(Sorry about the wait last time Universe, but Life got in the way.)
...Life. Don't talk to me about Life.
(I would think the two of you would be good friends.)
Life has all these exacting conditions that need to be met. I'm more of a free-floater.
(Okay then... Well, you ready for the disclaimer?)
The author does not own the Legend of Zelda. Good thing too, because you don't have money for the plane fare to Japan.
(College costs so much money...)
"...Green?"
"Yes, Red?"
"...I can't sit up."
Green let out a resigned huff of air. "Neither can I."
"Did we overdo it?"
"Probably, Red. Probably."
"You all overdid it," Shadow snorted from where he was sitting a few feet away. "All things considered, you guys have it easy. You should see the state Realm's in, he can't even move."
"I have never been this sore in my life," Realm moaned somewhere to the left.
"How come you're not down here with the rest of us?" Blue asked.
Shadow flashed a smug grin. "Because unlike the rest of you, I don't have to worry about pesky things like muscles and blood flow."
"...That's just not fair."
"Oi, loud people," Lore's voice drifted over. "I'm trying to sleep, and if you haven't noticed we are all completely wiped. Have some consideration, will you?"
"He's got a point, actually," Vio said. "Why and how are we currently awake?"
Immediately after asking this question, everyone who was listening suddenly realized exactly how tired they still were and decided they were going back to sleep.
Some hours later, the less-sore Links were straggling over to where Gen was passing out Potions, and the more-sore Links were lying on the ground and waiting for somebody to take pity on them.
The problem lay in the fact that Shadow was the only Link who fit into the 'less-sore' category, and he was both very cranky and very unwilling to play delivery boy.
Then there was the fact that Zelda, who was still bound, gagged and thoroughly unable to move, had appeared from somewhere and was giving her best authoritative glare which Mask weakly translated as, 'Link, untie me THIS INSTANT!'
Once that was done (by Shadow of course, since he was the only one capable of movement), Zelda evaluated the situation, decided her questions could wait, and took up the task of handing out Potions since Shadow, for the previously mentioned reasons, wasn't too keen on it.
"Really, did you boys have to destroy all of the surrounding countryside?" Zelda asked as she pressed a bottle into Lore's hands.
"Some of it was a Dragon," Lore moaned from somewhere. "Actually, make that most of it... actually, make that all of it..."
"Giant Spider," Gen groaned helpfully.
"Okay, the Dragon did most of it," Lore corrected tiredly. "The Spider was responsible for the rest."
He uncorked the bottle with effort and took a large swallow, then continued with, "There was a lot of fire... and earthquakes... and poison... and magic... and webbing... and-"
"I think I see your point," Zelda said, cutting him off gracefully. "I retract my previous question and instead commend you on still leaving the landscape recognizable as... er... dirt."
"You're welcome," Lore said firmly, and took another large gulp of Potion.
Zelda just shook her head with a smile. "Now, how about you explain to me where all your other versions came from? If we've got a problem in the space-time continuum then I need to know about it."
"Actually, we're the ones fixing it," Dusk said, struggling into a sitting position. "So the problem is already being taken care of."
"You boys," Zelda chuckled, taking another round of Potions from Gen. "I don't know how you do it. Every time something happens it seems like Link is right there in the middle. I'm guessing that trait isn't just specific to my Link here?"
"It's apparently universal," Wind agreed, somewhat ruefully. The tone was good-natured, though.
Zelda chuckled again and handed him a Potion. "So, what should I call you all? If you're all named Link, that must have been incredibly confusing and I'm willing to guess you've all worked around it by now."
"I nicknamed us!" Red piped up cheerfully. Beside him, Blue winced and covered his ears.
"Not so loud..."
"Alright then, Link, which name would you prefer?" Zelda said to Lore. The ginger Hero paused mid-swallow and looked contemplative.
"Bwoare," he said – then frowned, swallowed, and repeated, "Lore. It's easier that way, plus the rest of us won't get confused as to which one you're talking to." He gave a jaunty wink and added, "Plus it's kinda grown on me."
"Lore," Zelda repeated. "It fits. And what are the rest of you called?"
"That's Steam," Lore said, pointing. "And I'm gonna let him take the rest, because I'm too sore and I want to finish this bottle."
"Cheapskate," Steam grumbled affectionately. "Okay... well, you know I'm Steam."
"Hello," Zelda smiled.
"This here's Sketch," Steam began, pointing gingerly to the Link lying next to him. "Over there's Speck, next to him is Ocarina and Ocarina's older self Mask – oh, but Mask is the twelve-year old."
"How-" Zelda started.
"Don't ask, it's complicated," Steam said with the air of one well-used to weird. "Behind them is Wind, next to him are the Four, next to them is Dusk..."
Steam continued going down the list as everyone else drank Potion and waved painfully when their name was called – except for Shadow, who rolled his eyes and flipped his hood up over his head.
"Nice to meet you all," Zelda said once Steam was done. "But are you all planning on recovering right here?"
"That's how we usually do it," Gen replied.
Zelda arched an eyebrow. "Tell me, how long has it been since any of you slept in a bed?"
Lore blinked. "...What's a bed?"
He received head smacks from everyone within reach and unamused glares from everyone else.
"Alright, I'm joking, sheesh," Lore muttered. "Take a chill pill, why don't you?"
"I will take that as 'a very long time'," Zelda decided. "Shadow, would you be so kind as to help me move your friends back to the Castle?"
"Wait, we don't need to," Wind said abruptly. "If we're going back, then I know where it is and that means I can just do this."
He raised his arm, feebly, and waved his Wind Waker in a down-right-left-up pattern, which was promptly followed by a veritable tornado that whisked everyone up – and set everyone down right in the middle of the Castle courtyard.
"And exactly how long have you been able to do that?" Mask demanded.
Wind shrugged. "I dunno... couple years, maybe?"
"And you never saw reason to do it before because...?"
"We never made return trips before. It only works on places I've been to."
"...Well that just seems counterintuitive," Mask muttered.
"I didn't make the thing," Wind replied.
"You boys," Zelda laughed. "Guards, help the heroes to the guest hall, please? And someone let housekeeping know we need seventeen piles of blankets – unless Shadow sleeps as well?"
"Why would I ever waste my time on something like sleep?" Shadow snorted.
"Seventeen," Zelda told her staff, who nodded and scattered in various directions.
"So much sore..." Blue wheezed as a pair of Guards lifted and started carrying him.
More hours later, the effects of the Potions had finally kicked in and most of the Links were up and about. There were a few exceptions, Realm being one of them and Speck being another. Realm obviously because he'd gotten stung and thrown, and Speck because Ganon had a tight grip. And Gen was all too willing to doctor them.
"You promised," he reminded Realm, holding out yet another bottle of Potion and shaking it. "And this time there's no rampaging Dragon to get you out of it."
"You should probably do as he says," Speck opined, steadily draining his own bottle. "Remember how stubborn he can be?"
"I need to be in order to keep Lore in line," Gen said darkly. "And lucky for you, I'm applying it here. Now drink."
Realm groaned. "If I swallow anything else, I'm going to be sick."
"Better than permanently crippled," Gen said, unrepentant.
"Goodness, they really took a number this time," Nayru observed.
"It's a good thing Courage is so persistent," Farore agreed. "Speaking of which, how's their progress?"
"Well," Din said, looking over the timeline, "I've got good news and bad news. Which one do you want first?"
"Bad," Farore said. "That way we end on a positive note."
"Okay then. As of right now, Hyrule at the end of the timeline has been completely consumed. It's currently working it's way through the alternate versions and the Hyrule under the ocean is in the process of vanishing as we speak."
Both her sisters stared blankly. "...Explain to me how there is any good news coming out of this," Nayru said at last.
"Courage is close to the source," Din replied. "There's only three other periods of Hyrule that he needs to go through before he reaches the founding point."
"Which is where he can fix everything," Farore finished. "That's... well, I guess it is good news..."
"It just gets overshadowed by the sheer amount of bad news," Nayru added.
"Not... helping..."
"Hey, it's not all bad," Din countered. "Remember that time we gave Demise the slip a couple months ago? Well, he's almost found us again! We can finally give him that Beatdown-To-Stall-Him!"
"...Again, how is that good news?" Farore asked. However, her question was ignored since Din was busy cackling in excitement and imagining all the ways she was going to give Demise what was coming to him. Nayru glanced between her two sisters and just shrugged helplessly.
"I'm beginning to be concerned for her sanity," Farore decided.
It took another full twenty-four hours for everyone to recover completely – or, rather, for Gen to decide that everyone had recovered completely. He wouldn't admit it, but that fight had brought them closest to losing a Link permanently and that fact scared him a little. So, he assayed his fears by cramming two extra Potions down everyone's throats and making absolutely one-hundred-and-twenty-percent sure that nobody had any leftover injuries.
All it really succeeded in doing was making everyone more annoyed at him than they were, on average, at Lore. Which was really saying something. Even the Princess eventually walked up to the half-leader Link and told him, in no uncertain terms, that he could stop mothering now.
"Thanks again, really," Dusk said once everything had been sorted. "I can't begin to tell you how much we all needed that."
"It was my pleasure," Zelda smiled. "After all Lore's done for this country, it was the least I could do to pay him back. Not to mention that you all had a part in freeing me from Veran and stopping the subsequent rampage of monsters."
Dusk shrugged awkwardly. "It's... just sorta what we do." The Hero of Twilight, like most other Links, had no idea what to do with praise. Since most of their heroic acts came about simply because no one else could, they often didn't expect anything in return. Not to mention that a lot of the Links were uncomfortable with the spotlight.
Dusk, unfortunately, was one of those Links. Thankfully though, Zelda was good at reading social cues and discreetly changed the subject.
"Where will you go now?" She asked.
Dusk shrugged again. "Wherever we end up," he replied. "We don't really know where we're going until we're there."
"Speaking of which," Lore said, popping up from absolutely nowhere and slinging an arm around the taller Hero's shoulders, "we should be getting going, yeah?"
"It's your call, not mine," Dusk reminded him patiently. Lore beamed.
"Brilliant!"
He then proceeded to dubstep his way back to the rest of the Links.
...Somehow.
The hole, as it turned out, had never actually left Hyrule Field. So after saying their final goodbyes to Lore's Zelda, Wind used his transportation trick again and whisked everyone back to the battlefield.
…Which was a complete disaster zone.
"Din," Mask commented. "We did a serious number on this place."
"Were we just too unconscious to notice the first time around?" Ocarina wondered.
"You didn't even wake up for a solid day and a half the first time around," Shadow snorted. "I was this close to up and leaving you people, it was so boring. You're all lucky I remembered Midna was available to insult or I might have actually done it."
"We tolerate you too, Shadow," Speck said cheerfully.
"Can it, Pipsqueak."
Speck just smiled.
"Okay," Wind said in an attempt to get everyone back on track. "Are we all completely recovered?"
"Yep," Red chirped.
"And we're all ready to go?"
"Does Realm have his sword?" the Four asked.
"Great question," Wind declared. "Realm, have you got all your weaponry, items, and anything else remotely misplace-able?"
The following silence in which Realm abjectly failed to speak up lasted for thirty-three seconds before it was broken by Wind heavily facepalming himself.
"Of course he did," he groaned.
"We'll go this way," the Four said, already heading off.
It took another ten hours, a sandtrap, seventeen different conversations with Subrosians, a drum, forty-two sticks, three Bottles, five swordfights, eight separate incidents involving Chu-Chus, eight separate incidents involving Cuccos, rope, a circus troupe, more rope, a blacksmith, even more rope, a house-sized bomb, Midna's insulting prowess, a completely different set of eight separate incidents involving Chu-Chus (this time they were green), a Like-Like ambush, the Rod of Seasons, both Ocarinas of Time, the Postman, one singular Green Rupee, a map, the Spirit Train, quite possibly the Single Tallest Tree any Link had ever seen ever, Shadow, Shadow's cloak, Shadow's cloak's message, the ensuing mob and riot that happened because of Shadow's cloak's message, running, tripping, dodging, blocking, screaming, shrieking, yelling, shouting, bellowing, whispering, hiding, and twenty-seven uses of Wind's transportation method.
"I honestly have no idea what happened," Realm apologized sheepishly while the mob rioted behind him and something exploded. "I swear I took a left when everyone else did!"
"Realm," Wind said slowly. "Point for me which direction you think is left."
Realm lifted his arm, then paused, furrowed his eyebrows, and did a three-sixty spin before coming back to his original position.
"...Your left or my left?" he asked. "Because I'm gonna come clean right now and say I have absolutely no idea."
"...You defy the Laws of Everything," Wind decided, shaking his head and starting up his transportation spell before anything else could go sideways.
"We ready this time?" Steam checked.
"Ninety-percent sure," Vio replied, halfway through a head count. "And... has anyone seen Shadow?"
"After he started the mob and subsequent riot I made him pay a visit to Midna," Dusk answered. "Of course, I informed her of what happened, so... yeah. I'm pretty sure they've been going at each other for a solid three hours at this point."
"How's your head doing?" Speck asked sympathetically.
"I'm getting a little backlash whenever Midna yells too loudly, but overall not too bad," Dusk answered. "Thanks for asking, though."
"So in other words, we're as ready as we're going to get," Green summarized.
"Excellent!" Lore declared. "Not that I don't love my Hyrule, but Din if it isn't dull around here without a rampaging monster. Meet you on the other side!"
With that, the ginger Link marched through the hole and vanished, leaving the rest of the group to exchange resigned glances.
"...You made him leader, not me," Gen said stoutly before following Lore through.
Their first clue was that the sky was yellow.
Their second clue was that both Ocarina and Mask blanched and facepalmed themselves at exactly the same time.
"Who's native here?" Ocarina asked his older-but-younger self.
"Fairness would say it's your turn since I had Termina," Mask answered with a wrinkled brow, "but all things considered I probably know more about this place then you do. So I have no idea."
"Um... Tag-team?"
"Worth a shot."
"I take it this means it's your Hyrule?" Realm asked.
"Yep," The two Heroes of Time answered.
Lore took in a full panoramic view and blinked. "For some reason, I expected it to be less... evil."
"Well, that's more or less my fault," Mask said. Ocarina frowned.
"You mean my fault."
"Er... Our fault," Mask corrected hesitantly. "Currently, Ganondorf is in control of the country and it was... is, my... er, Ocarina's job to stop him."
"Oh, Sweet Nayru this is ridiculous," Ocarina muttered.
"Like you've got a better idea of how I should be phrasing these sentences?"
"According to the book," Ocarina said, suddenly holding Lore's gift and flipping through the pages, "the proper terminology is, 'It is-on going-wer-on to be-on my younger self's job to stop-wer-on him'."
Mask blinked. "...Say what now?"
"Yeah, I don't know either," Ocarina concluded. "Just... keep doing what you're doing?"
"And what, exactly, are you doing?" Gen asked, looking utterly confused. His expression was exactly matched by fourteen other faces.
"We're trying to tell you that our next villain is going to be our," Ocarina motioned to Mask and himself, "Ganondorf. And it's gonna be a doozy."
"How bad could it be?" Sketch asked.
"You remember Dusk's Ganondorf?" Mask questioned dryly. There were a few winces as the Links thought back.
"Well, this is the guy that that guy got all his ideas from," Ocarina finished.
"...Oh, this is gonna be so much not-fun," the Four decided.
Guess who's got Fan Art? THIS STORY!
...Can you tell I'm excited?
Greenapplefreak of DeviantArt has made a very nice piece of fan art for Dimensional Links. In lieu of putting the link here, as I'm sure it won't work due to some wonky thing with the Fanfiction site, I'm just going to give you the name of the thing and hope that's enough to find it. It is titled An 18 man army.
In other news, this was the 'Let the Links recover' chapter. 'Cause I kinda put them through heck last time and I figured they needed a break. And I apologize for both the short length and the long wait. I had the worst case of Writer's Block, and I literally had to drag every paragraph out of my imagination and then fix it.
Oh, and before I forget, I've been going through my earlier stuff and editing. Nothing major, but most of the Three Goddess scenes have been changed so you may want to go back and peek at those. And also, Lore's profanity. Apparently, 'bloody' is a fairly strong curse word in Britain.
...My apologies to any British natives I may or may not have been offending over the course of the last forty-something chapters.
Until next time,
Changeling
Thanks to all-American-heroine, BKGeno, Oreocat155338, Gorko the Goron,Jacobo139, Rowknan, ChibiChocolates, Lady of Teacups, Tyler Darkside, brice51297, TheChargingRhino, Tinyterror, smoll Gcat, Technofairy, DalekDavros, xXAnonymousBunnyXx, RogueArabesque, and TopPercentage for favoriting/following!
Fbfan: I... don't actually think Veran can do that. In all the research I did on her for this chapter, making babies was never mentioned.
The has-been who never will-be: Well, since Valoo spent most of his screen-time being antagonistic, I decided to include him. Plus, the Helmaroc King is pretty similar. / As a matter of fact, I am subscribed to PBG. His ZeldaMonth videos are always interesting and have occasionally been helpful with this fic. / I don't actually have a favorite song because I like so many it's impossible to choose. / No, I have not seen Les Miserables. / And your joke was actually quite amusing :)
Rockster: Well, Fire Keese are Keese that are on fire, whereas the Keese Ganon was spawning were made of fire. I felt the need to differentiate. / ...Oh my goodness you're right. Kirb would have the perfect voice/personality for Shadow. That's hilarious.
Guest: Well, this was an idea I had kicking around in my head for... oh, probably months. When I couldn't find a story that matched what I wanted, I decided to make my own. ...After extensive reading, research, and time spent convincing myself that I'd be good at it.