Stood just a few feet away once I turned around, and examining me with a similar critical eye as I was him, was a completely identical twin, absently tossing the small, mobile Timeshift crystal in his sword hand. At this point, Dark – I'll call him that because that's who he became later – did not have the signature darkened clothes other Heroes are used to seeing him with.
The crystal glowed as if it was active, but there was no sign of its effect. Since I'd had to activate it before creating Dark, the one that had placed this room in the past was no longer active, placing us both in the present – and when I realized that, I made the connection.
"Oh, I get it," I said aloud. "The robots couldn't see the time lines the stones created because they were in that time. That stone's making you appear now, not me appear then, so I can't see the lines it's projection."
"Got it in one," Dark replied, reminding me again of how odd it was to hear my own voice coming back to me. "I'm here in the past because of this thing, so I don't see your future-present. Or whatever. Time travel makes my head hurt too, you know. 'course if we come across a Timeshift stone and I activate it, I'll see the future." He hesitated then added, "Probably. Fi?"
"I am unable to offer conjecture on this matter... Masters," she said after a moment's thought. "The ancient robots were not capable of perceiving the Timeshift stone we used immediately after our arrival. It is possible that they exist only now."
"You mean you can't see that?" Dark pointed toward the middle of the room, where the Timeshift stone was. "Blue stones, just waiting to be hit? I've got his memories, so I know he can see them too."
Fi gave no immediate reaction, seeming almost to be thoughtful, then disappeared – into Dark's sword, not mine. Then she reappeared again.
"I believe I understand now," she told us. "Your swords are identical, allowing me to pass between them at will. Whichever I inhabit directly defines which time I see."
"So right now, you can only see me because I'm inside that crystal's smaller reach?" I asked.
She nodded and continued, "If you were to trigger the crystal, you would appear in his past state, as we are aware. The crystal also existed in that past time to act as a marker defining the time it reverted to."
"The two crystals are linked then," Dark picked up. "I trigger this one, and for me the room becomes the future."
"Present," I corrected without thinking. Dark first showed his emerging attitude here by casually punching me. Since I wasn't prepared for that, I was knocked to the ground only to be helped back up again.
"Present for you," he told me. "I'm in the past. So that past is my present, and your present is my future. Get it straight, or we'll have headaches again."
"I think we already are," I muttered. "Fi, do you need a crystal active to go between our swords?" I asked.
"One way to find out," Dark said before Fi answered. He tapped his crystal and vanished with the same puff of blue I'd seen the robots disappear in when they cross the time lines. After a few moments, my sword tugged slightly, then Fi once again showed up.
"It appears your swords are linked and do not require a crystal to allow me to travel between them. I believe it may be possible to transmit your voices to each other utilizing this to allow for greater coordination, however I will need time for this. As your duplicate prompted me to remind you, he has a complete copy of your memories and knows what you need to do in the past to complete this chamber, and should begin at once."
I left Fi to work on voice contact for us and trusted Dark to pay attention and handle his side. Yes, I know who he turned out to be and what Dark ended up like, I've listened to the stories too. This is before he got that far. As far as I knew at the time, the only deviation from my own self would result from his experiences in the past, where mine were in the present.
All I had to do was knock out one of the shell beasts, where I finally asked what they were and got given their name – Ampilus – and I used its shell to safely cross the sand and the pit that was in the past.
That was about all I could do, I had to wait for Dark to handle the past now, so I climbed up the crates that lined one wall, forming a one-way route back to the other side and watched to see what the effects of his actions would be.
A smaller wooden crate nearby shifted apparently by itself, making the one-way route now two-way. I assumed that somehow, Dark had also crossed the room. Next, several aged, broken and clearly non-functional Technoblin weapons puffed into existence on top of the crates. Evidently he didn't care much for them either.
After a time, one of the Ampilus was brought startled and squealing into the air, carried through the air. It took me a few moments to realize what was going on – Dark must have been using his Hook Beetle to carry it along in its younger state, and I was watching the same movements here in the present, reflected as best they could.
The Ampilus was dropped on the worn, ancient button that in the present was definitely not going to move. It took a while for anything else to happen, probably because Dark had been on the other side of the room and had to use the shortcut he'd made with the crate to get back. I amused myself by lobbing a bomb at the Ampilus to keep it from wandering off – just in case.
When the results of Dark's actions finally did continue, the same effects I'd seen in the previous generator's room happened here – the button became pressed, still worn, still not going to move – it had just been wedged down in the past. The grating similarly rose, and rather surprisingly stayed up. The explanation showed itself moments later – Dark had moved several stones out of position and wedged them into place holding it up, and they stayed doing so even now in the present.
The back room was just as dry and dusty as the rest of the place looked in the present. I wasn't able to tell whether Dark turned on the generator or not, because it just wasn't going to last to the present. That was solved fairly quickly though, as he apparently reactivated the crystal, appearing out of nowhere, and in the smaller coverage it had, the generator was active and had a flame symbol on it.
"Well, there you are," he drawled. "Getting me to do your work for you, honestly. I thought you were the Hero."
"I am the Hero."
"Then what am I, huh?"
I couldn't think of any answer that didn't sound offensive, so just let it drop.
"Maybe we should get back to the power generator," I said instead. "The main one I mean. It should be running by now, it'll let us into the Mining Facility at last.
Dark just shrugged and consulted his copy of my map. "You go ahead. I'll catch up with you, there's something I want to have a quick look at. Won't take me long," he assured me, then tapped his crystal and disappeared again.
Even without the crystal, it didn't take me long to navigate back to the main generator, it was just a matter of making sure I travelled where the paths were in the past. Rather than just sit around and wait for Dark to show up though, I triggered the crystal nearby to carry on without him.
Once back in the past, the newly activated main generator did not look all that different, and it wasn't even active. The only differences were symbols matching those one the three generators, stuck on small posts. There was another slot here I could use my sword on, and twisting it under the watchful eye of the nearby robot did little.
The entire thing clicked regularly as it was turned, and it took all three symbols with it each time. When I pointed fully to the left, the first ring lit up blue and retracted. Twisting now only moved the remaining two.
It took a while before I finally thought to turn this one to point down and to the right, which caused the second ring to light up red, and then I just turned it back around until the last one locked pointing up, bringing it to life.
The whole thing glowed, then the earth trembled and shook violently as, even in the present, the Lanayru Mining Facility rose from the sand in the centre of the circles and paths, in both times, a series of steps, still covered in sand, leading down to a convenient spot that was there in the present.
"You know, if you'd thought about it a bit that would have been much more obvious," Dark's voice observed nearby once the shaking had subsided. "They point in the same direction as the generators. Found this, by the way," he went on, handing my a heart crystal – not one of the full ones. "Doesn't seem to do anything for me, and I remembered you collecting them so..."
"One more will make another complete one," I noted. "I'm almost tempted to go handle that now, in case it makes a difference later."
"But you're concerned about what Impa said, right? Just leave it to me. I'll wander in, take a look around, see what I can do. I'll use the crystal to do things in the future, or whatever you want to call your time, and then you just have to catch up. Isn't that why you insisted on creating me?"
So I left Dark to go get started while I headed for the nearest bird statue to make a quick stop by the sky. I'd activated several Goddess Cubes, and there were probably a few other things I could do. I didn't want to end up too distracted though – Dark's help was useful, but I was the Hero, after all.