OKAY PEOPLE! Because, no matter how many times I seem to answer this question there always seems to be another curious person, I will now make this clear in plain English. I will not, repeat, WILL NOT be adding Hyrule Warriors OR Zelda Wii U. Zelda Wii U, because we know nothing about it, and by the time it actually comes out this fic will probably be done. Also, I don't have the proper console. Hyrule Warriors because that particular Link is WAAAY O.P., and so are all his villains. That just seemed to be a bit too much overkill to me. And because Nintendo themselves have stated that Hyrule Warriors is NOT canon to the Timeline.
Now please, please, PLEASE stop asking!
Oh, and- Disclaimer. Gotta mention it somewhere, right?
"Well, it's about time," Shadow grumped as the rest of the group straggled in. "Do you have any idea how long I've been sitting here?"
"About as long as we've spent walking here," Lore snapped crankily. "Dusk, why is your Hyrule so bloody big?!"
"How should I know?" Dusk whuffed, giving Midna his 'give me my sword' look. She promptly dropped it on his head. And snickered.
"You live here don't you?" Lore continued
"Obviously."
"So you should know!"
"That makes no sense," Dusk sighed. "I'm a goatherd. Which means, I herd goats. Or at least I used to. I know nothing about why my Hyrule is so big. But if you really want to know, I can probably ask Zelda..."
"I think I'll just stay ignorant and keep complaining, thanks. And- hey wait a minute, what do you mean 'sitting here'?!"
"I've been sitting here waiting for you people," Shadow explained disinterestedly. "You people take forever."
"...You knew where we were going?" Lore asked dangerously.
"It was obvious."
"THEN WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL US?!"
"Because it was obvious," Shadow repeated, sounding as if he was explaining why the ocean was wet to a toddler. "I thought you couldn't possibly miss the signs, but apparently I was wrong. Exactly how high is your I.Q. supposed to be?"
Lore let out a strangled shriek and made some impotent twitching motions, but appeared to have been rendered immobile by rage. Shadow, thoroughly ignoring this, got to his feet and casually dusted himself off, then stretched. "Now that you're here though, what's the plan?"
"...Plan?" Realm asked.
"Well, wolf-boy over there led you all here, right?" Shadow said, spreading his arms to indicate the very large and very empty Hyrule Field. "And he was tracking Ganondorf, right?"
The group nodded with growing realization
"So then it stands to reason," Shadow continued, "that this is where he is. Or am I wrong?"
"You speak as though you are familiar with my habits, little demon," a voice boomed from the air. It was a very intimidating sounding voice, deep and rumbling, but it also sounded rather annoyed. "I don't remember telling my plans to you, did Zant blab again?"
"I am not telling you anything," Shadow spat with a shocking amount of venom in his voice. While this particular Ganondorf wasn't one of the ones who had used him, he was still very, very close. And besides, he'd never gotten to give Ganon, aka Mr. Teal Pig, a piece of his mind back in Realm's Hyrule. This was an excellent opportunity to deal out some unused wrath.
"My my, this one has a temper," Ganondorf mused. "You certainly pick some interesting travel companions, Hero of Twilight."
"I don't actually remember how I got into this, strangely," Dusk said.
"And you appear to have already beaten Zant. I must thank you; he was an idiot."
"A dangerous idiot," Steam muttered.
"I did not like him much," Ganondorf observed. "Even before all of this happened, I considered him not much better than a Cucoo. Possibly even less so."
"Ouch..." Sketch winced.
Mask, on the other hand, made a mental note in his List Of Insults. Being less evil than a Cucoo, which was evil incarnate... major put-down in terms of villainous status. Maybe he could use that on Majora...
"Er... not to be rude or anything, but what does this have to do with us?" Gen asked.
"Not much," Ganondorf admitted, "but enough. Technically, as my subordinate, I am responsible for Zant. And you have just smacked him back into Demise."
"So that's where they've been going..." Vio muttered.
"And while I greatly appreciate that," Ganondorf continued, "it does appear to be posing a bit of a problem. Specifically, that you are one step closer to stopping us."
As he said this, the Gerudo King was slowly materializing in front of the group in a slow and threatening sort of way. He was at least two feet taller than the Links and was thus forcing the Heroes to crane their necks awkwardly to look at him.
"So I have come to the conclusion," Ganondorf finished, "that I will be needing to stop you first."
"...Really now, that could have been said so much better," Lore lamented with a head shake. "That was hardly threatening at all. Why were we nervous about this guy?"
"He's the one who gave Zant his power," Midna supplied dryly. "And, might I add, it was a fraction of his power. We get to face all of that at once now."
Lore considered that for a moment.
"...Okay, points for that," he decided. "So Big Ginger's now about thirty percent more threatening."
"What did you just call me?"
"Big Ginger," Lore said nonchalantly before getting tackled by Wind and Speck, both of which shoved their hands over his mouth.
"Stop talking!" Wind hissed.
"Big... Ginger...?" Ganondorf repeated slowly, and with an increasingly furious expression growing on his face. "This... is your name for me?"
"Not just you," Blue said, head bent at an almost impossible angle in an attempt to see Ganondorf's face. "There's also Mr. Pudgy Bat, Mr. Blue Pig, Mr. Teal Pig..."
"Did we ever make one for Zant?" Steam asked with a frown.
"...Now that you mention it, I don't think we did," Mask replied, now paying absolutely no attention to the angry villain in front of them. "How about Freaky Puppet?"
"Not funny enough," Blue decided. "Maybe we can call him Fishy?"
Steam snorted. Mask cracked a smile, but then asked, "Why Fishy?"
"He had that helmet that looked like a fish, remember?" Blue said, shrugging. "Plus he had those weird eyes... did he ever blink?"
"Not that I remember-"
"I AM IN THE MIDDLE OF THREATENING YOU!" Ganondorf roared, and shot a rapid-fire spray of energy spheres. The group scattered, then discovered that the orbs had homing capabilities.
The next few seconds were filled with a good amount of running and screaming.
"Realm, get out there and be bait!" Lore ordered in between gasps.
"Why me?!"
"Because your stamina is ridiculous and you're the least likely one of us to get hit by something because of your directional unpredictability. Now move!"
Realm sputtered, then gave up and shot out from behind the cliff that the Links were hiding behind and ran for his life. Many explosions happened.
"Right, now that Big Ginger's busy... DUSK WHAT DO WE DO!"
"Don't ask me, I never fought him before!"
"But he's your native villain!" Gen protested. "You've got to have some idea!"
"He doesn't act like any of the people we've face before," Vio observed, poking his head around the side of the cliff. "He has just transformed himself into a massively gigantic pig and is doing an excellent impersonation of an angry bull."
The Four eeped and turned pale, which looked somewhat odd considering they all did it simultaneously.
"That's not so bad, all things considered," Green said. "Both of the Ganons we've fought looked like giant pigs."
"Well yes, but he is literally a giant pig," Vio explained to his leader. "On four legs and everything."
"...Ah."
"Maybe we can treat him like we would a wild animal?" Sketch suggested.
"Give him multiple targets, then hit while he's distracted," Vio mused. "That could work... but only if he's actually got the mind of the pig he looks like."
"HE DOESN'T!" Realm screamed as he sprinted past, with about fifteen seeker spheres and a giant boar hot on his heels. The Links all winced.
"...How about we rescue Realm now and figure out a better plan later," Gen said flatly.
"Meet up back here in in five with observations, plans, and all your limbs intact," Lore added. He received several 'well duh' looks in response, which he thoroughly ignored.
"Break!"
More or less five minutes later...
Ganondorf, currently a pig, had been tricked into charging a patch of trees and was, for the moment, hopelessly entangled by his tusks. The Links were taking the brief opportunity to finish the strategy meeting Lore had called earlier, now armed with experience from the past few minutes.
"Do NOT aim for his tail," Blue gasped with a look of utter terror on his face. Lore nodded sagely.
"Good to know, good to know. Anyone else?"
"More than one person needs to be the distraction," Realm said. "It's really hard to avoid him when I'm the only target."
"I can help with that," Gen volunteered.
"He's using his human and boar forms like compliments to each other," Vio contributed, "depending on what he wants to do and how much damage he wants to cause while doing it. We can probably match him pretty well as a human since there's so many of us, but his animal form could be a problem."
"How's that?" Mask questioned.
"Of the two people who are experienced in being an animal, one of them is a rabbit," Vio said dryly. "Now I could be wrong, but I don't think rabbits are very good in combat situations."
Lore twitched.
"Which leaves me," Dusk sighed. "...I think I can handle him, at least with Midna."
"You'd darn well better be taking me," Midna agreed. "You need someone to hold the big pig still."
"Big Ginger," Mask corrected.
"Hmm... nope, don't care," Midna said cheerfully.
Suddenly, Shadow spoke up, which was unusual in that he normally either didn't care, or just plain wasn't around. "His weakness is his chest area."
The group blinked. Shadow facepalmed.
"Okay, see the shiny white scar? He's been injured there before. That's his weak point."
"That makes things a whole lot easier," Dusk said. "Thanks, Shadow."
"Don't get used to it," Shadow growled. However, Dusk had learned enough about Shadow's personality by now to just brush off his reaction as the usual crankiness.
"I'm a lot smaller than Ganondorf, so I'll actually be in a prime position to hit that point," Dusk continued, now thinking out loud. "Perfect height for a wolf..."
"So we have a sort-of plan, then?" Speck asked.
"Close enough," Ocarina said, shrugging.
Dusk pulled out his Curse Stone and transformed, handing off his sword to Midna as he did so. The imp then dropped onto his back with a thump, causing Dusk to shoot her a glare. Shadow sidled up beside the pair with a bored expression, which was counteracted by the fact that his own sword was unsheathed.
"Can't let you have all the fun," he said in answer to Dusk's questioning glance.
Gen pulled out some bottles full of green liquid and handed one to Realm. "Stamina potion," he explained. "Lets you run faster for longer."
"Good idea," Realm agreed.
Everyone else just drew their respective swords, although Speck shrank down first. He seemed to really be taking to the fighting-while-tiny style.
"Alright everyone," Lore said, smirking. "Let's do this. Oh, and please, try not to die."
"And to think I made you half-leader," Dusk groaned. Shadow snickered.
And then everyone charged.
Right off the bat, the Links all acknowledged what an incredibly stupid plan that was.
If you've ever seen a bullfight, in which a suicidal person either decides to ride said bull or taunt it with a flappy red cape, you can probably visualize what happened next without much trouble. Realm and Gen, who were supposed to be doing the distracting, ran screaming for their lives as Ganondorf rampaged behind them and generally aimed to kill. Shadow, in blatant disregard of his life, vaulted onto the top of Ganondorf's back and alternated between hanging on with both hands and stabbing his mount in the shoulder-blades while cackling like a madman.
Dusk and Midna were trying to get in between the fleeing distraction Links and Ganondorf so that they could get a good shot at his weak point. Unfortunately Ganondorf had the approximate momentum of a locomotive and thus nearly trampled them. Midna, naturally, didn't take to this too well and sent Dusk racing after the giant boar while she grabbed chunks of the surrounding landscape in her hair and lobbed them at her prey.
Shadow got hit with her projectiles a few times, but being made of darkness it didn't affect him much.
Speck was nowhere to be seen, which wasn't all that concerning since he was currently two inches tall and thus unnoticeable anyways. For the interested, he was actually clinging to the strap of Ocarina's bag, but due to the surrounding chaos nobody noticed.
Everybody else was pursuing Ganondorf at various speeds and distances.
Of course, all this went completely south when Ganondorf abruptly transformed into a human and started lobbying magic balls at them.
Shadow went flying off and landed in a tangled heap on top of the Four. Midna's latest rock projectile went wide and knocked Mask over instead, who fell into Ocarina and sent the diminutive Speck tumbling. Dusk made a frantic stop and just barely missed being slammed by Ganondorf's attack, and everyone else just stopped and gaped.
"DON'T JUST STAND THERE, HIT HIM!" Shadow roared, picking himself up and sprinting off. The Four recovered much more slowly.
"Did anyone get the description of that horse?" they asked hazily.
Gen dropped a health potion into their hands as he ran past and assumed they would know what to do with it. Then he joined Shadow, who was having a furious swordfight with Ganondorf, and attempted to hack at the villain's neck.
It didn't work.
Mask shoved the dirt off of himself, then got shoved off of Ocarina, who was squished underneath him. "That one hurt," his older-but-younger self decided, wincing.
"Couldn't control where I was landing, sorry," Mask apologized. Then he squinted. "Er... I think Speck is climbing your pants?"
"What?" Ocarina peered down at his knees, where, sure enough, Speck was determinedly hiking himself up over the fabric. "When'd you get there?"
"Been here," Speck grunted. "Little help?"
"Oh, sorry." Ocarina leaned over and offered his palm to his friend, who dropped onto it with a relieved sigh.
"Can I ask why you were climbing him?" Mask questioned.
"I wanted to ask a favor," Speck said from Ocarina's palm. "I need you to shoot me-"
"What?!"
"-at Ganondorf," Speck finished.
"...Oh."
"Why?" Ocarina asked.
"I can't climb him if he keeps shapeshifting like that. I thought, maybe one of you could shoot an arrow and I could ride it?"
Ocarina nodded. "Makes sense. Just hold on tight, yeah?"
"Why on earth would I let go?"
Ocarina knelt down and carefully placed Speck on the ground, then reached around and pulled out one of his arrows and offered the tip to his friend. Speck carefully climbed around the pointy bit and held on with all four of his limbs, then flashed an "I'm ready" grin.
After ducking an errant magic sphere, Ocarina knocked, aimed, and shot in one fast motion, sending Speck straight onto the fabric of Ganondorf's shirt.
The arrow didn't seem to do much though.
"DO SOMETHING USEFUL!" Lore hollered from somewhere.
"WE WERE!" Mask yelled back. On Ganondorf's shirt, Speck rolled his eyes and started climbing. By his calculations, he had about two more feet to go.
In Picori measurements, that meant about fifty feet.
Joy.
On the normal-sized scale, Ganondorf was proving exactly how good of an opponent he was. Aside from spamming magic projectiles twice a second, he was also dueling a swordfight with the hand that wasn't shooting.
He was also winning.
"This is unfair on so many levels!" Steam yelled crankily as he tried and failed to stab Ganondorf in the stomach.
"That would be the point, small one," Ganondorf told him. And shot him point blank with a magic sphere.
Wind ducked as Steam went flying over his head and winced. Hopefully it wouldn't turn out to be anything Gen's potions couldn't fix, but right now he couldn't afford to go and check. For some reason Sketch had persuaded him to act as a visual blocker while the former used his painting abilities to launch a stealth attack.
Wind just hoped they wouldn't get smacked too badly in the process.
At Sketch's signal (winking), Wind leaped at Ganondorf's back and launched into a Spin Attack, Sketch following immediately behind with his own attack. And it actually worked. With Wind in the lead, he was able to intercept Ganondorf's counterattack. This left him wide open when Sketch feinted around Wind and made a side-slash at the villain's side.
On one hand, the connected attack could be seen as a good thing.
On the other hand, the one that was most immediately obvious, it was a very, very bad thing.
Ganondorf exploded into his giant boar form and sent at least three of the Links flying, while the rest scattered in a panic. Speck, who had managed to climb the head before the villains transformed, held onto the scruff for dear life. At least, in this form, the ears were a lot more sensitive...
Dusk, who had been a wolf all this time, hijacked Shadow so he could explain a plan to Midna. As it required a lot more effort from her than it did from him, he figured he should at least get her opinion on it first.
"...And that's what he wants to do," Shadow summarized, annoyed. "Now can I please go back to pummeling this guy?"
"Hmm... sounds interesting," Midna decided. "Aren't you lucky you have me around?"
"You never let me forget it."
"I'm sure whatever you just said was riveting and all," Midna said, "but we have a plan to implement?"
"You're both going to die," Shadow decided. Then he grinned fiercely. "Mind if I help?"
"Absolutely not!" Dusk yelped. Shadow facepalmed.
"I meant with the plan, stupid. If I kill you, I kill me too. You think I want that?"
"...Uh... no?"
"Exactly. So, helping?"
"Be my guest," Midna interrupted, kicking Dusk in the sides and taking off, and Dusk suddenly found himself to be the target of a rampaging boar
He was starting to reconsider the plan.
Then Midna went to work. Her hair shot out and slammed into Ganondorf's head, gripping his shoulders and forcibly stopping him in his tracks. The momentum travelled back up her magical appendage and nearly knocked her off of Dusk's back. She gritted her teeth in determination and a good bit of anger, and pushed back with all the strength she could muster. Underneath her, Dusk was bracing himself for all he was worth in a desperate attempt to stay standing and not buckle under the force.
Midna began wrenching her hair-hand around, dragging Ganondorf around until she had enough oomph behind her swing that she flipped the boar onto his side with a ground-shaking crash.
"Hit 'im hard, boys," she said, panting, but with a very self-satisfied smirk on her face.
Dusk darted in and, for lack of hands, slashed his claws over the silvery scar mark, then latched on with his teeth and began biting repeatedly, snarling all the while. The actual translation of said snarls was... better left unsaid. Up top, Midna formed a sort-of spear out of her hair and alternated between holding Ganondorf down and getting in a few stabs as well.
Shadow positioned himself to Dusk's right, keeping himself well out of the way, and stabbed his sword as far into the scar as it would go. Then, being who he was and wanting the revenge he did, he started twisting the blade, slowly and evenly.
Even Speck, still up on Ganondorf's head somewhere, got into the action, taking the momentary stillness to place a well-aimed strike directly into Ganondorf's inner ear.
Taking all of this into account, Ganondorf's reaction was natural.
"YOU JUST HAD TO ANTAGONIZE HIM!" Gen bellowed as he ran for his life.
"Eh, worth it," Shadow answered in a somewhat bored tone. Considering the fact that he was in a full-out sprint with an angry pig of death on his heels, this was quite an accomplishment.
"We hate you so much right now!" The Four screamed at him.
"...You know, they certainly get into a lot of fights nowadays," Farore observed as she watched the Links scramble. Down below, Ganondorf suddenly switched into his human form and, bellowing pain-filled curses, began spamming magic projectiles shaped like swords in every conceivable direction.
"That they do," Din agreed, unconcerned. "They are quite good at it, though."
"Kettle corn?" Nayru offered, holding out the bag. Her sisters both eagerly helped themselves to a serving and sat back to watch the show.
"SUFFER IN THE DEPTHS OF THE PIT!" Ganondorf roared in absolute fury, one hand held protectively over his ear and the other aimed at anything that moved. The look on his face very clearly promised death to anyone who got within range.
"So," Wind panted, watching Ganondorf with trepidation from a very safe distance along with the rest of the Links. "How's the plan working out?"
"The only thing I think it did was make him mad," Dusk growled softly.
"I dunno, whoever got his ear seems to have done some damage," Blue observed.
"Oh, that was probably Speck," Ocarina supplied. "I gave him a ride on one of my arrows. Pretty sure he landed somewhere near the neck."
"Well, good for the little guy," Lore said, looking impressed. "Glad he can hold his own. How'd aiming for the scar work out?"
"Excellently," Shadow said, with a vicious grin on his face.
"Aside from his ridiculous scheme for revenge," Midna interrupted, "I'm not actually sure how much it did. Scar tissue is often stronger than the original stuff because of how thick it healed over. If we want to hurt him there, we're gonna have to hit him lots and hit him hard."
Vio frowned. "Maybe this isn't the best- DUCK!"
Everyone hit the ground as a projectile went screaming over their heads.
"-best plan," Vio finished, standing up and dusting himself off. "There's got to be a less vulnerable spot somewhere, we just have to find it."
"But we know he's already been injured there," Lore argued. "It happened once, it can happen again. Plus, we've already got a start on it."
"...He's got a point," Gen said.
"I'm up for another round," Dusk agreed. "Shadow, are you- hold on, where'd he go?"
Everyone blinked, as the general translation that the Links usually got came through loud and clear, and looked around in confusion.
"...Found him," Green said in a resigned tone. "I think we lost him somewhere around 'already been injured there'.
Shadow was in fact going toe to toe with Ganondorf, somehow managing to both avoid the sword-projectiles and parry all of his opponent's blows. Landing his own blow was another story, though it was still impressive considering he was holding his own.
"Was waiting for the rest of us not an option?" Gen snarked as he jumped into the fight.
"I just made the decision that the rest of you were getting to," Shadow answered distractedly, flashing his sword every which way in complicated blocking maneuvers. "Want to pitch in and be useful?"
"Go ahead and try," Ganondorf sneered at them.
"Ooh, is that a challenge?" Lore chirped. "Why, I would love to! I didn't know you cared, Big Ginger. You should have asked sooner."
"You will die, very, very, PAINFULLY," Ganondorf promised.
"Oh that's what they all say, you big charmer you."
At that, Ganondorf let out a furious bellow and, ignoring everyone else, charged Lore as though he was in his pig form. Lore, being who he was, pulled out every cape he had and started swinging them around like a maniac, shouting random words in another language and taunting at his most tauntiest.
"Say what you want about that guy, he really knows how to get under someone's skin," Sketch said, staring. Perfectly punctuating his statement, Ganondorf exploded into his animal form and charged with even more rage than before. Lore responded by flaunting his cape collection flamboyantly and yelling a rapid-fire string of words which, although completely unintelligible, sounded like a personalized insult.
"...Anyone know what he's saying?" Red asked.
"Not a clue," Realm replied.
"Probably something he picked up in Holodrum," Vio said. "Or maybe Labrynna. He did say he spent most of his journeys outside of Hyrule, and he already talks with an accent. Kinda makes sense that he'd go and become bilingual while he was at it."
At that moment, Ganondorf charged yet again. Unfortunately for him, Lore was well prepared for that. He flipped the capes in a complicated twirling motion designed to fool the eye, and Ganondorf, having poorer eyesight as a pig, fell for it. In trying to follow the motion of the fabric, he overextended himself and slammed into the ground with trembling force, knocking his breath out and rendering him temporarily helpless.
"And that," Lore announced, twirling the capes and stowing them away in one quick movement, "is how you do it." He glanced at the rest of the Links, who were understandably gaping. "What are you waiting for? Hit him while he's down!"
The Links charged, determined and swords drawn.
The next few minutes were rather dirty in a reddish sort of way, and don't really need to be described in any sort of vivid detail.
"Was the mortal draw really necessary?"
"It's not like it worked," Dusk protested, having transformed back to a Hylian. "The point of the mortal draw is that it's supposed to be fatal. Does he look dead to you?"
Mask turned and eyed the somehow-even-more-furious Ganondorf, currently on a violent rampage against anything that happened to be in his way and smashing said obstacles into little tiny pieces with his tusks and momentum.
"Not really."
"Exactly. I just thought it was the best move I had for doing damage."
"To you or to him?" Gen grumbled, wrapping a torn piece of cloth around Dusk's side. "And when did I become the group medic?"
"Probably when you started toting around twenty health potions at a time," Dusk told him.
"Speaking of which, drink this," Gen said, snatching a potion-filled bottle from his bag and shoving it into Dusk's hands. "And don't do that again, I've only got so many bottles."
"Whatever you say."
"On the bright side," Midna said, perching herself on her partner's shoulder, "we did some pretty good damage that time. It probably won't be much longer, not with all of us working together the way we are."
"Hang on," Mask frowned. "Isn't Speck still on Ganondorf's head somewhere?"
Interestingly, Speck was actually clinging to his sword for dear life. His blade happened to be embedded in Ganondorf's other ear, which was actually the driving force behind the current rampage as it had gotten stuck. Between the frantic running that the villain was doing, the agonized bellows and the pained tossing of the head, it was all Speck could do to not be thrown off.
Actually removing the sword himself was out of the question at the moment.
Although, if Ganondorf kept running the way he was, it would probably fall out sooner or later.
Speck just hoped it would be sooner. He wasn't sure how much longer he could hang on and still keep his lunch down.
"He should not be this hard to catch!" The Four yelled, sprinting after the boar.
"We'll try and cut him off!" Green yelled, then signaled to his three counterparts who nodded and took off in different directions. Red, who was the most brightly colored, (and also the quickest of the four of them) was responsible for leading Ganondorf, while Vio and Blue came up on either side to (hopefully) prevent their target from veering off. Green came up behind to provide extra running incentive in case the villain ran out. Together the four of them steered Ganondorf in the Four's general direction, trusting their counterparts to fulfill their part of the plan.
As Ganondorf shot by, the Four started in on their part. It wasn't very complicated, all things considered. After a few milliseconds of internal conversation and debate, the Four had decided that sitcking their swords out and letting momentum do the rest was probably the easiest plan.
So they did.
And then they ran, because Ganondorf responded to the pain of being cut by lashing out with his rear hooves and launching himself into a frenzied bout of bucking and rearing.
Speck, of course, couldn't be expected to hold on through that, but luckily his sword came loose before his hands did. Even more lucky was where he landed, which conveniently happened to be right on top of Red's foot.
"Oh there you are," Red said brightly, more or less ignoring the boss battle going on in the background. "We thought you were on Ganondorf's head. Did you get any good hits in?"
"A couple," Speck said faintly. "I am... really dizzy right now. Which way is up?"
"How about I give you a ride for a couple minutes," Red decided, scooping his small friend up and setting him carefully on his shoulder.
"Oh, you found Speck," The Four noticed as they trotted up. "Where's he been?"
"Ganondorf's head," Red answered. The Four winced.
"Oh... whoops. Sorry if the ride got a bit rough, that was probably our fault."
"No big deal," Speck said hazily. "It was a rough ride long before you came in." He blinked for a moment, trying to clear his vision. "Has anyone seen my jar?"
"The one with the crack in it?" Red frowned. "Not since we started fighting Ganondorf, but then again we've been doing a lot of running. Where'd you leave it?"
"Uh..."
"Well, that's okay," Red said. "I think we started fighting over there somewhere..."
With that, the boys wandered off, somehow managing to completely miss the fact that there was still a rather large fight going on.
Ganondorf had calmed down enough to change back into his human form and was currently trading blows with five different Links. The rest of the group, seeing as there wasn't any more room around the actual man, had settled for long-distance projectiles.
There had never been so much spamming of the arrows.
"Why-won't-you-fall?!" Steam fumed.
"I am far too powerful to be defeated by the likes of you," Ganondorf retorted smugly, ignoring the injuries he had sustained from the previous attacks. Shadow of course, didn't take that very well and doubled his efforts in the swordfight.
"Question for ya, Big Ginger," Lore said between arrows. "D'you think that tunic makes you look fat?"
Ganondorf smiled thinly. "A valiant effort, boy. But I am no longer so easily baited."
Lore frowned, but in a way that made you immediately suspect that he was up to something. "Now that's just too bad... I guess if names won't work I'll just be forced to call you by your name. Ganondork it is."
The Gerudo King froze for a split second and got knocked in the head for his trouble. "...WHAT?!"
"Ganondork," Lore said, not missing a beat. "That is your name, right?"
"I WILL MURDER YOU WHERE YOU STAND!"
"Well that's not a very nice thing to say to someone," Lore scolded. Then he yelped and dove out of the way as Ganondorf tried to run him through with his sword. But in doing so, he left himself wide open for a counterattack.
Which of course, the Links were happy to provide.
Dusk shot in underneath Ganondorf's arm and stabbed his sword straight into the scar on the Gerudo King's chest. At the same time, Shadow, who wasn't about to be left behind, swooped in from the other side and planted his weapon right next to Dusk's.
Ganondorf jerked backwards in surprise, swords poking from his body, and promptly got hit by a swarm of arrows, all of which were impeccably aimed and embedded themselves in whatever parts of the scar weren't already pierced. Regardless of how thick that scar tissue may have been, there was no way it could stand up to that much abuse.
Ganondorf staggered. He came down heavily on one knee and braced himself on his sword, glaring at the Links.
"As much as I hate you... I know when I am beaten. Most of you... fought well. Others... are masters of the deceptive arts and have no honor in battle whatsoever."
"Thank you, thank you very much," Lore said, bowing extravagantly. Ganondorf fixed him with a baleful stare.
"You had better hope that none of my fellow villains catch onto your tricks, boy. But I am sure you will forgive me if I very much hope that they do."
Lore shrugged, not sure how to respond to that.
Ganondorf then turned his stare on all the Links, making sure to find every one of them individually. And then he started to laugh. It was quite unnerving, in a way that Zant had never been during the time they had fought him.
He was still chuckling when he dissolved into the hole that the Links were familiar with.
"...Well that was... different," Ocarina decided.
Dusk scooped up his sword from where it had landed after Ganondorf had vanished. "I can't believe I would have had to face that alone."
Shadow snorted, then leaned down and picked up his own sword. "You're just a wimp. That wasn't bad at all."
"What would be your definition of bad then?" Ocarina wanted to know. Shadow threw him a deadpan stare.
"Wouldn't you like to know."
Gen started pulling out bottles of different colors and sizes from his bag and handing them out to people. He seemed to have accepted his unspoken role of medic and was taking to it rather well. Then he paused.
"Where's Speck?"
"The Four aren't around either," Wind realized. "And neither is Red."
"Red went that way," Green said, pointing. "I think he was looking for a jar?"
"Okay, when and where did you find time to even acknowledge that?" Blue said, staring at his leader. "We were in the middle of a fight for our lives!"
"It's my job to know where you guys get off to," Green told him. "What kind of leader would I be if I didn't make sure you were safe?"
"...That answers nothing."
"Why a jar though?" Sketch wondered.
"It's my portable Portal," Speck answered, walking up behind the group full sized and still somewhat dizzy. Gen took one look and promptly handed him a green potion. The energizing effects helped tremendously and Speck instantly became a lot more lucid. "Thanks."
"Don't mention it," Gen said, taking back the now empty bottle. "You get any good hits in?"
"Stabbed his ears a couple times," Speck replied. "Not sure if it helped, but it sure seemed to make him mad."
"We'll say..." The Four muttered. They had arrived just after Speck did, along with Red.
"He had his hand over his ear at that one bit, remember?"
Suddenly, there was a bright sparkly flash and a very irate native Princess Zelda materialized in front of the group.
"Exactly what has been going on?"
"Hello Princess," Midna said brightly, waving. Dusk turned vaguely red and muttered something probably awkward.
"I've been getting absolutely swamped with reports of a massive fight going on outside the Town," Zelda continued, tactfully ignoring Dusk's predicament. "Now, I know this was your job, Link, and you've been doing great, don't get me wrong. But really? Right outside a civilian populace? Do you have any idea of how much panic there's been?"
"Yeeaah, well... he kinda went on a rampage," Dusk explained. Zelda just shook her head.
"And you haven't even begun explaining to me who all these people are. Who are all these people?"
"See now, that's a bit complicated," Lore said. "It started with a hole and it all just went downhill from there."
Zelda blinked, looking thoughtful. "I do remember there being a hole in my throne room when you left, Link... is that what you've been doing all this time?"
"Which one of us is she talking to?" Steam whispered.
"Dusk, I think," Sketch whispered back. "That's who she's looking at."
"Who's Dusk?" Zelda asked pointedly. The boys flinched.
"That's it," Lore declared. "You're all getting lessons on the proper volume of a whisper. This is getting ridiculous!"
"Is there something you'd like to explain to me?" Zelda demanded.
"I... uh..."
"Oh for crying out loud," Midna muttered. "He's them, they're him, and they gave each other nicknames to differentiate between themselves. They're all Link, by the way, in case that wasn't obvious."
Zelda took Midna's explanation silently, seeming to puzzle over something. Her mouth was moving soundlessly as she worked things out in her head. Then-
"So the holes are actually rifts in the time-space fabric, causing a temporal disruption that created a resonance chain thereby throwing all the Heroes that have ever existed or ever will exist together and somehow connecting itself throughout Hyrule's entire history. It wouldn't surprise me a bit if the goddesses were involved in bringing you together somehow..." She trailed off muttering vague theories about spatial relation and other unintelligible words strung together.
Mask and Ocarina stared at her with mixed expressions of awe, adoration, and shock.
"Finally, someone understands time travel!" Ocarina cried ecstatically.
"Where have you been all our life?" Mask complained. "We've been trying to explain the logic of time travel to ourselves for weeks, and you can see how well that's been going."
"Well by all means, don't let me stop you," Zelda said, suddenly much more cheerful and at ease with the situation. "Clearly you Links have an important job to do if you've got to fix both time and space."
"Tell me about it," Realm agreed.
"I'll head back and do some damage control in Town," Zelda decided. She gave the surrounding landscape a baleful stare and continued, "And I should probably have the Castle Guard do some actual damage control out here, this place is a mess!" With that, the Princess vanished in another flash of bright sparkles.
"I think I understood about half the words that came out of her mouth," Blue said as the group slowly straggled towards the hole Ganondorf had left.
"She's always been a bit like that," Dusk said, shrugging. "She's smart. Really smart."
"But you," Lore said to him , "you really weren't much help at all. All you did was stand there and sputter. Heck, even Midna was more help than you!"
"What's that supposed to mean?" Midna asked, eye narrowed dangerously. Lore shrank a little under her gaze.
"Nothing..."
"Hmm..." Midna examined him for a second, then decided he was being honest. "Well, I know why the little wolf wasn't much help."
"Not now Midna," Dusk groaned.
"He liiiikes her," Midna sang, doing a little midair twirl. The group processed that for a second.
"...Not bad, dude," Steam said, reaching up and giving Dusk a clap on the shoulder. "Not bad at all. I wish you luck in all your romantic endeavors."
Dusk spluttered, then gave up and stared at the ground, face bright red.
"That's nothing to be ashamed of," Wind told him. "I think we've all liked a certain princess at one point or another in our lives, right?"
There was a consensus of nodding and a few affirmative noises. Midna made a disgusted noise.
"Never make fun of a Link in front of other Links," she muttered.
Evenutally, the Links reached the hole and slumped around it in groups. On one hand, they knew the importance of moving quickly and fixing the problem.
On the other hand, they had been riding an adrenaline high for the past hour or more and had just crashed, hard.
There was much snoring.
Shadow, on the other hand, didn't need much sleep. He was made of dark magic, after all. He was also basking in the revenge he had wreaked upon Ganondorf, and wasn't about to waste any of that time of sleep.
Midna didn't sleep much either, simply because she was a Twili and they worked differently than Hylians.
Eventually, the two stopped ignoring each other and more-or-less had a civil conversation.
"...You did good, Shady-boy," Midna said.
Shadow snorted. "Really? That's the best you can come up with?"
"Oh, just you wait. I'll come up with the best insult you've ever heard and it will be devastating." She cracked a fanged grin, then continued, "I have no intention of losing to you."
Shadow just rolled his eyes.
They sat in silence for a few more minutes, before Shadow unexpectedly spoke up.
"They really like each other, have you noticed?"
"The Links, you mean? Yeah, I've noticed."
"Hmph. What do you think will happen at the end of all this?"
Midna frowned. "I guess... they'd all go back to their own Hyrules."
"Separated by time," Shadow agreed. "And probably never seeing each other ever again."
"As if I'd let that happen," Midna scoffed. "The little wolf just found himself some siblings, he shouldn't lose them so fast."
"Well then," Shadow said, "what are you gonna do about it?"
Midna opened her mouth, realized she didn't know, and closed it again. Shadow sighed exasperatedly and stood up.
"I'm going ahead," he told her. "This is intensely boring and pointless. I'll meet up with the group in the next Hyrule."
Since when do you tell us where you're going?" Midna asked. Shadow thoroughly ignored her and vanished through the hole without another word, leaving Midna with the silence of sleeping Links and her own thoughts. She frowned contemplatively.
"What am I going to do about it indeed..." she murmured. "Maybe..."
Just maybe.
"He's right, you know," Nayru said to her sisters.
"And it annoys me to no end," Din grumbled.
"The question is, are we going to do anything about it?" Farore asked.
"We could, no doubt about that," Nayru mused. "The question is, should we, and if so, why?"
"They'll need to prove themselves," Din said. "So far they've just been kinda... frivolous."
"So we watch, then," Farore decided. "We watch and we judge. In the end, we decide. And if they've passed..."
"We'll see what we can do," Nayru finished.
I am REALLY sorry that this update took so long... by my standards anyway. I've had a LOT of schedule rearranging going on lately, and finding time to write has gotten a lot harder. I think... I'll probably be throwing a regular update schedule out the window. Updates are now whenever I finish them.
On the bright side, I have absolutely no intention of abandoning this story. I'm gonna finish this sucker even if it takes me 'til next October.
Oh, and if the note at the top of the chapter sounded cranky, I apologize. I just got really tired of explaining my reasoning over and over to people who apparently don't read my authors notes or they would have known my answers already.
Until next time,
Changeling
Thanks to letsagomario, Moonlight Raven Grave, Trainer88k, flowercandy03, The Legend of Zelda Fangirl, Tsukarete, prowessMaster44, Fading Sunlight, and Immortal Horse for favoriting/following!
therichardater: Uh... well, above you in the previous chapter next to A Reader's name. The one answer applied to both comments
lestagomario: Well, thank you for being so understanding.
Okami no Fude: Analyzing. Good. And that's in progress.
SkyPirate0614: ...Maybe. If I feel like it, I suppose.
Freefan1412: Also, I usually need recovery time before I launch another fight scene.
Dark Pit Not Pittoo: Yes. Yes I do. And that's a good idea. I might use that.
Sianna Scale: They already know he's the Hero of Time, both he and Ocarina introduced themselves as such. I suppose, if you really, really want it, I can work in a freak-out scene somewhere... in a very future chapter. Planning, and all that.
Immortal Horse: ...Is that an actual thing? Or did I just inadvertently invent it? Ohhhhh crud, please don't tell me I inadvertently invented it.
SkyStar901: That's Lore. And I did note his hair was ginger, or at least questionably colored compared to the other Links. And he is pink as a rabbit... er, used to be,
miano53: Well... kinda. More like knocked himself slightly off.
Vanillite the Dragonslayer: ...Whoops. But, to be honest, I really had thought I'd answered that in a previous chapter. Sorry.