Link had zero doubt that there was an intended order to the Hylian temples. His directional sense had consistently brought him to the exact next place he could properly explore. In Egypt he'd been given, or earned, the Eldin Earrings which had protected him from the extreme heat inside the Stromboli volcano. In the volcano, he'd barely saved the Dragon's Scale, which had given him the ability to breathe underwater and dive deep without feeling the pressure of so much water above.

In the depths of the Mediterranean Sea he'd found an additional layer to his Dragon's Scale, which had dramatically increased his aquatic agility and speed, allowing him to move as swiftly as a dolphin with as little effort as his previous swimming. Link supposed this was meant to bring him to the separate landmass now called the Americas, but the distance had probably drastically increased since these temple's founding, so he'd been forced to find another method. In the heart of the Amazon rainforest, he'd been given yet another gift: a Lens of Truth.

The lens was different from the one he recalled from his memories, but only in shape. The lens had been much like a modern magnifying glass before, but now it was much like a contact lens, fitting easily into his eye, rather than him needing to hold it up to use. It was thicker than a contact lens, however, and was both far more durable and more uncomfortable. Fortunately, it wasn't hard to remove either, it was just intended to leave both of his hands free.

All of these things left a few questions in Link's mind and, despite his current need for haste, he couldn't help but consider them. There was an intended order to the temples, so who was doing the intending? How had they set things up so that he knew where to go? His memories of past lives were grouped together, showing him useful flashes of moments or information from a dozen different incarnations but in chronological order of incarnations. At least he assumed they were, certainly the first set were all from his first life.

Yet, he couldn't know if the last memories he currently possessed were actually from the incarnation before this one. At any rate, he possessed no memory of any of these temples specifically, or of a world, a time, where they might've belonged. So what had happened? How had Hyrule fallen? How had these been set up for him in such a way as to insure their survival? Who was guiding his steps? He possessed no memories that even gave him hints.

He stood atop the temple, which was apparently completely underground, as he considered these things but his immediate problem was an obvious one: how to get in? He'd been looking for hours, hours he was afraid to spend, and was no closer to an answer. He'd put on the Lens of Truth and it had revealed nothing. Nothing of use, at least.

There where a few oddities it had revealed. Poes, spirits of the dead, wandered freely it seemed. Though, they were harmless in and of themselves without some great emotion, like hate or rage, to fuel them. None had proven dangerous. There was also a… shadow of some kind. He could see it even without the lens and it stretched out well past where he could see.

Trouble was, nothing cast the shadow, and even the lens couldn't reveal its origin. Darkness wasn't a thing, it was the absence of light, shadows were places with less light than the area around it, and were created by covering up the source of light. That wouldn't remove all the light from touching the area, since light also reflected off things, but it certainly limited the exposure.

All of that was just how things worked when magic wasn't involved, however. Ganondorf was proficient with darkness magic, but it wasn't necessarily an evil thing. Link had memories of people wielding darkness magic against the King of Evil. Impa, or at least one of the Impa's he'd known, and Midna were prime examples. Darkness magic repelled light, along with anything else it did, it was rarely absolute in its ability, but it could still dampen the light with ease.

So what spell was on this place that managed this widespread effect? When he'd noticed the shadow, he'd looked up, already having been wearing the Lens of Truth, expecting some horror or at least invisible object to be hovering above him but there had been nothing. That left magic but this was… huge, likely as expansive as the Curse of Decay had been, but with no discernible effect. The Curse of Decay had been exactly what it said on the tin and damaged the structure of the volcano, at least until it had found the host it had been searching for. Here there was… nothing. A vague impression of Ganondorf's touch, a temple below ground with no visible or invisible entrance, questions spinning in his mind with no apparent answers, and a hot sun bearing down on him as he desperately searched for any way forward before his friend died. Not that he was hot, with the Eldin Earring in he didn't notice this little heat, but it still felt oppressive. He wished a breeze would blow through, but even the wind would feel dry in this arid climate.

Link stopped. He wasn't hot, so he hadn't noticed… but there was some kind of breeze blowing on him. A incredibly light, but cool, wind that rose… up from the ground. He dropped to the ground, looking carefully until he found the tiny crack in the ground that air blew up from. He dug at it, trying to find enough purchase to get his fingers in.

The dirt wasn't deep, and it wasn't long before he found a rock underneath it all. He checked the crack, it ran around two plates of rock in a small box like… like bricks. But a Hylian temple wouldn't be able to degrade to the point it lost its airtight nature, all the others had survived without so much as a mark, save where the Curse of Decay had deliberately eaten at one.

It didn't matter, this wall was falling apart for some reason, which meant Link could break in. He stood and pulled from his inventory the massive hammer he'd stowed from the boss room in Stromboli. Then he remembered he should probably wear the Golden Gauntlets, and put those on too. Then he started attacking the Hylian temple.

It shattered in only a few swings, the broken stone crashing down for what sounded like several feet before it hit the floor. The darkness inside the temple was so thoroughly black that Link couldn't see inside even with the sunlight shining directly in through the hole he'd just made. With nothing else to do, he put the hammer away, though he left the gauntlets on, and jumped into the room.

The Hylian temple was a mess, and not just because he'd knocked a hole in it. The moment he passed the darkness barrier, Link found he could see, as long as he wore the Lens of Truth at least, but what it revealed was… confusing. Apparently, Link had broken through in a hallway, there was a locked door behind him, but the other end opened into what appeared to be a chasm, with floating rocks and bottomless pits and all manner of dangerous traps.

The only problem was: it was all sideways. It was as if the entire temple had been picked up and set on its side, but the seemingly endless chasm had moved with everything else. He didn't have time to worry about how or why, he had to hurry. Link set out to explore the broken temple.

"How many?" Agent Hill asked, with true incredulity.

"Eleven and counting ma'am. Based on the information provided by Link, Shield started searching for cursed areas, almost all Hylian structures Shield knows about are effected in one way or another, including a Shield lab where several small prestructure objects are studied and tested. And that's not all, we've found even more places that are either afflicted with a sudden disease that's never been seen before or strange creatures out for blood, sometimes both."

Maria tried to wrap her mind around that information. Eleven curses. Even Link couldn't deal with this all on his own. Not to mention they were scattered across all six inhabited continents. If each one was already dangerous…

But Shield was outmatched. The fiasco in the Amazon had proved that. They had been one step from being wiped out and hadn't done any lasting damage to those monsters. And then there was… whatever had hurt Link so badly later on. Were there more of those monsters or anything at the same level?

The agent who had delivered the intel suddenly spoke again and jolted her from her thoughts: "Ma'am, there's a request that you give advice on proceedings with these curses."

"Right… quarantine the areas. Don't let anyone, even Shield personnel, inside. When Link has finished with this one we can let him know how many there are and see if he can take care of them."

"Yes ma'am, I'll tell them that's your personal opinion on the problem."

Agent Hill knew the advice wouldn't be taken. Nobody liked feeling helpless, least of all those with power. And Shield was supposed to be the ultimate line of defense… everywhere. But they couldn't be, not here. Link was the only one with the capacity to combat this threat. She just hoped Shield wouldn't throw away too many lives before they figured that out.

Director Fury allowed himself an internal smile when he heard Agent Hill's advice. He couldn't follow that advice, not immediately, but it was the right advice. The problem was, he didn't have final say in the matter this time. It was a big enough threat that the council was meeting even then to discuss. In this scenario, there was only one way to get his point across: let them screw up.

Shield had videos of Link's raw power and speed now, mostly from his fight against the lava monster on Stromboli island. He'd sent them those. Shield had multiple eyewitness testimonies that Shield's best weapons and men could and would be entirely ineffective against these threats of magical and/or alien origin. He'd sent them those, and they'd were disregarding all of it.

The only way they'd learn was to let them send agents to their deaths. When it was their fault, they would see Fury was right. They'd know they needed the Avengers.

Link did not like being afraid. He'd tried to be his usual, careful, self in this twisted temple. He hadn't truly succeeded. It wasn't the temple itself that scared him, of course. It was the threat on Serine's life that had him rushing recklessly about. Still, he had finally managed to make it to the boss room, and with only a few bangs and bruises more than he'd probably have had anyway.

The real problem was that he was tired. He'd spent the whole time, at least half a day, moving almost as much as he had running all the way here. It was really starting to pile up on him. Unlike some Hylian legends about him had claimed, he was not able to stay active and fighting 24/7. Hopefully, this would be the end though, and he could take a full rest before moving on.

Still, for all his rush, he'd cleared the whole place very effectively. He'd found a pair of Hover Boots which allowed him to traverse much more easily and, though he had founds plenty of vengeful poes around, he had discovered that his Boomerang emitted enough light to stun any specter it passed through. Allowing him to attack it with any physical weapon he chose.

His other discoveries had been more confusing, however. There had been several Redead about, but they seemed completely unable to effect him. He'd never possessed such a resistance before, so he couldn't figure out what was going on there. The final piece was even stranger. He'd picked up a bow and several quivers full of arrows in the Amazon temple, they'd been instrumental in defeating Gohma, but here he'd found something odd: arrow enhancing spells. Specifically the ability to alter an arrow with the element of light… or darkness.

Light made sense, Link has tested and they easily destroyed poes with only one shot, but what would Link need dark arrows for? His enemy wielded darkness magic constantly, he couldn't possibly have a use for adding more darkness magic to the mix.

Link shoved that problem out of his mind. If he found a use for it even once, he'd be glad he had it. For now, he stepped forward and unlocked the boss chamber and walked inside. The room was very dark, but torches kept some light about, their flames almost highlighting how much Link couldn't see. Then the expected musical message played.

"One who learns the value of light and darkness. Their relationship of shrouding and revealing. Face now the monstrosity of your past. Illuminate that which is hidden, hide what should not be seen and emerge victorious."

Link frowned as the torches all flared briefly, before one half of the circular chamber when completely out, and the other brightened to an almost blinding degree, some kind of magic dividing the two brightness levels so that one half was pitch black and the other entirely too bright. But, there was no sign of a 'monstrosity' anywhere. He had the Lens of Truth on still, if there were anything to see, he would see it. Except… he felt it, a source of evil magic directly in front of him. What…?

Something slammed into him and sent him crashing into a wall fully on the bright side of the chamber. Link coughed hard but finally thought he understood. The enemy wasn't invisible, it was camouflaged. Despite it being a 'monstrosity of his past, Link couldn't remember anything like this creature but, then, in most of his lives, he had possessed no memories of past lives. He could fight this thing.

He got up and sheathed his sword, though he kept the shield out. Then he reached into his inventory and pulled out the Magic Cape. He pulled it on, and watched as something very very bright tried to strike him. It passed right through, of course, as he was intangible. And now he knew where it was.

He pulled out his bow and enchanted an arrow into a dark arrow. He should've known it would come into play right here. He drew and fired directly straight ahead. The arrow left his fingers and became tangible again, a rather dangerous strategy Link wished he'd thought of before now, and struck the thing, whatever it was. The arrow pushed its brightness away, as well as piercing its chest, and it finally became visible.

It was a ghost-like thing vaguely reminiscent of the monster Bongo-Bongo from his memories. Only this thing glowed with a terrible light and had nasty claws instead of hands. It looked startled to be seen, however, and Link hurried to capitalize. He pulled off the cape and drew his sword, managing to land five or six slashes before it regained composure.

Link jumped backward to make sure he wasn't caught by some counterattack, but the creature instead shook itself, and did… the exact opposite of what it had done before. It stopped glowing and started pushing light away instead. At first, of course, it became completely visible, but then it retreated into the blackened part of the room vanishing again. Link slipped the cape on and followed the creature, he'd never get anywhere shooting blindly and he didn't want to find out the hard way if the thing had any projectile attacks.

Once inside he pulled out his bow again and readied a light arrow. As always, the advice from the musical message was precisely the right thing. He illuminated the monster even when its light was overpowering, and he hid himself from its eyes and claws. When he got an opening, he struck hard. It took several long minuets, but he finally managed to kill the thing, whatever it was. Oddly, there didn't seem to be a second phase to this one, but Link wasn't about to complain.

The message played even as the creature's magic failed and it crumbled into nothing, "You have proven your ability with light and darkness, take now a piece of your past that you had lost."

The room's lighting returned to normal, save for one beam of light shining in the center, an item floating inside. Only then did Link notice something that should have been obvious from the start: this room wasn't tilted. He'd walked through a sideways room, into a perfectly normal one. Well… normal in orientation at least.

Link walked over and claimed his prize, but kept a wary eye out for… whatever was going to come next. Because Link seriously doubted this creature, still safely locked away in this chamber to serve as a test for him, was the epicenter of the curse afflicting his old home.

The final item didn't attach itself right to him like some had in the past but, then, neither had the Lens of Truth. In his hand sat a strange little thing, but a loud crack behind him kept him from properly examining it. He stowed it safely away as he spun to confront he next challenge. He was exhausted, had taken a few hits already, and he was low on magic (though that was slowly refilling) but he'd fight anyway. Fight until he died or there was no threat to his friend left, whichever came first.

As evening began creeping over the town, and shadows began lengthening, Agent Hill started to feel a sense of… death hang over everything. There was no other word for it. The feeling of a graveyard after dark, the knowledge of finality. This town… it was already dead. It just didn't know it yet.

"Ma'am! We've got seismic activity down there!"

Hill started, "Seismic, what's happening?"

"No idea! There shouldn't be any hint of an earthquake out here!"

Hill rushed over to the monitor, but the town again caught her eye. Black smoke was rising from the entire area, filling the sky, but it didn't waft away at all. Every wisp of it hung and congealed over Gove until it was entirely blacked out.

Then an ear-splitting crack resounded and Hill covered her ears reflexively. Even then she heard what came next. A deafening screech like sheering metal only that she somehow knew it was coming from a mouth of flesh. When Maria was able to make herself look, there was very little to see: only that a massive shape moved in the darkness, everything else was still obscured.

"Spotlights! Now!" She yelled, and agents rushed to obey.

It only took moments, but each one felt like an hour, listening to the earth shake and the creature scream. When the spotlights finally came on, however, they made absolutely no difference. The beams were bright enough that she could see the path they carved out of the natural night, but as soon as they struck the black smoke, they seemed to stop dead, as if striking a physical barrier.

Then there was a light, a single point of golden-white brilliance, sitting inside the blackness. It shot forward like an arrow and apparently struck the large creature, for the light suddenly exploded and drove the smoke away. For one instant, Hill and all the Agents of Shield could see exactly what was happening in Gove.

The creature was a gigantic quadrupedal lizard, with bat-like wings spread wide over a dozen buildings each. Its head was horned and lined with teeth made for killing something the size of a building, and out of its mouth spilled the dark smoke that immediately began refilling the area with darkness. It stood in a crack in the ground, that had already swallowed a huge chunk of Gove, and was climbing free. On the lip of the crack, facing the monster head-on, was Link, though it was too far for Maria to tell what he was doing.

Nobody said the word. Nobody needed to. Not a soul in the world could see that thing and not know. A creature of mythology and legend, spoken of in every corner of the world, battled only by the gods or the greatest of heroes: a dragon. Link was fighting a living, breathing dragon.

The black smoke filled back in almost immediately, but neither Hill nor any other agent could move until the next piercing scream jolted them back to life. Some used comms to report what was happening, others set up cameras to record in case Link made that opening again, which actually happened several times. Apparently, decisions were reached very quickly, for someone came and told Hill that a missile strike had been ordered.

She tried to protest that there were civilians down there still, not to mention Link was fighting it directly, but she knew there was nothing she could do. And she understood: there was a dragon down there. What could a swordsman do against that?

In under five minutes she saw not one but two short-range missiles streak down towards the black dome over Gove. Link, helpfully, chose that exact moment to fire another round of whatever light magic he was using, and they got to see exactly what effect they had. The first missile struck home, detonating directly on the dragon's back. The explosion made it lurch forwards, but it caught itself easily. The second missile streaked past the beast and exploded on the ground in front of it right where Link was standing.

The creature roared and swiveled its head on its long neck… and apparently decided that the missile had come from them. Not that she could blame it, it might as well have been them, but it sealed their fate for certain. Shield had, of course, tried to step in and take charge like it always did, like she always did, and completely botched it.

No, she was being unfair. Usually, what Shield did really was for the best. It was just that threats were starting to appear that were too big for Shield, and the higher-ups refused to believe that. They needed to spend some time on the field. Director Fury was right, they needed to have some way of rising to these new threats, and if they couldn't… to find and employ those who could.

As the gigantic dragon took flight, shadows trailing behind as they dribbled out of its mouth, and came straight at her and her team, Agent Maria Hill of Shield really hoped they found some way of killing it before it destroyed the world.

Several agents drew guns and started firing, just some last effort, completely useless. Maria joined them, of course. The dragon didn't just land on them, however, it stopped, somehow beating its wings to hover in the air despite its weight. Then its mouth stopped leaking that shadowy smoke and the back of it's throat started to glow black.

Agent Hill opened her eyes wide and yelled, "Fire breath!"

Everyone stopped shooting uselessly and scattered, but the flames never came. Hill only barely saw what happened out of the corner of he eye, but at the moment it was about to unleash black flames on them, Link appeared on its head and swung a massive hammer, forcefully closing its mouth and causing the fires to spill out its closed jaws instead of blasting forward with force.

The creature screamed again, and at this range Hill thought her ears would split, but she watched as Link somehow made the hammer disappear and used his sword to hack at one of the dragon's wings. The beast careened out of control and struck the ground, and Link was flung off it. He landed not far from Maria herself.

He stood up, looking perfectly fine, save for heavily damaged clothing, and spoke with voice that sounded out-of-breath, "You guys fired those missiles?"

"Yes", Hill said, ashamed.

"Thanks, I never would've been able to get that thing out of town."

Then he charged the dragon again.

The other Shield agents continued to run away, which was probably the wise thing to do, but Maria couldn't make herself go anywhere. That missile had struck almost exactly where the light spell had come from, yet the man thanked them for helping. Last time Shield had intervened he had berated them up and down like children!

Link was apparently having a difficult time doing any real damage to the dragon, which Hill supposed was fair, if concerning. Whenever the dragon tried to use its fire breath, Link drew a bow from nowhere and fired an arrow that looked to be made of light into its mouth. But this never prompted it to scream in pain, just somehow cancelled the attack. Whenever it attacked with its claws instead, Link just dodged or blocked with his shield, somehow resisting its raw strength with his own.

Finally, though, Link seemed to spot something she couldn't see, and shot another light arrow at a point on its neck. The creature roared in agony and reared its head and neck up into the sky. Link acted so fast she barely saw it, he pulled on a pair of golden slippers with wings on them, setting them over his boots, then he dashed forwards and up the dragon's foreleg, he ran out of room to run very quickly, but he stepped on thin air once, twice, three times and jumped again.

He spun in the air with his sword outstretched. Then his sword glowed a fiery red light and when it made contact with the midpoint of the dragon's neck, it sliced clean through and severed the neck in two. With a spray of blood the head and its half of the neck rose a few feet in the air, enough for Link to pass between the two pieces, and fell to the ground with an audible thud.

Link landed on his feet on the dragon's back. He stood tall over his fallen enemy, swung his sword three times to shake the blood off it, and sheathed it. Then he casually leaped about twenty feet to the ground. He walked over to her, and dropped to the ground next to her. Hill hadn't realized she'd fallen.

"You can walk on air?" was all she managed to say.

Link glanced at his golden shoes tiredly, "Only a few steps."

"You killed a dragon."

"Yeah, there's always a dragon at some point. Most can't fly though, Ganondorf must be taking some inspiration from human legends."

"You survived the missile."

"Yeah, if you haven't noticed I'm basically heatproof."

"Right."

"It wasn't you who ordered those missiles fired, was it?"

"Higher-ups, I tried to tell them not to."

"Thought so."

"There's one of those at every place you visit?"

"Something like it at least. Giant scorpion or spider, lava monster, hydra, dragon, something."

"We found at least eleven more places with curses around the world."

"Makes sense… Ganondorf probably can't tell which ones are still important from wherever he's hiding. He just curses all the ones he finds. They're all populated?"

"Yes."

"Looks like I have a lot of work to do then."