(So then, I'll Curse you every once in a while, just to keep up tradition. Cool?)
Cool.
(...You forgot the disclaimer. YOU FORGOT THE DISCLAIMER!)
Whoops. I do not own the Legend of Zelda. But I do own Naruto. Now we can all enjoy a good anime without all the ridiculously long explanations of backstory and jutsu.
(Yes please! Seriously people, stop talking. You're in a war, not a debate.)
"I don't wanna go."
"...Well, you kinda have to. Half our leadership, and all."
"Sleepy."
"We still have to take out Ganondorf!"
"Wake me when you've done that."
"Gah... Mask? He's all yours."
"Excellent," Mask said evilly. Dusk stepped back with a slight 'what-have-I-done' face. Mask rummaged through his bag for a minute, debated something, then pulled out a round, brown mask with large eyes and a somewhat dopey smile and slapped it down onto Lore's face.
There was suddenly a large Goron.
Lore shot up, promptly overbalanced, and fell flat on his face. "I admit, I may have deserved that one," his muffled voice said through the dirt.
"You gave permission. I used it."
"And I only resent you about fifty percent of the way for it," Lore said as he pushed himself to his feet and waved his arms wildly. "Okay, where is my bloody center of gravity?!"
"Somewhere down here, I think," Dusk said, poking Lore's very large stomach. Unfortunately, this only served to unbalance the Hero of Legend even more, and he abruptly fell on his back instead.
"Ooh..." Dusk winced. "Sorry."
"Apologize by helping me," Lore grunted. "I can't sit up."
"I'll do you one better."
That said, Dusk reached down and carefully removed the Goron Mask from Lore's face and handed it back to its owner. The now normal Lore, still on the ground, blinked.
"That... felt really weird. No wonder they curl up and roll everywhere."
"Try learning how to curl up and roll everywhere," Mask snorted. "I spent two hours getting incredibly dizzy before I figured out there was a radar sense when I closed my eyes."
Ocarina took a note.
"Now," Dusk said as he grabbed Lore's hand and pulled up. "We still need to go and take care of my native Ganondorf. Are we all good in the resting department?"
"I'll go check," Lore said, and walked off.
"...So, how come your Ganondorf didn't show up when we fought Zant?" Ocarina asked. "I mean, Vaati and Ganon were in the same place."
Dusk shrugged. "As far as I could tell, Zant was basically Ganondorf's puppet. He didn't care much beyond that the first time, and I doubt that's changed now."
"Think you know where he is then?"
"Well, last time he was supposed to be in Hyrule Castle. But then the holes happened, and... yeah. I don't think he's the type to try the same thing twice, so I don't really know where he'd be."
"Worth a shot."
Lore jogged back up. "We're all good."
"Great. For lack of a better idea, let's just head back to Castle Town," Dusk decided. "We can ask anyone if they've seen a massive redheaded madman with vaguely green skin running around."
"I shall call him Big Ginger," Lore said firmly.
"...Right. Everyone to the left!"
A minute later, the Four sprinted back to the starting point and hauled Realm out of the hole he'd fallen into when he'd gone in the wrong direction. They stuck him in the middle of their square formation, completely ignoring his flustered protests, and, with all four of the Four grabbing his sleeves, marched him off in the correct direction.
Another minute later they came back to retrieve Realm's shield, which had fallen in the hole with Realm and then fallen off of Realm.
And then they marched him off in the correct direction.
"Can I borrow your Curse Rock?"
"Curse Stone," Dusk corrected. "And... why?"
"Because I never figured out how to fly," Gen frowned. "And it annoys me. I need practice."
"...We're in the middle of walking through my native Hyrule in search of Ganondorf-"
"Big Ginger!" Lore yelled.
"...Whatever. In search of Ganondorf to defeat him. You want to practice now, of all times?"
"Wind can catch me," Gen said.
The Link in question turned around at the sound of his name. "I can what?"
"You can catch me if I fail at flying," Gen explained.
"...You want to do that now?"
"Yes!" Gen cried, exasperated.
Dusk sighed. "If you break it, I will hurt you."
"Good thing I won't break it then," Gen said cheerfully. Dusk rolled his eyes, then pulled out the pouch from around his neck and upended the contents on Gen's head while simultaneously snatching his Master Sword.
There was abruptly a confused and extremely uncoordinated falcon.
Gen flapped wildly, then tumbled head over talons into the dirt and ended up with his tail feathers snagged on his beak in an impressive display of anatomical impossibility. He screeched something furiously.
"You asked for it, you know," Dusk said, having received the general impression of a harsh scolding and great annoyance.
"He's angry," Shadow supplied in a bored tone, having randomly spawned from nowhere in his usual fashion. It was such a common occurrence that nobody even bothered to be surprised anymore.
"I knew that already," Dusk said. Gen clacked his beak, which he had just managed to free, in agreement. Then he squawked something at Wind.
"...Throw you?" Wind clarified. Gen nodded. "Well... climb on then, I guess."
Gen carefully clambered onto Wind's lowered arm and held on as lightly as he could, since there was only a tunic between his talons and Wind's skin.
"I'm going to toss you up for some oomph," Wind warned. "One... two... three!"
The Hero of Winds launched the Gen into the air at the same time that the falcon gave himself a boost with a well-timed flap. This got him airborne quite easily.
The rest of it didn't go nearly as well.
Because Gen had just thrust his wings down, he had to bring them back up. However, he had no idea how to do this properly. The resulting motion sent him careening downwards and crash-landed him on the ground. Luckily he had only been about five feet in the air, but it still hurt. Gen screeched appropriately.
"...It kinda worked," Wind offered, getting a general sense of extreme frustration and soreness. "Maybe if you twist your wings on the upthrust so there's less surface area?"
Gen made a chirruping noise.
"He said to throw him again," Shadow said with a tiny anticipatory grin and ignoring Gen's responding squawk of, "That's not what I said, you conniving paraphraser!" He was rather enjoying the show.
I SHOULD HAVE WON I SHOULD HAVE WON I SHOULD HAVE WON I SHOULD HAVE-
"Someone kill him," Demise snarled, hands pressed futily over his ears. "I don't care who, how, or where, just shut him up!"
-SHOULD HAVE WON I SHOULD HAVE WON I SHOULD HAVE WON I-
We would LOVE to, Demon Vaati hissed. But we can't kill in here, remember?
-WON I SHOULD HAVE WON I SHOULD HAVE WON I SHOULD HAVE WON I SHOULD-
SHUT UP ZANT! Original Ganon bellowed.
...I should have won.
We know, Malladus deadpanned. You have told us. Multiple times and very, very loudly.
But it's true... Zant pouted. He's a no good dirty cheater. Clones should be illegal.
"They aren't clones," Demise said slowly. "Who have you thought we were fighting this whole time?"
Well, CLEARLY the Hero of Twilight had an accident with either about five sets of faulty Four Swords, an astonishingly confusing bout of time travel, or a spontaneously invented cloning machine that was also somewhat faulty.
There was a dead silence in which one could practically hear the incredulity.
None of those clones looked like the original, Zant added. You just can't get a good clone these days...
"...Right, have his alternate personalities resolved themselves?"
Seems like it, Hyrule Ganon replied.
"Well, if he's not going to slap himself anymore one of us is going to have to do it for him. Who wants it?"
Demise's head was suddenly filled with the sound of a Twili being punished with great enthusiasm.
"Thank goodness for villainous cooperation," Demise muttered, thoroughly ignoring the thwacking noises in his ears. "...What in the name of obliteration is a cloning machine?"
"I've almost got it!" Gen insisted. "Just toss me one more time!"
"Chuck 'im," Shadow supplied. Wind just sighed and moved his arm slightly. Gen launched himself into the air with two quick successive flaps, then promptly crash-landed. He had managed to work out a proper takeoff, but not much else.
"Maybe you should take a break...?" Wind suggested quietly as he scooped up the disheveled bird. "You've been crashing like this for hours, it can't be good for your health."
Gen squawked something.
"He wants another go," Shadow said, yawning. Wind's mouth set.
"No. If he wants to maim himself, he can do it tomorrow. Can someone hand me Gen's sword, please?"
A minute later, the group discovered that Gen's clothes were just as disheveled as his feathers had been. And his hair.
"And this," Wind said, looking his friend up and down, "is why I stopped you."
"I'm fine," Gen snapped somewhat hazily. "I will learn how to fly if it's the last thing I do."
"At the rate you're going, it just might be."
Up at the front of the group, Lore was annoyed. Very annoyed. For a very particular reason which was not resolving itself in any sort of timely manner whatsoever.
"WHY CAN'T WE FIND BIG GINGER?!"
Very annoyed indeed.
"His name isn't Big Ginger, it's Ganondorf," Dusk groaned. "And if I knew why we couldn't find him, I would do something about it."
"You could always, oh, I don't know... track him by scent," Midna suggested innocently while examining her fingernails.
"I never got his scent!"
"So all that time we spent in Hyrule Castle where Ganondorf was obviously holed up waiting for us for weeks, you never got a single whiff of him?"
Dusk blinked.
"And to think you call yourself a wolf," Midna sniffed.
"I wasn't a wolf at the time," Dusk protested weakly. Midna rolled her eyes.
"I seem to recall a certain someone telling me that his animal senses were bleeding over into his human form. Maybe, just maybe, this someone might have, oh, say, inadvertantly absorbed the scent of his greatest enemy because his subconcious might possibly have thought that to be a smart thing?"
Dusk just gaped. Now that she mentioned it...
"I'll... just be concentrating here for a bit," he said eventually, accepting his fate.
Ironically, Ganondorf's scent turned out to be red. It reminded Dusk of the desert, in a way. But a lot less sandy and a lot more... well, malicious. It was odd, thinking of a smell as evil, but it honestly smelled that way.
There was also the fact that it was everywhere.
Seriously, how was he supposed to pinpoint the man when there were scent trails going every which way? More than that, it was as if the air itself was saturated. Which, in Dusk's opinion, didn't make sense.
But at least, it seemed to be generally more concentrated in that one particular direction...
"Right, I think it's this way," Dusk yipped, walking off with his nose working overtime. Luckily, the general translation that the other Links always got was easily enough for the group to understand him. Which was a good thing because Shadow had vanished somewhere again and he didn't seem very likely to show anytime soon.
And thus the Links set off on yet another long walk, on top of the one they had already been making.
It was generally agreed that it was a good thing they had all taken naps earlier.
Shadow had once again bailed on the group because he already knew where they would end up. How he knew this was questionable. But since he wasn't about to tell anyone, there wasn't really anything to do about it.
As to where he was... well, that would be telling, wouldn't it?
Now, Shadow wasn't the type of person to charge into a fight headfirst without thinking. He knew when he was outmatched, and he was oh, so definitely outmatched here. The thing to do, clearly, was to have another Sit Down and Wait. While it was somewhat boring, Shadow found it infinitely preferable to tagging along with a group who had no idea where they were going. Oh, they would get here eventually, he was sure of that. Somehow, one way or another, a Link always got where he was going.
Sometimes, it just took a little longer.
Or, in this case, a lot longer.
...Hello.
Yes, I'm late. I know. But let me explain.
Due to some unforseen circumstances that I really should have seen coming, I am hereby changing my update schedule. New chapters will be coming out probably once a week. This is the reason I was late, and will continue to be the reason I will be updating at a slower speed.
I really am sorry about this... but this is me compromising with the rest of my life which is demanding a good lot of my attention. And for good reason, obviously. It's my life. I happen to be living it, you know.
Until next time,
Changeling
Thanks to melainemel, scriptdragonslayer, EponaTheInsaneLoftwing, LucerneFlower, Thrilling Sentience, I am One with the Wind and Sky, and Moonlight Raven for favoriting/following!
PsycoFangirl: Actually, forego is a perfectly English word. I may have misspelled it though.
SkyPirate0614: I can certainly try.
Freefan1412: Yeah, just thought I'd throw that bit in.
Okami no Fude: Oh, I read that. And the Dominon Rod is an interesting idea./Thanks!
Dark Pit Not Pittoo: We need rope.
Sianna Scale: Good.
A Reader: It usually just happens because I think it's fun.
DarkKeybladePhantomofTime: Excellent.
Guest#1: Wait and seeeeee...
EponaThe InsaneLoftwing: Well, it popped into my head and it seemed to fit well. Both he and badgers strike me as cranky.
Lord of Gaming: see SkyPirate0614's answer
Guest#2: Thanks!
Skystar901: ...That's unfortunate.
therichardater: see A Reader's answer.