din asked.
"I don't care. She just single-handedly cut his expected stall time by eighty flipping percent."
"She bodily chucked him through!"
"Exactly," Farore said. "Exactly."
"Huh," Realm said knowledgeably, scratching his head. "How'd it get up there?"
"I can safely say that I don't want to know," Steam groaned.
"How are we supposed to get that down?" Red asked, bewildered.
Realm's sword, which he'd only just managed to get a little over forty-eight hours ago, was lodged point-first about six feet up a cliffside. The crevice that the blade was buried in covered it nearly all the way up to the hilt.
"That's really wedged in there if it hasn't fallen out already," Vio noted. "Especially given the time it took us to get here."
Saying it like that was a bit of an understatement; it'd taken them no less than six hours, eight backtracks, three different monster hordes, and twelve separate times retrieving Realm from whatever wrong turn he'd made that time before they finally found his weapon.
The problem now, of course, was getting said weapon down. None of the Links were particularly gifted in the area of height; they were all built short and stocky for some reason. So after a bit of discussion, Blue stood on Realm's shoulders and pried the sword out of the rock wall while the other four remaining Links kept Realm steady and less likely to fall down.
"There we go!" Blue announced satisfactorily as he finally yanked the (very stuck) sword out of the cliffside and handed it down to Realm. "Put a bell on the thing or something, why don't you?"
"Because then I'd lose the bell too," Realm sighed, taking the weapon and sheathing it with moderate difficulty due to Blue still balancing on his shoulders.
"You got some problems, dude," Blue informed him, before gathering himself and jumping down. Realm stumbled a bit as all the excess weight suddenly left.
"Everyone has problems," he replied once he regained his footing. "Mine are just... slightly more complicated."
"Speaking of which, is there anything else you've lost that we should go find?" Green asked. Realm frowned.
"Well... I may have lost the hole. Does anybody remember which way we came from?"
"No, but I can figure it out," Vio sighed. "Can I have your map?
"Funny thing there," Realm said, rubbing his head in an awkward fashion. "I don't actually have a map."
Everyone stared at him.
"You mean... what, you never bought one?" Steam asked.
"No, I mean there's literally no map. Nobody has one. In fact," Realm frowned, "I'm not even sure a map of Hyrule exists right now."
"That explains so much," Blue commented.
"I mean, there's maps of dungeons and things, even if I don't know who made them or why they keep leaving them behind," Realm continued. "But there's nothing for Hyrule itself."
"Wait, so you do have experience with maps, at least?" Green checked.
"If staring at them in confusion counts as experience, then yes," Realm said. "I could never figure out where I was in relation to everything else, no matter which way I held the darn thing."
"Then... how are we supposed to get back to the hole?" Vio asked. "It's kind of our ride."
"Well, I usually start walking," Realm said, doing just that. "And sooner or later I eventually end up at wherever I was trying to get to."
"...We're doomed," Blue decided.
Five more hours later, after one of the most ridiculously complicated directional mishaps that the five non-native Links had ever had the misfortune of being in, Realm marched around a corner of rock wall and came face-to-nothing with the rift they'd been looking for. Everyone behind him immediately keeled over in exhaustion.
"What, are you guys tired or something?" Realm asked, confused. "It only took us five hours to get here! We probably just broke my all-time record by at least a day or two."
"We spent four of those five hours running from Like-like hordes!" Steam gasped. "Consecutively!"
"Yeah... so?"
"That's not normal!"
"It's not?" Realm repeated, confused. "How long does it take you to get away from Like-like hordes?"
"I don't run into Like-like hordes!"
"You don't?" Realm by this point was legitimately surprised.
"It's just you," Vio wheezed. "Nobody else has this problem."
"Well... it was still only four straight hours of running, that really isn't all that long."
"YES IT IS!" the five other boys chorused in disbelief.
Realm raised an eyebrow. "You're all weird."
"We're weird?" Blue scoffed – then coughed because he was scoffing and didn't have enough breath for it. "Look at you! You don't even look tired!"
Realm opened his mouth to respond, but the entire issue suddenly became a moot point as a green teenaged figure shot out of the hole and flattened Realm face-first to the floor. The new boy stared at the sky for a brief moment while everyone else stared at him and Realm feebly lifted his head out of the dirt floor to see what had just landed on him.
"...I'm going to strangle her," the teen decided quietly. "I'm going to strangle her within an inch of her life. And then I'm going to tie her to a boulder and torture her with all the people she could be making fun of but can't because of the spell I'm going to have Zelda cast on her mouth to prevent her from talking until I extract an ironclad promise from her to never do this to me ever again."
"I like this guy," Blue decided.
"What just happened?" Red asked.
Before anyone could answer, a small black pouch came sailing out of the void and clocked the new boy right between the eyes. It sat there for a moment, then slowly fell off the side of his face and landed with a soft plop next to his right shoulder.
"On second thought," the teen corrected himself, "I'm going to kill her. I'm going to kill her, then bring her back to life and kill her again just to make sure she's got the point, and then I'm going to bring her back to life a second time so I can chain her to a Cucco for the rest of her existence."
Oddly enough, he never raised his voice during his description of revenge on whichever female he was referring to. It was steady, controlled, the kind of tone you'd use for a casual conversation with your good friend.
It also sent a large amount of shivers up everyone's spines and made everyone take a note about not getting on his bad side.
The new boy took a deep breath and seemed to calm down a bit, then noticed what he was on top of as Realm waved awkwardly at him, taking the chance to get a good look at the new arrival. He had sandy-blond hair, a somewhat angular face, and bright blue eyes that quite honestly looked slightly feral. There was a long green hat perched on his hair with a tunic to match, two small blue hoops in his ears, and he appeared to be wearing chainmail underneath the tunic. A blue metal shield was strapped to his back over an equally blue scabbard. He looked like a warrior, all things considered.
"Oh, I'm so sorry," the teen said, launching himself to his feet and scooping up the black pouch in the same motion. He examined the small bag briefly, glanced inside, then looped it around his neck and tucked the pouch under his tunic. "My partner decided it would be fun to throw me, I didn't know there were people over on the... other... side?"
He turned, looked over his shoulder and noticed the hole, gave his surroundings a brief but fierce scrutiny, then turned his attention to the six Links in front of him.
"Care to explain why what I'm pretty sure is a hole in reality is acting like a two-ended tunnel instead?" he asked with a dangerously raised eyebrow.
9/26/16
Yes, I know this took a while. You know why? Because homework is a jerk. Whoever said that art students don't do much deserves to be pushed down a very long flight of stairs.
...On a lighter note, words to read! Please note the introduction of the Hero of Legend, who is one of my very favorite Links to write and (I think) the second biggest fan-favorite Link in the story. I'm gonna be making some changes with him... all things considered, I really should have made up something 'Labrynnian' for his speech patterns rather than badly borrowing British ones the first time around. Good thing I can fix that now.
NOTICE: LABRYNNIAN NOW HAS AN OFFICIAL CIPHER AND HAS BEEN UPDATED ACCORDINGLY.
Labrynnian Translations: Yūvūtōneegirh-Ai teah. (I hate everything)
Changeling
Thanks to SanicBam for favoriting/following!
BrandonBGamer: I never thought of Giratina as evil, so no. He was just doing his job as the Reverse World guardian. Not his fault some idiot tried to capture him and take over his home. Again, this isn't meant to be a crossover series. I will not be using Pokemon. However, that doesn't mean I won't use them for another story.
KnownForHardlyNothing: Not sure, but that's kinda why I'm doing this. It was one of those ideas where I thought, 'how has nobody done this yet' and I thought I'd give it a go. I'm really glad you're liking it!
Find me on Tumblr at changeling-rin!
Find the fan-run ask blog on Tumblr at ask-the-dimensional-links!