(So, I was going to say something about going to see the Batman v. Superman movie... but then I realized I would be revealing spoilers. So now... I don't have anything to say.)

You are on the Internet, there is no such thing as preventing spoilers. Why delay the inevitable?

(Because at least, when the readers get it spoiled for themselves, it won't be on me.)

You are such a soft egg.

(… A... 'soft egg'?)

Indeed. Now, the author does not own the Legend of Zelda. They are actually alright with this fact despite numerous claims otherwise, as the author would have absolutely no idea what to do with a multi-billion dollar franchise.

(...The heck is a 'soft egg'? Where'd you get that from? What does it mean!?)

I think I'll let you agonize over it and enjoy the show as opposed to telling you.

(...This is gonna bother me for weeks...)

Infuriatingly, Ganondorf was not in the place where Mask remembered him being.

"You gotta be kidding me. Again?" Sketch groaned. "What is it with the villains and not being conveniently locatable?"

A few Links shrugged in response.

"Maybe this is a good thing," Gen said. "After all, we didn't exactly prepare ourselves for this fight very well. I'm still completely cleaned out of Potion from the last fight."

"So visit the nearest shop and restock," Ocarina replied. "But trust me, an AWOL Ganondorf is about as far from 'good' as you can get."

"He's one of those people that you really want to keep an eye on," Mask agreed. "You feel better when you know where he is, because that way you know he isn't off doing something destructively murderous."

"Er... what if he's being destructively murderous in front of you?" Speck asked hesitantly.

The two Heroes of Time looked at each other. "...That's when you thank the goddesses you're around to stop him and immediately go and do so," Mask decided.

"So Ganondorf is responsible for all of this?" Blue asked, gesturing to the desolate landscape, shuffling Gibdos (who were being given a very wide berth), and complete lack of anything living.

Mask and Ocarina exchanged another glance. "Well... we actually don't know," Ocarina admitted. "We spent the seven years that this happened in asleep inside a Temple. All things considered, it probably was Ganondorf, but... we weren't exactly around to see it."

Dusk frowned. "What was it like, then? Waking up to... all this?"

Neither Hero answered for a few moments.

"...Like a nightmare," Mask decided.

Ocarina blinked. "Wait, I still think that?"

"Well, not me, so much," Mask answered him. "I'm thinking back to being you and remembering how we felt. At my point in life, I... hang on, is this a spoiler?"

"Don't think so," Ocarina said. "So... what, we got over it?"

"...No, not over it," Mask said slowly. "But we did... well, I did, but you will do – wait, is that the right tense? ...Whatever. The point is that we've always got the memory, but we do some things that make the reality better. Make sense?"

"Not really," Ocarina said bluntly.

"That's fine, just remember what I said for your turn and you can confuse your younger self just as well as me."

"Was there a point to this conversation? Because if there was I don't remember it," Lore said thoughtfully.

"I'm restocking on Potions," Gen announced firmly. "So I'm going... where did you say Kakariko was again?"

"That way," Ocarina said, pointing.

"Thanks. I'm going this way," Gen finished. "And as half-leader, I sincerely hope at least somebody is going to follow me."

"Well, me leading is a bad idea and we all know why," Realm said with a sheepish grin. He was currently boxed in by the Four, Wind, Vio, Green, and Shadow, because after the disastrous events of the last fiasco nobody was in the mood to deal with his misdirectional field again. "I'll be following."

"And we'll be going with you," Shadow said darkly, hood drawn far over his face and glyph letters prominently spelling out a phrase highly offensive to moblins on his back. He'd changed it from the general death threat because he'd decided the message had lost it's impact after the same people read it for three weeks straight.

And since nobody else had any better ideas, the rest of the Links followed.

Once they arrived at Kakariko, both Gen and Lore proceeded to get themselves banished from any and all stores for completely different reasons.

Gen was banned because he completely wiped out the entire town's supply of Potion and would have bought more if there was any available. It wasn't so much that the shopkeeper didn't appreciate Gen's business, it was more the fact that having him around was dangerous to the general health of the populace.

In the sense that nobody could get a Potion, that is.

Lore, on the other hand, was banned for being himself in the most Lore-ish way possible. Specifically, he wanted to enchant a stick.

"Here I am," Lore explained to the shopkeeper and waving the stick for emphasis, "walking through the woods and minding my own business, right? And suddenly, I'm ambushed by horrible woodchuck demons! All I have to defend myself is this single, solitary piece of wood that has been functioning as my walking stick for the past three-point-seven-five-two hours, and what happens? My stick is devoured by the ravenous beaver-wannabes!"

Lore had emphasized this apparent dilemma by thrusting the stick into the air and accidentally shattering the lantern hanging from the ceiling, which had caused everything to go quite dark.

"I am overcome with sorrow for my stick!" Lore wept, clutching said wood to his chest. "For, if only it had been enchanted, I would not have been separated from my dearly departed tree-piece!"

This sentence had been punctuated with another wave for emphasis, which had given the shopkeeper a rather large bump on his head.

"I see... sir," the man had replied dryly and not at all in the manner of one trying to keep their temper in check. "And what... sir... enchantments do you wish to put on your stick?"

"Immunity from Fire Keese," Lore promptly replied.

The final straw had been the discovery that the stick Lore was using for his story was actually store merchandise from the Deku Stick bin, and that Lore had neither bought the item, nor anything else for that matter. This, combined with the collateral damage of the lamp, the shopkeeper's head, and the various other items Lore had accidentally-or-on-purpose hit with his wild gesturing, resulted in Lore being literally kicked out from the establishment.

"Of course..." Dusk sighed, shaking his head in a resigned fashion. He then proceeded to take over the restocking mission, as he was easily the most responsible Link in the group.

"You know, maybe Changeling should switch the leadership to a trio and have Dusk be the steady one who keeps Lore and sometimes Gen in time," Blue commented. "From what I can tell, he basically does that already. The only difference is it would be official."

Of course, Blue was immediately knocked unconscious by Shadow, who had taken up minding the walls for the time being and his idea went unheard by everyone except the readers.

"Oi!" Shadow snarled. "Don't make me hit you too!"

"Who are you talking to?" Red asked.

"Just another idiot," Shadow grumbled.

"...Why is Blue out cold?"

"He's learning a lesson."

Red nodded. "Oh, okay. Do you know where Green went?"

"That way," Shadow pointed brusquely.

"Thanks!" Red chirped, and left skipping.

Leaving Kakariko was delayed when Gen discovered that he couldn't fit all the newly-purchased and Potion-filled bottles into his bag due to the contents being a complete jumbled mess. So, while he organized his bag contents and grumbled to himself, the rest of the Links had a sit-down and just enjoyed the breeze.

Well, most of them did. Shadow just pulled his hood farther up over his head and crossed his arms in silent annoyance.

All in all, it was a fairly peaceful scene.

Which was why it came as no surprise to anyone when it was broken by the telltale BANG of an exploding Deku Nut and a tall, red-eyed woman in a bodysuit dropped out of... somewhere.

"Link!" she snapped, yanking down her cowl and revealing herself to be Princess Zelda. "You have some serious explaining to do, and-"

She stopped, blinked, then said, "Why do you have extras? If you've been messing around with the Ocarina of Time again, I will-"

"I only did that the one time and you know it!" Mask retorted.

"Dude, she's talking to me!" Ocarina hissed.

Mask twitched. "Aw, crud."

"Link," Zelda said in that calm voice that actually means the speaker is two seconds away from doing something violent. "What. Did. You. Do."

"She's talking to you," Mask parroted back with an evil smirk. Ocarina shot him a Death Glare before taking a deep breath and facing his irate Princess.

"Zelda!" he said. "Hi. Um... despite all appearances to the contrary, I have not actually broken the Universe. It did that on it's own."

Zelda's eyes narrowed.

"I MEAN," Ocarina frantically backtracked, "something happened to the fabric of reality and I got pulled in to help fix it."

"And I was not the cause of it in the slightest," Mask added.

"Stop doing that!" Ocarina demanded, whirling around and creating an impromptu standoff. "I know we just interchange ourselves around the rest of the guys, but I'm trying to explain ourselves and you answering for me as me isn't helping!"

"I know that, I'm you!" Mask shot back. "Which is why I'm accidentally answering my Princess out of habit even though she's talking to you!"

"I understand that, but if she wasn't going to be intimidating before she certainly is now-"

"Link," Zelda interrupted. "Work it out with yourself and figure out who's talking. Once you've done that, explain yourself."

"...I'm going to shut up and go see what Realm's up to," Mask decided hastily, backing away.

"Eh heh..." Ocarina chuckled nervously as he faced Zelda. "I should probably start by explaining why my child self and my adult self are in the same place at the same time?"

"That would be acceptable," Zelda agreed.

"...My appearance bores me," Shadow decided out of nowhere. "And since you all are busy explaining things to her," he pointed to the local Princess, "I am going to amuse myself by changing it."

"...Hang on, what?" Wind said. "Where's this coming from?"

"I've been looking like him for months, and I'm bored with it," Shadow reiterated, this time pointing at Dusk. "I'm going to change it up. Hold still for a moment."

"But that's-" Wind started, only to get cut off as Shadow abruptly shrank in on himself and turned into an exact – aside from coloring – duplicate of him.

"Hmmm... bit too short for my tastes," Shadow decided. Wind, watching with an open mouth, was experiencing the incredibly disturbing phenomenon of watching his face make emotions without the aid of a mirror and without his doing it himself. He idly wondered how Dusk had managed to not freak out every time Shadow popped up, but this thought only occupied a small corner of his mind. The rest of his head was trying to rationlize and contain his automatic reaction of 'Sweet Din that is creepy!'

"Oh relax," Shadow said, rightly interpreting Wind's expression as 'wierded out'. "I'm not keeping it, I was just trying it on for size." He smirked at the normal Link's discomfort, which Wind found to be such a disturbing look on his own face that he awkwardly decided to look somewhere else.

"...On second thought, if you're going to react like this every time I walk up, the height disadvantage might be worth it," Shadow mused, tapping his chin thoughtfully. "...Nah. Do you know where Realm went?"

Wind pointed wordlessly and watched as his exact copy sauntered off with a gait that Wind had never used in his life.

"...I think my brain just imploded," he decided in a small voice.

"My apologies for making assumptions," Zelda said once everything had been explained to her. "But in my defense, the circumstances gave the appearance of a broken time-stream and the logical conclusion was misuse of the Ocarina of Time."

"Given previous events, it's a perfectly logical mistake," Dusk agreed. "But, all things considered, you seem surprisingly okay with... all of us." He gestured to the rest of the group, where Red was showing Speck how he maximized his Adorable Puppy look to full effect while the latter took notes. "We're not exactly normal."

"You honestly think this would surprise me?" Zelda asked, somewhat dryly. "I've spent the last seven years under the guise of a Sheikah pretending to be Ganondorf's loyal follower. Trust me, I am very good at controlling my emotions."

Dusk nodded. "That makes sense. You know, you remind me a bit of my Zelda back home... you've both got the same look in your eyes."

"What look would that be?"

"Well... like steel, I suppose. You know what you need to do and you've got no qualms about doing it, regardless of the consequences. You're strong."

Zelda gave Dusk an appraising look. "...Does she know you like her?"

Dusk, in a rare display of awkwardness, turned bright red and managed to do a spit-take despite having nothing in his mouth. Inside his head, Midna cackled hysterically.

"How do you people keep noticing that!?" he sputtered.

Zelda cracked a smile. "Piece of advice, Hero. If you don't make a move, she's not going to wait around for you. We Zeldas may be Princesses and rulers of our kingdoms, but we're still women and we appreciate a good romantic gesture once in a while. Tell her what you like about her, and she'll take it from there."

Dusk's face slowly returned to its normal coloring during Zelda's speech, and he nodded slowly with her words. Then he tilted his head and asked, "Does he know you like him?"

Zelda blinked, slowly. "And what makes you say that?"

Dusk shrugged. "It sounded to me like the advice you gave were the things you wanted to hear."

Zelda sighed. "I admit that I have... feelings for the Hero of Time. But clearly, he is caught up in something I cannot hope to understand. Not to mention that I am responsible for the vast majority of the hardships he has had to endure." Her eyes narrowed slightly. "What must he think of me, when it is my fault?"

Dusk hummed for a moment. "Well... you'll never know until you ask. Just... piece of advice," he added. "You might want to ask the twelve-year old version. Believe it or not, he's actually the older one."

Zelda blinked again, this time in mild amusement. "Would you believe that might be my fault as well?"

"What? Causing a space-time rift that pulled duplicate Heroes?"

"No," Zelda said, smiling for a second before becoming serious again. "I was planning, once Ganondorf was defeated and Hyrule saved, to use the Ocarina of Time to send Link back. To give him his childhood again... the time I stole. Your older twelve-year-old version seems to be the result of that decision."

Dusk pursed his mouth thoughtfully. "Were you planning to ask him how he felt about that?"

"I... did not think I would need to."

"It's always a good idea to ask," Dusk advised, standing up and stretching his arms. "Now, wasn't there a reason why you came to find us?"

Zelda snapped her fingers as she remembered. "Yes, there was. I wanted to ask if Link knew why Ganondorf seems to be changing his entire plan of attack. He's been gone for weeks, and now suddenly it's as though he's preparing to crush an army."

"How much do you know?" Dusk asked, suddenly much more attentive.

"Probably enough to make a difference, if only a little," Zelda guessed.

"In that case," Dusk said, waving the rest of the group over, "I think we'd all like to hear what you've got to say."

Under normal circumstances, Lorule Ganon's lack of noticeable return to Demise's head would have infuriated the pig immensely.

At the time though, Majora had still been extremely liable to burn, maim, and generally get-as-close-to-killing-you-as-possible due to the circumstances of its loss. Consequently, Lorule Ganon had been quite content to quietly creep into the background and try not to get himself noticed.

Veran, Onox, and Oracle Ganon returning, however, was an entirely different story.

THOSE LITTLE ********! Veran screamed, causing Demise to twitch in audio-induced pain and eliciting multiple angry reactions from the rest of the villains in his head. HOW DARE THEY! AFTER ALL THAT WORK THEY HAVE THE NERVE TO-

SHUT YOUR MOUTH, WOMAN! Twilight Ganondorf bellowed. I deal with enough idiocy from Zant and Bellum without having to tolerate your failures as well!

We all failed too, Malladus pointed out to the furious sorceress. Join the club. We beat up Zant every third Tuesday.

I get to be a Pinata! Zant enthused.

I am NOT going to be a part of your Incompetence Club! Veran snarled. My plan was foolproof until that redhead IDIOT blundered in!

Clearly not, Demon Vaati muttered – just a bit too loudly.

Onox, Veran said sweetly. Would you do me a favor? There seems to be a bat in the room and I need someone to exterminate the pest.

Demise received the impression of an indifferent shrug. I am not opposed to the idea, Onox replied. After the defeat we have suffered I have some extra aggression to work off. The flying rodent will provide an excellent release.

You dare call me a 'pest'!? Demon Vaati growled. Come at me!

With pleasure!

Immediately following this statement was a resounding BOOM, followed by a crack and a pained shriek from Demon Vaati which went on for a good thirty seconds.

Now why couldn't the so-called Heroes crush as easily as you? Onox wondered over his opponent's wailing.

You're the one who compared them to ants, you tell me, Oracle Ganon grumbled. By the way, I have some useful insight on the wolf-like one.

Demise perked up considerably upon hearing this. "Oh? Weak points, perhaps?"

Nothing so useful, Oracle Ganon said ruefully. I found his Berserk Button.

"Do tell," Demise said. If nothing else, he would at least get to hear how Oracle Ganon had gotten his butt kicked and that was always enjoyable. It also made for excellent blackmail.

He seems to have adopted his counterparts as pack, Oracle Ganon answered. When I put one of the smaller ones in danger of severe bodily harm, he all but dropped everything to stop me.

He paused, then added, It was very painful.

Demise considered this information and let a smirk slide onto his face. "Interesting. Very interesting... I can't believe I'm saying this, but you did well to notice this trait."

It wasn't so much as noticing as it was him outright telling me... Right before he stabbed me... wait, why is this a good thing?

"...This is why you are all failures and idiots," Demise sighed. "Attachments can be powerful things, especially when it is backed by instinct. However, in this particular Hero's case, I believe his attachments may be available to use against him."

I think I'm going to like where this is going, Veran purred, having finished her ranting and now paying attention again.

"Perhaps. Has anyone else noticed something exploitable about any certain Hero during their fights?"

Bellum, who had up to this point been silent as he was a favorite target of both Majora and Onox (and having both of them back was wreaking havoc on the squid's nerves), suddenly spoke up with rapid-fire bubbling noises interjected with two squelches and a blurp.

He says there's one who fears the water, Ocean Ganondorf translated.

Please, Majora said coldly, speaking up for the first time since it had returned. I could tell you all their worst fears right now.

"How do you know this?" Demise demanded. "And why haven't you mentioned it before?"

Hmm... was I supposed to? The mask mused indifferently. I suppose I simply didn't feel like it. As for how I know... I am the incarnation of hatred and fear. I am made from negative emotions, curses, and nightmares. Knowing the secret terrors of my enemies is only natural.

"Well then..." Demise said, grinning. It was not a nice expression. "Care to share with the rest of the class?"

The stalchild stumbled across Hyrule Field with his normal, lurching gait simply because he had nothing better to do. Lord Ganondorf's rule, while an excellent thing for a monster such as himself, had the unfortunate side effect of making travelers a very hard thing to come by. The favorite pastime of the stalchildren race was to ambush unsuspecting commuters as they walked the Fields at night on their way to... wherever they were on their way to. But nowadays, nobody was really all that interested in going outside anymore.

It was rather boring, the stalchild decided. Nobody stuck around anymore. Of course, last he'd heard, Ganondorf had allowed the province of the Castle Town to be repopulated by Gibdos which understandably had further scared off the normal targets even more. Such was the price of a demonic overlord, he supposed.

The result of all this was that the Hyrule Fields were nowadays astonishingly empty.

Which was why the sight of a large grouping of heavily armed and green-clothed boys understandably took the stalchild by considerable surprise. The surprise, however, was immediately followed by confusion, because the description of a green-clothed swordsboy matched the description of the Hero that Lord Ganondorf had been fighting against.

...This was probably something the Lord Ganondorf needed to know about, the stalchild decided, and stumbled off in the direction of his ruler's location.

At this rate, it was definitely going to take a while... but at least he wasn't bored anymore.

"Please don't," Realm said vehemently as Shadow, currently Realm's exact duplicate aside from coloring, did some preliminary stretching to see how the form worked.

"Not bad..." he said appraisingly. "But I may shop around a bit more. How does your musculature respond to lifting weights?"

"...What?"

"Oh in that case, definitely not," Shadow decided firmly. "Pity I can't keep the endurance, but whaddaya gonna do, right?"

"...This is so creepy," Realm stated, eyes locked on his own face. "How did Dusk tolerate you running around with his features?"

"I weighed it against all the other wierdness that happens to me and decided that on the scale of Wolf-Me to Zant, it fell somewhere a little below Ooccoo," Dusk called from some distance away. "After that I ignored it through willpower."

"That makes no sense."

Dusk shrugged. "I know what it means."

Shadow ignored both of them in favor of eyeing the other Links and muttering to himself. "I wonder what would happen if I tried-"

"GAH!" the Four yelped as Shadow abruptly morphed into them.

All Four of them.

"Well this is interesting," the Shadows said. "Didn't think I'd be able to copy that... Is this what it's like being you? It's kinda trippy."

Steam chose that moment to walk by and, after blinking frantically, rubbed his eyes with the air of one fairly certain he is hallucinating.

"Someone please tell me I'm not the only one who sees Four Shadows," he moaned to nobody in particular.

"We wish," the Four groaned.

"Useful for pranks," the Shadows mused to themselves, "but overall, too much effort, we think. What if we tried..."

The four Shadows melted together and reformed as one body, causing everyone to breathe a sigh of relief – except for Steam, who found himself staring at himself and was having trouble processing it.

"Your legs are so short," Shadow said critically, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. "And you've got the worst endurance I've ever copied. Seriously, how'd you ever get around?"

"He rode a Train, remember?" the Four reminded him.

Shadow paused. "Oh that's interesting... I've got all your mechanical know-how. You should really consider building some of these ideas, I think the one about the self-sustaining lantern system has excellent promise for exploding."

Steam promptly took that idea off his list of 'Things to Try Sometime'.

"But I'm not really one for building," Shadow decided. "Besides... you're really short."

"I am not!" Steam said hotly as Shadow began shifting his form again. "I'm taller than Speck!"

"Everyone's taller than me though," Speck pointed out quietly, having wandered over to see what the commotion was about. "And I don't just mean while I'm tiny either."

"It's really not that impressive," Shadow agreed, solidifying. His appearance resembled Ocarina for about ten seconds before Shadow's face morphed into a grimace.

"Been there, done that, not happening again," he said bluntly, and promptly turned into Speck instead – then grimaced again and muttered, "Why the heck did I go for the shortest Link?"

"Because I was available?" Speck volunteered. "Are my bangs really that long?"

"I copy what I see, pipsqueak."

Speck examined himself carefully. "...I could use a haircut," he decided.

"That's all you're getting out of this?" Steam asked incredulously. Speck shrugged.

"He's a free shapeshifter, it had to happen sometime."

"See? At least one of you has the right idea," Shadow said, already changing yet again and shifting into Sketch. "Hey, this one's not half-bad."

"I FORBID YOU TO COPY ME!" Sketch yelled from across the way.

"What is with you people and taking offense to this?" Shadow wondered ill-temperedly. "Dusk took my wearing his face just fine, what's your excuse?"

"Dusk is ridiculously tolerant of just about everything. The rest of us freak out a bit more easily," Realm said.

"I've just spent the last year or so looking like him, I don't want to do it again!" Shadow snapped. "Repeat forms are boring and I refuse to be short again after being forced into it when I copied those four idiots!"

Red frowned. "I thought Blue was the idiot."

"It depends on my mood, the crankier I am the more likely I am to insult your intelligence," Shadow growled. "Speaking of which, Sketch, your brain is in your floppy hair and I don't want to deal with it."

Sketch gaped impotently and tried to figure out the proper retort to that. Shadow ignored him thoroughly and blurred, stretched upwards, and resolved into a dark copy of Gen.

"...Ooh, this one is very nice," Shadow purred, examining his new fingers. "I think I'll keep it."

"You'll do no such thing," Gen snapped, marching up and jabbing his identical fingers into Shadow's identical face. "Copy Lore if you want to mimic one of the leaders. And I am seriously beginning to be creeped out by the fact that I'm effectively telling myself off."

Shadow matched Gen's glare with one of his own, which was basically Gen's glare only with Shadow's attitude behind it. "Get over it. I like this form and I'm not in the mood to go about changing it again. And there's nothing you can do to make me, so suck it up and deal."

Gen twitched.

"OI!" Lore yelled, jogging over and completing the group, with a curious Zelda trailing close behind. "You're picking a new form? Why didn't you try me?"

"...That sounds so wrong out of context," Mask whispered to Ocarina, who nodded emphatically.

Shadow looked Lore up and down critically, then stepped forward and slapped Lore's hair.

"That's why," he said bluntly. "Your hair is large, poofy, hangs over your head like a ginger-colored raincloud and I don't want to deal with it. Get a haircut and maybe I'll consider it, but until then my standing reason is that it looks stupid."

It was a good thing, Gen decided, that although Shadow looked identical to him at the moment, the voice was still Shadow's. Otherwise this whole dark-doppelganger thing would have seriously been freaking him out.

"Oh, and I'm still keeping this," Shadow added, throwing a smug glance at Gen which clearly said, 'Wanna do something about it?'

"...Just don't rob a bank in my name and I'll tolerate it," Gen sighed heavily, utterly done with the whole situation.

"Excellent," Shadow grinned. "If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go and rob a store instead."

"SHADOW!"

"Hey, you only said to not rob a bank! Excuse me for exploiting the clearly specified loopholes! "

"DON'T YOU DARE!" Gen bellowed, and took off sprinting after the cackling Shadow who was making a beeline for Kakariko.

"...Is this a normal occurrence?" Zelda asked after a moment of silence.

"Yes," the Links chorused.

"They'll be back eventually... probably," Dusk decided. "So, you were saying before about Ganondorf?"

"Oh yes," Zelda remembered. Before Shadow's antics had interrupted everything, the majority of the Links had been hearing what she knew about Ganondorf's current whereabouts.

Granted it wasn't much, as the King of Thieves was annoyingly paranoid sometimes, but something was still better than nothing.

"Ganondorf, as far as I can tell, has been setting up safehouses in various places around Hyrule," Zelda started. "I haven't been able to confirm anything because before he vanished the first time, he'd just discovered my alter-identity as Sheik." She motioned to her outfit and pulled her cowl up to demonstrate, which admittedly made it much harder to tell she was female, much less Princess Zelda. You had to look closely to figure it out.

"And since he knows I hold the Triforce of Wisdom, I'm now a highly-sought target," Zelda finished. "So my attempts at reconnaissance have been somewhat... limited."

"...If your life is in danger simply by being out in the open," Steam said slowly, "why the heck are you out in the open?"

"I'm surrounded by eighteen trained swordsmen who are literally taught and equipped to fight evil," Zelda replied dryly. "If this doesn't keep me safe, then I'm going to have a serious chat with Link here about what he does with his free time that none of his alternate versions can protect their Princess."

"...Good point."

"Safehouses?" Dusk prompted.

"I was getting to that," Zelda replied. "From here, the closest one would be in the Lost Woods-"

"We're doomed," Sketch said decisively.

"I beg your pardon?"

"You said the Lost Woods," Sketch explained. "The fact that you said it basically ensures that we're going because of reasons. And we've got a walking Misdirectional Field with us."

"I'm not that bad!" Realm protested.

"Yes you are," the Four told him bluntly.

"So doomed," Steam said.

"SHADOW, I'M SERIOUS! DON'T USE MY FACE FOR THIS!"

Shadow screeched to a halt and flashed around to meet Gen, who was glaring at the dark Link with all the force he could muster.

"What can I use your face for then?" Shadow asked, smirking.

"Honestly I'd rather you not use my face at all!" Gen snapped back. "But clearly arguing with you is going to get me absolutely nowhere, so I'm just going to settle for keeping you out of trouble with it!"

Shadow's grin slowly morphed into a frown. "It bothers you that much? Why?"

Gen, having not expected the conversation to take this turn, forgot that he was upset and pondered the question. "...It's my face," he said at length. "I dunno, it's... it's me. Your face is one of those things that nobody else has, and I guess it... bothers me, or something? That you're just taking it and doing whatever you want with it. It feels like... like something's being violated... I don't know how to explain it better," Gen finished, annoyed.

"Dusk never seemed to mind," Shadow pointed out, repeating the earlier conversation.

"Yeah, but he's Dusk. He can put up with anything. The man lives with Midna in his head, you really think seeing himself walking around is gonna bother him?"

"So... what you're saying," Shadow said slowly, "is that when I'm copying you, I'm... what, stealing something?"

"...Yes?" Gen agreed hesitantly. "Well, maybe not exactly... Look, I don't quite know what it is, I just know it feels wrong."

Shadow absorbed that and stood quietly for a moment. "...You realize that I'm the Hero's Shadow," he said at length. "All I can do is copy, that's just how I am. I don't have my own face. I will always need to use someone else's."

Gen scowled. "That's depressing. No wonder you're so cranky all the time."

"I'm cranky because you all are idiots," Shadow snorted. "Putting up with your stupidity gives me a headache and a half."

Gen glared at him, but there wasn't much force behind it – especially when an idea occurred to him. "Have you ever tried copying everyone at once?"

Shadow blinked. "What now?"

"You know, like, take a median or something," Gen gestured vaguely. "Combine everyone's features into one face and make that one yours. You'd still be copying the Hero, so no problems there, and if you wanted you could probably pick and choose different features from different Heroes to get the look you're going for."

Shadow stared at him, his expression looking like it was torn between two opposite emotions. "...I can't decide whether that's brilliant or the stupidest thing I've ever heard," he said eventually.

"Oi, blatant contradictions are Lore's thing, don't shove it on me," Gen muttered. "Either way, it's at least worth a shot, right?"

Shadow considered this extensively.

"It can't hurt to try," he allowed. Then he smirked. "But if it fails, I blame you for any and all explosions that may or may not kill me. And in the event that I survive the attempt and it fails anyways, I'm still using your face."

Gen dropped his head into his hands and sighed heavily.

"It was your idea, the least you can do is compensate me," Shadow told him with no small amount of relish in his voice.

"...Fair enough," Gen agreed. "But only if it fails."

"Yeah, yeah, you said that already," Shadow muttered, thinking. He counted on his fingers for a moment, frowned, then looked up and gave Gen's appearance a fierce scrutiny, mumbling to himself the entire time.

"...I'll keep the hair," Shadow decided. "You out of all the Links have the most sensible hairstyle. Certainly better than that floppy heap of mess Lore calls his bangs... and while I'm at it, I'll take the eyebrows too. There's nothing more annoying than eyebrows that don't match your hair color. You might as well go around with a sign saying, 'Hello! One of the colors on my face is fake!'"

"...All your coloring is either black or some variation thereof," Gen pointed out slowly. "I don't quite think it matters with you."

"I don't care, your eyebrows are wonderfully expressive and I can get a whole range of sarcastic expressions out of these babies," Shadow retorted. He then proceeded to do what equated to eyebrow gymnastics, running through a range of positions and motions that all managed to convey some level of annoyance, intelligence-questioning, and/or utter boredom. "Yes, these will do nicely," Shadow decided.

"That's... fine, I guess," Gen said, "but what are you going to do about – GAH!"

"What now!?" Shadow snapped, looking... well, it was actually impossible to tell. Aside from the hair on his head and the eyebrows, Shadow currently had absolutely no defining features whatsoever. His face, or where his face ought to be, was a completely blank slab.

"Warn me before you do that!" Gen gasped. "Farore that's creepy..."

"Relax, I'll fill it in as I pick features," Shadow snorted. "Now, if I'm gonna to this right I need my references. You coming?"

"Duh," Gen said.

"-and that's about all I could get before my position became compromised," Zelda finished as Gen and Shadow rejoined the group. "Oh, hello again. How did the robbery go?"

"It didn't happen," Gen answered. "But Shadow decided to take a new perspective on appearances.

"Is that why he has no face?" Realm asked curiously. "I did wonder, but to be honest I figured he was using it to scare some hapless townsperson..."

"I should totally do that sometime," Shadow agreed. Then he took a closer look at Realm overall and grimaced. "Have you got a pug nose? No thanks..."

Realm blinked. "What? What's wrong with my nose?"

"Not my type," Shadow dismissed. "And a big no on the outfit, you look like you're wearing a dress."

Realm frowned at that, now beginning to be offended. "And what, exactly, is wrong with my clothes?"

"Buy some pants," Shadow said bluntly. "I like the belt though, nice and no-nonsense. I'll keep it."

The area around Shadow's midsection solidified into a darkened version of Realm's belt – which looked odd, considering it was the only thing of detail on his entire torso. He then took a good look around at the rest of the Links, muttering every now and then, and occasionally his appearance would change to incorporate something he liked. It was a rather fascinating process to watch.

Somewhere along the way though, it became clear that Shadow wasn't exactly incorporating individual elements from each Link so much as he was taking the general sum of their appearance and layering it on top of what he already had. For example, Shadow mostly incorporated Wind's ear-shape, and his ears changed to match Wind's appropriately – but his facial structure, which he'd borrowed from Ocarina, got ever-so-slightly rounder, influenced by Wind's younger and more childlike face. And when he'd taken Lore's nose, he'd also gotten just a bit more volume in his hair – still nowhere near the floppiness of the original article, but thicker than it had been before.

By the time Shadow was done, he didn't look like a collage of different pieces from different Links. He looked more like a blend, a merge of some defining features – like the eyes he'd taken from Dusk – but with little hints from all the others.

He certainly wasn't a copy anymore.

"Huh. Whaddya know," Blue said. "He makes it work."

"You look awesome!" Red enthused, giving Shadow an impromptu hug and entirely ignoring the way Shadow gritted his teeth in tolerance. "You've totally got your own look now!"

"And your own style, more or less," Wind noted, taking in Shadow's outfit. Like his face, it was basically a blend of features from the clothes the other Links were wearing... sort-of. Shadow had expressly refused to incorporate the tights/legging things that Ocarina, Lore, but after discovering his only other options were either very baggy pants (Gen and Dusk) or no pants at all (Realm, Mask, and a few others), Shadow consented to combine his previous two options and ended up with pants that were fitted, but somewhat loose.

"Wait- ear check," Shadow declared, and pulled out a mirror from absolutely nowhere to examine the appendages. "What, no earrings? I kinda liked those, they were edgy..."

"You took my ears, though," Wind replied. "And if I ever got earrings, Grandma would absolutely freak."

All things considered, the ears in question didn't particularly look like Wind's anymore, mostly because both Ocarina and Mask had some ridiculously pointed specimens and the bleed effect had altered the original shape somewhat.

"...Yeah, don't care," Shadow said, and pinched both earlobes between his fingers. When he put his hands down a second or two later, one small, violently red hoop dangled from each side of his head.

"Much better," Shadow nodded. "I'm definitely keeping this one. Now, what were we doing before I started being fabulous?"

Gen frowned, briefly getting an uncomfortable flashback to a pale, flamboyant man in diamonds.

"We were combining clues to figure out where Ganondorf was," Ocarina told him. "And speaking of which, isn't this the guy who made you?"

All of Shadow's good mood dropped from his new face like a rock in water. "What about it?" he said coldly.

"Well... any ideas?"

"As a matter of fact, yes," Shadow said. "My original idea was to find some lava, figure out how to imbue my sword with it, and then use it to simultaneously give Ganondorf sixth-degree burns while chopping him into mincemeat, but then I decided that wasn't quite painful enough. So then I thought, what about-"

"Not those kinds of ideas!" Speck interrupted him hurriedly.

"Oh. What were you guys talking about?"

"Any ideas as to where he might be," Mask replied dryly, in a tone which said 'It should have been obvious...'

"Oh, that. Not a clue," Shadow told him.

"Hyrule Field, you say?" Ganondorf repeated. The Stalchild nodded, rattling his jaw against his collarbone with a clack noise.

"I see. Thank you for the message. You are dismissed."

The Stalchild bowed in accompaniment to more clacking, and hobbled back the way he had come.

"They've arrived at last..." Ganondorf mused. "Took them long enough. Zelda too, you're braver when he's around... coming into the open is a risky business."

He took a moment to be annoyed by the fact that, had it not been for Demise's spell, the Princess would not have escaped his trap in the first place, but let it go just as quickly. What was done as done, and there was no changing that. Regardless of how much he would have liked to, but the Temple of Time seemed bound and determined not to work for him... curse it.

Regardless, this was an excellent time to put his plans into action. Charging out to meet the Links head on was a surefire way to get himself defeated. Even he had no illusions about what would happen if he tried to take on all eighteen of them at once. No, if he was going to win this, he needed an advantage...

Seven years should do it quite nicely.

True, the Temple of Time didn't work for him, but it was more than willing to activate for the Hero...

All Ganondorf needed to do was give it a little push.

Because it occurred to me that I had Shadow looking exactly like Dusk, and I didn't think he'd like that for long. Plus I needed filler.

Cliffhanger, though. Sorry about that, but after the 15,000 word chapter I'm trying to avoid flooding you guys.

It was a good stopping point anyways.

Oh, and before I forget, I'm going through finals week. Don't expect any update until... May-ish? I've already been hit with a 10-pager, two 4-pagers, and an essay test. We're lucky this update even happened at all...

Until next time,

Changeling

Thanks to bleach103, drebom, everything12, ShadeShadow234, Twin Tails Speed, SwordCai, feral wolfskin, and Clopina for favoriting/following!

The has-been who never will-be: No, you don't need to have a channel to subscribe to Youtubers, and no, I don't have a channel. Sorry to disappoint you, but aside from Fanfiction I have no Internet presence whatsoever. / And yes, you actually already did ask those questions :)

Theotaku3: Thanks! I found it eventually, I just guessed you were on DeviantArt and typed in the title you gave me there. And good luck with the 'big big picture'! (Er... you are Animebae04, right?) (And I do not think you're bad at drawing, I think you're learning. One of my firm beliefs is that EVERYONE can draw. Some people just practice more than others, and you're one of the practicers. Keep doing what you're doing and you'll be amazed at how good you're going to get.)

Chariots Cave: I don't actually like licorice, so neither. / I prefer milk chocolate over the other two. / I'm going to guess your (new?) codename is inspired by Portal. / And as for who you are... I have a couple guesses, but your writing style is leaving me conflicting context clues... I think (and I could be completely wrong, so I apologize in advance) that you are LuckyLugia. (If you are, welcome back! If you're not... whoops. My bad.)

Zyrex: Well, I'm not actually familiar with Castlevania, but I do like the idea of Realm in the Lost Woods. Might use that sometime... / As for the earlier chapters, no, Midna doesn't return to her original form until Twilight Ganondorf is legitimately beaten. As of now, he's just taken up reisdence in Demise's head again and as such is not actually defeated. / As for Realm using the Spin Attack, well, he's been hanging out with all the guys who know how. If he didn't pick up on some new tips and tactics from them there'd be something wrong. Although, perhaps I should state this in-chapter to clear up any confusion...