(Okay… let's try this again.)

I do not own the Legend of Zelda.

(Oh, for-! That one was meant to be Star Trek. Why is this a thing? Why is this a thing that's happening?)

The bush… bird… thing turned out to be something called a Kikwi, and he was an incredibly timid creature. His name was Lopsa - or at least, that's what the Links thought his name was. He'd stuttered so much and said it so quietly that nobody was really sure what he'd actually said. Still, Lopsa hadn't corrected them on it yet, so…

Then again, maybe he was just too nervous to do so. Case in point, he'd just thrown himself face-first onto the ground again and was pretending to be a bush for about the seventeenth time since the group had met him, despite the fact that it wasn't even an effective disguise any more because everyone knew he was under it.

Dusk, who'd been nominated as the one to talk to the Kikwi because his mild nature made him one of the least threatening of the group, let out a heavy sigh and picked Lopsa up to set him on his feet. "Could you maybe stop doing that?" he asked calmly. "We've been over this: we're not monsters, we don't want to eat you, we're not going to hurt you, and we really just want to get directions and never interact with you again."

"Promise?" Lopsa squeaked, quivering.

"Yes," Dusk said fervently. "Now, can you help us?"

Lopsa twitched a couple times before straightening up into an almost confident posture. "You're looking for the green creature with the talking sword, right?"

"He should look almost exactly like us," Dusk agreed, ignoring the bit about the talking sword because honestly? Even if that actually was true, he'd still fit right in with all the shapeshifters and temporal manipulators and weather controllers in the group. "Have you seen anyone like that?"

"Oh yes, he comes down here a lot," Lopsa replied. "He's always busy looking for something though. Last time he was here about a song, but before that he was looking for a dragon, and before that he was here about a girl. Most of the time when he shows up now, he fights a big monster with a spike in it's head over by the Temple."

"What kind of monster?" Ocarina asked curiously. This proved to be a mistake, as Lopsa immediately cowered at the thought of the monster and promptly tried to disguise himself again. Dusk, however, having caught onto the tactic by now, caught him halfway down and put him back on his feet.

"Let's not go there," he said to the group pointedly. Then he looked back at Lopsa and asked, "Has the green creature been here recently?"

Lopsa thought about that, nervously shaking. "No," he decided eventually. "He hasn't been back since the last time he beat up the monster."

"Guys, I know what we need to do," Lore said abruptly. "We're going to need feathers, adhesive, about sixteen tree branches, some rope, two really pointy rocks, and somebody with a really good dragon impression."

"...Why?" Realm asked cautiously.

"To make our own monster, duh."

"Monster?" Lopsa squeaked, and immediately threw himself facedown again. Dusk dropped his head into his palm, left it there for a moment, then decided that prying any more information out of the Kikwi was probably going to be more hassle than it was worth.

"We should stop traumatizing him," he said, and herded the group away from the trembling bush. "Besides, we know enough. I think we just need to wait a little bit."

"Or-" Lore started.

"We are not going to dress anyone up as a monster to lure in the native Link," Dusk sighed. "Have you seen the locals here?" He gestured pointedly back at the Lopsa-bush, still shaking at the thought of a monster. "We do that, we're going to kill everyone through sheer terror alone."

Lore deflated. "Yeah, okay. Point."

"We could go and find the actual monster?" Wind offered.

Everyone thought about that. Nobody responded. It was true that, as Heroes, the group did tend to get into a lot of questionably safe situations, but very rarely did they go actively looking for said situations, and even then it was always for a very good reason. That said, however, boredom was not one of those very good reasons. The group may have been a bit thrill-happy, but they weren't stupid.

"...Let's not and say we did," Dusk decided. "Any other ideas?"

"I'm going to take a nap," Lore declared.

"Why are you always taking naps?" the Four asked.

"Because I saved three real countries, one imaginary one, swam an entire ocean and then walked the length of a country in immediate succession, then got caught up with you lot and it's been one large whirlwind ever since. I'm sleepy."

"But you literally took a nap less than twelve hours ago," the Four pointed out. "When we all told Speck our stories, you went first and then slept through the whole thing."

"There's an excellent reason for that," Lore informed them, and then dropped fast asleep to the ground below and began snoring softly.

Everyone stared at him.

"...Did he just fall asleep on command?" Steam checked.

"I think he did," Sketch agreed. Dusk let out another sigh and knelt down to arrange Lore's splayed limbs in a more comfortable position.

"Free time, I guess," he said. "Just don't terrify the locals any more than we already have, please."

Mask immediately grinned, pulled open the mouth of his bag, and poked Ocarina in the ribcage.

"Ow," Ocarina grumbled, pushing the offending hand away. "What?"

Mask winked at him. "Wanna help me prank a sleeping guy?"

Ocarina debated that for a moment, then shrugged. "What do you have in mind?"

Demise was in a bad mood, which wasn't anything new by any means. But this bad mood had the distinction of being on a higher level of irritated than his normal range of bad moods, and this was because that despite his best efforts, he hadn't been able to kill the Sheikah warrior. In fact, despite demolishing the entire Sealed Temple and doing his level best to raze the whole of it to the ground, the woman was nowhere to be found. It was like she'd simply vanished into thin air when Demise gained the upper hand.

And it annoyed him, because he'd really been looking forward to actually being able to kill something.

He stepped through the smouldering rubble and turned his glare to the landscape of the Sealed Grounds. It wasn't a bit like how he remembered it. In fact, for some reason, the entire spiraled chasm that he'd been trapped in for so long was now filled, and replaced with a giant statue of the goddess Hylia.

(Those statues had never actually been very accurate, which was the only thing Demise had ever liked about them. There were few things more amusing than being able to rub a terrible likeness in Hylia's face in the middle of an otherwise serious fight.)

Demise's glare evolved into a furious glower, and he narrowed his eyes at the statue. He'd been expecting the descending spiral to use as a battleground. When had this happened? Was this that botched timeline Ghirahim had mentioned right before Demise had fought the Hero (and lost, and been sealed into his accursed blade, but that wasn't the important part of that memory, shut up Veran)? Demise had thought this version had been overwritten. No wonder it had been so easy to rip holes in Hyrule's history, it was already a mess.

But then, perhaps his presence here, bringing along all his intent to change it, was influencing which reality had more of a grip. Or, maybe he'd just missed.

Time really wasn't his area, he was usually just content to destroy it and be done. And besides, Demise didn't really feel like removing himself from the universe again and seeing if he couldn't land in the right timeline this time.

Therefore, Demise began charging up his power to obliterate the Goddess Statue right then and there. Sadly, it was just a bit too big for casual destruction, which meant that Demise was going to have to concentrate, but it would be well worth it in the end, he thought. Every confrontation needed the proper battleground - slow and dramatic approaches full of monster attacks were a staple of Villainy 101.

After all, it was only polite to give a Hero the full treatment before he was violently dismembered.

Link woke up with a full-body jerk and the distinct suspicion that something had just exploded. He had a very finely-honed sense for this sort of thing, due to finicky bombs, an extremely active volcano, and Ghirahim's sense of humor, and consequently there was a little voice in his head informing him that somewhere, there was a pile of rubble where a building had used to be.

And, like the idiot with a Hero complex that he was, Link was going to end up investigating it.

"One of these days," he grumbled to himself as he dragged his body up from the (sinfully comfortable) bed he'd crashed on, "I'm going to learn from my past actions and not go to investigate everything that goes bump when I'm not looking." Then he adjusted his gear, sighed, muttered, "But today is not that day," and marched determinedly out of the door.

He was grateful that he'd stocked up on everything he might need the day before, because it allowed him now to run straight off the edge of Skyloft and call his bird. Once he was safely flying away, he tapped on the scabbard of the Master Sword and said, "Hey, Fi?"

Fi was either the spirit who lived in the Sword or the actual Sword herself (it was one of those two but Link had never quite figured out which), and she functioned as Link's… companion? It was hard to find a word that described everything Fi did for him; she was his guide, his advisor, his clock, his weapon, and about a dozen other things besides. She wasn't the most emotive of people, but she'd definitely loosened up a lot since Link first met her. Every now and then she would let loose with the driest sarcasm Link had ever heard.

At his call, she came spiraling out of the Master Sword and stationed herself just above the head of Link's bird, flying backwards at exactly the speed they were moving to keep her position. Her blank blue eyes were quirked in a subtle expression of curiosity, and the metallic fabric of her cloak fluttered wildly in the wind.

"Master?" Fi answered.

"Can you do a search of the Surface?" Link asked. "I think something's gone wrong."

Fi inclined her head, then flipped herself over and slid out to the right, flying in formation now instead of right in front of Link's face. She stayed that way for a few moments, staring down at the cloud barrier, before sliding back over and flipping herself around again to face Link. "Eldin and Lanayru read as normal, Master. However, I am picking up disturbances in the region of Faron. Would you like to descend?"

"As fast as possible," Link replied, and urged his bird towards the green light that signified the opening in the clouds to Faron below. Maybe, just maybe, it wasn't Demise, but -

Well, it wasn't very likely to be anyone else.

Mask was kneeling on the ground next to Lore's snoring head, with two carved faces in his hands and several more scattered on the leaves in front of him. He frowned at them contemplatively, then turned his head towards Ocarina sitting a few feet away.

"What do you think?" he asked. "Deku Scrub or Goron?"

Ocarina shrugged, looking a bit lost. "I mean, you know them better than me. You've only ever told me about them, I've never seen them in action before."

"Good point, good point," Mask agreed, then went back to frowning at the items in his hands. "I think… Deku Scrub, for this."

"Deku Scrub for what, now?" Steam asked, overhearing the last bit and coming over to investigate. "Mask, are you going to…" He trailed off, and stared.

"I'm going to prank Lore, yes," Mask agreed, stuffing all his things except for the Deku mask back into his bag.

Steam nodded absently, still staring, then asked, "So who is that, then?" He pointed at the face of the Deku Scrub in Mask's hand, and Mask glanced down at it.

"This is my Deku Scrub mask," he said slowly. "I told you all about them? Remember?"

"Not the mask, I know what that is," Steam said, waving a hand impatiently. "And I didn't ask 'what is that', I asked 'who is that'."

Mask exchanged a glance with Ocarina, who shrugged. "There's nobody else here?"

"Oh, for-" Steam cut himself off exasperatedly. "The little Deku Scrub kid tied to the Deku mask! Who is he?"

Mask went utterly still. "What… what does he look like?"

Steam gave him an odd glance. "What do you mean, 'what does he look like', he's right - oh."

He blinked a couple times, switching his gaze between Mask and a blank space of air, then said, "He's… little. Like, 'little kid' little. He doesn't have the full bush head like an adult Scrub would, he's just got these three little leaves. He has these bigyellow eyes and he keeps staring at you with them." Steam paused, scrunched his eyebrows together apprehensively, then continued "Not like, creepy, or whatever, more like… devotion, or loyalty. He says…"

Steam paused. "Oh, that seems a bit personal. Are you okay with me knowing that?"

"Knowing what?" Mask asked.

"No, not you," Steam said quickly, before looking at empty air. "Are you sure? ...Oh. ...Yeah. ...No, it's not a problem. I just wanted to make sure."

"What's he saying?" Mask questioned.

Steam took a breath. "He says, thank you for letting him play tag with his dad one last time."

Mask could have been punched in the stomach and looked better afterwards than he did right then. He drew in a ragged breath and tried to say something, but failed. He tried again, but failed that time too. Eventually what came out of his mouth was, "What do you mean, he's tied to my mask?"

"There's like, string on his wrists?" Steam replied hesitantly. "And the threads lead to the Deku Scrub mask. They're only a couple feet long."

"Oh goddesses, am I trapping him?" Mask demanded. "Ask him if I'm trapping him!"

"He can hear you," Steam said, amused despite the situation. "It's just on your end. And he says… no, you're not trapping him. He feels like he owes you. He… apparently made the strings himself, because he lost you at one point and he doesn't want that to happen again, so he tied himself to you. He can leave anytime if he wants to, he just doesn't want to."

Mask let out a sigh of relief. "And he's… okay?"

Steam shrugged helplessly. "I mean, given the fact that I can see him and you can't, I'm pretty sure he's a ghost possessing your item, so I'm really not sure. But… he says he's fine. He likes being useful to you."

"What on earth did I do to earn his loyalty?" Mask asked, bewildered and a bit dazed at this sudden turn of events.

"Ah… he's laughing," Steam informed him. "He thinks it's obvious, and that it's funny that you don't know."

"Well that's great," Mask muttered. "But… he's okay? He's really okay and stuff?"

"He says he is," Steam replied. "I'm inclined to believe him, he seems pretty happy."

Mask let out a heavy breath. "That's… that's amazing, actually. Wow. He's okay."

"Are you okay?" Ocarina asked, who'd been following exactly none of what had just happened and was extremely confused, but also packing away his questions until later.

"Not really, but I will be," Mask sighed. "Hey, Steam?"

"Hm?"

"What's his name?"

Steam was silent for a moment, listening. Then he said, "Well, he just rustled his top leaves together and then made a creak noise. So I'm guessing that whatever his name is, we can't pronounce it because we don't have leaves to rustle or wood to creak with."

"Somehow that makes sense," Mask muttered. "Is it alright if I just call him 'Creak' then?"

Steam glanced to his left, and nodded. "He says that's acceptable."

"Okay," Mask breathed, glancing down at the face of a Deku Scrub in his hands and tightening his grip on it. "That's… okay."

"He is a bit curious, though," Steam continued. "He wants to know what you needed him for? He says that you usually use him for getting to hard-to-reach places, and since he doesn't see any he's kinda confused."

"Oh, um," Mask said, and turned a bit red. "I was… gonna use his mask to prank Lore."

Steam paused, then let out a snicker. "Creak says he is absolutely okay with that plan. Apparently you do a great job taking care of his mask, but he's really curious about what a different host body would feel like. He thinks you're a bit on the short side."

Mask sputtered. "It's his body, why am I the height factor all of a sudden!?"

"He's laughing at you," Steam said, trying not to laugh himself.

"I'm going to drop you on Lore's face now," Mask informed the air to his left, lifting the Deku Scrub face in his hands to hold it above Lore's head threateningly.

"He's actually on your other side," Steam wheezed.

Mask twitched, then announced, "You know what, he heard me just fine anyways!" and brought the mask down on Lore's snoring face.

There was a flash, the sound of creaking wood, and for the briefest moment there was a small Deku Scrub child overlaid with Lore's sleeping form. Then there was a twist, and suddenly-

The Deku Scrub that was now Lore startled awake, yelped, tried to shoot to his feet and immediately fell over. He lay there for a moment, processing.

"Huh," Mask commented. "So that's what that looks like from the outside."

"I have several complaints," Lore said from the ground, and then spat out a Deku seed entirely by accident. "I know for a fact that-" he spat another seed, "-I wasn't snoring this time, because-" another seed came shooting out "-I only do that on my stomach, and I was-" another seed "-on my back this time, so-" yet another seed "-why do I keep shooting these things!?"

Several Deku seeds happened in rapid succession as Lore tried to figure out how to stop, and the absurdity of it all sent several of the surrounding Links into hysterics. This lasted for about twenty-three seconds until Lore started aiming his uncontrolled seeds at the laughers, at which point the amusement turned into running instead.

Link touched down just on the edge of Faron Woods and was immediately alerted to the fact that he wasn't alone by the sounds of running, screeching laughter, and something that sounded like high-velocity impacts in rapid-fire. And while that sort of thing wasn't exactly the explosion that he was still fairly sure had gone off, it was still extremely unusual. For one, he'd never heard the local Kikwi population get above anything louder than a soft mutter (screams of fright being the only exceptions), and all the racket coming from farther in the forest was not within the accepted Kikwi volume levels. For another, there were no other people on the Surface except for Groose and Impa. Groose had a very distinctive voice and none of the noise that Link was hearing matched him, and Impa was… well, ancient. Link kind of doubted she could run even if she wanted to.

Basically, there was nobody Link could think of who would be running and laughing and screaming like this.

"Okay, choices," Link muttered. "Whatever exploded, or whatever's going on here?"

From the distance, there was a THWACK, a yelp, and a "Sorry! Wasn't aiming for you!"

"REVENGE!" A different voice declared, followed by a loud whoosh and an exponential increase in the screaming laughter.

"Whatever's going on here," Link decided quickly, then drew the Master Sword for good measure. He flattened his back to a tree, took a bracing breath, then leaned out around the trunk to gauge what the situation was.

And then he proceeded to entirely forget what he'd been about to be doing, because running around and making an extreme racket were a dozen or so boys that looked almost exactly like Link. And that was a bit concerning - okay, it was completely concerning, and also confusing, and just a little terrifying, and Link had absolutely no idea how to process it. Vaguely, the memory of Sparrot's prediction drifted through his mind, and he grimaced. 'Reflection' his foot. 'Clones' would have been a muchbetter word.

Except that… looking at them all, they weren't exactly clones. The pair that had just run past Link's hiding tree were had brown and auburn hair, respectively. Several others were bright blond, in a way that Link himself had never been. And while all of them did look an awful lot like him, there were subtle differences in the way their faces were shaped and how they moved that set them apart from Link himself.

There was also a Deku Scrub in the middle of it all, but Link couldn't find very much resemblance to that one. Even if it was wearing a green tunic with a long floppy hat - hang on though, since when did Deku Scrubs wear clothes?

"I've changed my mind!" the Deku Scrub declared suddenly. "I like this trend!" The Scrub machine-gunned several Deku Seeds from his mouth, most of which were met with return fire of various kinds from the laughing group of boys running around him. "I'm my own ammunition!"

"You're not keeping him!" a shorter boy called from where he was bunkered behind a large rock. He had an arrow nocked to a ornate bow in his hands, with fire flickering on the arrowhead. As Link watched, the boy shot several incoming Deku Seeds from the air before continuing, "I just learned his name and I call dibs!"

The Deku Scrub pouted, shooting more seeds. "Can I borrow it sometimes, at least?"

"You'll have to ask him, and only if he's okay with it!"

The Scrub paused mid-seed. "Okay, am I missing something here? I'm getting the feeling that I'm missing something. Is there a reason why you keep applying a gender to what I thought was a genderless item?"

"It's a transformation mask," the shorter boy replied, shooting the remaining seeds from the air and poking his head above the rock. "There's a soul inside powering the change. Where do you think the Deku form comes from?"

The Deku Scrub blinked, several times, then held his arms away from his sides gingerly and looked down at himself. "Aaaaand now I'm mildly uncomfortable with this. How do I, uh…?"

"Promise not to shoot me with seeds?"

"Hero's honor," the Scrub reassured.

The shorter boy took that at face value and abandoned his bunker behind the rock to approach the Scrub and crouch down. "Hold still," he warned, then put his hands on either side of the Deku Scrub's head and pulled the face off what the actual crap.

Except that, instead of the screaming that Link was expecting, there was a bright flash and the vaguest impression of something snapping back into shape, and suddenly instead of a Deku Scrub there was a hylian teenager standing in the Scrub's place. He flexed his fingers and patted himself down, while the shorter boy put what looked like a mask into one of his many pouch pockets.

"Right, that was weird," the teenager announced. "Excellent prank, but please never do that again. I've sworn off all soul merging ever since the Cuckoo Incident."

The shorter boy looked up at him warily. "Do I want to know?"

"Probably not."

At this point, Link decided that he would very much like to know what was going on, thanks, and stepped out from his vantage point into the open landscape. He marched firmly up to the large grouping of his lookalikes, planted his feet on the ground and his hands on his belt and said, "There had better be a really good explanation for why there's about sixteen siblings I didn't know I had running around in Faron Woods."

There was silence for a moment, in which all of Link's lookalikes blinked at him. Then one of the taller ones said, "Well, that was easy. We didn't even have to go looking this time."

"It's always nice when convenience decides to be a thing that exists," agreed the shorter boy who apparently owned the Deku Scrub mask, who was standing right next to the taller one. "Who wants to give the introductions this time?"

"My turn!" declared the teen who had previously been a Deku Scrub. "And even if it isn't, I still call it!"

He stepped up to Link's face and stuck out his hand. "Hi there! I'm Lore, and-"

He broke off suddenly, and narrowed his eyes at Link. Then he leaned in until their noses were almost touching, at which point Link leaned backwards because awkward. Lore - Link was assuming that was his name, since he'd just introduced himself with it - straightened back up with a frown, stepped around to Link's other side, then turned so that they were back-to-back. A moment later, there was a hand on Link's head.

"What are you doing?" Link asked incredulously.

The hand vanished, then Lore stepped back into Link's view and pouted at him.

"Aw, you're taller than me. Why'd you have to go and be taller than me?"

Link stared at him blankly. Briefly, his mind drew a parallel to Sparrot's prediction again, but then got right back to being incredulous. "What does that have to do with anything!?"

"Well, Ocarina is short," Lore explained in a spectacularly non-explanatory fashion, because Link had no idea who Ocarina was. "Impressively short, actually, so I've got at least an inch on him, and he's only just barely taller than Realm, so naturally I've got him too. Dusk is short too, and I'm taller than him by about half an inch or so. I've been the tallest one in the group for ages, and now you come along and it's not fair, you know that?"

"No," Link said bluntly. "Because I have only just met you people five minutes ago and I have no idea what is going on."

"We'll fix that," Lore said, patting his shoulder. "Starting from the top! My name is Lore, and-"

An absolutely massive explosion went off in the distance, shaking the ground and sending everyone stumbling, and also cutting off whatever Lore had been about to say next. Link immediately threw all the strangeness of his sudden doppelgangers to the back of his mind in favor of the much more pressing issue, and took off sprinting towards the now-towering plume of smoke over the treetops.

Much to his surprise, though, all his lookalikes came with him.

"Oh, come on!" Lore complained, keeping pace right on Link's left. "I didn't get to finish my speech!" He paused to take a breath, then continued, "That is so not fair!"

"Talk fast then," Link snapped.

"No, I can't do it now," Lore said, between deep breaths. "I'm running, and it's really hard to give expositional dialogue while running. Hey, Realm!"

"On it," replied the only brunet in the group, and slid over to take Lore's place next to Link. "Hi there, sorry about him. I promise you'll get used to it though."

"I doubt that," Link replied dryly. "But go ahead, get it over with."

"Well, I'm Realm," Realm said, "and I'm guessing you're Link?"

"I don't remember telling you my name, but yes," Link panted warily.

"We didn't need to ask. We're all Link too."

Link promptly tripped over his own feet and was only saved from a painful faceplant by Realm grabbing his arm on the way down. "You're what!?" Link sputtered. He'd been coping fairly well under the theory of 'random doppelgangers, but unrelated to me', and this was an entirely unexpected revelation.

"I promise it'll make sense eventually," Realm told him apologetically.

"He just blew up Hylia's statue!" Farore screeched indignantly.

"Oh, he's gonna pay for that," Din muttered.

"Actually, we're going to pay for that," Nayru lamented. "Hylia left us in charge of her stuff when she reincarnated, remember? We're not doing a very good job."

"Hylia's statue!" Farore repeated. "He blew it up!"

"I still think that's was a bit unfair," Din complained. "I mean, saying 'Hey girls, I'm gonna go be reincarnated for who knows how many cycles, watch my stuff until I get back' right before she poofed off to reality really didn't give the rest of us a lot of time to plan for it."

"...it's been a couple millennia since that happened," Nayru said slowly. "We have had plenty of time."

"Right, because this whole adventure hasn't been one big ball of stress and occasional panic so far."

"Her followers worked so hard on that!" Farore ranted. "It was a terrible likeness, but still! It was the thought that counted!"

"We can add that to the list of things we're taking revenge on Demise for," Nayru sighed. "Now, since we have an actual physical location on Demise now, I say we start the Plan. Din?"

Din nodded and pulled a sheet of parchment from midair, then flicked it open and began reading. "Step one, send Courage."

"Been there, done that," Farore replied. "Next?"

"Step two, damage control until Courage gets here."

"Doing that now," Nayru answered. "Evacuated the Sheikah Servant Impa and Skyloft resident Groose a while ago." She paused, then added, "Should we have maybe done something about the building too?"

Farore shrugged. "The Sealed Temple was just generically holy. If it'd been dedicated to one of us, then I'd be more upset."

"Like Hylia's statue?"

"That was just straight-up disrespectful."

"He's Demise, what do you expect?"

Din, meanwhile, muttered, "I'll take that as a yes," checked something off and kept going. "Step three, make… snacks?"

Nayru frowned. "Is that right?"

"That was a joke," Farore admitted. "Never lose your temper with the Interference Laws halfway through a bullet point."

"Actually, I could go for snacks," Din said. "We're just going to be sitting on our butts and watching anyways, we might as well have crunchy treats in the meantime. Who wants popcorn?"

There was silence for a moment as her two sisters blinked at her. Then Farore said, "Can you make mine cheddar-flavored?"

"You got it."

"Sweet Hylia, that's Demise," Link whispered, peering out from behind the tree he was hiding behind and gaping openly at the massive, literally fiery-headed man carving the last few chunks of ground from a spiral chasm that Link was pretty positive was supposed to have had a Goddess Statue in it instead. "Crap. Okay."

"...Who?" Sketch asked. Everyone had introduced themselves during the sprint, and Link was doing his best to remember all of them. Learning a dozen new names all at once wasn't the easiest thing, but he thought he was doing pretty well given the circumstances.

"Him," Link replied, nodding towards Demise just in case anybody could have missed him. Nobody had, since he was a hard man to not notice, but Sketch had asked…

"No, I gathered that much," Sketch replied. "I mean, who is he?"

"The god of destruction," Link clarified. "Also known as the Demon King. He sort of wants to wipe everything from existence, including existence." He closed his eyes and let out a weakly hysterical half-laugh. "And it's my job to stop him."

"So… you could say, he's your villain?" Vio asked, frowning at some thought.

"I guess?"

Vio frowned even more. "That's… weird."

"Excuse me?" Link said, raising an eyebrow.

"Well, Realm gave you the five-minute version, right?"

"Yeah…" Link said, remembering the all-but-impossible story Realm had given him about them all being versions of himself from different time periods of Hyrule (and while Link had several questions about what Hyrule was, he was assuming it would be the word for the Surface eventually) and jumping from era to era via the use of reality-eating void portals.

"So, everybody else's villain has been missing," Vio continued, "and there's been a hole in their place. So why isn't yours?"

Everyone thought about that for a moment. Then Dusk ventured, "You said he's the god of destruction?"

"A full-blown deity," Link confirmed.

"So… it wouldn't be too difficult for him to spawn reality-eating holes across all of time and space?"

Link stared at him. "You're not serious."

Dusk shrugged helplessly. "I would rather be wrong, trust me. The idea of having to take down a god is… mildly terrifying."

"Assuming that beating up the cause of the holes would even be a valid fix to the issue," Mask muttered.

Link let out a controlled sigh. "Look, can we talk about this… whatever it is, later? I've got a world to save and a deity to take down and that's the sort of thing that can't really wait."

"Oh, we'll help then," Realm said.

"You'll what."

"Well, we're here, aren't we?" Realm asked rhetorically. "And Demise is a god. So you'd want all the help you can get."

"Also," Lore added, "this is the perfect opportunity to induct you into the group. Life-threatening battles for the fate of the world are always the best places for bonding."

"I doubt that severely," Link said.

Lore ignored him. "Alright, Red? Do your thing!"

"Yay!" Red cheered. "Okay, you said you were the Chosen Hero, so… wanna use it?"

Link stared at him. "For what?"

"Your nickname," Red replied distractedly. "We can't all be Link, it just doesn't work. Is that a yes?"

"No," Link said. "I refuse to be called Chosen. It's pretentious. Also, why are you the one picking my nickname and not me?"

"Because that's just the way this works and Changeling didn't think of that sort of stuff until after the fact, now shush," Blue retorted, right before Green and Vio tackled him for breaking things. Link squinted in confusion at the tangled pile of boys on the ground and asked, "Is this normal?"

"Yes, ignore them," Steam reassured.

Red tugged on Link's sleeve to get his attention again. "Hey, so, if you don't like Chosen, is there anything else unique about you that I can use?"

Link looked down at the smaller boy, who was producing a surprisingly accurate image of an adorable puppy. Link silently cursed his weakness of adorable puppies.

"...As far as Heroes go," he said after some thought, "I think I might be the first. Skyloft - that's where I live - we don't have any legends of any of you guys, which leads me to think you haven't happened yet. Also, Hyrule? That doesn't exist, but I think it will because I'm going to make it exist. Ah… I think."

"No, that makes sense," Ocarina said, with Mask nodding in agreement. They were the only ones who seemed to think that, because they were the only ones who really understood time travel, but everyone else was willing to believe them about it

"So, first then!" Red exclaimed "Vio!"

"Yep," Vio replied, still on top of Blue. "Prime, native, prior, fore, genesis, premier, ante-"

"Genesis," Red declared brightly.

"Genesis?" Link repeated. "That's such a mouthful."

"Which is why we'd shorten it to Gen," Red informed him decisively, apparently having thought the entire thing through in just a few short moments. "It'd be a nickname for your nickname, which is cool."

"Nicknames are cool," Lore agreed. From the bottom of the pile that Green and Vio were still atop of, Blue muttered something mildly concussed that sounded vaguely like, "Stop quoting the Doctor." Green smacked him in response.

"Gen," Link said, trying it out. "Jehn. Jeehhhhhhnnnnn."

"I like it," Wind opined.

"You like everything, though," Sketch told him.

"Not everything, just… most things."

"But the important thing is, do you like it?" Red asked, staring at Link with wide, puppy-like eyes.

"...I'll get used to it, I guess," Gen agreed.

"Yay!"

"But now we're extremely off-topic," Gen continued, "because there's still Demise to deal with and you guys just promised me assistance."

"How hard can it be?" Lore asked cheerfully.

Gen stared at him, then visibly decided to ignore him and all the thought that had clearly not gone into that statement. "You all should know, I have no idea what he's capable of, so be prepared for anything."

"Like that?" Speck said tremulously, pointing.

Everyone turned to follow his finger and collectively squinted at what looked like an incoming magic missile of death. As soon as this registered in their heads, the whole group scrambled out of the way and the blast cannoned into bare dirt instead. Three feet of topsoil vaporized away instantly.

"If you're all done gossiping about me," Demise snarled from the bottom of the spiral chasm he'd been carving, and looking exceedingly murderous. "Do me a favor and hold still so I don't have to waste my time aiming at you."

The group processed that for a moment, incorporating both the close call they'd just dodged and the fact that Demise seemed even more intent of killing them than their normal opponents had ever been. Then Lore got to his feet, peered over the edge of the spiral, and said, "Have you noticed your hair is on fire?"

"What." Demise said flatly.

"Is he insane?!" Gen sputtered frantically.

"Maybe," the Four muttered back. "We're still trying to figure it out."

Lore, meanwhile, kept talking. "Is that a yes or a no? Because I'm a little bit concerned here, that is a lot of fire."

"I am perfectly aware of what is on my head!" Demise spat.

"Oh, okay," Lore said. "Just checking." He leaned back, turned his head to the rest of the group, and stage-whispered, "I don't think he likes me."

Gen's hand met his face with a loud slap. From the chasm, Demise roared, "WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CLUE?!" then snapped both his hands together and slammed them to the ground. Red light streaked chaotically through the earth until it had completely encircled the chasm and the Links standing on the edge of it, then shot up from the created cracks to form into an impassable barrier in the span of a second. It took about five more seconds after that for the group to realize that Demise had just trapped them in with him.

"...is anyone else getting the feeling that Demise is a bit more prepared for this confrontation than we are?" Mask asked slowly. "Like, he seems to know exactly who we are and why we're here?"

"Of course I do," Demise snapped. "You think I would just stand by and let those meddling goddesses undo everything I've managed to finally do? I have all of existence right where I want it, and I will not let a group of halting elf boys be the thing that stops me."

There was a moment of startled silence. Then Gen squeaked, "Goddesses? As in, there's more than one?"

"Wait, I was right?!" Dusk gasped.

"We have to take down a god to fix the universe?!" Ocarina sputtered.

"Oh my Din, we're going to die," Sketch decided.

Demise grinned. "You see?" He said, to nobody in particular. "They at least know to show respect for their betters." He paused, scowled, then snapped, "Yes I am! ...Then please do explain your reasoning to me. ...No. That is not a valid reason. ...Someone please shut him up so I can concentrate."

"What?" Realm asked, having followed exactly none of that speech just like everyone else around him.

"Irrelevant," Demise waved a hand dismissively. "Now, I believe you are here to try and stop me, yes?" He slid into a stance, feet planted on the uncovered stone of the carved-out chasm and one hand extended towards the group on the edge above, fingers splayed open with a spell crackling to life. "Please, do try."

"We're so dead," Sketch repeated as the group began running to avoid the incoming attack. Of course, due to the barrier keeping them all in, the only place to run was the descending spiral path that had Demise at the bottom of it. And while the Links really would have gone in literally any other direction, even they had to admit that slow and dramatic approaches full of attacks and near-death experiences were traditional in the long history of monster fights.

Fun Fact: According to Nintendo canon, the tallest any Link has managed to get is five-foot-four. Ocarina is about five-foot-three and so is Dusk, whereas Gen comes in at about five-foot-four. Unfortunately, those three are the only ones who seem to have any sort of established height, so I've just made up headcanons for everyone else. In this case, I've decided Lore is about five-foot-three and a half, Realm is five-foot-one, and everyone else is varying stages of five-foot and under which I'm not going to list because that's going to take up a lot of page space.

Moving on - I am quite proud of this updated version, largely because of Creak. I've literally got a guy who can see ghosts in the same place as a guy with masks powered by dead people, how did I miss that the first time around? I will admit, however, that scene is entirely based off popular fan theory that Link's Deku Scrub form is the Deku Butler's son, and the Butler's son is the sad little twisted tree we see in the first part of Majora's Mask. Also, the Deku Scrubs don't have names, which is really irritating. So I made one up (Technically, his name is Rustle-Of-Leaves-and-Creak-of-Branch-In-Wind, but… eh, Creak for short).

Changeling

Thanks to MarronAaron, Pheonix Keeper Avalon, paradoxsteel, , Thrilling Sentience, AriaEnoshima, Vanillite the Dragonslayer, The Mistress of Shadow Dragons, and BluMew for favoriting/following!

Guest: Glad you like it!

Guest #2: Yes, SS Link is in here.

Jonaman123: No, I'm more focused on the Links. I read a fanfic a while back that ended up using all the Zeldas to defeat the villains, didn't really want to steal their thunder. Speaking of which, thank you for the correction on the shield! I thought I knew this time... note to self, always check the internet.

XzDaFelixZ: Essentially, I know just about everything about all the adventures, whether through personal experience or just a whole dang lot of internet research. No, I am most certainly not planning to end this now... how could I call this a Zelda story if it didn't drag on a lot longer than you thought it would? I didn't forget Mask's ocarina, but if he took both then Ocarina himself wouldn't have anything to be special with. Fi is a plot point, so Spoilers! I'm not telling. As for the pictobox... I will think on this.

bruh: Good idea. I didn't think of that... And now it is changed. Thanks!

jakeroo123: Keep reading and you'll find out ;)

LuckyLugia: If you'll remember Vio's theory, all the holes connect to each other.

: Thank you! And, no, I'm not using any of those. One, because none of those are timeline-canon. Two, because the CDI games are evil incarnate. Three, because the T.V. show is really, really bad. As hilarious as it would be to include a Link that spectacularly incompetent, I feel like it would just be really... painful. So no, sorry.

Vanillite the Dragonslayer: Pretty much, yep.

Demon King73: I don't actually know who that is. I'm gonna go look him up, but in the meantime I'm gonna say non-timeline canon. ...And, after internet research, I support my previous statement. Non-canon, I believe.

Guest #3: See, I considered that. But I really feel that Lore is the most qualified, being the most experienced. He just hasn't figured that out yet. I think... if SS Link ever ended up in a leadership position, it would be joint leadership. Maybe.

Find me on Tumblr at changeling-rin!

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