I do not, nor will I ever, own Shadow the Hedgehog. (Okay, seriously? I didn't play that one either! Not to mention that it made no sense whatsoever and it's that game's fault that I can never decide if Shadow's a clone or not – wait, that's not the point. The point is, that's not my disclaimer!)

"...and that's why I was out on the ocean in the first place, which led to me finding you," Boat Link finished, coming to the end of a very long and complicated explanation of the history of his Hyrule and his life in general, since the two were intertwined rather impressively. "Does that answer your questions?"

"I think it just made more, actually," Gate Link admitted. "Because that's not how my version of history goes, like at all. I'm not sure if we had a Hero of Time or not because up until a couple centuries ago we basically had a... dark age, I guess? It's only been fairly recently that we've gotten ourselves up and running again, and as far as I'm aware the only past Hero we have is the Hero of Legend."

Boat Link frowned in confusion. "Er... who?"

"The Hero of Legend. You know, the guy who saved Hyrule and a couple surrounding countries? Singlehandedly responsible for the peaceful relations between Labrynna, Holodrum, and us? Ringing any bells?"

"No," Boat Link admitted. "But I'm pretty sure it's all underwater anyways."

Gate Link wilted. "Right... so, just to clarify, I'm in a Hyrule that's clearly not mine with no idea how I got here and no idea how to get home." He let out a sharp breath and ran a hand through his bangs. "This day could not get any stranger."

"I doubt that," Boat Link observed. "It's been my experience that things can always get stranger regardless of whether it should be possible or not. For example, my talking boat turned out to be the King of a country that stopped existing a couple centuries ago. I'm still not sure how he managed that, much less how he figured out how to live well past his life expectancy. Although he did end up being a ghost, so..."

"On that topic," Gate Link interrupted. "Well, not actually that topic but something else you said. You mentioned something about controlling the weather?"

"Oh yeah," Boat Link said, and pulled out a silvery, ornate baton in his left hand. "This is the Wind Waker. It's got some sort of magic that lets me direct the... well, wind."

"Sweet," Gate Link said, impressed. "Can I get a demonstration?"

Boat Link shrugged, then waved the item in an up-left-right pattern, which somehow caused peals of bells to ring out from absolutely nowhere, making Gate Link jump while his counterpart snickered at his reaction.

"No, I don't know where it comes from," Boat Link said preemptively (Gate Link had been opening his mouth in confusion) and pointed the Wind Waker decisively to the left. A sudden blast of air shot past the two boys in blatant defiance of the previous wind direction and turned the whole weather pattern around in a matter of seconds. Gate Link stared up at the clouds in surprise and watched as they scurried in the opposite direction from moments ago, and clamped a hand on his hat to keep it in place in the new breeze.

"That's really something," he commented. "How does it work?"

"Magic," Boat Link shrugged. "I never got a more specific explanation than that. Needless to say, my life got really weird afterwards."

"I hear that," Gate Link sighed. "I've spent the last few months hopping between my world and a mirror reflection of my world where all the people have counterparts with exactly the same face. You'd think that somebody might have discovered there's an alternate Hyrule before me, but nope. I got to find out when we got invaded and turned into watercolors."

"You mentioned that before," Boat Link remembered. "You said that people got transformed into paintings?"

"...It'll probably be quicker just to show you," Gate Link decided, and promptly fused with the trunk of the tree he was standing next to. Boat Link raised both his eyebrows in surprise.

"...I did not see that coming," he admitted, and leaned in close for a better look. When Gate Link blinked and waved at him, he jumped back again and stared. "You can move?"

Gate Link nodded, then glanced around as if checking something and popped off the tree with a bright flash. "Wasn't entirely sure that would work, but I guess wood is as good a canvas as anything," he mused.

"Does it hurt?"

"No – well, kinda. At first, yeah. I'm pretty sure it was originally a curse, but mine got... modified?"

Boat Link grinned. "You have no idea, do you?"

"Look, it hurt the first time, less the second time, and now not at all," Gate Link retorted. "That's about as specific as I can get. But I am pretty positive about the curse bit."

"That's unfortunate."

"Eh, I got over it. Helped that the thing comes in handy so often."

Boat Link tilted his head. "So, how much do you use it, then?"

"It's the only way I can get to Lorule," Gate Link explained. "So... couple dozen times a day?"

"And there's no side effects whatsoever?" Boat Link asked. "I mean, when you were on that tree you looked a bit... malformed."

Gate Link frowned. "How so?"

"You were doing this weird thing with your arms," Boat Link held his hands out, trying to demonstrate and failing because he just couldn't contort himself that way. "Like, your arms were sideways, but your body wasn't?"

Gate Link's eyebrows furrowed, and he attempted to mimic what Boat Link was doing. He failed miserably. "Okay, ow," he said, trying to twist himself into position. "This seems physically impossible. Are you sure that's what I was doing?"

"Pretty sure, yeah," Boat Link grunted.

Both boys spent a minute more on their efforts, then unanimously decided that it wasn't doable and eased out of their positions, wincing.

"Now I'm a bit freaked out," Gate Link decided. "Apparently I'm breaking the laws of anatomy and physics."

"What I'd like to know is how you're doing it," Boat Link said thoughtfully. "Theoretically, I'm pretty sure your spine should not be able to twist like that."

"I... don't know," Gate Link said. "How am I doing that?"

Unnoticed above their heads, a wall began to crack ever so slightly.

"Code Four!" Nayru screeched. "They're questioning the Nintendo Logic!"

"Distract them!" Din ordered. "Drop a squid on them or something!"

"Let's go with 'something', okay?" Farore said quickly, eyes narrowing in concentration.

Two dimensions over, a hole was suddenly rerouted from where it would have led (and a certain multilingual Link on the other end) and instead dropped the seven Heroes currently using it as a portal on a sandbar in the ocean. On the beach of the island, Boat and Gate Link jumped in surprise and immediately forgot what they had been talking about in favor of the much more confusing presence of the boys who were now spitting saltwater from their mouths and looking extremely bewildered.

Above the island, a wall with a crack in it fixed itself and vanished, leaving three Goddesses very relieved and the Heroes none the wiser.

"...The heck?" Gate Link said knowledgeably. Boat Link just blinked and tilted his head, eyebrows expressing his confusion. They were experiencing just a bit of deja vu, because the seven boys on the sandbar bore an awful lot of resemblances to the two of them, and said resemblances weren't just limited to the tunic and the floppy hat.

"Alright, roll call," one of the taller boys on the sandbar announced. "Does everybody know how to swim?"

"No," said the only brunet in the group, which earned him incredulous looks from the other six.

A smaller boy who wore all blue let out a disbelieving snort. "Okay, seriously? You've literally ended up on, and I quote, 'the only island in the lake' over a dozen times based off your story, How did you get there if you can't swim?"

"I have no idea."

"...Holy Din you're serious."

"Can we discuss this when we're not in the middle of the ocean?" another boy broke in. "We can just give Realm a tow or something, right? Somebody's got to have a rope."

"I've got it," the teen who'd called roll said, and promptly took out said rope to tie around the brunet boy's waist.

"Is this normal for your ocean?" Gate Link asked his counterpart quietly. "Random clones of you just showing up out of nowhere?"

"Not usually," Boat Link replied. "This is a first."

By this point the teen who couldn't swim had been pulled to shore by the ones who could, and the whole group was wringing out their respective hats and looking at their new surroundings.

"Farore, it is really warm," one of the boys said, squinting up at the sun.

"We do appear to be in a tropical environment," a smaller boy dressed in purple noted. "Places like this are known for hot climates."

The tallest one glanced around and shrugged. "I've felt hotter," he said. "Then again, I was inside a volcano at the time, so perhaps I'm not the best judge."

"Why were you inside a volcano?"

"Fused Shadow piece, remember? I spent a good half hour telling you guys about it."

"I was more questioning your sanity than your reasoning," the boy wearing blue muttered.

At this point, Boat Link decided he ought to introduce himself and his counterpart. Plus, he had an important question. So he cleared his throat and said, "This may sound like a stupid question, but have any of you seen a giant multi-eyeballed squid?"

Unfortunately, Boat Link had not taken into account the fact that none of the newcomers had actually noticed his presence yet, and his unexpected voice caused nearly all of them to flinch. In one case, however, a boy in red jumped an entire six inches into the air, came down farther left than he meant to, and landed more-or-less on top of the boy in purple. This knocked him off-balance and caused him to fall on top of the boy wearing blue, who staggered and promptly went down on top of one of the smaller boys in green. Then that boy flailed for balance, accidentally hit the brunet in the face, and they both ended up on the ground – the only difference was that the brunet was still tied to the tall teenager with the rope and ended up pulling him down too, right on top of the seventh and final boy who let out a startled expletive that almostmanaged to drown out the angry ranting of the boy in blue, who apparently had his leg trapped under the boy in purple and was not happy about it.

"...Oh dear," Boat Link said. Gate Link flicked him in the forehead.

"Congratulations, you've single-handedly caused the fall of the green-hatted empire," he said dryly. "Maybe next time you should let people know you're there before you ask them random questions."

"It's not a random question, it's a perfectly valid one," Boat Link argued, somewhat forgetting about the pile-up in front of him. "I need to find the giant squid so I can kick his tentacles so I can save a pirate princess and a whale god."

"Do you even hear how ridiculous that sounds?"

"Well, you're just going to have to take it up with reality, because I promise you that's what needs to happen," Boat Link sighed. "Except that I've been having a really hard time finding the squid, which is why I've been asking around. Which reminds me," he said, turning to the pile of green-clothed boys in front of him, "you guys haven't answered my question. Has anyone seen a giant squid? I need to-"

"Does it look like we'd be able to see a giant squid!?" someone snarled – from the sound of things, it was the boy in blue. "Who even asks about squid? Who even cares!?"

"Uh... I think we do," the boy in red at the top of the pile offered.

"That was fast," the brunet commented.

"Great, they can keep caring because I don't," the blue boy growled. "Vio, get off my leg."

"This wasn't my idea, you know!"

"Doesn't mean you can't fix it!"

"Oh for crying out loud," one of the smaller boys in green moaned. "Blue, Vio, this is not the time! There are more people in this pile than just the two of you and I would appreciate it if you'd think of the rest of us for a change! Now shut up and act like the civilized people I know you can be so we can all stand up."

"And greet the two new Links," the teenager near the bottom added.

"That too," the small boy agreed. "Okay?"

Amidst much grumbling, the boy in blue and the boy in purple – wait, were they named for their clothing or did they color-code themselves according to their name? Who even named their kid 'Blue' anyway? – got themselves untangled within a few short seconds, and it only took a few more before the whole group was on their feet again and sizing up the two newest Heroes.

"Seriously, is no one going to answer my question?" Boat Link asked.

"No, we have not seen a giant squid," recited a different boy in green. "We haven't seen any regular-sized squid either. Heck, we haven't seen any squid period." He paused, then added, "Although I'm not sure I actually know what a squid even is. Is it mechanical?"

"No," Boat Link said.

"Then I've got no idea. Sorry."

"We haven't seen a squid," the brunet teen clarified. "Would your name be Link, by any chance?"

"Both of us, actually," Boat Link said, indicating Gate Link next to him with a hand wave. "Why?"

"So are we," the tall teen answered with a slight, apologetic smile that wordlessly expressed sympathies for any following confusion.

Gate and Boat Link stared silently for a moment.

"...Huh," Gate Link said. "Wasn't expecting that. Does this mean we're gonna have to talk over the history differences again?"

"You're taking this better than I expected," the brunet boy observed. "I was expecting something more along the lines of confused gibbering or a blatant refusal to acknowledge our existence."

"We kinda did that already," Gate Link informed him.

The brunet teen blinked. "That is really convenient, we should try to make that happen more often. Anyways, I'm Link, you knew that already, but to avoid confusion we've given each other nicknames. Mine's Realm, nice to meet you."

"Same..."

"Over there is Dusk," Realm continued, pointing to the tall teen. "The short blond one is Steam, and the quadruplets over there are Red, Vio, Blue, and Green – yes, they're dressed by color, and no I won't tell you which is which because it really should be obvious."

"We're not quadruplets," Vio sighed. "We're-"

"I know what you are, but if I try and explain that now we're gonna be here for hours," Realm said. "Let me drop one bombshell at a time, okay?"

"That does make sense," Vio conceded.

"Anyways, that's us," Realm said, turning back to Boat and Gate Link. "The Heroes of Hyrule, Twilight, Trains, and Light, respectively. Your turn."

The two boys exchanged glances; then Boat Link shrugged and made a submitting motion in order to let Gate Link go first.

"Uh, well, I'm Link," he said somewhat awkwardly, "the New Hero of Hyrule... and I don't have a nickname."

"New Hero of Hyrule?" Realm repeated. "Why is your title a direct copy of mine with the word 'new' in front of it?"

Gate Link shrugged helplessly. "Search me. Now why, exactly, am I introducing myself if we're all named Link and we all know it?"

"Because you need a nickname," Red informed him, "and I need to know how to give it to you. Now clearly I can't use your title because that would be repetitive and unoriginal, so! Did you do anything weird or special during your Hero-ing?"

Boat Link poked Gate Link in the arm and pointed at the bracelet on his wrist, raising his eyebrows meaningfully. Gate Link stared pointedly back, then said, "You don't say. I totally wasn't going to mention that. It's completely normal."

"So sarcastic," Boat Link grinned.

"Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer," Gate Link replied, grinning back. Then he looked back at Red and said, "I can turn into a painting at will."

"Cool," Red breathed. Behind him, the other six Links exchanged surprised looks. "Vio, give me every art-related word you can think of!"

"How about just the ones you've heard of," Vio said amusedly. "Draw, sketch, render, trace, outline, illustrate, paint-"

"Sketch!" Red interrupted triumphantly. "Thanks, Vio!"

"No problem."

"'Sketch'?" Gate Link repeated. "That's my nickname?"

"Well, I also liked 'Trace'," Red chirped. "But 'Sketch' just flowed better. What do you think?" He pinned Gate Link with wide eyes and an earnest expression, which made him look remarkably like an adorable puppy. Link internally cursed his weakness of adorable puppies.

...He actually did like the name, though. He just didn't like feeling as though he'd been coerced into it.

"I think it works," Sketch said, and was promptly glomped by an excited Red. "Try not to strangle me-!"

Red abruptly released him and turned his adorable puppy expression on Boat Link, who had been watching the whole thing with supreme amusement. He was forcefully reminded of his younger sister, who was a certified master of the precious kitten expression, and sighed good-naturedly.

"Link, Hero of Wind," he said. "I assume I'll be called 'Breeze' or something?"

"Unless you want to use 'Wind'," Red replied. "Nobody wants to use their Hero title as their nickname for some reason..."

"I like my title," Wind said. "I'm fine with using it."

"Yay!" Wind was immediately glomped. "Welcome to the group, you guys!"

"Sorry, what?" Sketch said. "Why is there a group, how are we suddenly a part of it, and what is even going on? Someone explain to me how you all came out of that hole because everything that touches it vanishes from existence and I still need to get back home and literally none of this makes any sense right now."

"This feels familiar," Dusk murmured. "Alright. As it was explained to me, a large amount of holes have opened up in the fabric of reality because of a yet-to-be determined reason. Everything that touches them gets obliterated, except, for some reason, us. It turns out that there are multiple Hyrules, versions of Hyrule, or many different time periods of Hyrule that have had a Hero save the world and that's who we all are. We appear to have been recruited, of sorts, to find the problem with the universe and fix it, and we've concluded this because we all have something sacred or given to us by deities that provides protection when we jump through the holes, which for us act as portals between one Hyrule and the next." He paused for breath, then asked, "Did I miss anything?"

"No, you were quite thorough," Vio said. "Nice job."

"Thanks. And that's the gist of things, anyways," Dusk said to Wind and Sketch. "We've also been running into more versions of ourselves the more Hyrules we go through trying to find the source, so we all started tagging along, and... well, that's how I ended up here, anyways. Somewhere along the line it became a given that any new Links we find just end up coming with."

Sketch blinked, then threw up his hands in exasperation. "Are you kidding me? I'm not even done saving the world in myHyrule, now I've got to save the universe too!?"

"Looks that way," Wind said. "At least I got a proper warning this time. I'm in."

"'This time'?" Green repeated.

"Yeah, well, the first adventure I went on started off as me trying to save my sister, but somewhere along the line it turned into saving all of Hyrule and I'm still not quite sure how that escalated so fast. I'm just glad to know what I'm getting into for once."

Aside from Sketch, who had heard all this beforehand, everyone stared for a moment.

"...Mind elaborating on that a bit?" Steam said eventually.

"Do we have time?" Wind asked, glancing at the hole which was now happily eating away at the actual sandbar rather than the water above the sandbar.

"Hard to say," Vio said. "But I would rather save the world with somebody I know rather than somebody I don't."

"Good point," Wind said, and sat down on the sand to get started, as he had a substantial amount of adventure before this and telling it all out loud was going to take a while. "So I got started on my thirteenth birthday, when a dragon-sized bird kidnapped my sister."

"WHAT!?"

"Is she okay!?"

"She's fine, I rescued her," Wind said, amused. He waited until everyone relaxed again, then continued, "Anyways, I ended up more-or-less bullying my way onto a pirate ship where I eventually convinced the captain to follow the bird to rescue my sister because it turned out that the only reason the bird was here in the first place was because the pirates were and it was after their captain. It mistook my sister for her, so... it sorta made sense."

"Wait," Blue said. "The captain of the pirate ship was a girl?"

"Yes," Wind said. "Her name's Tetra. Don't underestimate her. She can be properly terrifying when she wants to be."

"How?"

"She shot me out of a catapult," Wind said matter-of-factly. "Anyways, after I finagled my way onto their ship we sailed to this place called the Forsaken Fortress – which was where I got shot from the catapult, by the way. That turned into an experience of it's own which ended with me getting the crap kicked out of me by this green-skinned ginger dude in a silk robe. He actually turned out to be the Big Bad, but I'll get to that later."

"Would his name be Ganondorf, by any chance?" Dusk asked.

"Uh, yeah. How'd you...?"

"I've got my own version," Dusk said. "Continue, sorry to interrupt."

"Right. I ended up getting flung across the ocean and I'm not really sure how far, but I woke up in a talking red boat who introduced himself as the King of Red Lions and agreed to help me get my sister back. So that meant I had to find a sail, which took a while because I had to go on this complicated fetch-quest to get the thing, but I did find one eventually. That's why the King gave me the Wind Waker, so I could use the wind to steer."

"Wind Waker?" Steam repeated.

"I'll just demonstrate," Wind decided, and pulled out the silvery baton.

Sketch clamped his hands over his hat in preparation.

"So... what do I call you?" the older-but-younger Hero of Time asked his younger-but-older counterpart. "We literally share every single name I can think of."

"Hey, if you want Fairy Boy, I am perfectly fine with letting you have it," the shorter Link said.

"Okay, if anyone passes for a 'Fairy Boy' right now, it's you."

"What, just because I'm shorter? I'll have you know that I've got at least a foot of height on you in maturity levels."

"Could've fooled me."

"Oh for – we're not doing this again," the shorter Link groaned. "Let's just pick new names that we haven't been given by somebody else, okay?"

"Sure," his counterpart shrugged. "But, won't my nickname also be your previous nickname?"

"Din I hate time travel," the older Link grumbled. "Let's deal with that when it comes, okay? In the meantime, do you have anything that can distinguish you from me?"

"You're the older one," the younger Link pointed out. "Everything I've got, you have stashed away somewhere. If anybody's going to have something that the other doesn't, it'll be you."

"Point," his counterpart conceded. "Okay, let me think... have you got a Lens of Truth?"

"Yes."

"Darn. Umm... oh. Do you have any masks?"

"Just the ones I sell for the Mask Salesman."

The shorter Link shivered briefly, for no reason that his counterpart could readily think of. "Right, but we didn't use any of them?"

"Well, no, but why does that matter?"

"That's what I've got that you don't," the older Link said. "Masks."

"Should I call you Mask, then?"

"I can live with that," Mask agreed. "As long as you don't call me Majora."

"Who?"

"Er... nobody really important. Got any ideas for your name?"

Link frowned and marked down the name 'Majora' to ask about later, but accepted the topic change without complaint. "Well... no."

"If you ask me, 'Ocarina' doesn't sound too bad," Mask offered. "And technically, you know..."

"Yeah yeah," Link said. "But I don't know if I want to be named after what's probably the most sacred instrument in the country. Isn't that sacrilege or something?"

Mask shrugged. "Beats me. But if there's anybody who can get away with that type of thing, it's probably the Hero who saved the world, yeah?"

Link was silent for a moment. "...You've loosened up our morals quite a bit, haven't you?"

"More fun that way," Mask said. "So, are you Ocarina or should we keep brainstorming? 'Cause I've got a few more we can try out. 'King Zora' for example, flows pretty well."

"We were never engaged!" Link sputtered.

"Ruto thinks otherwise," Mask singsonged.

"I'll take Ocarina, thanks" the very flustered teen muttered.

"That's settled, then," Mask said decisively. "So... now what?"

"I have no idea," Ocarina admitted. "Under normal circumstances I would say, 'Let's put you back in your time to avoid a paradox', but that's not really an option..."

"We could try the Temple of Time," Mask suggested. "I'm only from the future, not an alternate dimension or whatever, so maybe it can put me back?"

"Worth a shot," Ocarina agreed. "You remember the way?"

"Do I remember the way," Mask snorted as he started walking. "I only spent the better part of seven years running in and out of that thing every time I needed a time switch."

"That's not how it works!" Ocarina protested.

"Details. Point is, I know how to get there, so you don't need to come if you don't want to."

"Actually, I was heading in this direction anyways," Ocarina said. "I'm actually on my way to confront Ganondorf once and for all."

Mask paused. "...oh, I'm really interfering with history here, aren't I?"

Ocarina shrugged, looking unsure. "Dunno. Maybe, just... don't help me fight the guy and we'll be good?"

"Yeah, I'll just cheer from the sidelines," Mask snorted. "You'll be fighting for your life and suddenly you'll hear, 'You can do it, Past Me! I know because I was there!'"

They both broke down into snickers.

"...Actually, would you mind?" Mask asked after a moment. "I think it'd be fun."

"You're the one worried about paradoxes, you tell me."

"It should be fine... I think," Mask decided. "Besides, the worst that could happen is a blatant breaking of the space-time continuum and to be perfectly honest I'm pretty sure that's the reason I'm here right now. Therefore, all the consequences to worry about have already taken place and thus we have nothing to stress over."

"I'm not entirely sure that's how it works..."

"Hey, when you can make sense of the Ocarina of Time's manual, you let me know. Until then, I'm sticking with this explanation."

"Oh what, you've managed to figure it out?"

"Heck no, are you kidding? That thing's got more contradictions and complications then the list of steps you need to follow to bake a Cucco without getting killed. I stopped trying after page three."

"I got to page five."

"You did not, I would remember that!"

"...so now I've been just sailing around looking for Bellum because he wasn't where he was supposed to be and I still had the King around to use. He's still a perfectly functional boat even though he's not really alive anymore, so it wasn't much of a hassle. Then I met Sketch here and we freaked a bit and eventually got around to introducing ourselves, and then you guys showed up." Wind shrugged. "And that's about it, really."

"Okay, how old are you?" Steam asked.

"I turned fourteen last month. Why?"

"You stabbed a man in the head."

"Yes, but in my defense he'd tried to kill me at least six times beforehand."

"You buried your sword in his face," Steam enunciated. "How are you not, like... suffering from mental trauma or whatever?"

Wind tilted his head. "Well... at that point, he'd sent the Helmaroc King to kidnap my sister, blocked up all the Great Fairy Fountains, put curses on at least two different islands to prevent anyone from accessing specific items that could help defeat him, set a monster on the Great Valoo, tried to kill me, tried to kill Tetra, ended up forcing Tetra into hiding so he wouldn't be able to get her Triforce, was the whole reason the original Hyrule had to be sunk in the first place, was the whole reason the Royal Family had turned into pirates, stole power from the Master Sword to ensure that it couldn't be used against him again, killed the original Sages of Earth and Wind, caused the Triforce of Courage to break into pieces so I had to go search them out, tried to kill me again, almost succeeded, stole mine and Tetra's Triforce pieces, and almost caused total world domination by wishing on them. I was sorta just fed up with him by then." His eyes hardened, and he added, "Also, he hurt my sister. Nobody hurts my sister."

"Duly noted," Steam muttered.

"I tend to look at it this way. If I hadn't done it, who would?"

"Logical," Vio agreed.

"Anyways, that's me in a nutshell," Wind finished. "Sketch, I think it's your turn?"

"This day has taken a bizarre turn of events," Sketch said idly. "Okay, so everything really kicked off on the day I went to deliver the Guard Captain's new sword. I was an apprentice blacksmith at the time, so I usually ended up being the go-for when I wasn't helping with a job."

"Wait, so you can do metalwork?" Steam asked, eyes gleaming.

"Some," Sketch said. "I was always better at the fancy stuff than the actual functional things, though. Drove my teacher crazy, I could never get a sword-point right."

"If we get the time, you wanna help me make the parts for a fully-functional self-lighting lantern? I've got this idea involving friction and some flint but I have no idea how to work a forge."

"Sounds interesting," Sketch said thoughtfully. "Sure, why not."

"Um, not to be rude," Green said. "But what does this have to do with your story?"

"Oh, my bad," Sketch apologized. "Anyways, I ended up going on what was more-or-less a wild goose chase because the Captain, for some reason, had gone all the way to the Sanctuary on the far side of Hyrule Castle."

"But you said he was the Captain of the Guard," Realm said. "Shouldn't he have been, you know, with the Guard? Doing his job?"

"Yeah, well, he's got a crush on the daughter of the Sanctuary's priest. He does stupid stuff to please her sometimes."

"And to think we trust people like that with the safety of our Princess," Steam muttered.

"Hey, I didn't hire them. The point is, it took me almost an hour to find the man, but when I actually tracked him down I got caught in the middle of an attack that this redheaded dude named Yuga was launching on the Sanctuary. He kidnapped Seres – that's the daughter – because she was photogenic or something and then made it literal by turning her into a painting."

Vio straighted. "That's new."

"He turns into a wolf," Blue snorted, pointing at Dusk who subtly averted his gaze to a nearby palm tree. "Why is artwork more impressive than that?"

"I meant that it's new in that we haven't come across anything like it before," Vio retorted. "Honestly, do you even look for subtext?"

"People should say what they mean," Blue rolled his eyes. "The world would be a lot less complicated that way."

Vio opened his mouth for a comeback, then paused. "...Point," he admitted. "I can agree with you on that."

"Farore," Green said, in shock. "Red, I think the world is ending. Blue and Vio just agreed on something."

"Can I continue now?" Sketch interrupted, looking mildly annoyed.

"Oh! Uh, yeah – sorry."

"Right, so I walked in and saw that, and I was still holding the sword that I was gonna deliver to the Captain, so I made the completely smart decision to attack the scary magic dude head on. It went about as well as you would think. I ended up slamming headfirst into a wall when Yuga turned himself into a painting and I kinda blacked out."

"Ouch," Dusk winced.

"Yeah, not my best moment. After that I woke up back in my house with this guy in a purple rabbit costume standing over me. Turned out he was a traveling merchant of sorts, found me knocked out, and brought me to the first unoccupied house he found, which happened to be mine, ironically. Somehow we ended up making a deal where Ravio – that's his name – would run his business out of my house and let me rent items from him in return. He also gave me this bracelet," Sketch held up his left wrist in display, "as rent, or something like that."

"That is a really musty piece of jewelry," Realm observed.

"Don't knock it," Sketch warned. "This thing saved my life. Basically, I went to Zelda who gave me a pendant and sent me to this sage who lived in some nearby ruins, and he sent me after his smug narcissist of an apprentice who turned out to be Yuga's next victim, and when I tried to charge him again Yuga got annoyed and turned me into a painting too."

"But you're not..."

"Turns out that this bracelet," Sketch tapped it for emphasis, "lets me control Yuga's curse-spell-thingie at will. When I got turned into a painting it activated and pulled me back off the wall. Now, I can basically do it anytime I want, as long as I've got a surface to merge with."

"Can we see?" Red asked eagerly.

"Yeah, sure, can't let Wind steal all the attention," Sketch replied. "Give me a minute to find a good tree."

"Courage Check!" Farore called.

"Mine is still walking," Din replied. "And he's getting very creative with the number of ways he's thought of to curse out the Windfish in thirty words or more."

"...I'm sorry, how is that impressive?" Nayru asked, distracted.

"Well, he's doing all the cursing in Darkling-"

"Ah," Nayru said. "That is impressive. Vulgar, but impressive. I'm sorry I asked."

"Girls," Farore sighed.

"The Heroes of Time still hasn't caused a paradox with himself," Nayru reported. "I think we can relax on that front."

"Question," Din said. "How do we know that, once they're all together, they won't cause a paradox with each other? More than one of them is capable of manipulating time – I mean, suddenly we've got two Ocarinas of Time now, and I'm pretty sure I remember the Hero of Legend has a Harp that can basically do the exact same thing. What happens if they try to see who can do it better?"

There was a soft thump as Nayru's temporal senses considered this, panicked, and promptly knocked their host out in a fit of hysterics. The Goddess of Time slumped to the floor, thoroughly unconscious.

"...You broke her," Farore said in tones of great realization.

"Ah, dangit," Din muttered.

"...and since I'd finally gotten everything I needed to take Yuga down, I tried to head back to Lorule to help Hilda seal him. The only problem is that I apparently used the wrong portal... somehow... and instead of Lorule I ended up on this island after popping out on that sandbar." He nodded towards said sea feature. "Then Wind found me and we both freaked out, and... you know the rest."

"...Does anyone else get the impression that we get into an awful lot of painful and possibly fatal situations considering that most of us haven't even hit sixteen yet?" Steam commented.

"Oh, that's right," Wind remembered. "You guys have stories too, don't you?"

"Oh crap," Blue groaned. "We're going to have to do this every time we meet someone new, aren't we?"

"Right, I'm going first," Steam said quickly. "That way I can take a nap for the remainder."

"...Should have thought of that," Realm muttered as Steam launched into his adventure.

"Walking," Link grumbled, pushing through the Labrynnian undergrowth – which, if he thought about it, really wasn't all that different from Hyrulean undergrowth, but it made him feel more justified for being annoyed at it if it didn't belong to the bush that grew right next to his house. "Who even invented walking? It's tedious and boring and it makes all the self-aware blue-and-winged ride-giving bears unemployed."

He continued walking in silence for a few minutes.

"What's the point of ground?" he said suddenly, even though nobody was around to hear him. "All it does is make people upset that they can't get off it. Which is really odd, considering how much they walk around on the stuff. But no, people can't stand ground. We've got witches who use brooms to get away from it, blue bears that grew wings to get away from it, a kīnfegiar whale that figured out how to fly to get away from it... So why have it?"

Nobody answered him.

"Ossōseegēdd, rōbdeo-Ai ma os," Link sighed, foregoing Hylian altogether for Labrynnian again. He'd already used it to insult the Windfish in a previous sentence, he might as well just convert for the time being.

Then he decided against it. He didn't really have a reason why, he just felt that not speaking Labrynnian for the next six-and-four-thirds hours would be equally boring as just speaking Hylian, and since there was no discernible difference between the two he was fine being bored in his native language. Fewer tenses to remember that way.

"Goddesses, I'm so bored," he groaned, repeating what he'd said in Labrynnian just to make a point to whoever might be listening. There wasn't anyone listening, but if there had been, Link wanted them to have known how bored he was right now. "All there is to do is walk! Walk and talk to myself and think of new ways to make Zelda doubt my common sense."

More silence.

"I should write a book," Link decided suddenly. "I should write a book about my life, exploits, and ability to make an entire country question my sanity in three days or less. Size of country notwithstanding." He tapped his chin. "I could call it, 'All Your Pots Are Belong To Me'. It'd be filled with nothing except an overly detailed and outright contradictory step-by-step instruction manual telling the reader exactly how to properly destroy a ceramic container." He considered this for a moment, then frowned. "On second thought, it might be more confusing if I wrote a perfectly normal autobiography and then acted like nothing was wrong. Few things perplex people more than if the local crazy starts acting sane." He chuckled. "They never believe me when I tell them I am sane... I'm just really, really bored."

This reminded him of his current predicament, and his mood dropped right back down again. "Dangit, I'm so bored..."

Why did walking like an ordinary person have to be so... ordinary?

"...and that's how I met the group, got acquainted, and ended up here," Dusk finished, bringing the rather long and complicated explanation of everyone's backstories to a close. "Anything else you want to know about us?"

"Do you give rides?" Sketch asked.

"No," Dusk said firmly, and thanked the Goddesses that Midna wasn't around to contradict him this time. "Anything sensible?"

"I'm fine," Wind said. "You were all very thorough. And I enjoyed hearing about everyone."

"Good," Dusk said, standing up and brushing sand from his tunic. "Think you're ready to go, then?"

"Are you sure that thing's safe?" Sketch said, eyeing the void with no small amount of trepidation. "I've seen it eat anything that gets close."

"I'm sure. Watch."

Dusk took a few measured steps towards the void, enough that he was standing in the surf, and held up his left hand for the two Links on the beach to see. A Triforce mark was glowing faintly on the back.

"Right, it glows when it's safe," Wind remembered. "You did mention that." He walked up to join the taller Link and looked down at his own hand, which had lit up as he'd gotten closer. "Neat."

"Yeah, cool," Sketch said, from the beach where he hadn't moved. "I'll take your word for it."

"Something wrong?"

"Well, uh... remember what I said, about being a painting and not mixing well with water as a result?"

"Ah," Dusk said, remembering. Sketch had skimmed over that part of the story, as it had obviously been a bad memory, but he'd said enough for the group to know that he and liquids didn't really get along. "Hydrophobia?"

"More or less," Sketch replied.

"Would it help if I gave you a lift?"

Sketch tilted his head. "I thought you just said you didn't do rides?"

Dusk rolled his eyes. "On my shoulders," he clarified. "It's not that deep from here to there, you should be fine if you're up top."

"I..." Sketch paused, stretching out the word. He was grateful for the offer, no doubt. But as a Hero, he didn't like to admit that he needed help – at least, not help like this. There was just something about relying on someone else because he couldn't conquer his own fear that made his pride wilt.

But... the thought of getting wet triggered a far worse reaction than the thought of accepting a ride did. "I'd appreciate that," Sketch said.

To his eternal gratitude, Dusk didn't say anything; merely smiling and kneeling down to help Sketch up. Then, once his passenger was firmly in place, he turned and called down the beach to the rest of the group (who had all been asleep while Dusk finished off the storytelling), "Hey guys! We're leaving!"

There was much yawning and annoyed grumbling as the six other Links rejoined with their companions. But for the most part, everything was going fairly smoothly.

That was, until Realm suddenly turned around, patted at his back, and said, "Not to alarm you guys, but has anyone seen my sword?"

Everyone stared at him.

"...You're kidding, right?" Blue asked.

"Ah, ha," Realm laughed weakly. "No...?"

"Okay," Vio said after a moment. "When do you last remember having your sword?"

"I... have no idea," Realm admitted. "But, um, while we're on this topic, I also seem to have misplaced my shield...?"

"Wait, this is actually a thing?" Sketch exclaimed. "I thought he was joking!"

" Unfortunately not," Dusk said, lowering Sketch off his shoulders and taking a look around the island. "At least we've got a limited area to search in, your stuff can't have gotten far."

"I think you're forgetting," Steam contradicted, "this is the guy who can, apparently, get from a desert to an island within ten minutes and without being able to swim."

Realm smiled apologetically.

"...If we start now, I think we have a decent chance of finding his stuff by midnight," Vio opined.

2/13/2017

Apparently, I forgot to have the Links who'd already told their stories retell their stories to the ones who weren't around to hear it the first time.

…

Yeah.

Anyways, a more fleshed out intro between the group and the new additions, nicknames for the Hero(es) of Time, and a quick look in on the Goddesses and the Hero of Legend, who's still trekking his way through Labrynna. Poor kid.

Changeling

Labrynnian Translations

kīnfegiar (a mild Labrynnian intensifier)

Ossōseegēdd, rōbdeo-Ai ma os (Goddesses, I am so bored)

PsycoFangirl: I've always thought bad music was a form of torture. Quite honestly I've rather enjoying putting Demise through all this. And I'm glad you liked the blender bit!

LuckyLugia: I've actually got names for all the guys already. That was one of the first things I planned. However, in the interest of avoiding spoilers I will not be saying what they are. You'll find out their names eventually *smiles evilly at the cliffhanger*

KnownForHardlyNothing: Yeah, that makes sense. And wow, thanks for saying that! I think this is the first time my writing has been called a masterpiece... now I feel all warm and fuzzy. Thanks for the encouragement!

Xana100: None of my Links are actually mute. I believe the one you're talking about was just in shock. As for mentioning you, well, I like giving credit where credit is due. And I always feel privileged when someone thinks my stuff is good enough, so I want to thank them. This is just my way of doing it.

Yoki: Yep, SS Link is in here too. We just haven't met him yet. As for Ghirahim... well, during my research phase I decided that he did not count as part of Demise's curse since at the time Demise hadn't even cast it yet. However since the Links will be going to that time period eventually, he will be a character. He's just not in Demise's head with all the others. (Although I seriously considered it... Ghirahim had so much potential for craziness, but my logic and hatred of plot-holes eventually decided otherwise.)

Find me on Tumblr at changeling-rin!

Find the fan-run ask blog on Tumblr at ask-the-dimensional-links!