The Wattpad Mess in a nutshell:

9/17/19 - I was informed I had a copycat, attempted to join Wattpad to talk to them about it, and received a ridiculous amount of support from you guys in the meantime.

9/18/19 - I successfully got a Wattpad account, messaged the person, and while they never responded to me, DL has been removed from their page. I'm glad I didn't choose to flag them without talking first, even if the 'talk' was a bit one-sided on my end.

That said, I now have a Wattpad account. Maybe I should take advantage of this and upload my stuff over there too, just to be the 'original'?

And a MASSIVE thanks to Ganonymous, who tipped me off in the first place. Thank you for looking out for my stories in ways I didn't know I needed to be concerned about.

(Alright, Universe. Do your thing.)

Changeling does not own The Legend of Zelda. The expertise required to create an entire video game is not something within the skillset of the average fanfiction writer, after all.

(True. I only just barely know the basics of HTML coding, which I'm also quite sure is not what's used for gaming systems.)

Well, you wouldn't know. It's not like you've ever checked.

(...Also true.)

"Dangit," Steam muttered, as the Spirit Train once again materialized without any sort of passenger car to be seen. He'd really been focusing this time, too. The most irritating part of it all was that he knew he had a passenger attachment, because he'd used it. He just couldn't seem to make it answer the call in the same way he could make the engine do it.

And he really needed the passenger car.

The problem with the Tower of Spirits was that it was only accessible via the Spirit Tracks, and the only things allowed on the Spirit Tracks were Trains. Equally problematically, the only Train the Links had access to was the Spirit Train, and the only Link who had access to the Spirit Train was Steam. Therefore, to get to the Tower of Spirits, Steam had to summon the Spirit Train so they could ride the Spirit Tracks to get there in time to stop Malladus from doing… whatever it was that he would be doing.

Aaaand now Steam couldn't think about the word 'Spirit' without it sounding completely nonsensical. Great.

The point was, the Spirit Train without a passenger car could only fit about three people, if they were really squeezed together. It'd never particularly been a problem until now, because Steam had been riding alone with an incorporeal Zelda for all of his time piloting the Spirit Train before this, and she hadn't taken up a whole lot of room without a body. In contrast, everyone had a body right now, which made space a precious commodity, which meant that they needed the passenger car to fit everyone.

Which brought Steam right back to the original problem and his lack of ability to solve it, for some infuriating reason. He glared at the engine until it dissolved, then felt guilty about the glaring. This was a mess.

He took a deep breath and squeezed his eyes shut. "Okay," he whispered, and brought his hands up to either side of his head. "Focus."

The engine was going to show up no matter what, so he needed to think about what he wanted to come along with it. He fixed an image of the passenger car in his head: brown and blue, with gold-painted trim and a dark wooden roof. Then he imagined the attachment mechanism sliding into place against the engine with that well-oiled, quiet click. Wherever the engine went, the passenger car should follow.

"I like trains," Steam breathed, and then held that same breath as the Spirit Train shimmered back into existence in response…

...with the passenger car finally attached to it.

"Hah!" Steam crowed, and punched a fist into the air. "Nailed it!"

"Er… after how many tries?" Speck ventured.

"Shut up, those were practice and therefore don't count."

"Oh, okay," Speck agreed easily. "My bad, I mistook the practices for failures."

Steam peered at him suspiciously, because he couldn't quite tell if Speck was being sarcastic or not. Both the face and the tone seemed innocent enough, but that had been an extremely skeptical word choice.

"...What?" Speck asked blankly.

"Oh hey, do we have a ride now?" Lore said, effectively breaking up whatever conversation might have been happening. "Like, one that we're all actually going to fit into?"

"Oh my Din, yes," Steam snapped. "Now quit nagging me about it!"

His previous failed attempts had not gone unnoticed, much to his chagrin. It also didn't help that Shadow, newly included and happily antagonistic, had made increasingly mocking noises with each consecutive unsuccessful effort. Steam may or may not have been taking out his frustrations for this taunting on the first available target, regardless of whether or not this target was actually Shadow.

Luckily, Lore was one of those people who either didn't notice or didn't care. "I'll go get everyone else," he said. "Let's get this party started!"

Everyone else had broken off into little sub-groups to pass the time while Steam got his summons under control. Most of them were just doing things like inventory organization or valiantly trying to get to know Shadow better (it wasn't going very well, Shadow didn't see the point in spewing his whole life-story to a bunch of random idiots, in his words), but Sketch had roped Dusk and Wind back into the self-lighting lantern idea and was busy discussing materials with them. Steam felt vaguely left out of the discussion, since it had been his idea originally, but it wasn't like they were designing blueprints and it was definitely more important to get the Spirit Train in order. At Lore's call though, everyone looked up and crowded around the passenger car to inspect and file inside, but not necessarily in that order.

"Question," Realm said, giving the whole contraption a skeptical once-over. "This is… safe, right?"

"Why wouldn't it be?" Steam replied defensively.

"Well, every time I've seen it, it's crashing something."

Regrettably, Steam couldn't argue with that, mostly because it was true. Every time Realm would have seen the Spirit Train would have been as a direct result of Steam summoning it, and every summon before this had been performed with the express intent of smashing the Train headlong into something - er, someone.

"Okay, so you're not wrong," Steam admitted, "but that was just me pointing and shooting it. This time I'm actually gonna steer."

Realm tilted his head. "What, like… with directions? You actually know which way is north and all that?"

"Yes…" Steam said slowly. "Let me guess, you don't?"

"I mean, I know that 'north' is a thing," Realm hazarded. "But I have no idea which direction it's in."

Steam blinked at him for a moment, then visibly decided that he wasn't going to have this conversation right now. "Well, the point is that I know where I'm going and I can drive my Train with full competency, so it's absolutely safe. We're not going to crash while I'm driving. Okay?"

"Works for me," Realm said, climbing into the passenger car. His voice drifted back out, "Ooh, buttons!"

"Don't press any of them!" Steam immediately yelped, to the surrounding disappointment of the rest of the group.

"Then how am I supposed to steer?"

"..I steer," Steam said slowly.

"Oh, you did say that. Yeah, that makes more sense."

Gen clambered in behind Realm and surveyed the square footage skeptically. "Are we sure there's going to be enough room for all of us in here?"

"Welp, I'm out," Shadow announced. "I require a personal space bubble of at least twelve feet at all times. Who's got a free cast-shadow I can drop into?"

"I'm pretty sure mine is carpeted," Dusk offered.

This earned him the baffled stares that sort of statement deserved. "Your shadow," Sketch repeated extremely doubtfully, "is carpeted?"

"Probably," Dusk specified. "I'm renting it to Midna, remember? She went through a decorating phase during the first few weeks of our partnership and I distinctly remember her asking my opinion on black fringe versus slate-gray plush."

"...Huh," Sketch said.

"Question," Shadow interjected. "Exactly how irritated would this 'Midna' be if I camped in her house?"

Dusk paused. "...I did not actually think of that before suggesting it and I'm pretty sure she'd traumatize somebody. I'm sorry, I'm going to have to withdraw my offer."

Shadow tilted his head and squinted at Dusk for a long moment. Then he grinned, displaying a surprisingly sizeable set of fangs, and declared, "Nope, too late."

It was at that moment that Dusk came to the realization that Shadow had his foot planted directly on top of the silhouette Dusk was casting, and that if he'd wanted to stop Shadow from accessing it he was just a bit too late. Shadow dissolved into the darkness beneath him like water absorbing into the ground, and Dusk received the distinct chill-down-his-neck feeling of a piece of his soul being occupied.

There was a pause, where Dusk contemplated his possible responses.

"...If you break anything, I won't be making excuses for you," he told the ground. "If Midna kills you, it's your fault."

'Duly noted,' Shadow's voice muttered into his head. 'You were right, by the way. It is carpeted in here.' He sounded grudgingly surprised.

"Comfy?"

'...It'll do. By the way, you seem awfully unconcerned that I'm habitating inside your literal essence. This is basically possession, you know, most people would be freaking out.'

"You're not my first hosting," Dusk shrugged mildly. "Besides, if you try anything on me, Midna really will kill you. We have a standing agreement that the only one allowed to mess with my head is her."

'...You realize, that were I to mess with your head, you wouldn't be able to point this 'Midna' in my direction to aim her revenge?'

Dusk allowed himself a small but potently concerning smile. "Sure, you'd have instant gratification, but I get the feeling you're what the Twili would call an amateur. Midna, on the other hand… I'm pretty sure her people invented this sort of stuff. Do you really want to cross her knowing that?"

'Okay, where is your sense of self-preservation?'

"It's back in the Lakebed Temple. I lost it at about the same time I lost my mind. I do still have my sanity though, if that reassures you any."

'I wasn't concerned.'

"Of course you weren't," Dusk agreed easily. "Anyways, do we have an understanding?"

'...yeah, sure. Whatever.'

"Alright then, let me know when you want to come back out," Dusk said, then switched his attention back to the outside world and was met with everyone else staring at him. He raised a quizzical eyebrow and asked, "What?"

"I only heard your half of that conversation," Ocarina began slowly, "but did you just threaten Shadow into submission, successfully?"

"I'm not sure it was a threat," Dusk said thoughtfully. "More of a promise than anything. We did come to an agreement though, if that's what you mean."

"Teach me," Gen demanded. Dusk frowned thoughtfully.

"I mean, I can put it on the list…?"

"Yes please."

"Can we go now?" Steam interrupted pointedly. "Runaway villain, and all that?"

This was an excellent point, and also doubled as excellent incentive for the group to finish piling into the passenger car. Conveniently enough, with Shadow otherwise habitated, there was exactly enough room for the rest of the Links as long as Steam stayed up in the engine room. That wasn't to say that they weren't all packed like sardines, because they were, but it was a tight fit as opposed to an overflowing fit.

Steam, meanwhile, let himself back into the engine room and just stood in it for a minute, relishing in the knowledge that he had his Train back. Sure, he'd aimed it at Demise a couple times, but he hadn't stood in the Spirit Train since his Hyrule's void had popped up weeks ago. There was just something about driving, cleaning, fighting from, maintaining, and saving the country in a specific vehicle that got Steam attached, every single time. As far as he was concerned, the Spirit Train was his, and he'd missed it.

...Don't judge him.

He would have gladly spent several more minutes basking in being reunited with his Train, had Gen not poked his head out the passenger car window and called, "Are we still in a hurry…?" Steam shook himself back into action.

"Make sure you hold onto something and you'll find out," he called back.

In most categories, the Spirit Train didn't appear to compare very favorably to most other locomotives. It was by far one of the smallest engines on the rails, and it somehow managed to be made primarily of wood despite actively needing fire to move. It wasn't very heavy, which meant it got pushed around a lot by other engines, and in comparison to the Demon Train specifically it was one of the most harmless-looking machines in the country.

The perks, however, was that the Spirit Train could out-maneuver literally every single engine that Steam had gone up against. Being lightweight and made of mostly wood meant that the Spirit Train could accelerate, brake, and steer in an uncontested quality, and had a top speed that made all the other engines look like they were standing still.

Put simply, when Steam threw his Train into high gear, the whole thing took off like an arrow from a recurve bow. This was also, coincidentally, why the Spirit Train came with the ability to spawn its own tracks. When one was moving this fast, there were some turns that just shouldn't be executed.

There was possibly some screaming coming from the passenger car, it was a bit hard to tell. Steam, though, just splayed his fingers on the controls and grinned maniacally.

This was the sort of thing that made the whole Royal Certification mess worth it.

Malladus was in a terrible mood, but not necessarily for the reasons that most might think. Specifically, it was occurring to him that he, perhaps, was outclassed.

By his Train.

His reasoning behind this thought was as follows: Upon finding himself free of Demise's head, and not being nearly as upset about the accompanying circumstances as a few certain others might be, Malladus had immediately taken off for the Tower of Spirits with the express intent of razing it to the ground. The rubble would be in pieces when he was done. And, given that the Demon Train was really only ever outpaced by one other engine, this meant that Malladus was putting this vow into practice within just a few short hours.

But, it only took him about twenty seconds after that to realize that he'd forgotten to snatch a host body, and there wasn't a whole lot that a spirit of disembodied evil could do to an established holy structure.

It was at this point that Malladus realized that the only method he had of delivering damage was to ram the Demon Train through the foundations of the Tower, which of course was exactly what he did. It worked fabulously, because even blessed buildings relied on things like load-bearing walls and stable infrastructure, but as Malladus was determinedly plowing through the next nearest wall, he had a sudden thought.

Even if he had remembered to possess a body, the Demon Train was currently doing more damage than he ever would have been able to manage. For all that Malladus could induce supernatural strength in his hosts, and channel his magic and so forth, he was always limited by the natural weakness of the body he was in. There was only so much strength he could push through weak hylian muscles before they shredded, for example, which wouldn't under any circumstances have been enough to bring down the Tower. Additionally, Malladus mostly relied on fire magic, and effective on stone it was not. Inconveniently, this was exactly what the Tower of Spirits happened to be made of, which was understandably irritating.

The Demon Train, on the other hand, had no such issues. Blunt force, when applied heavily enough, was effective on stone, and the Demon Train excelled at blunt force. And, to be fair, the laser cannons were pretty useful too.

Condensed into a succinct sentence, if it hadn't been for the slight issue that the Demon Train needed somebody to steer, Malladus would have been completely obsolete against the Tower.

And that, naturally, put him in a terrible mood. There was one thing that villains everywhere just couldn't stand, and that was being upstaged by their underlings. The Demon Train was only barely properly sentient, for evil's sake! How was Malladus supposed to feel about that?

So, he took out his terrible mood on the Tower. He had a lot of issues to work out, after all, and had a convenient target to boot. Besides, the more damage he did, the less issues he would have in keeping himself firmly anchored here. After all, if he blew up the proverbial lock on his metaphorical prison… well, surely that would put him in a better mood if nothing else had. His actual body was sealed under there somewhere, after all.

But in the meantime, he should maybe look into possessing inanimate objects. Come to think of it, the Demon Train was just an extension of his intent, which had the added effect of almost-but-not-quite free will. If Malladus turned his head sideways and squinted at the situation, the Demon Train could be mistaken for a sentient being. Sentient beings happened to be Malladus' possession specialty.

Also, Malladus realized, if he and the Demon Train became one and the same, then he wouldn't be outclassed by a machine anymore. And that was a thought motivating enough all by itself.

At least, until he broke the Tower seal and got his actual body back. Just watch the Demon Train outclass him then.

After Farore's senses had turned out to have a completely good reason (Shadow) for poking at her last time, all three goddesses were trying to pay more attention to anything that felt more urgent than mild concern.

Therefore, when Nayru's senses decided to bring up the small issue of 'hey, remember that one tower imprisoning that one demon over in the Trains Hyrule? Yeah, it's under attack,' Nayru promptly paused in her efforts to line up Hyrule with Hytopia and yanked over the nearest reality window instead.

"...Hey, Farore?" she said.

"Hmmm?"

"Can I get a Courage Check, real quick?"

Farore stared into the middle distance for a moment, then reported, "They're riding the Spirit Train heading towards the Spirit Tower, why?"

"Oh, good," Nayru sighed, immediately relaxing a little. "It turns out that the Tower's actively under assault right now, and if Courage wasn't already on it then I wanted to redirect them."

"...The Spirit Tower is under attack," Din repeated. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's the thing containing that one demon from plaguing New Hyrule in that Flooded version, isn't it?"

"That's it, yes," Nayru said. "Also, it's technically a seal. Hence why the holy redirects through me, sealing is one of my magic specialties."

"Okay, fine, it's a seal," Din relented. "But, isn't that the thing keeping the demon's physical body trapped? I feel like that fact that it's about to crumble to pieces deserves more panic than you're giving it."

Nayru shrugged. "Like I said, I'm responsible for the holy. Now that I'm actually paying attention, I can keep it standing until Courage gets close enough to do something about it."

Farore coughed, which somehow managed to sound a lot like, "Load-bearing walls."

"I can keep it standing within reason," Nayru edited. "Physics and gravity are still things, after all."

"How about I give Courage a little nudge, just to be sure," Farore said.

"I'm sure the architecture would appreciate it."

Demise had been indulging himself in 'emotional therapy' for a solid sixteen hours and was only feeling slightly better about the whole situation. Eventually though, even he had to admit that his head-prisoners would be more useful if they stopped screaming long enough to fill him in on the reasons for their failure.

...Whether or not he was going to need additional 'emotional therapy' afterwards was another thing entirely, but Demise shelved that thought for later. If he needed a pick-me-up, he'd consider it.

The one good thing about villains was that they were, to the very last, exceptionally good at tanking damage. There was also an astoundingly common ability to let their rage carry them through what otherwise would have been life-ending injuries. And of course, everything in Demise's head had at best a tenuous relationship with reality, which meant that once Demise stopped imagining pain and torture, Vaati and Ganon went back to being 'physically' unblemished. (Mentally, of course, was another story, but villains weren't the most psychologically stable people in the first place, so the pain and torture affected them somewhat less than it would average people.)

"Report," Demise demanded.

This idiot didn't bother looking where he threw his tornadoes! Hyrule Ganon accused at the top of his nonexistent lungs. I had to waste my time calculating my throws to compensate for all his wind! If I hadn't had to concentrate so much, I would have had the Heroes at my mercy!

Excuse me!? Demon Vaati sputtered. What about that stupid trident of yours, huh? Do you have any idea how many times I had to reposition myself so you wouldn't hit me? I actually relocated, opponents and all, just to get away from that stupid thing!

And don't I wish you'd done it sooner, Ganon growled. You took your infernal wind with you and I could finally focus. Of course by then it was too late!

I got hit by bombs because I was too busy dodging your attacks! Vaati screeched. BOMBS! Don't you dare pin all this on me!

Well if you'd relocated sooner, that wouldn't have happened.

Vaati went quiet. Then, very calmly, he said, Are you implying that you were purposefully aiming for me? In order to make me take my winds and leave so you could 'aim properly'?

It would have worked too, if you'd actually caught on in a decent amount of time.

There was silence for exactly three seconds.

HOW DARE YOU! Vaati shrieked, and then everything got lost in the screeching howl of what sounded a whole lot like catastrophically strong gale force winds.

Demise squeezed his eyes shut in a futile attempt to combat his newly discovered migraine, then decided he was going to need that 'emotional therapy' after all. After all, Vaati couldn't control the winds if all six of his wings were in a straitjacket.

Then, once the howling had died down, Demise said, "Aside from your predictable incompetence, what happened?"

Vaati threw a temper tantrum, Ganon accused smugly.

Oh, like you weren't doing the exact same thing!

Obviously not. Mine was constructive.

I'll show you constructive-!

There was a thwack, which sounded an awful lot like if Vaati had bodily thrown himself at a target, followed by an outraged yelp and then the sounds of stabbing. Demise let out an aggravated sigh; apparently, Ganon needed a straitjacket too.

Getting anything coherent out of these two was going to require a lot more 'emotional therapy'.

Apparently, Realm's misdirectional field could extend to things that were not, in fact, his. Or anywhere near his immediate vicinity. Steam knew this because Realm had somehow managed to sidetrack the Spirit Train without actually being in the room with the controls, and even Realm himself looked a bit surprised by this.

"This is actually a new one," he admitted, while Wind and Steam pored over a map of the local Hyrule and tried fervently to figure out where they actually were. "Usually my problem is contained to… well, me."

"And anyone within two feet of you," Green grumbled, clearly remembering a certain misadventure in coming down a certain mountain involving a certain amount of Ice Chus. Realm made an apologetic grimace.

"Yes, and that," he agreed. "But that's my point, it's usually got a very predictable radius. I don't know what happened this time."

"Wait," Lore announced. "I might. Were you, by any chance, facing the direction we were moving in and thinking about the destination?"

"...Yes?"

"That'd do it," Lore said, nodding sagely.

"...Huh," Realm said. "Whoops."

"I'm sorry, what?" Gen asked incredulously.

"I know what happened," Realm stated. "I accidentally tried to get somewhere on efficient transport. I'll be sure to face the other way and think about where we came from next time."

"That makes no sense," Gen said. "That shouldn't even be a factor."

Realm just shrugged. Whatever else might have been said was cut off by Wind triumphantly declaring, "Here!" and stabbing a finger onto the map. "This is where we are."

Steam glanced back and forth between the markers for where they were and where they needed to be a couple times, frowning impressively. Then he said, "I'm going to skip over the part where I splutter incredulously about how we've crossed an impossible amount of distance for the time it took us and instead go right into deciding to break all the known speed limits of the railways. Guys, get back on the Train and hold onto something." He narrowed his eyes at the map. "This is gonna get a little bit bumpy."

He left out the part where 'a little bit bumpy' was a massive understatement, but the rest of the group figured that out within a couple minutes or so. 'Hold onto something' also turned out to be a bit of an understatement, because death grips and strangleholds felt more secure at the speed they were currently moving at.

Steam, meanwhile, was finding that, for the first time ever, he had an excuse to push the Spirit Train's accelerator all the way up to the top. That section was painted an alarmingly bright crimson and seemed to radiate bad decisions and grave consequences.

So naturally, Steam shoved the accelerator into the red with enough glee to make the casual observer think that he'd just won a lottery or something.

For an approximate comparison of the results, please take a moment to picture a machine named 'Top Thrill Dragster'. Now, take that, paste the acceleration onto a Train, and then keep on pasting.

Among other massive understatements, it could also be said that Steam was a speed-demon-adrenaline-junkie.

Farore banged her head against the closest available physical surface, which was actually a harder thing to find outside of reality than one might expect. It probably spoke volumes about the kind of mood she was in that she'd been willing to actually manifest one, just to introduce her face to it.

Nayru, meanwhile, was trying to exercise tact, and was alternating between patting Farore's shoulder in sympathy and stifling her own amusement.

Din, on the other hand, had no such intentions, and was actually manifesting her own physical surface, so she could roll on it in hysterical laughter. Farore and Nayru were very pointedly ignoring her.

"Why me?" Farore groaned, and thumped her head against the wall again. "Why is this my Attribute? Why is the one Aspect who's sensitive to my promptings the most directionally challenged one I have?"

Nayru carefully swallowed a new set of giggles and offered, "He did honestly try, though."

"That makes it worse. That literally makes it worse, because the harder he tries to get somewhere, the more lost he becomes along the way."

"Oh dear," Nayru said, and then didn't say anything else because her laughter was becoming dangerously close to being audible. Din, on the other hand, heard that and started branching into hyena territory. Her sisters ignored her even more pointedly.

Nayru got herself back under control and asked, "What if you tried prompting him in the opposite direction?"

Farore paused with her head on the wall and contemplated that for a moment. "That… might actually work," she said slowly, and also incredulously. "And I'll test that theory, next time."

"Why not now?" Din gasped in between cackles. Farore, very, very pointedly, ignored her.

"...Why not now?" Nayru repeated for Din's sake.

Farore shot her an irritated glance, but said, "Because this little stunt put Courage on the opposite side of the country that they need to be on, and since the Spirit Tower is actively being destroyed, we can't exactly afford another delay. I'm giving the Spirit Train a boost as is to make sure Courage gets there in time."

"Wait," Din said, with only a few bursts of laughter between words, "you're Farore's Winding the Spirit Train?"

Farore sniffed. "Yes, and?"

"You're using Farore's Wind," Din repeated, "on the Spirit Train." Another laugh bubbled out of her mouth, followed by a lot more. Her coherence dissolved within seconds.

"It's my Blessing, I'll bestow it how I want to!" Farore snapped.

Despite valiant efforts, Nayru emitted a strangled snort. Farore whipped around and glared.

"Sorry!" Nayru said between escaping giggles. "I'm trying not to laugh, I swear!"

On the conjured floor, Din had tears in her eyes from the sheer force of her mirth.

Farore let out a heavy sigh. "Look, I just want to get Courage to where they need to be, on time, so they can stop a relatively small problem and we have time to keep working on the bigger overarching problem. Can I get some acceptance for that?"

"We understand that, we do," Nayru assured her sister. "It's all the ways that it goes wrong or sideways in the getting there that's so amusing."

"Farore's Train," Din wheezed from the floor.

"...I was stressed, okay?" Farore muttered. "You know I make weird decisions when I'm stressed."

"Right, like when Hyrule flooded and instead of having the Zora transition naturally, you panicked and turned them into bird people," Nayru remembered sagely.

Farore winced. "Yes, that was a stupid idea, stop reminding me. I'm already paying for it with this species streamlining thing!"

"Din didn't stop laughing about it for three days," Nayru continued thoughtfully.

"MY POINT IS," Farore said loudly, "that regardless of my methods, I get the job done. Courage will find the Spirit Tower any minute now, and then we can let them do what they do best while we get back to doing what we do best."

Still on the floor, Din groaned. "Can't we take a break from that? I'm getting tired of trying to anchor Koholint after the Windfish lets it go, it keeps drifting."

"You've been laughing for twenty minutes," Farore said archly. "That sounds like a break to me."

"...Yeah, that's fair," Din sighed.

The consequence of going really outrageously ridiculously fast, was that it took a really outrageously ridiculous long time to slow back down. Therefore, Steam didn't bother, and instead screeched, "BRACE FOR IMPACT!" at the top of his lungs and slammed the Spirit Train headlong into the Demon Train at frankly unreasonable velocity. This had four main results.

One, both the Demon and the Spirit Trains dissolved in showers of light and scrap metal. Two, Malladus - or at least, the glowing blue incorporeal skull that was his current manifestation - went sprawling. Three, so did all the Links. Almost as if by divine intervention ("Farore, the Interference Laws-" "Do I look like I care about those right now!?"), nobody received anything worse than mild disorientation.

And fourth, the resulting shockwave from the collision blasted across the landscape with such force that two out of the three remaining supporting structures that the Spirit Tower was maintaining shaky existence with crumbled into rubble right then and there.

Almost as if by equally divine intervention, the Tower did not immediately fall over. ("Nayru, the Interference Laws-" "If Farore gets to do it then so do I!") This was in blatant disregard of multiple rules of physics, but technically the architecture was holy, so that probably had something to do with it.

This, then, left the Links without their ride and Malladus without his primary mode of attack, standing among pieces of the Spirit Tower and with the looming shadow of the barely-standing building falling across the ground between them.

It was probably very dramatic and picturesque, if any of them had cared about that sort of thing.

"Malladus," Steam greeted, and sounding entirely unhappy about it.

"That's Malladus?" Lore clarified, peering at the little floating head. "For some reason, I thought he would be more… imposing."

"I am plenty imposing!" Malladus protested hotly.

"I've never seen his real body, so I'll have to take his word for it," Steam said, shrugging. "But he caused enough trouble to get himself sealed beneath the Tower, so… yeah, he's probably at least a little bit imposing."

"Thank you," Malladus said archly. Then the words actually registered to him.

As he sputtered about his apparently extremely impressive physical stature, Vio took a good look at the Spirit Tower and announced, "Okay, so we're literally just in time. One more hit and this thing comes crashing down, and I remember there being a long list of reasons as to why that would be bad."

"So, keep him as far away from the Tower as possible," Gen surmised, glaring at Malladus. "Got it."

"I doubt it'll be too hard," Mask opined. "He's a floating skull head, that's not very difficult to beat. He's just a glorified Bubble."

Malladus paused in his (increasingly detailed and subsequently increasingly awkward) description of his true body still trapped beneath the Spirit Tower and glared at him. "You think so, do you?" He said, with a maliciously toothy grin. "Alright then. Let's see if this is still easy for you!"

At this point, it should be reiterated that Malladus had been looking into merging with his Demon Train. It should also be noted that Malladus, somewhere between deciding he should look into it about twenty minutes ago and when the Heroes showed up about thirty seconds ago, had successfully figured out how to do it.

So it came as a surprise to everybody but Malladus when he summoned the Demon Train, promptly possessed it, and did his level best to run all eighteen gaping Heroes over.

"...That's new," Steam admitted, from the ground where he'd thrown himself to get out of the way. "Also, extremely unfair. How come he gets to merge with his Train!?"

"Shut up and summon the artillery!" Sketch snapped at him. In Sketch's defense, this was a wholly unexpected turn of events, and he was feeling a bit stressed. Also, slightly motion-sick from the ride here, but that wasn't something he had the time to focus on right now.

"Oh, right," Steam remembered. "I LIKE TRAINS!"

The Spirit Train arrived with a flash and a whistle, and Steam all but shoved the rest of the group into the still-attached passenger car, with the exception of a surprised Wind who he dragged up to the cannon attachment. "You said you had one on your boat," Steam said quickly. "Aiming is this bit, firing is that button there, bomb refills are in the chest behind you. Take every shot you can and don't miss." Then he sprinted back to the engine room, where he slapped the brakes off and jammed the accelerator all the way up to full throttle.

The Spirit Train proceeded to give a repeat performance of the 'Top Thrill Dragster' impression, which resulted in a repeat performance of the screaming from the passenger car. Steam ignored it, because now he was driving side by side with the Demon Train - er, Malladus - Malladus Train? He was driving side by side with the Malladus Train, and the Malladus Train was grinning at him. Steam had never liked the face on the Demon Train before, and now that Malladus could make it actively leer at him he liked it even less. Not to mention that Steam was very purposefully keeping his own Train between the Malladus Train and the barely-standing Spirit Tower, and Malladus kept ramming him because of it.

"Alright then," Steam growled. "You wanna go?" He narrowed his eyes at the smirking Malladus Train, which was most assuredly taunting him. "Then let's go."

It can be said that adrenaline is a dangerous thing, and that adrenaline combined with a challenge is even worse. Far worse, however, is adrenaline combined with a challenge involving high speeds, destructible environments, and cannons of both the ball and laser variety.

So many things were about to be run over, it wasn't even funny.

The word 'spirit' has lost all meaning to me. I have had to use it forty-four times this chapter.

One thing I've seen more than once in fiction is this idea that a person's shadow is actually an extension of their soul - control the shadow, control the person. Neat, right? I have a slight headcanon that this shadow-manipulation ability is part of what got the Twili sealed away in the first place, because everyone freaked out at the idea of possession-puppets. This concept may or may be a recurring theme. (It's a neat concept, okay? Don't judge me for my obsessions.)

Also, please note my numerous Malladus headcanons. If he's a Demon King (and his wiki says he is) then he's probably got a physical form somewhere like all the other demons, right? Personal theory says that's what the Spirit Tracks/Tower are keeping locked away, and the partial breaking of the seal that we see in-game is what lets Malladus squeeze out as a disembodied demon-ghost. Hence, why he's running around in other people's bodies - he's trying to get at his own.

I feel like I missed a lot of opportunities in the original Malladus fight, honestly. For one, I somehow forgot that I'd sacked Chancellor Cole and gave Malladus the possessing-Cole body; and for another, I was having a Train Battle and somehow didn't think to have Malladus possess the Train. He's a demon ghost, for crying out loud! It could have been so cool!

So… guess what I'm fixing next chapter? :D

First Thanks to ShadowBeta924, Shadows from Twilight, MerlinHasMagic, Lokilover2468, Leafstar16 and Mrminikoopy for favoriting/following!

Second Thanks to Riyazura, KitsuneRobyn, DiamondCompass, Cellineth, DarkMewGrl, PaarSiivOnikaan, darianmckee94, IsaMor, Autobot Sniper shot, fieryfoxpaws, Rosegfx, Powerkuon, Man of Azure, Romulus Black Talon, Nashlake, chumpatrol1, and animegal1357 for Favoriting/Following!

First Responses

-LuckyLugia: Hmm. That could be interesting... how will you post without an account on the site? That aside, if you want to try, by all means. Who am I to squish inspiration, right? Credit would be nice though.

-Leafstar16: Wow. THANK YOU! I actually think you just made my day, and that hardly ever happens. Glad you like my story so much!

Second Responses

-Draconax: I gave the FSA crew their names and personalities from the manga because it was a lot easier than making it all up myself, but I didn't use the manga plotline. Everything about their specific adventure has been taken straight from the FSA gameplay, so as far as that's concerned Shadow is just that creepy copy who throws way-too-large explosives at them. That said, the fact that Shadow is befriendable in the manga may have slightly influenced my decision on what to do with him. In regards to his 'existence', so to speak, Shadow is a Courage, which means that he interacts with the voids exactly like the other Links do. He automatically becomes the default version of himself for any timeline he's in, just like the rest of the group. (And as for Farore: he'd be pissed, but she's a goddess. There wouldn't be much he could do about it except take it and shout ineffective death threats. Farore would just think it was adorable.) Lastly, thank you so much! I'll be honest, I'm not here for the attention, so the fact that my stories end up receiving it is just extra icing on the cake. And hey, welcome to the Comments section ;)

-TheAmberShadow: That is also a distinct possibility, yes. Considering I only hear from about twenty people per chapter out of the literal hundreds that I know are Following, it's probably far more likely that everyone thought it was obvious and just didn't bother to say anything about it. But, given that they never said anything about it, how will we ever know?

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