Guess what?
We've hit three-hundred follows. AND three-hundred favorites.
We're also only fifty reviews away from one thousand.
Never in my wildest imaginings did I imagine that this odd little idea in my head would become so popular. You guys have stuck with me through plot-holes, a currently-ongoing rewrite, typos, accidental British profanity, and more delays than I'd like to admit, and I cannot say thank you enough for that.
I guess there must be something I'm doing right :)
Oh, and before I forget – I do not own the Legend of Zelda.
About half-an-hour after the group had convinced Shadow to stay, their dynamic suggested that nothing had even happened in the first place. This was mostly due to Shadow himself, who viewed the whole incident with a mixture of vast embarrassment, annoyance, and indifference and coped with it by deciding to pretend it didn't exist. But since this was normal Shadow behavior, nobody minded much and humored him, with the result being that if one were to ask about the incident, the response you would receive would be somewhere along the lines of, "He did what? When?"
Basically, it didn't happen, never had happened, and never would happen as long as Shadow had anything to say about it.
This made an excellent reason to move on, however, and the Links took full advantage of it by migrating back into the Temple of Time and finishing the, 'We're Finally Our Normal Ages!' festivities that had been interrupted earlier.
"Seriously though, let's never do that again if we can help it," Gen said fervently. "I was ten for a whole year already and that was enough for me."
"Where will you go then?" Zelda asked curiously. "Now that Ganondorf has been defeated and this... 'rift' is open again?"
"Dunno," Mask said, frowning. "It's kinda random...ish. But we've never been in the same place twice so far, and the only people who's Hyrules we haven't visited are... Speck, the Four, and Gen."
"Well, I have good news there," Speck chipped in. "I don't have a Ganondorf."
There was a vast sigh of relief from just about everyone in the room.
"...Who do you have then?" Realm asked after a moment.
"Well, we fought a version of him way back in the beginning, but mine doesn't look like a giant bat. His name's Vaati, and he looks like us, just purple."
"Ours is Vaati too," the Four contributed. "He does look like a bat, though, but he didn't talk much. He seemed kind of crazy, actually."
"So we've got a second Mr. Pudgy Bat and a Mr. Purple Not-Bat," Lore summarized, nodding. "Or something along those lines, I'll have to work on that."
"You seem to be very used to this," Zelda observed.
"We've had practice," Dusk told her sagely.
"So I've heard," Zelda smiled. "In that case, I shall leave you to it. Nayru knows I have a lot of work to do rebuilding Hyrule from the damage Ganondorf caused, not to mention convincing the people that your fight with him was an illusion caused by 'swamp gas' in order to prevent mass panic. And I'm going to have to explain where I've been the past seven years, review all the laws of the land and catch up on all my studies that I've been neglecting in favor of spying, boost morale, organize the clean-up, form a squad to exterminate the Gibdos in Castle Town, hire carpenters to rebuild Castle Town, start a collection to fund the rebuilding of Castle Town..."
She trailed off, muttering to herself about everything she needed to get done, and making the Links feel incredibly grateful that they didn't have to deal with messes like that. Or, rather, that they didn't have to stick around and deal with the messes they made like that.
They weren't very good at taking responsibility for the consequences, now that they thought about it.
"Well... er... let us know if you need funding," Ocarina said lamely. Zelda flapped a hand at him absently.
"Maybe after you've saved the universe, okay?"
"And on that note," Gen inserted, "we should get going. We left our ride back in Hyrule Field and it's a bit of a walk, if I'm remembering this correctly."
"I don't even care," Blue sighed. "I'm just happy I can walk."
"True that," the Four agreed, nodding.
"Actually," Wind said, holding up a silver baton. "I've been there before, so..."
"Yeah, that's a much better idea," Gen agreed. "Seriously though, why does it only work for places you've already been to?"
Wind shrugged. "I guess I need to know where I'm going to go there? And I had to do a lot of backtracking in the islands, so it came in handy."
"Can't argue with that."
"What?" Lore protested. "Yes you can, everything can be argued! For example, I could argue about the color, I could argue about the musical tones, I could argue the length of the wand-"
Wind, ignoring him with the ease of long practice, waved the Wind Waker in necessary pattern and called up the concentrated storm that transported them all. Lore, meanwhile, was still talking.
"-could argue the storage capacity, I could argue the friction resistance, I could argue the..."
Zelda, watching the whole thing, could still hear him as the wind took them away, fading into the distance. She just shook her head sympathetically.
The Links arrived at their destination with windblown hair and a couple attempted escapee hats, though those had been quickly caught and reaffixed to the proper head. With that done, the group found themselves standing in front of the hole-
...that they'd left seven years ago.
"...Farore," Ocarina gasped weakly.
Most of the rest of the group just gaped. And Lore, in one of his uncommon moments of seriousness, said, "Alright guys, take a good look. This is what's gonna happen if we don't win."
Hyrule Field – literally all of Hyrule Field – was gone. In its place was an absolutely colossal void, stretching far into the sky and surrounding landscape. What they could see of Castle Town in the distance looked utterly abandoned, which was somehow worse than seeing it populated with Gibdos, because at least then it'd been populated.
"Do you think the people got absorbed?" Red asked quietly. "Or maybe they just left?"
"I'm gonna hope they left and not think any further into it," Mask said, thoroughly depressed. Ocarina didn't look much better.
"Guys," Speck said slowly. "If this is what Hyrule looks like after only seven years, then... what happened farther down the timeline?"
At this point, most of the Links were from a Hyrule farther down the timeline, and everybody flinched violently. Dusk looked disturbed, Steam and Wind were gaping blankly at each other, Lore was scowling at the ground, and Red was in outright tears while his three brothers attempted not to follow suit. Sketch looked as though he was going to be sick, and Realm appeared to have stopped responding entirely. Ocarina and Mask were wondering how long it would take before their entire Hyrule was dissolved, and Speck, the Four, and Gen traded looks with each other, knowing that any holes opened in their earlier Hyrules would have exponential consequences on the ones they'd already been to. Shadow, on the other hand, wasn't one for showing his feelings, even after the incident-which-had-not-happened-I-don't-know-what-you're-talking-about. So he just shrugged and looked generally uncomfortable with the thought.
"Even when we're winning, we're losing," Steam growled suddenly, and made to punch something to let his feelings out. Unfortunately the closest something happened to be Realm, who promptly began developing a bruise but other than that showed no signs of responding. "If we don't fight the villains, they ruin Hyrule because they can. If we do fight the villains, they leave a void that will literally destroy everything! How are we supposed to deal with this!?"
"Calm down," Dusk interrupted. "Look, we've been working our way to the source for weeks now. We know we have at least some divine intervention on our side because, unlike everything else, we can go through the hole without being erased from existence." He held up his left hand to demonstrate, where his Triforce was glowing brightly due to the proximity of the void. "It seems pretty apparent to me that at least one, if not more, of the gods want us to succeed and are giving their aid so that we will, which above anything else tells us that it's possible."
He made sure to meet everyone's eyes before finishing with, "We know who caused the problem, right? And we even have a chance to learn from our last fight with him and not make the same mistakes. We beat Demise, we remove the source of the holes."
"You make it sound so easy," Gen said mournfully, remembering the beating they'd all received the last time. Although, come to think of it... they shouldn't have survived back then. Dusk was right, he admitted, at least about that divine intervention stuff.
"So in other words, no moping unless we've absolutely positively failed for real," Wind summarized.
"Which we haven't done yet," Sketch pointed out, already gaining a more positive attitude.
"Oh good, the sad part's already over," Lore sighed. "Never liked that part."
"The... sad part?"
"Yeah, that part in your adventure when you feel like everything's hopeless and you're going to fail no matter what you do," Lore explained. "I've been practicing avoiding them, but you all don't know how yet and dragged me along into it anyways. Luckily it's over now."
"...yeah, sure, why not," Blue decided, having become accustomed to Lore's eccentricities a long time ago. "So... jumping in the hole?"
"Jumping in the hole," Lore confirmed.
Everyone duly jumped into the hole.
"I was kind of hoping that wouldn't happen," Farore said sadly.
"What, that he wouldn't figure out the real weight of the problem? You do know that's literally his job description, right?" Din checked.
"That doesn't mean I like putting Courage through it," Farore sighed. "It's hard on him, you know?"
"Some of the aspects are only ten years old," Nayru pointed out.
"...Ah," Din said in understanding. "Well... look at it this way. Maybe now they won't goof off as much and get more done in the timespan they know they have now."
Both her sisters gave Din flat looks.
"With the leadership they've got?" Nayru said bluntly.
"Not to mention Shadow's antics?" Farore added.
"And the pranking?"
"And their general level of insanity?"
"I get it," Din interrupted. "Although, the fact that this is under the 'Humor' category is probably another reason-"
"DIN!" Farore hissed, smacking her sister upside the head. "Mind the walls!"
"Honestly, here they're more fragile than ever and you go around saying stuff like that?" Nayru tsked. "For shame."
"I cannot wait until the Universe gets fixed," Din grumbled.
"Alright, show of hands," Gen said. "Who knows where we are?"
After a moment of silence where everyone looked around and frowned in confusion at unfamiliar surroundings, the Four slowly raised their hands.
"This looks like our Hyrule," they opined.
"Given the fact that only Gen, you Four and me are the only ones who haven't had to fight our villain yet we don't really have many options to guess between anymore," Speck added. "Although, some of this landscape does look familiar..."
"That'd be the lack of a timeline split in the works," Lore said breezily. Everyone except Mask and Ocarina, who were nodding like that statement somehow made sense, stared at him.
"...What?"
"Exactly! Now, who's butt are we kicking this time around?"
Really, the Links thought to themselves, Lore ought to concern them so much more than he did, but unfortunately acclimatization was a thing and Lore had made it a point to acclimatize them all to his strangeness ages ago so he could get away with stuff like his previous sentence. Upon realizing this, however, the group also realized that there was nothing they could do about it because nobody was concerned enough to care anymore.
"His name is Vaati," the Four said after coming to this conclusion. "He's a giant purple bat with one big eyeball, but he's not much like the one we fought in Blue, Vio, Red, and Green's Hyrule. He's a lot more... unstable."
"Unstable how?" Wind asked.
"Well, we're not entirely sure what his plan even was... he just liked pretty girls. We're fairly sure the only reason he kidnapped Zelda in the first place was because she was pretty. He tried to marry her."
"You stopped that, I hope?" Steam asked pointedly.
"Well, yeah. He just never seemed to have a plan beyond getting hitched, is all. It was kinda weird."
"So there was never, like, some sort of prophecy about an unholy match between a demon and a princess?" Ocarina checked. "Or like, Zelda had some sort of Light Magic that Vaati was after and marriage for some reason was part of a spell that would allow him to drain it?"
"...Dude, what fairy tales have you been reading?" Sketch questioned blankly.
"Actually I'm pretty sure one of those happened," Blue said thoughtfully. "I mean, the demon was more like a giant fire-breathing turtle and everything looked like paper and I think there was a plumber involved and some sort of dimensional shift gimmick? But yeah, that whole prophecy one isn't all that far-"
He was abruptly cut off as his three siblings and Shadow smacked him and stopped just short of decapitating him respectively.
"One of these days," Green sighed, "you'll remember to stop breaking things and your days will become so much less painful."
"Looking forward to it," Blue squeaked, not taking his eyes off Shadow's sword which was still resting on his collarbone. Red frowned at the darker Link.
"Shadow, quit it," he scolded. "We don't waste Death Threats on siblings, remember? World-destroying villains only."
"Yeah, whatever," Shadow snorted, but sheathed his weapon anyways and proceeded to act as though he'd been about to do that regardless.
"Four, you were saying?" Vio prompted as Blue got back to his feet.
"Actually, that was about it. He wasn't a very cohesive enemy."
Mask let out a huff. "Well that's... odd. But I guess that makes it easier on us, maybe he won't be as motivated as some of the others have been. What did he fight like?"
"Maybe we ought to move as we talk," Realm interrupted before anyone else could speak. "I mean, the universe is dying and stuff, and we kinda need to find the guy in order to beat him, so... I mean, obviously I shouldn't be leading, we all know that's a terrible idea, I just thought that... yeah."
"...He's got a point," Steam agreed.
"Walk and talk then!" Lore exclaimed, launching himself off in a randomly chosen direction. "And now we're walking. So let's take care of talking and answer Mask's question, eh?"
"We don't know," the Four said.
There was a moment of silent walking.
"Crud," Ocarina decided.
"We went to confront him and stuff, but when we got there he was already gone. The only thing we actually needed to do was help Princess Zelda out of the wedding dress because she couldn't reach the zipper."
"We might be able to use our experience fighting the Vaati from our Hyrule," Vio surmised. "Given that they seem to be at least somewhat of the same person, I think that would be a viable start."
"So... what, hookshots again?" Gen said, frowning. "A lot of us still don't have any, though."
"I should really get that fixed," Steam muttered, and the other hookshot-less Links nodded ruefully in agreement.
"They have proven quite useful," Vio sighed.
"Well, you can count me out of the needy group," Shadow yawned, stretching. "If this guy is anything like the Vaati I worked with back when I was tormenting the color-named dorks here, I bet he can be exploded."
"Why do you know that?" Green asked after a moment of silence. Shadow gave them all a Happy Mask Salesman(tm) smile and casually spawned one of his bigger-than-he-was bombs in his left hand.
"No particular reason," he said, and tossed the explosive up and down playfully. "I only experimented on him twice. Compared to how many times I experimented on his army I kinda expected him to have more endurance..."
"Put that away before you break something," Dusk scolded.
"Well when did you become such a party pooper?" Shadow mourned, though he did as asked and slipped the bomb back into whatever subspace pocket it came from. "You used to all run screaming whenever I pulled one of those out."
"Yeah we did, didn't we?" Realm frowned. "When did that happen?"
"About a month ago during the-"
"No, I mean, when did we stop?" Realm clarified.
Everyone considered that, then shrugged.
"What does this have to do with Vaati?" the Four wondered.
"They've got a point, we're way off topic," Wind said. "Again."
"Is it weird that it's more common for us to be off topic?"
"Probably."
"We're doing it again," Sketch groaned.
"Okay, so the current plan is to bring him down with hookshots and then explode him?" Steam checked.
"And I guess we can improvise after that, since there's not a lot we know about him," Gen agreed.
"Sorry..."
"It's not your fault, the universe died before you guys could fight him," Gen replied. "Speaking of him, though, any ideas where he might be?"
The Four contemplated that. "He might go after pretty girls again..."
"But there's how many girls in your Hyrule?" Vio asked. "Even if we went and checked on all of them there's no telling how long that would take us, not to mention that Vaati may take someone that we can't get to in time."
"He took Zelda last time though, right?" Red asked. "Wouldn't he try again? If that makes sense, I mean?"
"He might," the Four allowed. "You never know."
"If we're trying to lure him out though, wouldn't it make more sense to just gather the pretty girls in one place?"
"That'd put them in danger," Speck said. "And besides, how would we convince them to be bait for us?"
"Disguise it as a beauty contest," Lore said as though it was obvious.
Everyone paused.
"...That's actually not a terrible idea," Realm admitted. "But... I don't know the first thing about beauty contests."
"I don't think any of us do," Mask agreed.
"That's alright, most of us aren't pretty enough for the disguise to work anyhow," Lore said thoughtfully.
"Wait, what?"
"Well, obviously someone has to enter to keep the other girls safe, right?"
There was a moment of blank, disbelieving silence.
"...Welp, I'm out," Shadow announced, and vanished into Dusk's shadow to hide for the next few days.
"Just to clarify, here," Gen said slowly. "Your plan is for us to dress like girls, enter a beauty contest that the we're going to also judge, and act like bait for when Vaati shows up presumably looking for a new wife?"
"I think you're a pale-blue-and-cream-dress kinda girl," Lore mused, looking his co-leader over. "Definitely not violet, though, that would clash with your skin tone."
"...He's right," Wind offered awkwardly.
"I am not wearing a dress!"
"Well it can't be me, I'm much too ruggedly handsome," Lore replied offhandedly. "Completely wrong jawline for it. You've got one of those faces that could go either way depending on how you accessorize. Though, we could put Speck in a dress, he's young enough that nobody would really notice."
"I'd really rather not," Speck murmured.
"Is this legitimately our only idea?" Dusk broke in. "Staging a beauty contest and posing as contestants is truly our best option?"
"...Honestly, it might be," the Four said reluctantly. "He goes after pretty girls. Gathering a bunch in one place is likely our best bet at finding him aside from roaming the country randomly."
"Let's do that instead," Gen said quickly.
"That takes days, though," Steam pointed out. "Remember how long it took us to find Malladus?"
"That was partly because you let Realm drive the Train," Sketch accused.
"That was before I knew better! And that's not even the point, what I'm trying to say here is that luring Vaati in might be our quickest option based on what the Four have told us."
"So... we're actually doing this?" Mask checked.
Gen groaned. "Farore, why me?"
"Not you," Wind said quickly. "Not necessarily. We should look at this carefully."
"Come to think of it, you're good with clothes and things, aren't you," Ocarina remembered. "Could you tell who would look the best in a dress?"
Wind frowned, then carefully sized everyone up.
"...Yes," he decided. "But only if we're actually legitimately doing this and the people I pick are okay with it."
"That depends on who you pick," Realm said neutrally.
"Mask and/or Ocarina, Speck, Sketch, and any single or variable combination of Red, Vio, Green, and Blue," Wind listed, looking apologetic.
"HECK NO!" Blue bellowed.
"I'm inclined to agree with that sentiment," Vio seconded.
Green grimaced. "I mean, I'd rather not, but if it's necessary..."
"Can I wear pants underneath?" Red asked cautiously. "Because this is gonna be really uncomfortable otherwise."
"Sure," Wind assured him. "Green and Red, then, along with the other guys I mentioned."
"Why me and Ocarina?" Mask questioned. Wind gave them both another careful scrutiny.
"Putting it bluntly, you two are pretty-boys," he informed them. "I believe the term is 'bishonen'?"
"That's the term, yeah," Vio agreed.
Neither Hero of Time quite knew how to respond to that.
"Technically, Dusk can also pass as 'bishonen'," Wind continued, "but he's got this whole 'don't mess with me' vibe going on and I'm guessing that's the last thing we need for a beauty contest."
"I never thought being turned into a wolf would help me avoid female clothing," Dusk commented thoughtfully.
"It's a strange world," Wind nodded. "But anyways, are you two alright with this?"
Ocarina and Mask exchanged glances.
"...I've done weirder," Mask shrugged.
"And apparently I will do weirder," Ocarina said, "so I guess we're both in."
"Din, I'm going to regret this," Sketch muttered. "Alright, let's get it over with. The sooner I start the sooner I can leave."
"Is it too late to shrink down and pull a Shadow?" Speck asked hopefully.
"Nobody's going to make you participate," Wind said. "If you don't want to, just say so."
Speck grimaced. "Well now you're just making me feel guilty..."
"But I didn't even guilt-trip you," Wind frowned, confused.
"I know, but I feel like you did. Just don't make the dress sparkly, okay?"
"Sparkles with your skin color?" Wind pulled a face. "That would look terrible."
Speck snorted.
"Hey, it's true," Wind defended. "Anyways, now we just need to spread the word and pick out dresses, I guess."
"I shall spread the word!" Lore declared with an expression that immediately made everyone fear for the villagers.
"And I'll be making sure you don't traumatize anybody in the process," Gen said quickly. Lore scowled.
"I'll help with that," Dusk volunteered neutrally.
"Aw, can't I have any fun?"
"The last time you had 'fun', you got kicked out of an entire settlement," Dusk reminded him bluntly. "Therefore, no, you do not get to have 'fun'."
"Awwww..."
"Ocarina, Mask, Sketch, Speck, Green, and Red, can you guys come with me?" Wind continued. "We need to head to a shop."
"The sooner I get it over with," Sketch muttered, steeling himself, "the sooner I can leave."
"Amen to that," Green agreed grudgingly, and they all followed Wind down into the small town off in the distance.
"...What about the rest of us?" Steam wondered.
"Projectiles contest?"
"Another one?"
"I don't know, it was the best idea I had," Realm defended.
"I've got an idea," Blue said. "Realm can teach us that shooty thingie that his sword does."
"Okay first, it's called a sword beam," Realm lectured. "Second, it has almost nothing to do with me and everything to do with my weapon."
"Neither of those are good reasons to not teach us," Vio pointed out.
Realm grinned sheepishly. "Third, I lost my sword sometime after we came through the portal."
There was a chorus of resigned groans.
"Again?" the Four checked disbelievingly.
"Hey, I broke my previous record!" Realm pointed out optimistically. "I held onto it for all of a week and a half this time!"
"Red is not your color," Wind informed Ocarina.
"My Goron Tunic is red, though," Ocarina replied, confused.
"That doesn't mean it looks good on you, that just means that it's red. And I'm telling you, red does not look good with your coloring."
Ocarina looked over at Mask. "Were you aware we don't look good in red?"
Mask just shrugged, bewildered. "I'm still trying to figure out what a 'periwinkle' is, dude."
"Well I can tell you that periwinkle is not bringing out your eye color," Wind complained. "Can you go and try on that lavender?"
"Uhh... sure?"
"And Sketch," Wind continued, "I told you that yellow was a bad idea, why didn't you listen?"
"This is yellow?" Sketch echoed, looking down at his outfit in surprise.
Wind sighed. "Technically it's an earth-tone ochre, but the basic hue is yellow. And it looks terrible on you."
"How was I supposed to know?"
"Use your eyes, Sketch," Wind lamented. "Use your eyes."
Meanwhile, Green and Red stood off to the side clutching their determined outfits in a neat folded pile. The perks of being a colored Link meant that you already had an assigned color which automatically looked great on you, and Wind had enough to deal with that he'd all but pounced on the predetermined affinity.
"...should we be changing or something?" Red wondered.
"Let's not and keep quiet about it, maybe Wind won't notice," Green replied.
"I heard that!"
"For the Love of Nayru!" Green cursed.
Wind sighed. "Look, if it bothers you this much, just think of the dress like a longer tunic-"
He paused, a slow smile starting on his face as an idea came to him. "Actually... how about I just alter the dresses into tunics? Women wear tunics all the time, and it's technically nothing different compared to what we're wearing now. What do you think of that?"
"Uh... sure?"
"Trust me, I know what I'm talking about," Wind reassured him, before turning and yelling, "Speck, whatever you think you're picking out is a bad idea!"
"I didn't even choose anything yet!"
"You were thinking about that orange monstrosity on the left-hand shelf," Wind said bluntly, and marched away to prevent what was apparently a disaster waiting to happen.
"Okay, that's seriously creepy," Sketch noted, crumpling the discarded ochre outfit into his arms and depositing it back on the shelf in a travesty of it's former neatly-folded state. "It's like he's got a sixth sense for whenever someone's committing a crime against fashion."
"While that may be true, Wind is shockingly good," Mask said, giving Ocarina a once-over. "He was right, you and I look really bad in red."
Ocarina shrugged. "Personally, I would take the immunity to volcanos over being able to strut our stuff. There's not much point in looking good while you stab a dodongo if the only thing around to appreciate your outfit is said dodongo."
"Hard to be admired when you've just killed your audience" Green agreed.
Lore, Gen, and Dusk took one look at the town, noted the significant lack of feminine presence and the fact that all the men seemed to be arming themselves for an invasion, took in the buildings that looked like they'd just weathered a hurricane, and came to one highly depressing conclusion.
"They went and had the beauty contest without us!" Lore cried indignantly. "And before we even had a chance to advertise it! How rude – and impressively psychic."
"...I don't even want to know how you came to that conclusion," Gen decided.
"I think you meant to say that Vaati's already been here?" Dusk suggested.
Lore blinked, although it was unclear whether or not he was actually confused or just being himself. "He has? But we haven't held the beauty contest yet, he wasn't supposed to invade until tomorrow!"
"Villains don't run on schedules," Gen ground out.
"Rather inconsiderate of them, I'd say."
"Lore," Dusk said neutrally. "Save it for after the rescue."
"Why do kidnapping always sap the fun from a situation?" Lore bemoaned, and immediately dropped his random personality to swap in his much-less-used serious one. "Right, let's go save the village maidens and probably Princess Zelda from the scary purple bat."
With that, he marched back the way they'd came to round up the rest of the group and inform them of the new circumstances. Gen gave Dusk an incredulous look.
"One day," he said, "you have got to teach me how you do that."
"Do what?"
"You literally just say his name – that's it – in this certain tone you have, and he stops. He's serious. It only lasts for like, an hour, but you can make Lore be serious and I don't understand how you do it."
Dusk shrugged. "Well, the way I see it, Lore is the 'fun' part of our leadership. No offense."
"Some taken," Gen said, frowning. "But continue."
"It's not that you're not fun," Dusk corrected himself quickly. "But Lore's kind of... he's the spontaneity, you know? He's the one who keeps our mood lighthearted and he brings laughter. I get the feeling that, he's seen so much before he met us that he only takes so many things seriously now. And, you can kind of tell when he knows something's serious, but he won't always show it because I think he values keeping the group bright and happy."
"That... makes sense..." Gen said slowly. "But that doesn't exactly answer my question..."
"Somewhere along the line I became his gauge for when he needs to get things done?" Dusk offered hesitantly. "It's sort of like this balance, maybe. He's the lightheartedness/craziness/fun, and you're the down-to-earth/reason. He makes the mess and you're able to do damage control. Literally, since you're our medic and all."
"And you're the protectiveness/adaptability/glue," Gen replied. "You anchor Lore and I so that we don't take each other's heads off when he drives me nuts and I yell at him."
"I'm more of a Beta," Dusk said near-instantly. Gen gave him a flat, unconvinced look.
"Say what you want, man," he smirked. "I'm just telling it like I see it. And personally, I've seen that this whole 'dual-leadership' thing has actually been a fully-functioning trio-leadership for weeks now."
Dusk gaped. "But – I don't-"
"I can and will list evidence for this," Gen mock-threatened. "There's just now, when you made Lore be serious. Then there's last week when you calmed me down after we all got de-aged seven years, not to mention the fact that you basically took full charge of everything in order to take care of the toddler group. You're the one who noticed Shadow was gone and led us all to go get him back. Before that you practically disintegrated Lore's Ganon when he almost crushed Speck, and even before all that I'm pretty sure you've been 'the sane one' for ages-"
"Okay," Dusk interrupted. "Point taken. Apparently I'm one third of a joint leadership that I didn't know existed."
"Thank you," Gen said. "Don't tell Lore."
"Technically, doesn't he already know?" Dusk wondered. "I mean, he uses me to gauge when he needs to be serious."
"...Din, you're right," Gen realized. "How did he figure this out before either of us did?"
It took a good few hours to get everybody rounded up. Gen and Dusk caught up to Lore fairly easily, and the three of them found Wind and his models without much trouble since they hadn't moved far from the store. It was the rest of the group that posed the problem.
It turned out that Realm had lost his sword again, which had naturally pulled him and the Links helping him look into a multiple-hour-long search with an almost ridiculously unbelievable amount of monster encounters, wrong turns, backtracks, and Like-likes which had somehow ended with all eight of the Link involved in the search lost in a cave on an island in the middle of a lake, and none of them could figure out how they'd gotten there.
"He's contagious," Blue grumbled by way of an explanation once the rest of the Links rescued their siblings from their predicament. "He is literally contagious, I swear."
"I found my sword, though!" Realm said brightly. "And it only took sixteen encounters with Like-likes this time!"
"Never mind that," Gen said, brushing over the absurdity with the ease of practice. "We've got a problem. Vaati's already been here."
"...Admittedly, we thought he would take longer," the Four sighed. "Our bad, guys."
"It's not your fault, he's an insane demonic mammalian sorcerer," Mask said "How were you supposed to know what he was thinking?"
"Well if we had a transmutative hydrogen peroxide telekinetic spherical square, it would have been easy," Lore informed them. "But since we don't, the Four are officially free from blame."
"...Okay, literally none of those words had anything to do with reading minds," Gen complained. "What even is hydrogen peroxide and how can a square be spherical?"
"Ask the square," Lore shrugged. "I don't know how he does it, he just does."
Dusk sighed heavily. "Focus, everyone."
"Right, sorry. Anyways, we need to revamp the 'Beauty Contest' plan and launch a 'Rescue the Maidens' plan instead. Four, do you guys remember where Vaati lives?"
"There was a mountain," the Four said. "He had a palace on top of it."
"Lead the way, then," Gen instructed, and the group fell in behind as they all moved out.
They traveled in silence for a few minutes.
"...Green," Blue said abruptly, in tones of wary confusion. "What are you wearing?"
Green blinked and looked down at his clothes, and promptly realized that, in the rush caused by the discovery of Vaati's whereabouts, he was still wearing the tunic-dress-thing that Wind had thrown together for him. For that matter, so was Red, Mask, Ocarina, Sketch, and Speck. None of them had remembered to put their normal uniform back on.
"How'd we miss that?" Speck asked Ocarina, bewildered. Ocarina shrugged, equally clueless.
"You look ridiculous," Vio opined. He was backed up by Steam letting out a fierce snicker, Blue outright guffawing while Lore cackled hysterically, and Realm smiling into his hand.
"Look, I'll admit that the fit still needs work," Wind argued, defending his choices. "But you've got to admit, I picked great colors on them."
"Ivory does make Mask's eyes stand out," Dusk agreed neutrally, being one of the few Links who wasn't actively laughing or wearing said tunic-dress-thing.
"How are you guys going to fight while wearing that?" Gen asked.
"Carefully," Wind said, giving his models a pointed look. "Very carefully. I spent a lot of work picking out that fabric."
Sketch let out a curse as something occurred to him. "We've gotta climb a mountain in this getup!"
"I'm sure it can't be that bad," Red said optimistically, which made everyone around him re-evaluate his sanity. "Princess Zelda does it every day, and she survived a kidnapping and came out looking perfectly normal. If she can do it, why can't we?"
There was a moment of silence as the six dress-wearing Links considered that.
"Can't be that bad, you said."
"Well-"
"Princess Zelda does it every day, you said."
"She does, you know, and technically-"
"If she can do it, why can't we, you said!"
"Okay, so it's harder than it looks!" Red cried. "Is that what you wanted to hear?"
Sketch grumbled and gave the hem of his dress-tunic-thing another sharp tug, while a few steps ahead Ocarina tripped over excess fabric for the umpteenth time in a row and Speck futilely tried to keep his skirt from mimicking an umbrella.
"However girls manage to deal with these things," Sketch growled, "they deserve so much more credit than they get."
"And technically, girls are wearing this outfit in heels," Wind informed him, walking up and freeing the hem from the sparse shrub that Sketch was caught on. The painted Link turned pale at the thought.
"I will never complain to Zelda to run faster ever again."
Because if Triforce Heroes can do it, why can't I? Plus, now Sketch can get used to it early. He is canonically the Link who deals with Hytopia, after all.
I'm beginning to suspect I enjoy putting the group in awkward situations.
Until next time,
Changeling
Thanks to poBBpC, TheFlamekid, vindicare241, zavegonzo, Zero2184, firestarter09, TheSaintAssassin, TheOverlord2, Angel Fantasy, Johnny Spectre, Mashked, zavegonzo, mystery8icarus, Cheshire000000, utuberforway, MelloTheMelonhead, Artorias132, grimtim9, pumpkinwaffles4243, Itherael, kayre459, TVD66, Nanhty, Nightwriter18, Kylunethil, BeltofOrion, Typhoon285, Eidorian999, FluidMedal, TheHeroOfLorule, Kegami96, russub19, Lifeisbeautifulandpretty, MaskedSilence, Garion1, Midkup, nine-tailed triforce, Kaji-Kun93, TheOnlyRenegade, SoraAlucard, niacdoial shadow98000, quandani939, hlf1495, fatimaestrellitadeplatagmail, Evekle, Who-needs-names, N-chan9979, Jacob Strider, TheLilyoftheValley, Camomelon, LordChrom 7, Ibeth MB, pandoraElf, ejr1999, Snivy24, Scraps off the Tapestry, xXFIRSTRoboXx, theMusicofyourSoul, AL-X PZ, Gfish59, Magyk-Foal1, Vio 16, IPSniffer, Doctor Homicide 157, ZGMF-X71T, Guajardo, TheWhiteKnight2K16, HisuiOnyx, AngelofTwilight99, Mbro, tropermariko, DJDerpCookie, Laties228, outcast247, Kyumi07, Jason M. Lee, zack the wolf, The Black Cat 666, Thero13, Unedaread, Shador, Nianque, ScreamingSeeker, Yamber, SamchowFTW, bigyihsuan, TheWormj, shadowslayer2015, My Little Dodongo, Reclusive Dork, ACE Knighthawk OMEGA, Pr0serpina, LibraryNexus, canvas-panda, Mitsuki Sakata, AGuyWhoCan'tWrite, ChuChu-Von-Lu, and CymraegAndConfused for favoriting/following!
The has-been who never will-be: I'm familiar enough with the franchise to know that I should never ever play it unless I want to have nightmares for weeks. On that note... Bonnie the rabbit amuses me because he's technically supposed to be a male but has a female name. Aside from that, they all want to kill me, so I'm more on the 'regard them with ambivalence' side.
Shadra: Wow. Thank you. That means a lot, actually :)