(You know, I think this partnership is gonna work out.)
Of course it will. I know that you don't own The Legend of Zelda, and that lets you off the Copyright Hook.
(How convenient!)
About twelve hours after crashing on the ground, the Links finally got themselves in gear and were feeling ready to face Ganon's lair.
...Ish.
Okay, so nobody really felt ready except for Realm. Realm was actually quite optimistic about the whole endeavor. Everyone else was mentally preparing themselves for the trauma.
"This is gonna be so efficient!" Realm said cheerfully. "We might even make it to Ganon by the three-day mark!"
"Please stop," Steam moaned.
"I did not take a long enough nap for this," Lore decided.
"No, I really think it'll be that easy," Realm insisted. "You guys are managing to improve my efficiency rate by over fifty percent!"
Wind gently laid his hand on Realm's shoulder. With a truly impressive amount of tact he said, "Realm, that's not normal. Three days for a dungeon is not normal."
"You're right, I should bump it up to four just to be safe," Realm agreed.
"No," Wind said, still with an astonishing amount of tact. "The other way, Realm."
For the first time, Realm looked genuinely confused by the conversation. "As in… less time?"
"Yes," Wind said, tactfully.
"What, like… two days and twenty-three hours?"
"More like twelve."
Realm perked up. "Oh, days."
"No, hours. Maybe a day if it's bad."
Realm appeared to be truly baffled by such a concept.
"It took us nearly a full day just to get here, remember? Hours for a dungeon shouldn't be too bad at all."
Realm made a face. "I'm actually still wrapping my head around the fact that we got here in less than a day. I was expecting it to take a week if we were lucky."
"And if we were unlucky?" Wind asked bravely.
"Couple months or so?"
Wind blanched. "Okay, ignoring that. But if a couple months got cut down to a day, it's reasonable to expect that a few days might be cut down to mere hours, right?"
"Makes sense," Realm agreed.
Steam cleared his throat, breaking back into the conversation. "I may regret this, but - how long does it normally take you to get through a dungeon?"
"Like a week, if I'm lucky. Two if it's normal, three if I'm having a bad time of it. And if there's a dragon, three and a half."
"I was right, I regretted that," Steam muttered.
"We all regretted that," Gen sighed. "Let's just… go, before we regret it more."
"Oh, um," Realm said, "I won't be much help in there. I've only ever been once."
It should also be noted that Realm had no idea that the layout of the Lair was changeable, and was going off what he remembered from the last time, which was a straight-shot hallway and a door. Presumably his lack of knowledge was better left unsaid, as the fact that he was planning for a solid three days to navigate a hallway probably would not have gone over well.
"Was it on purpose?" Gen asked heavily.
"Er, no" Realm admitted. "I made it to Ganon's throne by complete accident. Also it didn't last very long, and I really don't know how I got there."
"...Great," Steam said.
The one problem with barricading himself, the stolen Princess, and all of his lowly minions in the depths of his lair, Ganon mused, was that after a certain point, there really wasn't anything to do but just… wait.
Ganon, unfortunately, had never been very good at waiting.
"Here's the question," he said to the Like-like on duty. This was a calculated move, because Like-likes were terrible conversationalists and thus couldn't talk back or judge his decisions. "Why didn't I decide to be proactive with this plan?"
The Like-like, having absolutely no mouth to speak of whatsoever, made a squishing noise. It sounded vaguely terrified; it was a bit hard to tell.
"You do realize that none of his 'Wandering Death' reputation was on purpose, don't you?" Ganon asked dryly. "I wouldn't put it past him to have absolutely no idea about it."
This did not seem to reassure the Like-like very much.
"I could have gone after him," Ganon sighed. "I could have gathered my armies and led the charge, and eliminated him once and for all."
The Like-like quivered. There was about a fifty percent chance that the quivering was from terror, and not from the normal range of movement. Again, it was a bit hard to tell.
"Yes, I am very great," Ganon agreed. "Which is why I think you're giving the Hero too much credit. He wouldn't stand a chance."
The Like-like bounced in place a few times. It was a toss-up as to whether this was a nervous tic or not, but gelatin tended to magnify movement anyways.
"You honestly expect the Wandering Death to be capable of staying in place long enough for a deathtrap to activate," Ganon said dryly. "I think not. I'll be personally overseeing his demise, thank you."
A squish sound, followed by wet jiggling.
"Because it would be incredibly impractical and would leave far too much of the outcome up to chance." Ganon was beginning to be bored with the conversation. "The last time I trusted a deathtrap to take out my opponents, I somehow ended up with three extra opponents and exactly zero filled traps. I'll not be making the same mistake twice."
The Like-like emitted a single, solitary SQUISH.
"If you don't stop questioning me and my methods, I'm going to take my trident and use it to eat you," Ganon said calmly. "I have always wondered if your kind tastes anything like dessert."
The Like-like, in an appropriately terrified reaction, froze mid-jiggle.
"That's what I thought," Ganon muttered.
The first clue for the group that everything was about to go horribly sideways was the moment Realm walked through the entrance to Ganon's Lair and said, "Well this doesn't look familiar at all."
"I thought you said you'd been here before!" Steam groaned.
"I have," Realm agreed. "But it didn't look like this."
'This', for the interested, was a large square room with a door straight ahead, a door on the left, and a very confused elderly man in the middle.
"Who moved my house?" the man asked plaintively.
"Erm," Realm said. "Ganon?"
The man immediately scowled. "That cheapskate, I paid him rent on time this month."
"Perfect, we're the Rental Investigations Committee," Lore replied, immediately pouncing on what was, in his mind, a fantastic excuse for their inadvertent breaking-and-entering. "Mind pointing us towards your landlord?"
"He'll be that way," the old man said, pointing towards the door straight ahead. "And while you're there, tell him to do something about the locks on the doors, they're clearly not working if you lot can just waltz on in."
"We will pass that on," Lore promised solemnly, as the rest of the group filed through the door.
They were promptly attacked by Like-likes.
"YOU'RE TERRIBLE WITH DIRECTIONS!" Blue shouted back through the door at the elderly man. Just in front of him, Red had already gotten into a tug-of-war trying to save his shield.
"Bad squishy!" he yelped.
The elderly man peered through the doorway, frowning even more than he'd already been. "That's normally where Ganon's office is," he said, bewilderedly. "I'm sorry, I don't know what's happening."
"Thanks," Blue said bitingly.
"Well there's no need to be rude about it," the man sniffed before pointedly closing the door.
Several minutes of struggle later, when all the Like-likes had been dispersed, a key had been claimed from the remains, and everyone's gear had been recovered, Dusk took a deep breath and said, "Realm, do you have any idea what's going on?"
There was silence. Dusk let it stretch for an absurdly hopeful ten whole seconds before dropping his head into his hand. "Oh, no."
"You've got to be kidding me," Mask agreed blankly.
"Did… did he actually get lost without us?" the Four ventured. There was another pause in the conversation as everyone peered around with the vague idea that maybe Realm was just off in the corner somewhere. Unfortunately, the only things in the corners were rocks.
"Okay!" Gen declared bracingly. "New plan. We're going to traverse this place as efficiently as possible, check every room, and if we don't find Realm along the way then we're going to take out his Ganon as best we can and then start checking all the other places he might be. I'm officially putting whoever can swim on the task of reaching that island in the lake that he seems to gravitate towards."
"Hard pass," Sketch said, shuddering.
"Whoever can swim excluding Sketch," Gen immediately amended. "Now, hopefully we can find him before he gets himself somewhere even more ridiculous than his usual."
The looks that everyone gave him expressed extreme doubt on that subject, but Gen was trying to be optimistic about it.
Realm, meanwhile, had absolutely no idea where he was. This did not concern him nearly as much as it probably should have.
He was, however, rather concerned about the fact that Original Ganon was only fifteen feet away from him.
"How did you get here?" Ganon asked, caught so off-guard by Realm's frankly impossible appearance that he forgot to be menacing.
"Erm," Realm said, and then didn't say anything else, mostly because explaining how he'd gotten there would first require knowing how he'd gotten there.
"Wait," Ganon pointed an accusing finger. "Did you get lost?"
Realm perked up, since this was a much easier question to answer. "Well, yes."
"And because you got lost, you somehow managed to bypass every single one of my security strategies?"
"There were security strategies?" Realm asked, because from his point of view he'd walked through a doorway and ended up here. He was ignored.
"The ones specifically designed to take advantage of your lack of topographical comprehension and prevent you from ever setting foot in my lair?" Ganon finished, menacingly. He'd gotten over his surprise by now and was channeling his malice in full force.
"Uh," said Realm. "Sorry about that?"
Ganon growled at him, then paused as a thought occurred. "Where is the rest of you? All the other little green hat-lings who flounder around behind you."
Realm blinked, then turned in a circle. He was the only Link in sight.
"...That's probably not good," he decided quietly.
A slow grin overtook Ganon's face. "You know what?" he said conversationally. "I think this little incident might just be a blessing in disguise."
"We may have different definitions of the word 'blessing'," Realm informed him.
"Nonsense," Ganon replied. "After all… you're just one little Link separated from his Chain. How much of a fight could you possibly give me?"
Realm would have very much liked to ask what a 'Chain' was, but then Ganon lunged at him with every intent to blow a fireball straight through his ribcage, and Realm decided that questions could wait until after he survived this fight.
He drew his sword, attempted to draw his shield but failed because it seemed to be missing, then darted forwards-
And it was at that point that Ganon vanished from the visible spectrum entirely.
"...This feels distinctly unfair," Realm muttered, and then threw himself into a sprint as fire materialized out of nowhere and Ganon laughed maniacally from somewhere in the room.
The entire lair shook with a distant BOOM, making all the Links pause in what they had been doing (which was, for the interested, fending off Lanmolas) and stare off in the direction of the sound.
"...Twenty Rupees says we just found Realm," Mask bet.
"No deal, I know better than to wager against you," Ocarina retorted immediately.
"What's in here that could make a noise that loud?" the Four wondered.
"Another twenty on it being a dragon," Mask offered them.
"That is a stupid bet and we are not taking it."
"Darn," Mask said cheerfully, or as cheerful as he could be given the circumstances. There was a Lanmola trying to eat him.
"He would get himself into a fight without us," Gen groaned. "Should I be concerned that I'm really not surprised anymore?"
"No, it makes you more effective in dealing with it," Dusk advised. "But we should probably get a move on, if we want to assist him."
"Agreed. Lore, do your Subrosian Incendiary Circle Whatevers allow for blasting a hole straight through the walls to wherever Realm is?"
Lore tilted his head thoughtfully. "Well, that depends on if the Holodese Culture of Blockading Structures has jurisdiction here or not. One moment."
He pulled out a bomb, lit it, laid it lovingly against the wall closest to where the BOOM had come from, and then promptly sprinted for cover. The bomb exploded; the wall remained unscathed.
"The Subrosian Circle of Incendiary Materials does not allow for me blasting a hole straight through the walls," Lore reported mournfully. "Stupid blockading structure."
"We'll come back to that," Gen decided quickly, rightfully assuming that whatever conversation would result from asking about this Holodese Blocking Culture Whatever would be far too confusing to be anything close to timely. "Long way around it is, let's be as quick as we can."
Unfortunately they got a bit delayed, because the very next room was full of very angry Keese, which immediately descended in a swarm of flapping and unchecked aggression.
"We still don't have Repel!" Blue yelped, fending off the attack.
"QUIT BREAKING THINGS!" Green shouted at him from across the room. Normally, he would have just given Blue a whack and been done with it, but that was a bad idea in the middle of another fight. Shouting was just the next best thing.
Realm had barricaded himself into a corner, back pressed to the walls in such a way that there was absolutely no chance of Ganon attacking him from behind. This decision was in absolutely no way influenced by the fact that Ganon had already successfully attacked from behind about three times before, of course not, that was a ridiculous idea.
Realm pointed his sword at the seemingly empty room. It was really annoying that Ganon didn't leave any sort of tell. There was no cast-shadow, no air distortion, there wasn't even anything on the ground to be disturbed with Ganon's movements - it was all solid stone, no dirt or dust at all.
And it was really, really annoying.
Abruptly, fire materialized from nowhere and rocketed towards Realm's head, and Realm had never been more grateful to have kept track of his sword for once. He quickly swatted the fire out with the flat of the blade.
Admittedly, that would have been a lot easier with his shield, but. Uh. Realm didn't actually know where his shield was at the moment.
In the middle of running from a Patra, the Four tripped, desynchronized, and immediately went sprawling. Half the group promptly switched tactics, changing from evasion to full frontal assault, while the other half of the group went to help the Four pull themselves back together.
"What'd we trip on?" the Four asked confusedly. In the background, Dusk took out three of the little Patra drones in one hit; he may or may not have been growling a little. He got a bit protective sometimes.
"Well," Speck said slowly, "I, uh, think it's Realm's shield."
There was a moment of silence. Speck hefted the shield off the ground for the group's contemplation - sure enough, it was Realm's.
"That probably doesn't bode well," Sketch sighed.
Realm should probably be concerned about that. He made a mental note to come back to it, right after he finished getting his butt kicked by an invisible teal pig.
Ganon, from wherever he was in the room, spawned more fire, and Realm whipped his sword around to deflect it - only to freeze halfway through the motion, as a Very Important Thought occurred to him. He did get a little distracted when the fire that he'd failed to deflect exploded on his shirt, but that was barely even a factor to his brain.
He was an idiot, because - Ganon did have a tell. It was the fire. Ganon was invisible, but his attacks weren't, and if Realm could use the attacks to mark where Ganon was while firing them, then…
This might actually be a fair fight after all. But it did mean that Realm was going to have to leave the safety of his corner, if he wanted to make sure he was right.
He never really liked this part of combat.
Warily, Realm edged himself out of the corner and towards the center of the room. This was, quite honestly, outside of his area of expertise. Realm fought things by running from said things, and then finishing the fight when his opponent collapsed in exhaustion. Most of his contributions to the group fights so far had been him, running on Distraction, and then getting a random few hits in during the final pushes. More to the point, in a fight on his own, he'd never ever finished it in the same place he'd started it.
Really, the fact that he hadn't somehow dragged both himself and Ganon on a wild adventure through the country by now was just a little bit baffling-
There!
Realm threw himself out of the way of the fire, but he did so by lurching towards the spot where they'd come from, and as he did he threw his sword out in as wide an arc as he could physically manage.
And something caught.
Granted, Realm had no idea how much of his opponent he'd hit, or whether he'd even done damage at all, because GANON WAS STILL INVISIBLE, but he'd landed a hit. He'd landed a hit, and that was more progress than he'd made in the past ten full minutes.
"I'm sorry," Ganon's voice echoed around the room. "Did you just stab me?"
Realm frowned. "No? That was a distinctly not-stabby movement? It was more of a slash than anything else." He subtly inched towards the spot where Ganon's voice was emanating from.
There was a pause.
"Are you attempting to debate semantics in order to stall me?" Ganon asked, dangerously soft and also from an entirely different direction. "Clever, I'll admit, but I think you underestimate me."
"Worth a shot," Realm grumbled.
"You'll regret taking it," Ganon promised.
The air of the dungeon was beginning to smell like smoke. This was universally agreed to be a bad sign.
"What did Realm do?" Steam wondered, in between futilely trying to kill the Bubble that was creeping along the wall behind him. "What could he possibly have gotten himself into that would set the lair on fire?" He paused, in order to stab his sword through the Bubble's face, to absolutely no effect. "And why is it always fire lately?"
Wind gave the Bubble an apprehensive appraisal. Then he too attempted to stab it, to absolutely no effect. "He's Realm. What could he possibly have not gotten himself into that would set the lair on fire?"
"Fair point," Steam admitted. He lit a bomb and launched it at the Bubble, then peered through the aftermath. The Bubble remained stubbornly unaffected and stubbornly murderous. "Man, what does it take to kill this thing?"
"I don't think we can," Wind observed. "But at least, it seems to be stuck to the wall?"
"Great, except for the fact that the door out of this room is also on a wall."
They both looked at the Bubble, which was valiantly patrolling the walls on either side of the door, and also happened to be the reason they were trying so hard to kill it.
"...Maybe we could freeze it," Wind suggested, and went to grab Red, who had an Ice Rod and was much more likely to be conservative with it than Lore blasting Winter.
Okay. So. It was entirely possible that Realm had made a mistake with this strategy of his, here.
Ganon's solution to Realm tracking him through attacks was to throw so many attacks that it was impossible to tell where any individual one was coming from, much less being able to stand still long enough to take advantage of it even if Realm could. As a result, Realm was sprinting, and the room was on fire.
Literally, the room was on fire. Realm felt like he'd had quite enough of fire recently, thank you, but that didn't seem to be stopping Ganon.
This wasn't working.
Realm began trying to formulate a better strategy as he dodged, and he thought he might have an idea. It was a very bad idea, to be frank, and the only reason Realm was planning on it was because it was inevitable.
Essentially, Ganon was controlling the playing field. He was on his home turf, and he had the battle advantage.
Realm, therefore, was going to do what he did best. He was going to get lost, but this time he was going to do it on purpose.
...Okay, that was a lie, Realm had no idea how to get lost on purpose. But he did know that he was going to get lost at some point during this fight, because that was how his fights went, and when it happened, Realm was going to take advantage of it.
Any minute now. Why had he decided to base his new strategy off a completely random event again? Realm focused fiercely on being anywhere else but here, in the hope that doing so might help his condition along.
The quickest way to get lost, he reminded himself, is to think about where I'm going while facing the direction I'm moving in.
With this thought fixed firmly in his head, Realm sprinted forwards, snatched at the air where he thought Ganon might be based on the most recent flurry of fire, successfully dug his fingers around what felt like the ridge of armor, and then looked up and found himself standing on a very familiar island in the middle of a lake.
"Oh hey," Realm said. "It worked!"
The air next to Realm made a baffled noise. Ganon slowly faded into view, with Realm's hand turning out to be gripping an ornamental knuckle-spike.
"I do not understand how you just did that," Ganon said blankly, apparently too surprised to do anything else. "This is not how magic is supposed to work."
Realm tilted his head, a bit perplexed. "I mean, I'm pretty sure you shooting fireballs had nothing to do with this? Usually it's all me."
"Not my magic," Ganon snapped. "Yours."
"...I have magic?" Realm said.
At this point, it should be noted that Realm indeed had magic, not that he'd ever used it before. In fact, he was so amazingly untrained that, instead of hunkering down and waiting patiently to be discovered like most magic did, Realm's particular brand of power liked to leap out in randomly frequent bursts. This had several effects, but only one that was particularly noticeable to the people around him.
There is an understood phenomena in which unattached magic likes to float around in the ether, and this blanket of power permeates every corner of the land. In some places, it bunches up; in others, it stretches thin enough to hardly be there at all. Magic is a very unpredictable substance, and it is this specific characteristic that was Realm's downfall.
He was bad with directions, that much was true and always would be. He really had no idea where he was going, and even less of an idea of how one area was connected to another. The point where magic got involved, though, was when he would actively try to get anywhere.
For most people, the most efficient way to get from Point A to Point B was to think about where they wanted to go, and start going there. In Realm's case, however, this method had the unintentional side effect of tangling with the atmospheric magic, shooting out a ley-line, connecting with the nearest power concentration, feeding the information back to Realm's own untapped magic, which would then interpret the input as a desired location and promptly trigger an unwanted and impressively unnoticeable teleport spell.
In shorter, less complicated words, Realm's magic was just as lost as he was, and the island in the middle of the lake happened to be a very potent tangle of arcane energy. Not that Realm knew any of this, of course. He was still trying to process the fact that Ganon had just accused him of being a sorcerer.
"Well, I certainly didn't just teleport the two of us out of my lair," Ganon replied scathingly.
"Um," said Realm, who was beginning to get the feeling that Ganon somehow knew more about what was going on than he himself did, which was really unfair because this had been Realm's idea.
He was also realizing that an island in the middle of a lake was not much better of a battlefield than the enclosed lair was. He looked down at his hand, still wrapped around Ganon's ornamental glove spike, and he could tell the exact moment that Ganon caught on to what Realm was about to do because of the loud and angry screeching.
"Thinking about my destination and moving in a forwards direction!" Realm declared, then doubled his grip on Ganon's armor and ran as hard as he could for about five steps before running straight into a wall that certainly had not been on the island in the middle of the lake.
"Oh, you found him," said the old man renting one of Ganon's side lair rooms. "Perfect timing, I just finished up my letter of lease termination."
"My office hours are 12am to 2am on every other Wednesday ending in either five or seven," Ganon recited promptly. "I'm sorry, but I'm not on the clock right now, you'll have to submit your paperwork some other time." So saying, he turned and threw several handfuls of fire at Realm, who was sitting a bit dazedly on the ground next to the wall he'd run into. He scrambled out of the way with a yelp.
Not concerned about the blaze in the slightest, the old man huffed irritably. "You are the worst landlord I've ever had."
"OUT!" Ganon roared, and punctuated his statement by throwing even more fire. The old man ran from the room, leaving Realm in much the same position he'd been in at the start of this fight: surrounded by fire with no logical way out. At least Ganon was still visible this time-
No, wait, never mind, he'd just vanished again. Now Realm was right back where he'd started.
Meanwhile, the rest of the group had found another one of Ganon's lodgers, and were becoming a bit confused as to why a villain would put so much effort into allowing random Hyrule citizens to rent rooms of his lair. It really didn't seem like an evil sort of thing to do.
"I mean, the rent is horrendously high and Nayru forbid I ever have to get in contact with him about anything," the man was saying, "but I'm left well enough alone for the most part." He was equally as elderly as the first of Ganon's renters that the Links had met, but seemed to be in a considerably better mood. Possibly this was because he was under the impression that the group was the repair crew sent to fix the drafty wall he'd been complaining to Ganon about for the past sixteen months.
"...You live in the stronghold of an Evil Overlord," Sketch informed him.
The old man blinked. "That would explain the screaming."
Quite abruptly, another old man burst into the room, took in his surroundings, and threw his hands up in complete exasperation. "I hate living here! Everything moves around, it takes me forever to find the exit again!"
"Oh, hey Manny," said the first old man. "Trying to lodge a complaint again? I think Ganon's office in the south corner this week."
"No, I just got evicted," Manny complained. "Good riddance too, I've been fed up with this place for months, but I can't leave if I can't find the way out."
"What is happening," Gen muttered in blank bewilderment.
"Oh, really?" said the first old man. "What finally got you?"
"Some fool Hero barged right into my room with Ganon right behind him, and now everything is on fire," Manny sniffed.
There was a brief moment of surprised silence, right before Dusk cut in and said, "Wait, what?"
"Oh, our landlord is just fighting off invaders again, this happens every couple months," the first old man waved off. "Locational hazard, I suppose."
"Did the Hero have brown hair and an alarming lack of weaponry to be launching an invasion with?" Dusk asked insistently.
"Actually yes," Manny said. "He seemed woefully unprepared, taking on Ganon like that without even anything to block with."
"Oh my Din," Dusk muttered.
"Did… did Realm just get into a boss battle without us?" Lore hazarded, sounding baffled at the very concept.
As if on cue, another thunderous BOOM sounded out from somewhere in the mountain, but from a completely different direction than any of the previous.
"I think he did," Gen said blankly.
"That's in the exact opposite direction of the one we were moving in," Wind sighed. "Do we start backtracking…?"
Dusk considered the problem. "Well… it's Realm," he said slowly. "How likely is he to stay put long enough for us to backtrack far enough to find him?"
"...That is a point I had not considered," Wind admitted. "Maybe we should just keep moving forward instead."
Dusk shrugged. "Gen, Lore?"
"You have the most valid logic," Gen replied. "Moving forward makes the most sense to me."
"Drat, I'm outvoted," Lore muttered.
"By who?" Dusk asked, tilting his head.
"You and Gen."
"I'm not part of the leadership."
"Keep telling yourself that, your denial is adorable," Lore said brightly. "Now! Decision made, direction decided, let's go already!"
"I'm not part of the leadership," Dusk repeated insistently, not that anyone really believed him. At this point it was a well-acknowledged fact that, despite what Dusk himself thought, he very much was a part of the leadership. The rest of the group was just trying to do him a favor by Not Bringing It Up since he always protested so much.
(There may or may not have been a bet among the rest of the Links about how long it would take before Dusk would accept his position, with Vio as the bookkeeper. Currently the highest bidder was Mask, with fifty Rupees on it taking six more weeks.)
"Let me know if you find the exit!" Manny yelled after them as the group filed their way out.
"Go to the next room," his friend suggested. "That's where it was last week."
"I tried that, why do you think I'm still here?"
Realm and Ganon were in a bit of a stalemate.
Part of the problem was that Realm's plan revolved entirely around grabbing Ganon and getting lost, and also that Ganon now knew what Realm's plan was and had a vested interest in not falling into it. Another part of the problem was that Ganon's method of not falling into it was staying as far from Realm as possible. This in turn made it a bit difficult to get any damage in, on either of their parts, because Ganon was also staying stubbornly invisible.
Realm couldn't hit what he couldn't see, Ganon couldn't hit Realm from the other side of the room, but Realm also couldn't get Ganon lost if he didn't know where Ganon was and Ganon didn't dare get too close for the exact same reasons.
Which meant that Realm was going to have to get creative. He'd never deliberately triggered his misdirectional field this much in his life before.
Or, maybe it was the magic that he apparently had. Whatever. The point was that Realm knew how to wield it, kind of.
"Thinking about my destination!" he shouted. "And moving in a forwards direction!"
And then he focused very, very hard on not bringing anything with him.
Which, naturally, meant that he brought everything with him.
Realm, a very startled Ganon, and a whole lot of fire suddenly found themselves squarely on a beach, about as conceivably far from Ganon's Lair that one could get while still being in the same country.
"I was on the other side of the room," Ganon said blankly, surprised enough that he forgot talking gave away his position. Realm immediately pegged him as being about twelve feet away on his relative… left? South? Er, whichever direction that was.
Proudly, Realm said, "Yeah, I have a Condition," right before lunging towards the voice and bringing his sword up in as wide an arc as he could manage, in order to cover as much distance as possible. The tip caught halfway through the motion, and Ganon flickered back into visibility with a pained bellow; Realm's sword was lodged in the villain's shoulder.
"I," Ganon said, and brought a hand up to the blade, "am going to have to ask you," he wrapped his fingers around the metal, "to stop doing that," and yanked the weapon out in one swift move. Realm thought this to be distinctly unfair.
He also thought that Ganon hadn't realized that touching Realm's weapon meant Realm had a clear connection.
"THINKING ABOUT MY DESTINATION!" Realm screeched, and lunged blindly forward.
The next few minutes were spent in a dizzying amount of locations and an equally numerous amount of failed attacks on Realm's part. Ganon didn't seem to be able to escape Realm's field of influence when it came to the directional mishaps, but he was doing an irritatingly good job of staying unseen and throwing fire through the whole of it.
This… wasn't working the way Realm wanted it to. Ganon clearly wasn't going to play along with the usual pattern of Realm's fights, but Realm didn't have a better way to fight. He outlasted his opponent, that was what he did. Ganon just wasn't putting in the effort to chase him.
Realm wished he knew where the rest of the Links were.
...Wait.
Realm didn't know where his group was.
That was exactly his sort of specialty.
"Moving," Realm said calmly, "in a forwards direction."
He took a step. A desert.
Another step. Island in the lake.
Another step. Mountaintop.
Step. Ganon's tenants were having an argument about where the exit was.
Step. Island in the lake.
Step. Beach.
Step. Island in the lake. Realm was getting a little bit tired of the island in the lake.
Step. Princess Zelda? He should maybe come back for that one.
Step. His fellow Links, fending off a Wizzrobe horde.
Step. Island in the - Din-dangit, he'd gone too far! Backstep?
His fellow Links, fending off a Wizzrobe hoard. Perfect! Realm dodged the Ganon-fire, bounced forwards, and said, "Hi so I'm having a small problem and I need you all to come with me real quick please and thank you I'll try to keep the sidetracking to a minimum on the way back!"
"Where did you come from?" Gen asked bewilderedly, but Realm was already concentrating again.
Thinking about where he was going. Moving in a forwards direction. Trying very hard to not bring anybody or anything with him. Taking a step.
He flashed past a forest, two different caves, the island in the lake about four more times, and a tundra before landing back in the original heart of Ganon's Lair, and he very nearly blew past that too if it hadn't been for the fact that Ganon threw fire at his head and broke his concentration. But, aside from that-
"That worked way better than I thought it would!" Realm said brightly.
"What just happened," Sketch rasped.
"Well, I may have sorta figured out how to harness my misdirectional field," Realm replied, "because apparently I might be magic and that's how I've been getting to all those different places all this time."
"I think I'm gonna be sick."
"Oh." Realm considered that. "In my defense this is the first time I've ever tried to get lost on purpose. I don't think I have the transitions down very smoothly."
Sketch looked a bit green at the very thought. Green himself looked a bit put-out that someone else was taking his color.
"But," Realm continued, "that's not really the issue right now! I may have sort-of accidentally not at all on purpose gotten into a Boss Battle?"
"We figured," Mask sighed. "What with all the distant explosions."
"And the fire," Ocarina added, eyeing said flames with resignation. "Not actually seeing the opponent though?"
"Oh, that's because Ganon's invisible," Realm replied irritatedly, once again remembering that he was miffed about that fact.
"...He's what."
"Yeah, he's being a real jerk about it too," Realm complained. "He won't let me see him, he stopped making noise so I could target him ages ago, and he certainly won't stand still long enough for me to pinpoint where he is based on his attack patterns."
The (seemingly) empty room emitted a vague, low growling noise at that, but it unfortunately wasn't loud or long enough to allow for any sort of targeting. Ganon was, apparently, in company… somewhere, and clearly disagreed with Realm's assessment of the fairness of the fight. The Links knew this because of the flamethrower that immediately followed the growling, and several moments were spent getting out of the way.
Then, once the panic had died a little, the Four said, "And your solution to this was to weaponize your Condition?"
"Well," Realm said. "I'm not sure if 'weaponize' is the right word. 'Lassoed by the neck and hanging on for dear life while I'm dragged behind it,' might be a bit more accurate."
"Should we be concerned?"
"I was in a rush!"
"Less talking," Gen cut in, "more fighting! We need to handle this!"
"Right, sorry."
Quietly, Speck handed Realm's shield back, as he'd been carrying it ever since the Four had tripped over it earlier. Realm slotted it back into place on his arm with a grin, then brandished the sword that he somehow miraculously hadn't managed to lose yet. He turned to face the room, took a step forwards-
-and completely vanished, without any warning and certainly without anything to have vanished behind.
There was a moment of silence, where everyone stared at the place where Realm had been.
"...Did he just-" Wind began.
"He did," Steam agreed in horror.
Quite abruptly, Realm found himself on an island in the middle of a lake.
"...Well, crap."
Somewhere beyond reality, Farore manifested a wall and began knocking her head against it.
"I think," Vio said slowly, "that Realm's Condition just went into overdrive."
"I'm officially classifying him as a Hazard," Sketch muttered.
At that point, Ganon decided to take advantage of the situation. This was rather unfortunate for a number of reasons, the first and foremost being that Gen had been about to split the group into 'Fight Ganon' and 'Find Realm' subsets and now he'd been thoroughly interrupted. But the second, and more immediately obvious reason, was that Ganon now felt confident enough to make a frontal attack.
The Links knew this because something large, extremely painful, and completely invisible suddenly ran them all over.
As the group struggled back to their feet, the falsely empty room chuckled at them. "Do you know, I've been planning for your lost friend's incompetence since the day he set out to defeat me?"
"How's that going for you then?" Lore wheezed.
"Marvelously," the room laughed. "He is worse than I could have ever imagined. True, I was worried for a moment that he had some measure of control over his ability, but now? Now I have nothing to fear."
"...You're afraid of Realm's habit of getting lost," Steam repeated incredulously, staring intently off into the middle distance.
"If you'd been here when he was actually wielding it competently, you would be too!" Ganon snapped from somewhere, which rather ruined the effect of his earlier words.
"How does someone get lost competently?"
"In terrifying fashion," the empty room grumbled. "But that is no longer a problem. Let me demonstrate what is."
"Dang," Blue mumbled. "That was a really good line." Vio elbowed him sharply.
And then the floor exploded with fire, and everything got a bit too chaotic to allow for sibling bickering.
Realm was having Issues. With a capital 'I', that Realm was designating even in his own thought patterns, which was pretty much a direct indicator of just how much of an Issue this actually was.
"Thinking about my destination?" he said hopefully, and took a single step forward. The scenery around him blurred, flickered, and then resolved into a tree. Specifically, the top of a tree, and most certainly not the middle of Ganon's Lair that Realm had been aiming for. He worried at his lower lip, then carefully took another step. His surroundings wavered, and then firmed back up in the shape of a mountaintop - but certainly not the correct one, because that would have been convenient.
Realm thought very hard about staying exactly where he was, and took one more step.
The landscape distorted, straightened out, and left him standing on an island in the middle of a lake.
"...well, crap," Realm repeated, with quite a bit more feeling this time. If he was guessing at this right (and unfortunately, he was pretty sure that he was), then he'd just thrown his misdirectional field into overdrive.
More to the point, he had no idea how to turn it off. Much less deal with whatever magical teleportation effect was happening.
There was only one thing for it, he decided. He was just going to have to take enough steps that he ended up right back where he needed to be.
And so, Realm took off sprinting, and promptly vanished into thin air. Whether or not he'd actually get anywhere while doing so was a whole other issue.
Albeit unknowingly, the rest of the group was actually holding their own against Ganon rather well, if only because of their numbers. Not that they knew this, because they couldn't see their enemy and Ganon certainly wasn't about to broadcast his injuries. But. It had been a lot easier to avoid his opponent when there had been only one.
And also, there seemed to be one specific Hero who was unfairly good at finding Ganon in the room, regardless of visibility. Ganon was rather miffed about this, because he'd put a lot of effort into this invisibility trick and he didn't appreciate having it pushed past like an open door. Heroes. Inconsiderate, the lot of them.
Steam, meanwhile, wasn't entirely sure why everyone else was having such a hard time? Okay yeah, Ganon was a bit hard to see, but he just had to focus on the middle-distance distortions and it was pretty easy. He was probably going to come off the other end of this fight with a headache from all the squinting, but it wasn't bad.
He seemed to be the only one with that opinion, though. It was slowly occurring to Steam that maybe, he was the only one seeing this fight in any sort of clarity… which meant that this was probably another 'Ghost Zelda' situation.
But just to be sure, he brandished his sword in the general direction of Ganon's middle-distance distortions and asked, "So can anyone else actually still sorta see him or is it just me?"
There was a brief pause in the chaos.
"Special sight," Mask muttered. "Of course. This is my mask spirits all over again."
"I was afraid you'd say that," Steam sighed. "Should I spot-call, then?"
"PLEASE," the rest of the group chorused.
"Please do not," Ganon snapped.
Steam stared flatly into the middle distance on the other side of the room. "Yeah, because I'm totally going to listen to your input." He pointed a finger and continued, "He's about five feet to the left of Speck."
The room erupted, and the chaos resumed. Steam suddenly found himself in the unenviable position of being directly targeted by Ganon, and the whole thing quickly devolved into a complicated game of tag, where Steam sprinted around the room and shouted out positions to the rest of the group while Ganon invisibly chased after him with the express intent of shutting him up.
At some point during this mess, Realm blipped in for a single stride of a sprint before blipping right back out again, but it was such a quick visit that nobody had the time to do anything about it.
Realm skidded to a stop in the middle of a desert, frowned, then took a hopeful step backwards. The desert was promptly replaced by the island in the middle of the lake.
"Oh, for the Love of Nayru!"
"HE'S ON YOUR RIGHT!" Steam yelled in Wind's general direction, which was a mixed bag of results. On one hand, Wind immediately lashed out to his right - but on the other hand, Ganon also immediately twisted out of range, and Wind only managed the barest of a graze for his efforts.
It was really hard to call positions when your opponent could use your calling to reposition himself.
Screw this, Steam decided, and jerked himself around, glaring at the middle-distance distortion. "I LIKE TRAINS!"
The Spirit Train promptly and cheerfully ran Ganon over. Somewhat disappointingly, this didn't seem to do nearly as much damage as Steam had been hoping for… but then again, he was basing this observation on a middle-distance distortion. It didn't give him much to go on.
"Did you get him?" Speck asked cautiously.
"Ehh?" Steam replied, wobbling a hand back and forth in the air.
Randomly, Realm burst into existence for a split-second, startling everyone badly, and then was just as quickly gone again. The faint echo of his voice complaining, "Oh come on!" drifted back to the rest of them.
"...Realm leads an interesting life," Dusk observed neutrally.
Then the middle-distance distortion that was Ganon burst into action again, and everyone got a bit distracted. Somewhere in the middle of the mess, Steam launched the Spirit Train again, but missed and so the Train went plowing through the wall, and then several more walls beyond that. The Lair was turning into a bit of a mess.
"HE'S NEXT TO THE FOUR!" Steam shrieked, in an attempt to do damage control on his missed shot, and then everything became chaos again as the Four launched an attack and presumably hit.
Or, possibly they missed. Even Steam was beginning to have a hard time telling what landed and what didn't.
Realm once again burst onto the scene for a split second before vanishing again, his face in a fierce scowl of concentration. Not that it helped much, since he overshot again - but if the lingering shout of, "SERIOUSLY!?" was anything to go by, Realm was fully aware of this.
Somewhere in the area, Ganon laughed.
"RED ON YOUR LEFT," Steam snapped, and Red lashed out fast enough that he actually definitely landed a hit this time, because Ganon flickered back into view with roaring fury. He appeared to have lost his grip on his invisibility as a result of the pain - that was going to be useful.
But then Ganon vanished again, and Steam had the depressing realization that those moments of clarity literally only lasted a few moments.
Great.
Realm chose that moment to blow through the room again, this time with an inarticulate screech of frustration as he overshot. On the bright side, he definitely seemed to be cutting down on his time in between appearances. Maybe he would actually manage to pin down his timing within the next five to ten tries.
Everything else was still a complete mess, though.
Realm was the optimist, eternally looking on the bright side. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been in a mood darker than a mild huff.
But right now? Right now he kind of wanted to stab something. Preferably Ganon. If he could just actually GET THERE.
Whatever he'd triggered earlier with his misdirectional field was actually getting worse, and Realm had no idea what to do about that. Even right now, standing completely still on that infuriatingly persistent island in the middle of a lake, his surroundings were wavering indecisively. It was like the world couldn't quite decide where Realm actually was, so it was putting him in two places at once.
The annoying part was that neither of the two places was the place that he wanted to be.
He was going to have to take this one step at a time, wasn't he?
With a short sigh, Realm took a single stride forwards and found himself on a beach. The next step put him in a snowstorm. The next landed him in a cave. He was promptly swarmed by Keese. His next step put both him and the Keese flock on an open plain, where the Keese unhappily dispersed in the bright sunlight.
His next step put him back at the island in the middle of the lake.
Realm was really beginning to hate the island in the middle of the lake.
At some point amidst the chaos, Lore had set himself up in a corner of the room with his Bow and a pile of Silver Arrows that he apparently just carried around from one of his earlier adventures. His reasoning for this was, "Well it worked on my Ganon, so it's probably worth a shot here too!" And nobody could argue with that, mostly because Ganon had launched another fireball assault immediately after this and the moment for arguing had promptly gone out a figurative window.
However, someone probably should have argued with it, because Lore once again proved himself to be a terrible shot. So now Dusk was over in the corner too, helping Lore aim, because Dusk was an excellent shot and between the two of them it balanced out into something average.
Average, unfortunately, still wasn't good enough to hit something that neither of them could see, and so now Steam was dodging Ganon, aiming the Spirit Train, and calling out archery positions in addition to everyone else's positions. It was enough to give anybody a headache.
"MIDDLE OF THE ROOM!" Steam screeched, followed quickly by another, "I LIKE TRAINS!" which of course made a mess of absolutely everything. Lore shot off a Silver Arrow and missed, and Gen snatched it out of the wall as he sprinted past, presumably to hand it off for another go. Most of the other Links waved their weapons around haphazardly, hoping to hit something and probably failing. The Spirit Train clipped the middle-distance distortion and rammed a wall instead. And nobody knew where Ganon was.
It was into this particularly chaotic moment that Realm suddenly stepped into, freezing mid-stride as his surroundings registered to him. Very carefully, he put his off foot back down on the ground, only relaxing when it didn't trigger another relocation.
"FINALLY!" Realm whooped, throwing his hands into the air with relief. Then he threw his hands out to the side instead, as he overbalanced in his exuberance and nearly stumbled forwards again.
"...You can't take another step, can you," Gen said dully.
"It's probably not a good idea."
"You're going to end up who-knows-where if you do?"
"Actually there's about a fifty-percent-chance that I'm going to end up on the island in the middle of the lake, but other than that it's an open possibility."
Gen pinched the bridge of his nose. Behind him, something exploded. "Okay. Just. Don't move. At all - actually, no, hang on." He reached out and snagged the collar of a passing Sketch's tunic and used the momentum to swing the smaller Link over. "Can you use your Ice Rod to seal Realm's feet into place?"
Sketch blinked, then frowned, clearly confused. "Uh… probably?"
"Perfect, do it."
With that, Gen sprinted off, because he had a Silver Arrow to return and about five more to pick out of the walls, because Lore still hadn't landed a hit yet. Sketch raised his eyebrows doubtfully as he pulled out his Ice Rod and went to work.
"Preemptive misdirectional preventative measure?" he asked.
"I need it," Realm confirmed. Sketch fumbled his Ice Rod badly enough that he almost blasted Realm in the face.
"Did you just admit to having a Problem instead of a Condition?"
"I've recently been given a whole lot of evidence pointing towards the former," Realm agreed unashamedly.
"...Well, okay then," Sketch said, wide-eyed. He finished off the ice trap for Realm's feet, then said, "I guess, try to duck when Steam says Ganon's near you?"
"Oh, is his special sight kicking in?"
"It's been really convenient, actually."
"Nice," Realm said. "Also thanks for helping me stay put."
"No problem. Remember to duck."
With that, Sketch scurried away to rejoin the rest of the chaos, which mostly entailed Steam shouting things at the top of his lungs while running for his life, and everyone else trying to do something about it. Realm watched this for a few moments, then shrugged to himself and pulled out his Bow. He made eye contact with Dusk on the other side of the room, since Lore was a bit preoccupied with reloading.
Dusk, to his credit, picked up on what Realm wanted immediately, and shouted, "STEAM! CAN YOU CALL ARCHERY FOR REALM TOO?"
"OH, IS HE HERE NOW?" Steam yelled back. "YEAH I CAN DO THAT!"
Realm beamed across the room. Perfect! Now he could contribute without having to run, probably-
"REALM GET DOWN GANON'S RIGHT BEHIND YOU!" Steam screeched, and so naturally Realm dropped like a rock. The air above his head made a WHOOSH noise, as though something very large was being swung through it very fast, and then suddenly Blue and Vio were there stabbing at the seemingly empty space. It didn't seem like they were hitting anything though.
Dusk made an apologetic face from across the room - maybe, yelling out that Realm was in the room hadn't been the best idea. Realm grimaced right back at him in agreement. To be fair though, it hadn't occurred to Realm either, so at least they were both in the same boat.
A flash of silver caught his attention; Lore had just finished reloading, and was drawing back on his Bow in preparation to fire. Realm squinted at the projectile. Wasn't that a Silver Arrow? That seemed like overkill, maybe?
Then again, this was Ganon. The only person who was possibly more worth the overkill was Demise.
Nodding to himself, Realm pulled his own Silver Arrows out of his Bag and nocked one. He'd found the Silver Arrows a long time ago, during one of his several-month-long Misdirectional Incidents before he'd met the rest of the Links. This was also back when his Misdirectional Incidents actually made a little bit of sense, or at least back when it took him slightly more than a single step to end up somewhere new. The point was that, at some point, he'd stumbled through a cave, found a chest, opened the chest, and pulled out a bundle of Silver Arrows, which he'd stuffed into the deepest part of his Bag after using one on an Octorok and discovering just how overpowered it was, on the rightful motive that they were a bit too valuable to lose the way he lost all his other things.
To his credit, he'd only lost the Silver Arrows twice in all that time since then, and both instances had been because Realm had actually lost his entire Bag along with everything in it. But! He'd found it all again, eventually, and now he actually had something to use them on.
...As soon as he knew where to aim, that was.
Also, his ice-trap was melting because of all the fire that Ganon was throwing around, and that really wasn't good.
"Steam?" Realm called. "Any openings?"
"Not really!" Steam yelled back, and to be fair, he probably had a point. Realm had no idea what was going on anymore. But then Steam yelped, "FALSE ALARM HE'S ON YOUR LEFT!" and Realm jerked his sword arm up just in time to more-or-less stick the blade right into Ganon's stomach area.
At that moment, several things happened at once. First, Ganon lost his grip on his invisibility and flickered back into view, face twisted in pain. Over in the corner, Dusk was frantically hissing at Lore, who was mostly aiming in Ganon's direction. Ganon lifted his hand to twist Realm's sword out. The rest of the Links began scrambling to do something to stop him. And in the middle of all this, the cast-shadow at Dusk's feet darkened, rippled, and then coalesced into a Very Irritated Shadow Link.
"HOW MUCH NOISE DO YOU IDIOTS NEED TO MAKE TO GET THIS JOB DONE!?" He roared. "I AM TRYING TO TAKE A NAP!"
This was such an unexpected interruption that everyone, even Ganon, paused to blink at him.
"Oh, hi Shadow," Realm said brightly. "We're fighting Ganon."
"I know," Shadow growled.
"Wanna join in?"
Shadow spared Original Ganon a cursory glance. "I've never seen this imbecile in my life, so no. I could not possibly care less."
Ganon emitted a low rumble. "I would say much the same to you, except that I have no idea who you are."
Shadow ignored him. "Just try to kill the pig quietly, yeah? It's hard enough to ignore all your usual bumbling."
With that, he vanished again, having never actually fully left Dusk's shadow to begin with.
And that was when Lore finally managed to make a straight shot, and a Silver Arrow buried itself directly into Ganon's left shoulder.
"HA!" Lore crowed triumphantly from across the room, but nobody had the time to congratulate him. Ganon was losing the blue color in his skin where the arrow was stuck - an ugly brown color was spreading across his body like a chemical reaction. He seemed solidly unable to move.
And, well, every Link could recognize an opening when they saw one.
It also helped that Lore finished celebrating, coughed a little, and then said, "Yeah, so, if this guy is anything like my Ganon, he's only gonna stay still for about three more seconds? We might want to get on that whole 'damage' thing."
"I LIKE TRAINS!" Steam yelled, and then everybody else charged, and Ganon got hit by quite a lot of swords and also a Train in the span of about two and a half seconds.
"...Ow," Ganon said succinctly.
And then he dissolved into a small black void, which promptly shot off through the remains of the Lair, presumably heading back to the original location like the other defeated villains had done.
There was a moment of blessed silence.
"...Well that was a mess and a half," Gen said bluntly. "Line up. Anybody with more than ten individual burns in front, anybody who has an injury bigger than a quarter of their body size gets ultimate priority, and no, Lore, I don't care if you think Health Potion tastes bad you're drinking some anyway."
"It would taste better if it was kumquat flavored."
"Why does that matter?"
"Because kumquats are delicious, obviously," Lore said.
Gen visibly decided that he wasn't going to continue the conversation.
"Actually," Realm piped up from his ice-trap, "can the medic stuff wait for a minute or two? Because I still need to rescue my local Zelda… and, you know, since she's been a captive for a couple years, that might be a problem?" He looked appropriately sheepish while saying this. No doubt, had his feet been free, he'd have been shuffling them awkwardly; Red tilted his head, then tugged out his Ice Rod, flipped it back over to Fire, and began gingerly melting away the trap.
"Delay accepted," Gen sighed. "Any idea where she might be?"
"Ah. Um. No."
Wind made a quiet coughing noise. "Logically, she's probably through that way over there." He pointed to an opening on the far side of the room, tucked away between rock outcroppings in a manner that made it largely unnoticeable, which had also most definitely not been there before. Curse those doors that only appeared via trigger of a victory.
"That makes sense," Realm agreed. At his feet, Red finished melting the ice away and stood up with a pleased smile. Realm's boots were only slightly scorched.
Realm also made no attempt to move, even though he now could.
"...Are you not going to go get her?" Mask prompted.
"I'm somewhat afraid to move," Realm admitted.
"Surely it can't be that bad?"
Realm cast a doubtful look at his feet, then hesitantly raised one off the ground and moved it tentatively forwards. From his point of view, the landscape immediately began flickering wildly between about ten different possibilities; from everyone else's point of view, Realm started blinking in and out of existence.
"Put your foot back," Dusk ordered hastily, and Realm quickly obeyed. His flickering slowly resolved back into solidity.
"...Okay, you are not allowed to move your legs," Gen decided. "What did you do?"
"Well, apparently I have magic," Realm said wryly, "and I don't think I know how to use it. Or how to control it."
"We'll come back to that," Gen said. "Okay, uh… Four? Can you guys carry him, maybe?"
The Four surveyed Realm appraisingly. "Let's find out."
It took quite a bit of finagling, and more than one instance of Realm almost going somewhere else, but then they hit an equilibrium and the Four were giving Realm a quasi-piggyback ride. It didn't make much sense to look at, but since it was working, nobody questioned it.
Zelda was being held in place with a fire spell, because Ganon was evidently nothing if not dedicated to an aesthetic. Under Realm's direction, the Four put out the flames and then carefully maneuvered themselves so that Realm was facing his Princess.
"Hi," Realm said cheerfully. "Sorry that I'm late. It's nice to meet you in person, finally."
"It's nice to meet you too," Zelda replied softly. She, like Realm, was brunette rather than blonde as so many of her counterparts were, and her hair was voluminously thick. She had a somewhat round face, and it made her look kind. She and Realm stared at each other for a moment, evaluating.
Then Zelda said, "Forgive me for asking, but why are you being carried?"
Realm turned a bit red. "I, uh… I have a Problem. My magic is going haywire and I don't know how to make it stop and I'm really getting tired of the island in the lake? So, yeah. Carried."
"Hmm," said Zelda, which was Princess Code for 'I'm trying very hard not to laugh'. "Well, I don't know much about this island, but I might be able to do something about your magic output - but first, if you don't mind, the Triforce?"
"Oh, yeah," Realm said, and pulled a necklace out from underneath his tunic. The little golden triangle on the end flashed, then detached itself from the cord and floated over to Zelda. She caught it in her palm and looked it over appraisingly.
"You found every single piece," She said. "I'm impressed, I hid some of those very well."
"Well," Realm said, "there hasn't been a single hiding place yet that I can't stumble my way into."
Zelda raised an eyebrow at him, then had a moment of realization. "You're Wandering, aren't you?"
"You say that like it means something, but I have no idea what it is," Realm admitted freely.
"If your companions set you down and you try to walk, you're going to magically end up somewhere very far away, aren't you?" Zelda clarified.
"Oh, that. Yes." Realm ran a hand through his bangs awkwardly. "Also, um… did you know there's a third Triforce piece?"
Zelda blinked. "Oh," she said.
"Yeah, it kinda lives on my hand now." He extended his dominant left hand and held it up for Zelda to see. The Triforce of Courage pulsed happily, as it tended to do.
"Well," Zelda recovered, "my father will be pleased to know he was right."
Realm tilted his head. "...Have I met your father?"
"No, but he had a theory that the Hero who would rise up would be a perfect candidate to hold Courage," Zelda replied. "Regardless of how long it took you to get here, you did become a successful Hero in the end."
"About that," Realm said sheepishly. "Do you have time to talk about our Destroyer and Demon, Demise, and the impending destruction of reality as we know it?"
Zelda, to her credit, just closed her eyes. "There's always something else," she muttered. Then she opened them again and said, "How about you tell me while I take care of your Wandering problem, deal?
"That works," Realm agreed.
Naturally, Gen promptly seized that opportunity for what it was and shoved at least one Potion into everybody's mouth, and then Lore seized the rest of the opportunity to take a nap, and then everybody else just shrugged and settled in to either join the nap, join the explanation, or just sit. It was nice.
At least, until Ganon's lodgers poked their heads into the room and started a whole different kind of situation.
FIRSTLY: This story now has a Discord. The Invite Link is being a FREAKING JERK, so please head over to the AO3 version of this story for a working Invite if you're interested. All are welcome, and please enjoy this informational blurb about what we get up to in there.
"Welcome to the Dimensional Links Discord, where things very rarely make sense but we're determined to have fun anyway! Want to agonize over the unsaid implications of Koholint? There's a channel for that! Have a theory that Dusk might secretly adopt cats in his spare time? There's a channel for that! Or maybe you just really like kumquats. Good news, there's a channel for that! (Don't ask.)
"Alternatively, if you just want a place to share your fan art or inspired stories, there's channels for those things too. Really, we've got something for everybody.
"Just don't be intimidated by the chaos, and you'll fit right in!"
Now, onto the Chapter Talk!
You know what I've never understood? Why there's Random Old Men apparently living in Ganon's Evil Lair. Literally, they're just standing there, for no other discernible reason other than to give you hints. Just, why?
This can also be known as 'The reason why Nintendo shouldn't give me open-ended plot devices' because my brain promptly decided that Ganon was running an apartment complex. 8,000 words later, here we are.
In other news, Lore legit has Silver Arrows as an Item. Not an upgrade, not a temporarily-given gift for the Final Boss, an Item. As in, he's just casually carrying around Evil's Weakness at any given point in time, because why not. I didn't need him to be any more overpowered than he already is, noooooooooo.
Also, please note my new theory about Realm. Shout-out to Era, you know who you are, for getting me started on this idea in the first place. Y'all should brace yourselves for a whole lot of misdirectional shenanigans in the future, because I'm gonna have some fun. Basically I took the fact that he's extremely magical in his sequel and incorporated it, but in the best possible way. You're welcome.
LASTLY: As of 3/18/20, DL is officially five years old. Some of the DL Fandom (and can you believe this story has a fandom?) got together behind my back and made a 5th Anniversary Fan Art Video, which I would include the link to except that it's also being a FREAKING JERK. Once again, please head to the AO3 version for a working link. Sorry for the inconvenience, but thank you for the love!
First Thanks to ReaderOwl2816, therichardater, dalmationblack, Bluebird0614, Dragonspirit996, Black leaf animations, and PokemonTrainer4700 for favoriting/following!
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First Responses
Dark Pit not Pittoo: Actually, what I mentioned was his tornado rod. According to my research, Sketch doesn't have Pegasus Boots. He does however, have a hookshot, which was why he was in Vaati's group. And yes, Realm has a negatively directional compass.
PsycoFangirl: 'Fluffing a Duck'? I have never heard of that. Maybe I'll investigate.
LuckyLugia: Cool. My first was a Snover, I think. And yes. Shenanigans.
Blackleaf: Sure, I can probably swing that. And yeah, he does have a Fire Rod. And a lot of people have a Roc's Cape, actually. I'm sure that'll be relevant sometime.
miano53: Years ago? When would that be?
Second Responses
Opinionated Guest: Thank you. Your opinion has been noted. Have a great day.
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