So I'll be going on vacation in a few days, and since I'm going the Universe has decided that it's taking a vacation too.
Again.
Therefore, I'm doing my own disclaimer. I do not, nor will I ever, own the Legend of Zelda.
...You think I'll ever be able to stop saying that? I'm running out of ideas to make this thing creative. Maybe I should start copping off funny stuff I read on the Internet.
Ocarina blearily blinked his eyes open and yawned. He hadn't slept like that in... actually pretty recently, as it'd been right after fighting Onox, Veran, and Hyrule Ganon. Although that time had been significantly less comfortable... was there a pillow under his head? Yes there was... he wondered how that had gotten there.
Right about then was when his memories from the previous day kicked in, and he sat bolt-upright and began looking himself over. Master Sword on his back, adjusted tunic for his height, item arsenal he was familiar with... he was sixteen again.
"Glad to see you're awake," Dusk's voice sounded from his left. "You've been asleep for a long time."
Ocarina dug around in his memories and winced. "You didn't stay awake the entire night, did you? You should have said something, I would have been glad to take some of the watch."
A small part of his mind noted that his voice was back to normal and threw an impromptu party at the sound of it, but most of him kept focus on Dusk.
"I actually got my fair share last night," Dusk assured him. "Sheik found us and offered to take over so I could rest."
"She did?" Ocarina said, surprised. "How did she know where we were?"
Dusk shrugged. "Apparently she stalked us like a ninja and only came out once Ganondorf was gone."
Ocarina considered this. "Well... I guess she did spend seven years doing that, it makes sense that she'd be good at it by now... Where is she now?"
"Keeping watch outside," Dusk replied, pointing. Ocarina followed his finger to see the silhouette of the disguised Princess Zelda leaning against the doorframe and staring out at Hyrule Field determinedly.
"You should go thank her," Dusk said, masterfully hiding a small, sneaky smile behind his usual expression of calm. He may have been hopeless with his own Zelda, but that didn't mean Ocarina had to be. And luckily, Ocarina was just young enough mentally to be completely clueless about it.
"...Sure, that's a good idea," Ocarina agreed, and did just that. Dusk allowed the sneaky smile to make a brief appearance as the two talked.
"Operation: Get Those Two Together is a go," he murmered.
'About time!' Midna snapped in his head. 'Have you SEEN the looks she's been giving him? Goddesses, it's almost as bad as the ones you give your Zelda when you think nobody's looking!'
"I do not!" Dusk retorted, face bright red. "And anyways, what about you and Shadow? You two spend an awful lot of time together."
'He's my insult partner,' Midna sniffed. 'Of course I spend time with the moron, he's the only person I know who can make a proper retort. Why does that... wait. You think... You think I LIKE HIM!?'
"The thought had crossed my mind..."
Midna was silent for approximately two-and-a-half seconds before bursting into uproarious laughter. 'ME AND THE FREAK! THAT'S HYSTERICAL! AS IF WE'D EVER MAKE A GOOD MATCH!'
Dusk waited patiently until she calmed down (about eight minutes later) before saying, "I take it you don't agree."
'Not in the slightest, little wolf,' Midna replied, still chuckling. 'Oh, I needed a good laugh, thanks for that. Remind me of this conversation if I ever need a pick-me-up, will you? Me and Shadow... oh, that's rich...'
Dusk sighed and returned his attention to the outside world, surveying the rest of his pack. The smaller Links were rejoicing in their recovered ability to walk, Blue had Red in a celebratory headlock, Realm was looking for his shield with Lore and Speck, Gen was handing out Potions to anybody he could coerce into it, and...
Dusk frowned and did a quick headcount. His frown deepened, and he ran the headcount again, just to be sure.
...Someone was missing.
Dusk ran through the names in his head, counting them off on his fingers. Himself, the Four, Realm, Lore, Speck, Green, Red, Blue, Vio, Steam, Sketch, Gen, Mask, Ocarina, Wind...
...Shadow. Where was Shadow?
Dusk wasn't entirely sure why he was worried about this. Shadow had pulled the exact same stunt multiple times before, and it wasn't like this was anything new. Heck, once Shadow had been missing for an entire week while they trudged through Realm's Hyrule back when they still thought letting him lead was a good idea.
So really, Dusk had absolutely no reason to be concerned about Shadow's whereabouts, except for the fact that he was. So he decided to ask about it, just to be sure.
"Has anyone seen Shadow?"
The Links paused in their 'We're Finally Our Normal Ages' festivities and exchanged glances with each other.
"Not since we woke up," Speck offered. "Kinda funny actually, since he was roughly seventeen-ish when you activated the Temple, he got 'aged' into a roughly twenty-four-ish old version of himself."
"Is that what all that cursing was about?" Wind asked. "I wondered who was so cranky. That makes a lot more sense now."
"Yeah, he fixed that real fast," Speck agreed. "After that I kinda got distracted with everything else and I lost track."
"Zelda says she saw him walk out about half-an-hour ago," Ocarina called from the entrance.
Now, as stated before, this was completely within normal behavior for Shadow. But when Dusk heard this, every instinct he'd ever used, wolf or not, started screaming at him that something was very wrong. And evidently it was showing on his face, because everyone else in the room abruptly became very still.
"...Dusk?" Steam asked cautiously.
"I'm going to find Shadow," Dusk said suddenly, and without another word flashed into his wolf form and sprinted out the door with his nose firmly to the ground.
There was a moment of silence as everyone processed the past five seconds.
"...I don't know about you guys," Mask said eventually, "but if there's one thing I've learned about Dusk, it's that the guy has unbelievable timing when it comes to the people he values. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess that he's included Shadow on that list, which means that his unbelievable timing is kicking into gear. Therefore, I'm going to be following him." He paused, then added, "Anyone else?"
"Give me a minute to find a good spot to hold on and I'm good to go," Speck said firmly, shrinking down and using his hookshot to attach himself to Mask's sleeve.
"I'm coming," Wind agreed.
"Same," the Four said.
And by that point, verbal agreement was pretty much moot because they all knew they were going whether they said it out loud or not.
Shadow scowled at the ground.
This of course was unfair to the ground, as it had not done anything worth being scowled at, but Shadow did it anyways. He was in a bad mood, which was really saying something because he was in a mediocre mood ninety percent of the time on average.
The reason for this was that Shadow was... conflicted.
He would have spent more time ruminating on said conflict, except for the fact that there was a wolf, a Goron, a Train with people, and a runner approaching him and this was an unusual enough sight that it completely ruined his concentration.
This, unfortunately, only served to make him more annoyed.
Dusk was vaguely aware of a Goron, Realm, and everyone else on a Train following him, but most of his attention was focused on the dark-silver-gray scent that was Shadow's. The dark Link had covered a startling amount of ground in only thirty minutes, but oddly enough most of it had been spent going in circles. Either Shadow was lost, which seemed unlikely as he somehow always knew where they were going before they got there, and in fact often showed up before everyone else, or he was being indecisive. This also seemed unlikely, as Dusk couldn't remember Shadow ever being indecisive before, but since it was slightly more likely than Shadow being lost...
The scent abruptly became much more concentrated, and Dusk looked up just in time to realize he was about to hit a tree. He jerked himself to the side, narrowly missing the bark, and as he did he caught a glimpse of a pair of surprised, red eyes perched in the top of the branches.
Shadow.
Dusk twisted himself around, screeched to a halt, and then leaped out of the way as Mask came barreling through and hit the next tree over. The resounding thud shook the dirt under his paws.
"...Ow," Mask decided, uncurling from his Goron ball and pulling the mask off his face. Behind everyone, Steam brought the Spirit Train to a stop and dismissed the summons in a much more controlled fashion than Mask's entrance. And Realm just jogged up like he'd never heard of exertion in his life.
Dusk transformed himself back and strung the Curse Stone pouch around his neck again, looking up into the tree while he did.
"Shadow?" he called. "Can you come down?"
"Go away!" Shadow snapped.
Now, Dusk was not a confrontational person. In his own words, he was more of a protective Beta. But he was not going to take no for an answer, and that was when his very rarely seen Alpha side came through.
"Shadow. Get down here. Now."
There was a moment of silence before Shadow poked his head through the leaves to gauge whether or not Dusk's expression matched his voice tone. Upon seeing that yes, it did, he grudgingly decided that maybe listening to him was a good idea and slithered down the tree to the ground, where he folded his arms and stubbornly refused eye contact with everyone.
"What do you want."
Dusk relaxed his stance now that Shadow was on the ground. "You disappeared. We were worried."
"I do that all the time," Shadow grunted. Dusk raised a single, questioning eyebrow.
"This time is different," he said simply.
"And how would you know!?" Shadow snarled.
Dusk's other eyebrow joined the first one on his forehead, and he gave Shadow a skeptical look.
"...That doesn't work on me," Shadow said unconvincingly. Dusk ignored this and simply kept looking at him.
"...Stop that. Nothing's wrong. I'm fine. Stop looking at me. Seriously, stop. I will strangle you with your hat. Stop looking at me like something's wrong. I'm not kidding, your hat makes for great air-blocking material, I will use it... Stop looking at me like that!"
Dusk continued to look at him. The curious thing was that he wasn't using any particular expression. He was just looking.
"Nothing's wrong, so go away!" Shadow growled.
"I never said anything was wrong, though," Dusk pointed out quietly. Shadow paused mid-retort and said something unprintable.
"Language," Dusk said mildly.
"I will say whatever I darn well please!" Shadow snapped. "Now go away and stop pestering me!"
"Guys," Speck said suddenly. "I think he's leaving."
Shadow, and everyone else for that matter, froze.
"...You're joking," Steam said slowly. "Right?"
"Why else would he want us to go? I mean, Shadow's never the most social person even on his best days but this is a different kind of antisocial. He physically doesn't want us around, which is weird because before this he's never cared. So logically, he must be doing something that he doesn't want us around for, and the only reason I can think of is that having us around will just make leaving harder."
"That's a stupid theory," Shadow said bluntly. "Even if I was leaving, why the heck would I care what you idiots thought about it?"
"I don't know," Speck said. "Why don't you tell us?"
Shadow gaped for a moment, then snapped his mouth shut and glared at the dirt again.
"...You're not actually leaving, are you?" Red asked in a quivering voice.
"So what if I am!?" Shadow shouted suddenly. "I beat up who I came along to beat up, and there's no reason for me to stick around any longer! And heck, most of you still don't like me much anyways, so why the heck do you care what I do!?"
"Wait, who doesn't like you?" Blue asked in surprise.
"You don't," Shadow muttered.
Vio thwacked his counterpart upside the head and scolded, "Nice job, genius. He thinks you hate him."
"I don't hate him!" Blue protested. "Sure, he does things sometimes that I'm not crazy about, but so does everybody! It really annoys me when Wind gives me fashion tips but that doesn't mean I dislike him!"
"I thought you liked my ideas," Wind lamented.
Blue turned red. "Oh, uh... I didn't mean it like that..."
Vio sighed. "You were just proving a point, we know. Maybe just do it more tactfully next time, okay?"
Shadow seemed unmoved by this and kept glaring at them all. "He's not the only one."
"If this is about all those times I told you to watch your language, that was because of the audience," Gen said. "They've got sensitive ears, you know."
"Oi!" Blue yelled, tackling his half-leader. "That's my job!"
"And it's painful," Gen wheezed. "You can have it back, sorry."
"Thank you," Blue said pointedly. Then he turned to Shadow and said, "If this is about all those times Gen told you to watch your language, that was because of the audience. They've got sensitive ears, you know."
He was promptly tackled by his three other counterparts for breaking things.
Shadow blinked, as he was now running out of examples. He hadn't had all that many examples to begin with, mainly because the argument of 'They won't care when I'm gone' was really just an excuse he'd been feeding himself to make the leaving easier.
"...Whatever," he grumbled, hiding this epiphany. "There's still no point on sticking around anymore."
"But what about Demise?" Ocarina asked plaintively. Shadow sighed.
"Look, remember when I first inserted myself into this group here? I was along purely to get revenge on the Ganondorf who created me and left me to rot. We just did that. I stabbed him in the head. Multiple times. My work here is done, and there's no reason for me to hang around anymore. I even said so. All I'm doing now is keeping my word."
Red threw himself around Shadow's midsection and wailed, "I don't want you to go!" into his clothes. Shadow held his arms up awkwardly, as this sort of thing was not in his comfort zone. His expression said mountains – and that was before Mask started translating it.
"He's going to miss us," Mask stated, scrutinizing Shadow's face. "He's conflicted about leaving because he doesn't actually want to go, but he's also never going to say that out loud because of obvious reasons. He's started to think of himself as his own Link, not as a shadow of us, and as far as he's concerned Demise needs a good kick in the teeth. But he thinks he needs to keep up his reputation and unfortunately for him that doesn't let him stay to help us finish this because that would be showing affection. Now he wants to strangle me for saying all his inner turmoil out loud and he's planning a very quiet but violent murder in which he stuffs a Cucco in my face and kills me through half-suffocation and half Cucco-vengeance once the rest of Steve's gang figures out where their second-in-command went."
By the end of this little speech, Shadow's face had gone from it's usual tone of black, to gray, to dark red, to a pink so bright that it made his skin look like a normal peach shade. He seemed to be trying to make a scathing retort that would counteract everything Mask had just said, except for the fact that he also appeared to be choking on his words and all that was coming out was a high-pitched wheezing noise.
"...I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that Mask is entirely accurate in his translating," Lore said.
"Good," Speck said firmly. "That's settled then."
"...What's settled?" Shadow managed.
"You're staying," Speck smiled.
Shadow blinked. "I am?"
"Yes you are," Dusk inserted. "Because you are a part of this group and it wouldn't be the same without you. Plus, we wouldn't have even won that last fight if you hadn't been here. I think I speak for everybody when I say you're one of us."
"You really thought you could get away that easily?' Gen added.
Shadow, in a spectacularly uncharacteristic fashion, lowered his head and tugged on his bangs bashfully. "You idiots..." his voice muttered from under his hair. "...Thanks."
"You are very welcome," Lore said, beaming. "Cue the Group Glomp!"
There was a moment of silence as everyone frowned in confusion.
"...What, exactly, is the Group Glomp?" Gen asked.
"This, silly!" Lore exclaimed, before throwing himself at Shadow with enough force to send him staggering and wrapping his arms around the darker Link's shoulders in one of the most exuberant hugs anyone had every seen.
"...Get him off me," Shadow said through gritted teeth. The Links exchanged glances with each other and slow, evil grins began spreading on their faces instead.
"Absolutely not," Shadow warned, correctly interpreting the expressions as a precursor to something he would not enjoy. "Don't you dare. I forbid you to-!"
That was as far as he got before he was bowled over entirely by the Group Glomp and was buried in a pile of giggling siblings.
Farore exhaled in relief. "It's official, Shadow's staying."
"Finally came to his senses did he?" Din asked. "Honestly, that whole leave-without-them-noticing plan was never going to work. I'm actually surprised it took them a whole half-hour."
"He did grow fond of them, didn't he," Nayru said affectionately. "I remember we had our doubts about letting him tag along, but I am so glad we did. Courage would probably be dead if Shadow hadn't been there. And look how he's trying not to smile."
"Are you sure that's a smile?" Farore questioned. "It just looks like a pained grimace to me."
"Nah, he's smiling," Din affirmed. "Trust me on this, Power does that kind of thing all the time and it's usually when he's pleased but doesn't want to show it."
"Well then," Farore said, smiling. "I am glad to have him as an aspect of my Attribute."
"Hang on, why do you get him?" Din demanded. "Power made him, if anything he's part of my Attribute!"
"You'll notice his title is not 'Dark Ganon'," Farore said smugly. "I'm simply going by what he is."
"He's a Dark Link," Nayru put in, earning herself an annoyed glare from her red-colored sister.
"...Shut up," she grumbled.
"I am legitimately wondering why I ever decided to give you all a second chance," Demise muttered. The newest addition to the inside of his head, Hyrule Ganondorf, growled something not meant for suitable company and some thud noises told Demise that he was taking out his frustrations on someone.
It was probably Zant.
"I even permitted your request to travel through the timestream, and even with that absurd advantage you still managed to be beaten," Demise marveled. "Verily thy name, is Incompetence."
They should have fallen! Hyrule Ganondorf raged. There was no logical reason for them to win! The odds were insurmountable!
"And yet," Demise said dryly, "they did. You may want to rethink your 'insurmountable odds'."
Hyrule Ganondorf hissed something in the Gerudo native tongue and went back to pummeling Zant. Demise could tell because of the squeaky noises.
...There was a pale one, he said abruptly. He didn't like it when I threatened the younger ones.
None of them like it when you threaten the younger ones, Hyrule Ganon put in. Trust me, the wolf-one has a temper when he wants to.
Yes, I noticed that, Hyrule Ganondorf said dryly. In any case, the only reason I was defeated was because they were simply too stubborn to die, and because my own creation turned against me, the blasphemous traitor.
"Perhaps, if you had not abandoned him and made him quite so angry that he felt the need to stab you in the head, the outcome of your fight would have gone differently," Demise observed.
He was useless to me. I simply disposed of him. How was I to know he would hold a grudge?
"How indeed," Demise said mockingly. "Zant, if you would tell us how the Hero of Twilight reacted to being turned into an animal?"
Ooh, ooh, I know this one! He hunted me down and stabbed me through the chest, then usurped my throne for that little wannabe Princess imp and undid all the hard work I'd put in to make the Twilight cover everything for all eternity! It wasn't fun at all! Nobody wore Peahats!
Which translated, Twilight Ganondorf growled, means, 'Of course he came back to kill you, that's what Links do'. Truly, your lack of intelligence staggers me.
Oh, shut up, like you did any better!
WHAT DID YOU SAY!?
The sound of clashing metal filled Demise's head yet again, but the Demon King merely sighed and blocked it out with the ease of long practice. While he had dearly hoped his Hatred Incarnations were going to be competent this time around, all evidence was pointing to the contrary.
Not that he minded much, This simply meant that he would have all the opportunity to crush the Heroes like the gnats they were when the time came.
...I felt like being sappy, okay? Shadow's grown on me, he really has. Even though his personality gives me headaches sometimes because he would absolutely say profanity in such-and-such situation and then I have to go and find a way around that... I'd miss the guy if I made him leave.
Well, that and it made for a nice bonding moment. And the world needs more of those.
Changeling
Thanks to SuperKaiokenX, Shitaro, nesguy, KingPlazma, 8 Terrowin 8, Taiyo-chan the Neko Writer, PokeKing Charizard, Kegami96, Seaman109, grovyleTheGreat, I'mtotallyawesomelyAWESOMEkeese, XLisaForever, LaZella, dreadfort1453, Neon12134, Vulaan Kulaas, and Iritails for favoriting/following!
The has-been who never will-be: I admit, I was wondering who would possibly leave a review just to say 'hi'... wait, were you the one who left random smile faces and reviewed once a day for a week straight saying 'Update!'? / I was unaware calling Lore ADHD was offensive to anybody. I've been tested for ADD myself (apparently I'm borderline under just enough that I don't qualify, but I'm very close), and most of the time I just channel my personality into him. I can stop if you'd like... / The most random thing I've ever done... still probably the time I went frolicking in a rainstorm without shoes or an umbrella. I laughed like an idiot. / Les Mis is an anime? ...Huh.