The Bleeding Effect

Chapter XIII

Something whips past Link's head, yowling furiously. It's so fast, by the time he turns his head to the direction in which the sound originated, the monster has already vanished out of one of the gaping holes in the wall. He tenses, raising the clawshot with anticipation. He briefly contemplates stowing away the weapon in favor of his sword and shield, but then decides against it. The clawshot has served him well so far in the city, helping him to reach high heights and to take down far away enemies. This foe has wings—the Master Sword might be the Blade of Evil's Bane, but that means nothing if it can't even touch said evil.

Another rush of air, another feral cry—the monster rips through the room too fast for Link to see it once again.

"Midna, did you manage to get a glimpse of it?"

"No," She admits. "It's moving too fast. We've never thought anything like this. Be careful."

Link edges back to the wall; at least, this way, one of his sides isn't vulnerable to attack. His gaze shifts around the room, trying to at the very least spot his foe. But all is quiet, still. It hasn't left for good, Link knows. The monster is trying to frighten him, trying to drive up his anxiety as the suspense of the moment climbs ever higher. He reaffirms his grip on the clawshot. He won't let this unnerve him.

The silence drags on for a few painful seconds more before the winged beast dives into the room through the hole directly in front of Link. The hero gets a good look at the type of creature he's up against—it has the look of a lizalfos with wings—before he rolls sideways to avoid being impaled.

The monster snarls as its sword glances harmlessly off the stone wall. It jerks to face Link, and the latter spies the shield the former grasps with its claw. The shield is a faded purple, with a bird's clawed foot as its sigil. It's also incredibly old; vines cling to it that the monster hadn't bothered to clean off.

"Link, that shield…" Breathes Midna.

"I know," He says. "It'll make a perfect target."

The lizard-like enemy pushes off from the ground, broad wings flapping hard. It's a safe bet that it's gearing up for a second dive attack.

Midna peeks out from his shadow. "That overgrown bird looks lonely up there in the sky, all alone." She observes. "Let's pull it down to say hello."

Link fires off the clawshot, and smirks with triumph as it lands solidly in its target. The monster blinks down at the weapon now firmly lodged in its shield. It tries to shake the clawshot off, to no avail. Link presses the release switch on the clawshot quickly; he doesn't want the monster to abandon the shield, at least until Link has dragged it down to the ground with him and gotten a few solid hits on it.

But to Link's alarm, instead of pulling the enemy to him, the clawshot pulls him to it. Link presses on the control immediately. He jerks to a stop as the chain stops retracting. A little less than half of the chain still dangles. Despite himself, Link looks down. He's too high to slip his hand out of the clawshot and land safely. But retracting the chain all the way will bring him right to the monster. In the sky, with only one arm available, he will be at a serious disadvantage. His muscles burn. His grip on the clawshot is all that keeps him in the air.

The monster grasps the situation quickly, and swoops down to seize a clawful of the chain.

With a yowl of triumph, the lizard-creature starts swinging the chain around. Link grabs his clawshot-covered arm with his other as tightly as he's able, not wanting to contemplate what would happen if he fell now, even as images of his body, broken, bloodied, and pulpy, flash before his eyes and make his heart pulse with anxiety. Once it builds up a decent speed, the monster releases both the chain and its shield, and Link is flying out one of the massive cracks in the wall, out of the collapsing city and into totally open air.

His limbs pinwheel through the sky as he drops downwards. He tries to shake the clawshot off of the shield. If he can get the weapon free, he might be able to use it to latch onto something before he plummets too far out of reach of the nearby buildings. But fear makes him stupid; instead of simply pressing the button that makes the clawshot release its target, he continues to shake his arm, trying to get the clawshot to let him go through force, but it's not working.

"Midna!" He screams. The wind howls past his face as the patches of green below grow slightly larger.

"Hold on, just hold on!" Midna yells over the wind. "I'll take care of this!"

He feels the cool press of something small and hard to his neck, and then his body transforms into that of a golden wolf. His paw is smaller than his hand; he sees the clawshot slide off of him and continue to fall as his world scrambles apart.

When everything reconnects again, he is still flying.

He smashes through a wall, splinters of rotten wood scattering around the room.

Link only pants, great, long breaths, as he lays there on his side. He hears Midna's harsh breaths coupled with his own, feels her small form pressed against his back. They both made it. They're both alive. For a moment, that's all that matters to either of them.

Midna is the first to recover, albeit she's still a bit shaken up. She plucks the stone off of Link, and only once he's a Hylian again does he push himself off the floor, propping himself up into a sitting position with his arms.

"Where are we?" Link manages, shaking the dust and splinters from his hair.

"I have no idea." The imp scratches the side of her head, frowning. "I never attempted such magic before."

"What are you talking about? You've used that warping magic before."

Midna shakes her head. "It's not exactly the same. The magic I used before opens up a warp channel to take us to warp exits that are already in existence." She looks at the wall they just crashed through. "What I did now was create a new warp portal. It would have been easier to go to one that was already around, but for some reason, I just didn't think to do it."

"You just panicked. So did I."

Midna makes a soft noise of agreement. "It's strange, though. I wasn't able to cast such spells back when I still had my true form. Any magic I do when I'm like this is normally weaker in comparison."

Link shrugs. "Perhaps you couldn't muster that kind of magical strength until you were in dire need of it."

"Perhaps," She says, but her mind turns back to her time spent with Roark. Was it possible that He had inflated her powers? Midna sneezes. The air in this room is incredibly dusty.

Link stands and starts to inspect the room. It seems that it was once someone's bedroom. His fingers trail over the dusty bedsheets.

Meanwhile, Midna inches carefully back to the wall they just busted through. She squints as the wind stings her eyes, but then her face breaks into a wide smile.

"Link, we're still up here!" She calls over her shoulder. "I must've just warped us to a different section of the city. I'm sure we can maneuver around back to where we just were."

"Next time we fight that thing, I should wear the iron boots. That'll give me more than enough comparative weight." Link says distractedly, busy scouring the room. He delicately lifts up the crumbling remains of a book from the shelf, pinching it by its edges to not cause it any further damage. He wipes off the coat of grime to better see the golden lettering beneath it. The title is confusingly written, overly complicated, and difficult to puzzle out. The ink is thin and spidery, barely legible. Nevertheless, he endeavors to read the title, bringing the text up to right under his eye.

"This doesn't make any sense," He says. Midna abandons her lookout on the ruined wall to come over and join him.

"What doesn't?"

"This book…it's written in old Hylian. We're still in the oocca city—why would they keep books that aren't even in their own language? For that matter, what would be the purpose of having books at all? It's not as if they can read them with ease."

"Obviously these books aren't important to them, if all this dust is anything to go by. Can you read the title?"

His face scrunches in concentration. "I've been trying, but the words are spelled differently and the phrasing hedgy…let's see." For a few seconds, his lips move silently as a finger traces over the scrawl. "I think I've got it."

"Let's hear it then." Midna encourages.

"The Author Gaepora Hyrule, on Matters which concern the…aloft…wings? Loftwings. Matters which concern the Loftwings of Skyloft."

"What's a loftwing?"

Link shrugs his shoulders. "Some sort of sky creature. Maybe it's the name of the lizard-thing we just fought against? Or maybe some type of bird…"

"What about the oocca? It could be a second name for them."

Link frowns. If the oocca wrote this about themselves, then why would they call themselves by a different name?"

"Cultures evolve all the time. It's possible that they used to refer to themselves by a different name. It would explain why the author doesn't have an excessive amount of o's in his name."

"But they had to have been much big than they are now. Look at this room—the bed is as big as I am!"

Then Link smacks himself.

Midna blinks. "Uh, Link?"

"Of course! I'm a fool." Link rummages through one of his pouches. "Why should we waste our time puzzling over this when we have ooccas with us we can ask?"

He produces Ooccoo and her son. They hop off his hands and to the floorboards next to him. Oocoo Jr. yawns widely.

"Gracious me, we have been having ourselves a little nap, yes." Chirps the mother. "We didn't miss anything important, did we?"

Link and Midna trade glances, remembering the deadly plummet they barely escaped from not minutes ago.

"Nothing worth you worrying about." Says Midna.

"Ooccoo, can you read this text?"

The bird-creature shuffles closer. Link bends down, holding the books so she can see it with ease. She stares at it for a few moments, then shakes her small head.

"No, I can't. It looks Hylian, but I never learned how to read it properly, gracious no, only to speak it."

"Did Hylians ever live up here?" Asks Link. He starts to leaf through the book, ever-cautious of its fragility.

"Not that I know of. We used to trade with them. They would send up a few men to barter goods back and forth every now and then. But until you, there hasn't been a Hylian here since I was a wee thing."

Link sucks in a breath when he flips to the next page.

"Look at this."

At the top of the page is drawn a beautifully detailed picture. Flying through the air is a magnificent bird, with rippling feathers off different shade, a large bill, and a curled tail. And riding atop is a man in an outfit not all that different from Link's own. He touches the drawing of the small pointed cap with wonder.

"His ears are even long and angular." Observes Midna.

"So this means that…"

Midna places her hand on his shoulder. "It means that we've found the home of our ancestors."

Link appears confused for a moment, but then his features smooth over. "I forgot. Your people aren't originally from the Twilight Realm. They were just sent there as a punishment."

Midna nods. The bitterness in her heart towards those that harmed her people so never entirely goes away.

Link still stares down at the picture.

"Earlier today, you said that the magic of this place was failing."

"What?" Squawks Ooccoo. "Gracious, no! We just got back!"

He shelves the book on the loftwings. His fingers trail over the feeble spines of the other books on the shelf. He stops at one near the end, one taller and thinner than the rest, and pulls it out.

Link repeats the process he used with the last book, scrubbing the layer of dust off before bringing it close to his face to make it easier to read.

"Here we go…Legends and Lores of the Creation of our Peoples and of our Land of Skyloft." He turns over the leather cover, scanning the first page. "There's no year written in…"

He turns a few more pages. The page on the left shows a woman brandishing a harp stands between several different species, ones that Link doesn't recognize—a thin squid-like being, a stout stump of a creature with leaves for hair, an overgrown mole, among others. The page on the right is a scrawl of text, presumably explaining the picture, but the ink is blotched upon the yellowed paper and Link cannot discern what it says.

"This is a picture book." Midna peers over one of his shoulders to get a better look and Ooccoo and Ooccoo Jr. look over the other.

He turns another page. This one depicts clump of land being raised from the ground and into midair.

"This makes sense." Link and the ooccas look toward Midna for further explanation. She meets Link's eyes, not wanting to face the other two when she says what she must. "Oocctavian was wrong. This city in the sky—this Skyloft—was not made for the oocca. It was made for the Hylians—their ancestors, rather. And that's why the city is crumbling to bits now. There are no more Hylians here. Its purpose, whatever it was, has long since been fulfilled."

"So how did the oocca get here, then?"

"Don't you see? They're the descendents of the loftwings!"

Link's gaze cuts to Ooccoo and Ooccoo Jr. He looks back at Midna duboisly, no doubt comparing them to the picture of the loftwing.

"They don't look exactly the same—"

"If your definition of exactly is at all."

"—but, it's the really the most plausible explanation that we have."

Ooccoo's beady eyes are wide. Ooccoo Jr. still flutters by her side, but all his cheerfulness seems to have left him. Link feels a spike of pity for them: to believe, all your life, that your speices if the Goddesses' most beloved of all creatures, only to find out that you were but pets to the true chosen ones…

He steels himself. "Ooccoo. Ooccoo Jr." They look up at him, still stunned. "The oocca must be evacuated."

"No!" Cries the little boy.

"It's not true, it's not!" Ooccoo stomps her clawed foot.

"Denying the truth won't change it." Link snaps. "Midna, I need your help."

Her surprise shows plainly on her face. "Of course."

"Your Link. Where does he live?"

"Ordon. A small farming village."

"And if the oocca all moved in there?"

Midna bites her lip. "They're kind people, to a fault. But…I can't say for sure what would happen if a bunch of strange bird things just came waltzing in." She looks at the ooccas. "No offense, of course."

Link is stumped. Midna told him much about his descendant's life, but retrieving and applying that chunk of information is difficult.

"Link's home," Midna starts, with the tone of someone who's had an epiphany. "It's isolated from the rest of the village. They could stay there, until we finished disposing of Argorok."

"Only until then?"

"Afterwards, we would have to go to the village too. You will have to convince the villagers to let them stay." He can practically hear her unspoken words: you will have to convince the villagers that you are their Link. "This'll be hard. You cannot decide this lightly."

Link squirms a little, looking down at the two oocca. They're frightened. He's frightened, too. What will happen to him if the villagers learn he's not who he pretends to be? Will they give him the chance to explain himself? Even if they give him that chance, what if they refuse to believe him? Part of him wants to run away when he's faced with this kind of responsibility with these kinds of risks. Link almost wants to tell Midna to handle the whole problem instead, because she's better suited to this kind of thing, but he knows that she would disagree and it would leave him feeling slimy and shameful.

He squares his shoulders. It doesn't matter how the situation makes him feel—he has to push pass that and do the right thing.

"Oocoo, we're going to save your people. But I need your help in order to do that."

Said ooca scrabbles backwards away from Link and Midna.

"No, it's not true! It's not!"

"I know this is difficult for you to accept," Says Midna, not unkindly. "But we need you to focus. We've delayed too long here already. The magical foundation of Skyloft is crumbling; and I'm sure that rampaging dragon isn't helping the infrastructure."

Ooccoo finally calms down and bobs her head. "What will you have us do?"

"Those warping powers of yours. All oocca have them?"

"Nope!" Ooccoo Jr. puffs up with pride. "Only me and my momma!"

"Alright. Then I need you to find all your people that are scattered about Skyloft. Convince them to come to Link's—my—house and warp them there."

"That's impossible. I can't warp to a place I've never seen."

"I can help with that." Midna offers. She holds up her palm. On the surface of it shoots up the image of a quaint house carved out of a large tree. Link is delighted to see that his descendant seems to have as much appreciation for nature as he does.

Ooccoo eyes the image for a few moments before bobbing her head again.

"Alright. That's enough, gracious yes. My son and I'll go get everyone. We'll meet you again soon. Defeat that dreadful dragon quickly, gracious yes!" Her and her son say a chant as their bodies begin to warp and distort. With a small pop, they're gone. Link and Midna are alone in the dusty old room.

Midna smacks the side of her head. "Oh, dodongo dung! We should've asked them to warp us back to the main part of the city."

"We can get back there on our own, can't we?"

"We lost the clawshot, remember? That's going to make everything infinitely more difficult."

"Let's look around more," He suggests. "Maybe we'll find something useful."

Link heads for the closet. One of the doors has dislodged from its top hinge, and the slab of wood leans out, leaving half of the cabinet's contents visible. He eases the other door open—it still shrieks as it moves on its ancient hinges—to get a full view of what the furniture holds. On the top shelves are various sacks. They're so full that the rupees are spilling out of them. He briefly debates pocketing them, but the figures he has enough as it is.

Stuffed near the back of one of the shelves is a single scrap of paper. He plucks it from the closet to scrutinize it. It's a sketch, a portrait of a woman, with long, light hair and kind eyes. Near the curve of her shoulder is a scrawled a name. One very familiar.

He shows it to Midna. "Look, the name at the bottom—it says Zelda!"

"The name is passed down through the Royal Family. Maybe she was the first one. But who would keep a picture of Zelda in their room?"

Link blushes and mumbles and shoves his head back in the closet.

Midna gapes. "You don't seriously…"

More red creeps onto his face. "She's a friend! I didn't get to see her often. I just wanted to remember her."

"Did you now? And you drew pictures of all your friends, right?"

He fidgets. He fumbles with the rupees, trying to distract them both. "It was…drawing practice."

This is prime teasing ground. Midna is gracious enough, though, to not make the Hero of Time squirm for any longer. If the poor boy's face gets any redder, he might collapse from the lack of blood in the rest of his body.

So instead, she drifts over to the desk. A leather-bound journal sits atop it. She unwinds the cord that ties it shut, and begins to gingerly flip through it.

Meanwhile, Link continues to inspect the contents of the closet. The shelves yield nothing of real value, so he pulls out the bottom drawer.

"Whoa," He breathes, amazed at the sight below him. The drawer is full of items and weapons. The bottles are filthy and smashed, but he doesn't mind their absence so much. His curiosity is high as he looks from one item to the next. Which should he pick up first? His fingers trail across the purple shield with a clawed foot sigil—the winged lizard must've snatched its shield from one of the nearby rooms—before resting a mechanical object.

He pulls it out. It looks like a red-orange beetle, with a pair of overly large pincers. He clenches the trigger. The beetle whirs to life for a handful of seconds before sputtering to a stop once more. A touch dismayed, he puts it back with the other items. He hopes he'll find something of use.

Midna closes the journal with a smile. She glides over to Link, and pushes the book to his chest.

"Read this, later. I think you'll find it enlightening."

He is hesitant due to the mischievous grin stretched upon her face, but he still does stuff the journal into one of his item pouches.

"Have you found anything good yet?"

He beams with glee. "You'll never believe it."

Link presents to her two clawshots. They're undeniably as old as the rest of the junk here, spotted with rust.

She arches one eyebrow. "Do they actually work?"

Link puts one of them on his left hand. He pulls the internal trigger, and jolts forward a little as it forcefully shoots from its holding place, burying itself in the wall where he aimed.

"A little too well. They're more powerful than the one I used before."

"It will be useful to have two of them, as well. At best, they'll give you more mobility in the air. At worst, if one breaks, we have another."

He puts them in his item pouch and pushes the drawer back where it belongs. All the rest of the items had stopped working or had fallen apart long before he got here.

"It's time to get revenge on that airborne lizalfos."

"We should give it a name," Remarks Midna, as she blends into his shadow that's stretched across the ground.

"Do you have any ideas?"

"How about aeralfos? What do you think?"

"I quite like it." He compliments.

Though Link likes the name of the creature, he certainly does not like the creature the name is attached to. Especially when he's faced with not one, but two of them.

After leaving the old room and carefully clawshotting their way back to the main buildings of Skyloft, Link returned to the damaged room for a second round with the aeralfos. But, to his surprise, the monster was nowhere to be found. He progressed relatively unimpeded through the rest of the city. Ooccoo and Ooccoo Jr. were doing their job well—he saw not even a feather of an oocca. She must've warped away all those that were further in, and thereby in more danger, first.

Now he's reached the room that leads to the highest point in the city, where the dragon undoubtedly resides. But barring the way are two aeralfos. They haven't noticed him yet—he is well hidden behind a slab of wreckage—so he and Midna have some time to plan.

"How can we defeat two of them at the same time?" He says lowly.

"If there was just one, I would say to equip the iron boots and use your clawshots. But they're too cumbersome. If the second one went to attack you while you were busy with the first, I don't know if you'd be able to dodge in time."

"What other weapons can be used, then?"

Midna's face scrunches in concentration. "The boomerang's no help…neither is the spinner or the Dominion Rod. Everything we've got is too slow for such enemies. Everything except…"

"The Master Sword." Link finishes.

She twists her hands. "Will you be able to fight them? We had problems with only one."

"I can do it." The sword slides cleanly from its sheath. Midna wants to say more on the matter, but ultimately decides against it. She watches as he steps out from behind the rubble. Instantly the aeralfos lock onto his location; with high-pitched yowls they dive towards him.

Link rolls, easily avoiding their first joint attack. He knows the following strikes won't be nearly as easy to dodge. He must deal with one of them quickly if he hopes to be the victor. One aeralfos is the same one he encountered earlier: it's missing its purple shield. It must've not bothered to scrounge around for another one after it threw its first one away in the hopes of killing him.

Link tightens his grip on the Master word. He'll kill this one first.

The aeralfos with a shield dives down again, at such speeds that Link can't roll away like he did before. Instead, he's forced to raise up his shield. The monster's own shield crashes into his. The creature is bearing down at him on an angle just high enough that it is out of reach of Link's blade. The aeralfos' weight and strength put almost unbearable pressure on Link's shield arm. Small grunts of effort tear themselves from Link's lips. Slowly, his boots start to slide back across the floor.

"Behind you!" Warns Midna, just in time.

Link drops to the ground and feels a rush of air blow past his head.

He scrambles up and backs away. Where he had just stood, the second aeralfos' blade is outstretched. The monster lets the blade lower, howling with anger at its miss.

Without much thought, Link charges at the aeralfos that doesn't have a shield. But before he can reach it, the other one blocks his way. They've caught on.

Link executes a spin attack. The monster blocks, as he expected, but it is also not prepared for the force of the blow. It stumbles backwards, guard loose. Link moves in. They've caught onto his first plan. But Link is flexible. He must be. He always has another plan of attack formulated in the back of his mind.

Before the aeralfos can recover its ground, Link darts in close and slices off its sword hand in one clean stroke.

The monster cries out, other claw clutching at its new stump, sinking to its scaly knees. Link stabs it straight through the neck. Gurgling, the aeralfos starts to tip sideways.

With a savage roar the other aeralfos bounds over top of the other one, sword aimed straight for Link's head. He throws up his shield, and the sword glances away from its targeted area, but as a consequence it manages to slice open his shoulder.

With a hiss Link yanks his sword out of the dead aeralfos and retreats several feet away. He risks a quick glance away from his enemy and to his stinging shoulder. It could be serious if left untreated, but it is by no means a fatal blow. He can still fight.

"Don't get overconfident now that you've beaten one of them." Advises Midna. "Now that one aeralfos is doubly vigilant!"

Said beast rips the shield from the arm of its dead comrade, replacing the one it lost earlier that day. Once fully equipped, it takes to the sky. There it waits, great wings flapping.

"Oh no," Says Link. "I won't fall for that ploy once more."

They're at a standstill. Link will not join the aeralfos in the air and the aeralfos will not join Link on the ground.

This stretches on for a few agonizing minutes. Link's arm twitches. He wants to pull out his bow. Shoot its wings, ground it. But Midna has another idea.

"Wait." She says.

"But—"

"Wait. Trust me."

So he clamps down on his urge to grab the other weapon. Not soon afterwards, the aeralfos' tenuous patience comes to an end. It dives at him again—Seriously? Does it not know any other attacks?—and brings its sword down hard. Link rolls out of the way, and the force of the sword hitting the stone floor jars the monster. The sword shivers upon impact, and clatters from the monster's claw.

Just then, a stroke of luck that Link at once attributes to the Goddesses. The block of stone the aeralfos stands upon flickers blue, and starts to shake.

Lightning quick, Link slash horizontally across its wings and back. The aeralfos arches away from the pain, yowling, but has no time for anything more as the block it stands on falls away. Its cries echo as it plummets downwards.

Link stares after it grimly, as he wipes clean his sword on the underside of his tunic. With its wings cut, it won't be able to fly away.

"You knew that it would lose its temper and strike foolishly."

"It's a near-senseless monster. You're not. Well, not the monster part," Midna teases. "Near-senseless, though? That might be an apt description."

"Well, you're the one following around a near-senseless person. What does that make you? Totally senseless?"

She swats his arm, and he laughs a little, before cutting himself off with a sharp gasp of pain.

"Your shoulder! How could I forget?"

"Senseless, remember?" Sweat clumps his hair together, creating a light brown screen. He pushes it out of the way with his good arm.

"Thank the Goddesses you have a sense of humor. I had nearly given up hope. Now let me get a closer look at that shoulder of yours."

Above them, Argorok bellows. The entire foundation around them quakes with the might of the dragon's fury.

"Midna," Link says. "Please look faster."

Lord Ganondorf reclines on the Hyrule throne.

Everything is going exactly how he planned it. He's not surprised. After being sealed away in the Twilight Realm, he had nothing but time to plan. Now the princess is his eternal prisoner, the Hylian race his oblivious slaves.

His fists clench. He tamps down upon his confidence. The Hero of Time's descendent still lives, despite his efforts to the contrary.

His spies reported that the hero's brat was collecting the mirror shards. Let him, then. If the journey to collect them all doesn't kill him, Zant shall.

But Zant is a gormless fool. The boy might triumph still.

Lord Ganondorf steeples his hands. Should he create another Phantom Ganon? Should he seek out the brat himself?

The doors to his throne room groan open. Boots clack loudly over the tile, before coming to a stop a few feet away from the Gerudo.

"Here we are once again, my friend. I must say, you've done an excellent job with the place. I only wonder, how long are you going to let that debris lie around?" He gestures to the smashed ruins of the Goddess statues that lay scattered about the hall. "And where is your organ? Have you given up your life as a musician?" The Happy Mask Salesman laughs.

Lord Ganondorf is not amused. "Why have you come?"

The Happy Mask Salesman smiles, but his eyes are sharp and hard.

"You refused my offer to help one hundred years ago, and look at what a terrible fate befell you. I've come to ask if you've changed your mind."

Lord Ganondorf deliberates. At best, the salesman will obliterate the whelp. At worst, do him some injury. Either way, the Gerudo King will be satisfied. For quite some time, within the Twilight Realm, he had fantasized about all the ways he would torture the hero's descendants. But that was but a brief moment of foolishness—he is Lord Ganondorf. He doesn't need to extend the effort to kill someone if he doesn't have to. The level of satisfaction will be the same whether he deals the finishing blow or one of his underlings does.

Lord Ganondorf nods regally. "What do you have in mind?"

The Happy Mask Salesman's smile stretches wider.

-TBC-