Last month: Avoka had a discussion with Professor Snape that went spectacularly sour when the boy witnessed Snape's idea of a "well-meaning talking-to" with his godson. In Medusa Warren, Yellow had to face a dark maze, a sandy trap, and watchful Beamoses.

I made a fair amount of art for this chapter! Check the "concept art" tag on garden-eel-draws or the Ao3 version of this chapter to see an illustration of a Boko Wolfos, as well as two different versions of Vaati!

Content warning for a severe injury, blood, Harry's messed-up mindset regarding the Dursleys, and brief magical torture/abuse (not of the children).

Harry ducked a swipe of claws and kicked at one of the Wolfos's spindly ankles while he was nearer to the ground. The monster was quick and clever, though, and slid its foot out of reach before swinging its leg up and kneeing him in the chin. Harry's teeth clacked together so loudly it made his ears ring. He rolled with the hit and sprang back to his feet.

"Ow," he grunted, watching the creature dart around grinning at him. Luckily for Harry, these Wolfoses were mainly dangerous because of their razor-sharp claws, not due to their strength. If he'd caught a direct strike like that from a Moblin, it would have shattered his teeth, if not snapped his jawbone.

With his buckler raised, Harry forced himself not to clench up too tight in anticipation. These monsters had an attack pattern similar to Lizalfoses, dithering around at a distance before darting in to strike. It was a lot like the fighting style Avoka had taught him, and it now set him on edge in a way it hadn't before.

The Wolfos pivoted on one of its back paws and lunged for him with its claws dimly flashing in the low-lit room. Harry deflected those blades with his small shield and landed a sword strike at the monster's flank when it dashed by him. Just as quickly, he had to raise his shield again and jump back to avoid a defensive swing at his neck. Sparks flew as the edges of the Wolfos's talons carved furrows in the dome of his buckler. The marks formed half-ruptured dents on the inner side.

Harry hissed and danced back farther. This dungeon was giving him some pretty loud hints that they were going to have to upgrade their equipment once they got out of here.

"Gah!" Pain ripped through Harry's hip, echoed from one of his brothers. He didn't dare look away from his opponent to see who'd been injured. The Wolfos had gone back to its jerky pacing route, doing its best to bait Harry into an early strike.

"Come on, already," Harry said, raising his ruined shield before him. No time to back up and fix it, as fast as this beastie was, so he'd just have to deal with it having holes for the time being.

The Wolfos darted around for a little longer, then zipped in swinging. It led with a great sweep of its right claws, which Harry ducked, then followed up with a smaller, wicked attack with its lowered left hand. Bright sparks spattered Harry's eyes as his shield took what would have been a terrible slash to his face.

Blinded, Harry scrambled back from the monster to avoid any attacks he wouldn't be able to see coming. He flung the pieces of his destroyed buckler off of his arm, not seeing or caring where they clanged off to, and conjured the Mirror Shield instead. It immediately yanked his unbraced arm toward the floor. Harry willingly followed the motion and crouched behind the oversized disk.

He dropped his sword to free up his hand and rubbed furiously at his watering eyes. A couple of seconds into his recovery, there was a hard shove and a bell-like clang as the Wolfos bounced off of his much sturdier shield.

"Yeah, take that!" Harry crowed spitefully.

Agony tore along the outer length of Harry's thigh, accompanied by a scream from one of his brothers. While the intense transmitted sensation wasn't enough to make him collapse, something in his head told him it should have been. After making sure the Wolfos was still puzzled by his shield, Harry chanced a glance in the direction of the moaning he could now hear behind him.

Red was laid out on the ground with Yellow and Blue standing over him in his defense. His left thigh resembled an unzipped pencil bag. Two long lines of skin had been rent open through all their layers, leaving a generous exit point for what lay underneath. Harry's stomach lurched at the sight.

Three Wolfoses were closing in on his brothers with slow, predatory steps. They licked their chops and leered at the sight of such vulnerable prey. Blue sent Sunburst Spells and Banishing Charms, but the fire splashed off with minimal charring of fur and the Banishing Charms hit like weak pushes. When he switched to his bow and arrow, his shots barely made the tough monsters flinch.

Harry swore, even as he felt the Red Potion that Yellow quickly swallowed roll across him. Red wasn't going to recover in time to back up Yellow and Blue!

He picked up his sword, still lying nearby on the ground, and jabbed it at the Wolfos swooping in at him. The strike didn't connect, but he hadn't expected it to; the monster leapt back like the furry Lizalfos it was, and that was what he'd needed.

Harry ran toward the nearest source of sunlight. An idea had sprung to mind as quickly as instinct. While these monsters were too quick, lethal, and intelligent for the Harrys to beat them one-on-one through straightforward means without a high risk of death, they weren't just wolf creatures. When they'd been stood in the light, they'd been funny-colored, but otherwise normal Bokoblins. A Bokoblin was a lot slower and shorter in the limbs than a Wolfos, and a normal steel sword like the ones sheathed on their backs wouldn't be able to tear apart the Harrys' bucklers and armor with the same ease as magical claws.

Skidding to a stop in a sunbeam, Harry spun around, sweeping a slash of light across the room with his Mirror Shield. Just that brief flash had all the creatures flinching and howling. Their fur stood on end like they'd all been given a shock. Upon recovering from their fright, the three creatures menacing Harry's brothers turned their angry focus on the one who'd just given them a taste of the sun.

"Yes, that's it," Harry said, aiming his shield more carefully. He focused for seconds at a time on each of the monsters prowling toward him. The more light they were hit with, the paler they became, like Floormasters caught in the path of this dungeon's magic mirrors. One of the four became bright enough that, with a sizzling noise, it deflated into the form of a Bokoblin. Its skin still glowed with absorbed light, which floated off of it in a fine silvery vapor. Harry took that to mean the reversion had a time-limit.

"Did you see that?" Blue called out. "Do what Green did! Shine enough light to bring these monsters down to our level!"

"I could take 'em as they are!" Red complained, though he ran off to follow directions anyway.

"Tell that to the muscles you just had sucked back into your leg!" Yellow said waspishly.

Harry went for the gray Bokoblin while his brothers kept the remaining Wolfoses occupied. The Bokoblin saw him coming and readied its sword and shield, bearing its long canines with a snarl. With a quick switch of Mirror Shield to Vine Whip, Harry snatched the sword out of its hand. He hurriedly conjured his Bag of Holding to shove the weapon into it, then re-summoned his whip.

"I'll be having that, too!" he declared, snapping the weapon toward the monster's shield.

Growling, the Bokoblin gripped its buckler with both hands. When the Vine Whip's claws tried to pry the item loose, the monster yanked back hard. Harry was launched forward, too caught off guard to release his weapon in time.

The Bokoblin bashed him in the face with its shield. Harry reeled back, dropping his whip to clutch at his nose. It was most likely broken, but that was all the damage the Bokoblin had done. With a wet, congested snarl, Harry reversed directions and surged forward, conjuring one of Red's Christmas presents onto his left hand as he did.

BONNNG!

It was the gray Bokoblin's turn to stagger, having taken a stala-reinforced punch to its snout. Harry followed up with a stab at the monster's briefly undefended midsection. When it tried to raise its shield, Harry used his little boxing buckler to bat it out of the way and allow him to land a few more hits.

"Gotcha," he said with a savage grin as he plunged the sword into the Bokoblin's stringy chest. The monster attempted to punch him—more skillfully than a Blue Bokoblin could, but still with the clumsiness of a creature designed to have a weapon in its hand at all times. Harry released his sword, grabbed the Bokoblin's arm as it extended past him, and flipped it over his shoulder. It was a move that Avoka had barely gotten to show him before he'd left on this trip, but he managed to pull it off. Down went a creature that was easily twice his weight!

With a giddy laugh at his success, Harry called up his Dragon Hammer and pounded it into the Bokoblin's gut. The monster squealed breathlessly in pain, but quickly rolled over and scrambled to its feet. Instead of running at Harry, it ducked behind its shield and backed away. Misty light was wafting off of its dimming skin at a higher rate than before.

Harry ran after the retreating monster, one hand clamped securely over his throbbing nose. He'd been hoping to slay it before it turned back into a Wolfos! "Ged back 'ere, you—"

"Coming through, sorry!" one of his brothers warned. Yellow crossed between Harry and the temporary Bokoblin, cringing behind his Mirror Shield as the monster he was fighting slashed and stabbed at him with its sword. "It won't give me an inch!" Yellow bleated. The Bokoblin's furious, sparking blows were knocking him back, step by step. Hungry confidence shone in its crystal eyes; it had sensed hesitation and was clever enough to take advantage.

Harry summoned his own Mirror Shield, ran forward, and used the heavy disk to shoulder-bash the Bokoblin into the ground. It was only a stunning blow, but it gave Yellow a moment to change tactics.

Yellow breathed a relieved sigh. "Thanks, Green!" He summoned his Dragon Hammer and gave the Bokoblin a sharp crack to the middle of the legs that flung the yelping monster into a clumsy backward somersault. Yellow chased after it with an encouraging chirp of, "Carry on!"

When Yellow had gone, though, Harry's enemy had changed. A towering Wolfos stood with its shield fastened to its back once more. It howled gleefully before dropping to all fours and circling around Harry.

Throwing a glance over his shoulder, Harry started backing up toward the nearest source of sunlight. He knew better than to try fighting the wolf sword to claw again.

"Green, duck!"

Harry folded into a low bow. Claws swished through where the back of his neck had been.

Red ran up with his Mirror Shield braced against his shoulder and rammed the Wolfos that had snuck up on Harry. "It popped back into wolf form and got away from me," he said a little breathlessly before chucking his sword at the Wolfos. "Go on, get! We're doing this one-on-one!" He chased after the monster as it leapt back to evade him.

A blare of warning from the Four Sword had Harry haphazardly yanking up his shield in time to catch an attack from the enemy he ought to have been focusing on. The Wolfos's claws shrieked off the metal in a spray of sparks that he reflexively shut his eyes against. That brief window was enough time for the monster to take another crack at tearing him open. Harry leapt back, but three blazing lines still ripped across his unguarded right forearm. The leather bracer on that arm slid off and plopped to the ground; it had been sliced clean through, securing straps and all.

Harry adjusted his shield to cover him properly, a hiss of pain forcing its way through his teeth. He could hear Avoka's voice in his ears, criticizing his inability to keep track of where his body was in comparison to his shield. Blocking one attack wasn't enough if the next one could sail right in.

He copied the same tactic the Wolfos had used to retreat, ducking behind his shield and creeping back with smooth steps. If trouble was headed for his back, one of his brothers of the Four Sword would let him know.

Harry made it back without any incidents, other than having to pause to let a furiously yelling Blue go charging by behind him. The vein of orange light poured around him like warm butter, soothing and reassuring in the cold, dark room. He threw a beam of it toward the Wolfos that had come zig-zagging after him and held it as the monster tried to squirm away from the light. The other Wolfoses took notice of its pained yelps, their alternately shaggy and piggish faces turning in his direction around the room. They didn't get the chance to try launching an attack at his back, however; the other Harrys were quick to take advantage of the monsters' distraction.

The Wolfos finally glowed bright and popped into its more vulnerable form. Harry barreled straight toward it with his Mirror Shield hitched up and a bloodthirsty gleam in his eye. Just like the monster Yellow had been fighting, he wasn't going to give this creature an inch; every second was valuable here.

With the forces of speed and momentum added to his small weight, Harry bowled his much larger enemy over before it could get its shield up. It tumbled arse over teakettle, oink-snorting with indignation. Harry switched his shield out with his hammer and gave the monster a hard whack that prevented it from rolling to its feet for a few seconds longer. Then, drawing his sword, he brought the blade down on the gray Bokoblin's neck.

That was as much as the monster's magical substance could take. It collapsed flat on the floor with a wailing squeal. Patches of fur sprouted rapidly on random sections of its body, one arm and one leg breaking and extending into the Wolfos's limbs while the others remained bald and wiry. The beast that disappeared into smoke was a horrific mixture of its two forms.

"Oh, wow," Harry remarked upon seeing the silver Rupee the monster had left behind in addition to its shield and a couple robust strips of silver wolf fur. If he'd gotten a reward half that nice after passing Shadow Harry's first pop-quiz back in the water temple, he'd been too woozy from blood loss to remember it. He hitched the monster's buckler onto his belt where the previous buckler had been—this one was thicker and sturdier in make—and swept the rest of the spoils into his magic bag before checking on his brothers' progress.

Red was running through the smoke of the monster he'd just slain to help Yellow, who was weaving around and retreating from the rapid claw-swipes of a Wolfos. Blue was circling a gray Bokoblin with his whip in hand, attempting to steal the monster's shield. The Bokoblin was whacking the wooden claws away with swings of its buckler, keeping its sword safely out of snatching range.

'Huh! Aren't you smart,' Harry thought, sneaking up behind the monster. The Bokoblin was so busy fending off Blue's whip that it wasn't paying attention to its surroundings.

Harry walked up with quiet steps on the softer toe sections of his Hylian boots, then zipped forward when he was close enough. He wrapped an arm around the Bokoblin's neck and used it as leverage to plunge a hail of sword-stabs into its back. Once the monster went limp, he let it fall to the ground and watched it writhe and vanish with satisfaction. Across the room, Red had finished off the remaining Wolfos and was collecting the reward it had left behind. Yellow had dug an oyaki out of his bag and ate it quickly, fixing up the relatively minor injuries the other Harrys had collected during the back half of their battle.

Shadow Harry rose from the ground in a swell of darkness. "You passed the quiz!" he announced, clapping his hands together. "Looks like that young teacher of yours knows something after all!"

"Don't we get any of the credit?" Red groused. "We just mopped the floor with your monsters!"

The spirit rolled his eyes with good humor. "Now, let's not get carried away, kid. You passed, but not with flying col—"

Red stepped forward and rested the tip of his sword on Shadow Harry's collarbone. The spirt raised a bemused eyebrow. "Why not give us a spar?" Red demanded. "We ought to be good enough for at least that much, right?"

The other three Harrys face-palmed with groans of exasperation. "You just had your whole leg sliced open," Harry sighed.

"It was only the upper bit," Red said stubbornly. "Not the whole thing."

"We've had a sword teacher for all of two weeks," Blue pointed out. "You're being exactly the kind of idiot that Link has to babysit at his family's shop."

"Well, those people haven't fought dragons and won, have they?" Red sniffed. "Besides, Green was self-teaching for a while before we got a teacher, so we've got a leg up." He narrowed his eyes challengingly at Shadow Harry. "So, what do you say?"

The spirit hummed, rubbing his chin as he the offer over in his mind. Then he sighed gustily in disappointment. "Oh, but I can't! I've got to talk to my boss before I forget," he whined. "And I already almost did! I got so tied up in hiding things around here and fiddling with that old robot that I haven't even practiced a speech yet."

"You were fiddling with what?" Yellow squawked.

"There's an actual robot in this place?" Blue said with a look of intrigue. "I mean, it isn't as though the Light World is unfamiliar with the concept, given all the styles of Beamos they've come up with…" He trailed off into speculative mumbling.

"Tch. I guess that means I'll get a cool fight at some point," Red grumped, stowing his sword.

"Why do you have to practice a speech?" Harry asked. "You already explained to us where Vaati went wrong with his plan, using too strong a power-tap for where he was putting it. Just tell him to use a weaker generator next time if he still wants to use one of those things for his anchors." He'd received a weird dream about it some days ago, in which Vaati had bragged about how brilliant he thought this new strategy was, so Harry figured it would be easier to steer the former Minish in a less destructive direction than turn him entirely around. Vaati seemed like a rather bullheaded sort.

Shadow Harry gave him a perplexed frown. "You want to give my boss actually useful advice? You? The Hero?"

"I'll give him whatever advice it takes for him to not dump magic radiation into another Dark World city," Harry said pragmatically. "Vaati putting a magical dent in the ground back home is more fixable than him destroying all life on this side of the Veil and microwaving the other."

The spirit canted his head to one side, his brow furrowing in befuddlement. "I'm not sure I'll ever get the hang of managing you Dark World types," he admitted. "You're too much like me sometimes."

Harry crossed his arms. "We are not," he huffed. "I don't know why you keep trying to give me the 'we're not so different' speech that every movie villain uses. It never works!"

He knew he'd said too much when he heard Red mutter to Blue, "What does he mean, 'keep trying'? I haven't heard Shadow say anything like that since we first got to Hyrule."

"I haven't, either. Funny, that," Blue drawled with a healthy dose of spite in his voice.

Harry chewed on the inside of his cheek. He'd meant to keep Shadow Harry's quiet conversations with him secret, so as not to stir up his brothers. They worried about him too much as it was! Besides, he thought he'd been holding himself well against any influence Shadow might have been trying to work over him.

Shadow Harry rolled his eyes. "I'm not trying to convince you to join my side, kid. I've seen your life, and I know of the potential you possess. That pure, desperately kind heart of yours is the cheese in an atomic mouse-trap; no way in hell am I setting that off." He crossed his arms. "I've only said we're similar because it's the truth. You can see it for yourself, even!" He flapped around one of his voluminous robe sleeves, which trailed coal-black smoke from its misty hem. "I'm a hazy reflection of you because I can't mirror what is shared. If we were proper opposites, this form would be more solid."

Before Harry could ask what in Merlin's name any of that that was supposed to mean, the spirit changed subjects with a cheerful announcement of, "Anyway, congratulations, you win a prize!" With a snap of his fingers, he conjured two parchment scrolls and a shiny compass onto the tiles in front of him. "You can add physical maps and compasses to your Navi Slates now. Yes, including ones you find outside of dungeons." He turned to Red. "Don't feel too bad about that missed fight, kiddo. If this conversation with my boss goes the way I think it will, you'll have a chance to cross blades with me soon. Ta, Heroes!" He swept his smoky robes into a dramatic bow and swirled out of sight.

Three brightly-colored gazes homed in on Harry, who shrank guiltily under their weight.

"So, keep any secrets lately?" Blue asked, raising an eyebrow.

"It's not like that!" Harry protested. "Shadow Harry just…speaks up, sometimes, from my shadow. Because he spies on me the most."

Red folded his arms and eyed him keenly. "What d'you guys talk about?"

Yellow shifted anxiously from foot to foot. "Is he still talking about hurting the Dursleys? You're not thinking of taking that offer, are you?"

"Of course not!" Harry snapped. His nails dug into his palms. That conversation he'd had with the spirit at Christmas had admittedly been too agreeable. Sometimes, in the few hours he left himself outside of training, fighting monsters, and foraging for supplies, he turned over the words in his head, marveling at the feeling of someone comfortably, easily agreeing that he was mistreated. No fuss, just the verbal equivalent of a hand on his shoulder. It was…very Harry. Like Shadow had been voicing the thoughts he usually shoved deep down, but in a way that didn't make him want to shrivel up inside for having them in the first place.

"He says something every now and then when he's bored or if I screw up in a way he thinks is funny. Mostly, he talks about how he sees us. The differences between us and the other Heroes he's mirrored," Harry explained. "And, er…" He contemplated admitting the other topics those conversations sometimes veered to, once the spirit was done poking fun at his two left feet or his nervous unfamiliarity with horses.

Sometimes Shadow would remark how he'd never seen one of his Heroes practice a bow beyond the point where their muscles ought to have given out, grinding through the worsening pain through long experience. Use a bow in the dire straits of a long battle, sure, but never as a learning effort. More than once, he'd started flicking Harry in the ear (to mess up his shots) and chiding him with reminders to the tune of, "If I can remember that humans need to eat and drink a few times a day, one would think you'd be able to do the same!" He'd complained more than once about Harry's attitude about pain and misery, saying that mortals like him were supposed to take strides to avoid and grow from it instead of actively making themselves suffer more and avoiding any outs. Harry took a certain amount of delight in baffling the ancient spirit with his oddness. Having always been punished, suspiciously side-eyed, or worshiped because of the things that made him stick out, he enjoyed being harmlessly confusing for once.

"Yeah. That's all we talk about," he mumbled. His boots—the thick, rugged suede smoothed over and a little lumpy in spots from repeated magical mending—were a much more welcoming sight than the judging stares of his siblings.

No one said anything. The silence made Harry aware of all the newly-discovered archery muscles clenching in his upper back.

"How about we stop for tea so we can talk properly about this over some food?" Yellow suggested.

"Really, it's nothing!" Harry insisted. Shadow Harry was just a sarcastic, untrustworthy mirror he could bounce his thoughts off of. The spirit was someone who might hear Harry muse to himself about his longest record of not eating while standing alone in the middle of a forest and respond by pitching an apple from a nearby tree at his head. It wasn't like Harry even had a choice about what the spirit listened in on, either. Why was it so terrible for him to respond when his shadow felt like being a chatty snoop instead of a quiet one?

Blue stepped up to him. "It's not nothing," he said, his voice sharp and clear. "In fact, a lot of the things we've gone through have turned out to be a lot less 'nothing' than we want to pretend." He put his hands on Harry's shoulders and took a preparatory breath before saying, "I think that next time we return to the castle, we should each try talking to someone about some of what we're going through. Yellow is breaking down on the inside and Green, you're talking to our evil doppelganger just so you can offset some of the mental pressure. Red, I don't know about you, but I've also nearly died, and I know it's something that's never quite gone from your mind, no matter how hard you shove at it."

The other Harrys stared at him, their mouths agape. "You want us to tell people?" Harry said incredulously. "People who aren't us!?"

"That would cause so much trouble! Not just for ourselves, but everyone else!" Yellow exclaimed. "What if the Headmaster gets fired for child endangerment? What if he's arrested and sent to Azkaban for putting the public's favorite Golden Boy at risk? What if the Dursleys are arrested? Do you want to put Dudley in prison? And if they weasel out of it, what about all the people whose time and money will have been wasted on nothing? If we open our mouths and mess everything up, who knows what could happen?!"

Harry nodded. "Exactly. We can handle things as they are. We've been doing it all our lives, after all," he said. "If we flip everything upside-down, who knows what we'll be dealing with or who we might wind up dragging down with us? Remember that nurse we got fired?"

Blue grimaced. "I know, I know," he sighed. "We don't have to blurt out everything, though, just what's actively causing us problems on our quest. Dumbledore and Lupin can't cause any trouble while they're stranded in this dimension, so now would be the time to unload a little of what's on our shoulders." The admission looked like it pained him.

With another, more intense breath to help him push the words out, Blue declared, "I, for one, would kind of like to talk to Sirius about our parents." He interlaced his fingers in a fidgeting ball as he hesitantly elaborated, "He's…nice. Warm. Even with as many words as I know, I'm not sure how to describe it. But he feels alright to talk to. It isn't as tense and awkward as I thought. He mellows out Professor Lupin just by being around him, too."

Yellow blanched. "What did you tell them?" he asked, his voice strained almost to breaking. It sounded painful. "What do they know?"

"Nothing! I haven't said anything yet," Blue said with a scowl. "I wanted to present the idea to all of you first. Unlike Green, I haven't been keeping secrets."

Harry bristled. "How is it a secret that my shadow's possessed and talks to me sometimes?" he defended. "What am I supposed to do, act like he isn't there?"

"You could have told us he was giving you villain speeches! What if he really was out to turn you against the rest of us?"

"Last time that happened, it was you that he turned, Vio," Harry spat with bitterness that wasn't entirely his own.

Blue put his hands on his hips and leaned into Harry's space. "Oh, don't you try any of that past-life nonsense on me! Different sword-bearer, different baggage!"

Red walked between them, cracking his knuckles. He conjured his compact stala buckler onto his right fist. "One more shout, and I'll start handing out naptimes the hard way," he growled at them both. "Now, we're gonna play the Quiet Game while Yellow handles tea, take a nap once we're fed, and take another crack at talking about this once we're less bloody tired. Alright?"

"There's no need to bring any of this up again. Ever," Harry persisted, conjuring his own little shield in case his brother really did take a swing at him. "We could just keep our mouths shut, like we've done since primary school. I'll stop talking to Shadow Harry, even!"

"We'll go mad if we keep on like this," Blue said grimly. "I've already seen it happening to Yellow. He's just the most likely of us to shatter, as much as he bottles things up. What's worked so far won't keep on working, Green. Our circumstances have changed. There aren't any cupboards for us to curl up in and cry. We've got important, dangerous things to do now; we can't afford to have a nervous breakdown in the middle of a dungeon."

Red looked away, digging the nails of one hand into his thigh. Yellow's eyes dropped to his feet. Blue stared at Harry, his brilliant sapphire gaze hard and fragile.

Cold, sickening fear crept up Harry's throat. All the years of his upbringing were clawing their way out from the pits of his heart to howl at him. A small lifetime of learning to be as quiet and easy to ignore as possible for his own survival and the safety of anyone he might otherwise be tempted to reach out to screamed at the ideas now being loosed from their deeply-buried prison. He was paralyzed. There was nothing he could bring himself to say.

Because maybe, just maybe, Blue was right.

Shadow Harry rubbed his temples, wincing at the loud emotional feedback he was receiving from the mortal he was currently bound to. Bearers of the Four Sword were always a little harder to handle, since their emotions were multiplied by four and frequently scattered all over the place. Those kids were going through one wild ride right now, though, and for no seeming reason. Had one of them gotten killed in the last ten minutes, or something? What was going on over there?

'Like it matters. I'm just trying to distract myself,' he thought with an internal sigh. He was floating in the chamber that housed the great hulking ruin he'd fixed up to guard the deepest chamber of this place, putting off the upcoming conversation by thinking about literally anything else.

"Augh, I hate this!" he yelled at the ceiling. He dragged his hands through his half-substantial hair, dragging the sooty locks out like taffy. The sleeping behemoth casting its shadow over him didn't stir.

Vaati had never been the easiest boss to talk to, let alone critique, but it at least hadn't felt like a death sentence before the overgrown Minish had gotten hopped up on Dark World magic. He was a micro-managing, high-strung, erratic ball of rage now, rather than a careless whirlwind of fiery pride, petty temper, and teenaged entitlement. Shadow Harry could feel the hot, itchy gnawing of his master's wrath lashing at the entirety of the vast Gerudo Desert even now.

That kind of all-out, flailing anger wasn't natural to the Wind Mage, who had once conserved his limited magic more carefully and used his Shadow to cause the flashy shows of mostly-non-fatal mayhem he favored. Throwing around huge amounts of power in fits of blind fury wasn't even natural to Ganon, the wrathful bastard. The ages-old, reincarnating soul of Demise was usually paired with a willful, logical mind that could spin its raw anger and hunger for power into cold, tactical malice. Vaati, frozen forever as a young man who'd never given himself the chance to reach full maturity, didn't have the level of self-control needed to handle his magnified, magic-twisted emotions.

He shuddered when, at a particularly forceful lash of sand-laden wind against the square sun-ports above, the room around him shifted. Crumbling, tarnished gold became polished and bright. Painted stone regained its lively colors and gaudy patterns. The scarred sand that made up the floor became a smooth clean slate, losing the bits of cremated human remains that had turned its pale orange to an ashy beige. The battle-ravaged wreck in front of him, which he'd only restored to the point of essential functionality, suddenly looked as new as the day it had first been brought online.

"Not again," Shadow Harry groaned. The reason he'd gone to mope in this room in particular was because he'd sensed something seriously wrong with the—to borrow a futuristic phrase from the Harrys' memories—local timespace, and thought he might do a little investigating while he was at it. This area felt like a puzzle piece that had been taken out, turned ninety degrees, and crammed back into its original spot. It was supposed to be here, but it was here in the wrong way. A result of one of Vaati's magic experiments, no doubt.

Flickers of human shapes and spirits tickled at the edges of his senses. He saw phantoms fade in and out of sight, registering as almost, but not quite nothing. There had been an attempt at grasping their true essence that had thankfully not taken. No one had been ripped out-of-time…yet.

With a visual sputtering and a magical sensation that made Shadow Harry feel mildly like he was being torn in two, the room's age came crashing back in. Half a millennium of lapsed maintenance ripped apart what he'd just seen mended, dousing it in sand for good measure. Gone were the memories of long-dead engineers fawning over their lovingly crafted idol of animated metal and stone. Said idol cracked and lost chunks of itself to the unseen weapons and spells of those who'd been foolish enough to think they could raid its lair and leave with their lives. Shadow Harry perched on its worn, pitted forehead with a sigh.

"You caused so much terror and pain during all those lonely years of work. You caused a lot of death, too, but I won't hold it against you," he said fondly. In repairing its circuits, he'd seen the contents of its memory crystal. The great sentry had managed to do what the shadow often dreamed about during less pleasant years of employment under the kinds of mages who wouldn't give him an inch: it had glitched its way past its own internal rules to slaughter its masters and free itself up to wreak centuries of mayhem without anyone holding its controls. Shadow Harry never would have thought that kind of dark dream would apply to whimsical little Vaati, of all masters, but here they were.

"I'm sorry my boss is putting you through this back-and-forth nonsense," he told it. "Here's hoping the twisted time in here doesn't put your circuits back out of sorts while I'm away, eh?" With a farewell pat to its worn, pitted stone forehead, he lifted into the air.

'Ooh, I really don't want to do this,' he thought with a look up at the wild orange storm raging above. He shifted into the form of the Hero of Time for its reassuring stability, then flew up through the ceiling.

The wind caught hold of him as soon as he'd left the protection of the dungeon. Shadow Harry gritted his teeth against it, willing his form to resist its powerful pull. Conditions out here had gotten even worse since the Heroes had been chucked into the cult-compound-turned-mass-grave. Had the Harrys been out here, they would have been getting thrown off their feet and roasted alive, as mousy and cold-adapted as they were. Shadow Harry was going to have to ferry them straight into town (as quickly as Vaati would allow him) after they retrieved whatever this dungeon was hiding in its heavily magic-shielded final sanctum—hopefully a power crystal. Since this place had been set up as part of Vaati's tactic to booby-trap every important-seeming old building, the spirit honestly had no idea whether its treasure was part of the Heroes' quest. Those kids were bound to get lucky again, though; it seemed like their poor fortune had entirely turned around as soon as they'd entered the Light World.

[Master?] he mentally called out. He figured Vaati was somewhere in the storm, either in person or through a Vassal Eye he was using as a conduit. Maintaining a hurricane the size of a small country (while angrily yelling into it) took too much energy to run without Vaati's active attention. [Master, I—your servant wishes to, erm, report certain worrying happenings] he thought with painstaking care. Most of his bosses wanted him to address them in a certain way, but Vaati had gotten extra nitpicky about it. In fact, this magic-addled, more unpleasant version of him didn't much like Shadow talking at all.

To Shadow's surprise, he got a fairly prompt reply: [WHAT.]

The spirit hunched over, clutching his head at the volume. His boss was in a very bad mood indeed. This talk had to happen sooner rather than later, though.

[M-Master, I have discovered a certain…complication with your current method of anchoring and bolstering your power] Shadow Harry thought-spoke meekly.

Vaati saw through his attempt to soften his intent immediately. [You wish to give me… constructive criticism?] his young thought-voice growled. Threatening pressure started to close in on Shadow Harry's core. [YOU DARE?]

Shadow Harry gulped at air despite not needing to breathe. It was a human panic response that came with copying and absorbing so many Heroes' memories over the millennia.

Still, he continued his groveling; the continued existence of Hyrule was at stake here, after all. [I believe you would find these side-effects worrying as well, Master] he simpered, one hand pressed against his aching chest. [Please, I only wish to advise—eep!]

Vaati dug in his claws and yanked at his leash hard. Shadow Harry screamed as he felt his form being forced through barriers he'd never been designed to cross without the aid of a Moon Pearl. Instead of walking through a door, he was being pulled through a series of thick glass windows, his body shattering and reforming with every obstacle it smashed against.

He regained awareness on a floor of dark purple granite, a fancy set of curtains hanging in front of his nose. Though not possessed of anything as fragile and fickle as a human brain, it took him several seconds to properly recognize what he was looking at: Vaati's layered robes.

Suppressing a curse, Shadow Harry popped into the air. "Master!" he exclaimed in lieu of a fancier greeting. His vocabulary was still catching up, having been dashed to pieces against the Veil along with the rest of him.

Where the hell was he? In the Dark World, obviously, but that was a huge place compared to the known kingdoms back home. He was in…some kind of throne room. While Vaati sat on an obnoxiously bejeweled gold and scarlet throne in front of him, the rest of the place behind him bore a certain sad, dark austerity. Lighting came from unshaded white bulbs mounted along the walls and tall, narrow windows of purple, but otherwise plain stained glass. Blood-red pennants bearing an upside-down black Triforce hung along the walls, their fabric faded and their embroidered designs rather halfhearted compared to the proud, glittering filigree one would see in Hyrule Castle. A line of red carpet stretched from the base of Vaati's throne to the door, but it was worn and coming close to threadbare in spots. The room gave off a feeling of former opulence in the later stages of being pawned off.

Not only that, but he could see the time around him was wrong. There was magic keeping this place held well away from whenever and wherever it was supposed to be; he could feel the general scale of the disturbance around him, at least twice the size of any Dark World dungeon Vaati had cobbled together before. Shadow Harry scratched anxiously at his cheek, a mannerism that came with wearing the Hero of Time's face. For all of this to exist in the way it currently did, in one un-flooded piece and burning untold amounts of magic with every second it spent so fantastically out-of-place, Vaati had to have it magically anchored in at least two places. A couple of months ago, that would have been a minor concern at worst. A handful of conventional, unobtrusive magic anchors scattered around wouldn't do too much damage, as demonstrated by the gradual deterioration of Hogwarts's grounds during the first part of the Harrys' quest. Now, the shadow couldn't help but fret:

What part of his world was going to start collapsing into gray dust next? How many souls and spirits would be torn from life and reincarnation forever? How much would he lose?

"Is that what you've decided to waste my time whining at me about? That golden land of ungrateful meddlers being taken down a peg?" came a many-layered, but nevertheless irritated voice from behind him.

Shadow Harry jumped and wheeled around. He'd forgotten his current employer was in the room with him, as distracted as he'd been by the implications of the great chains of magic wound around this palace.

"The generators drawing more power than expected is hardly an issue. In fact, I would consider it an unexpected boon. Two worlds pierced for their unharnessed power, with only one anchor needed! What providence!" Vaati proclaimed, rising from his seat. He waved one pale, delicate hand toward the throne room. "Behold the heart of my new world: Lorule Castle, resurrected from the petrified depths of the fallen kingdom and far grander than that mismanaged, stupidly-named ruin it lay under! Once it has been fully restored to the height of its glory, it will be a sight worthy of worship!"

Already, Shadow Harry could tell his boss was gearing up for a long boast that would carry them well away from the topic he'd requested an audience for. "But Master, about those new anchors," he wedged in, "They're more powerful than the traditional ones, true! They're a wonderful idea, in concept! Very clever! However, the amount of damage they cause is a bit catastroph—"

Vaati's liquid red eyes narrowed, and Shadow Harry fell to the ground screaming as searing, electric pain radiated through his mental leash. The Wind Mage reached down and snatched up his servant by the front of his tunic. "As disobedient as you have been, you should feel blessed I'm even willing to allow you to look upon my countenance in person, Shadow," he snarled in his face. "You have failed to protect my beautiful chimera, failed to defend the first of my brilliant World Anchors, and are currently failing to do the simple task of derailing a few measly trains!" He threw Shadow Harry to the ground and kicked him. "How hard is it to kill a couple hundred mortals to sow fear and distrust in those ugly stone caterpillars they keep using to shuffle around the servants and resources I want? Terrorizing those worms is what you were made for!" The golden line extending down the center of Vaati's innermost robe opened into a sideways version of his giant eye. Darkness oozed through the seams of the human likeness on top; the puppet body was breaking apart around the arm of the demon controlling it. "YOU CAN'T DO ANYTHING RIGHT!"

Breathtaking, blinding, sense-shattering pain suffused Shadow's form. He couldn't even scream; his substance broke into boiling drops of darkness, unable to hold onto the most basic of shapes. His mind went white as it temporarily ceased to exist.

When consciousness drifted back in, he came to as a shapeless puddle. Echoes of agony tingled in his phantom limbs.

He slowly reformed into the small, smoky shape of the current Hero. "I-I'm sorry, Master," he gasped. It took an extraordinary amount of focus to keep himself solid.

Vaati sneered down at him, having crammed himself back behind the pretty Hylian face his stolen Dark World powers had given him the ability to maintain. "An apology without extraneous backchat from that traitorous mind of yours? That's a first. Perhaps I should apply harsher treatments more often." He flicked his fingers, which drove a horribly familiar spike of pain through Shadow Harry's right eye socket.

Shadow Harry bit his lower lip hard to suppress a whine of pain and dismay. The dizzying disorientation of having one eye out of his control crept in, as well as the droning headache of having a splinter of Vaati's power speared into him. He didn't have to reach up to his face to know that his right eye was now bulging out of his head like a gold-rimmed growth.

"You will do as you were commanded to do an entire month ago, as well as follow any future orders to the letter," Vaati said coldly as he settled back onto his throne. "If you don't, I'll break you as many times as it takes to get you to perform a basic task. Or, perhaps I'll give up on using you altogether." He put on a wistful pout, idly crushing Shadow Harry's form with one metaphysical fist. The spirit didn't dare move as the deadly, unseen force of his master's magic pressed in on him from all sides. It was all he could do to save his core from damage.

Vaati maintained his suffocating hold as he mused, "You know, it was only sentimentality that prompted me to summon you at all. Vestiges of my younger, more foolish self, one could say." He leaned forward in his seat. "I'm not that soft, dependent child anymore, Shadow. I don't need you anymore. I've found a way to truly surpass anyone else—even the Spirit of Demise himself!—and I'm not going to keep a buzzing fly like you around if you're not going to make yourself at least as useful as you are annoying." He finally let up the pressure. "Do you understand your position now?"

Shadow Harry dropped to his knees, gasping. "Yes, Master! I understand perfectly," he wheezed. After the magical pummeling it had gone through, his substance was having trouble holding even this loose form; his legs had melded with the robes puddled around him. "I'll derail a train soon—"

" Multiple trains, at least one of them a passenger train! One with passengers actually in it, too! Within a week!" Vaati shrieked impatiently, sounding closer to his mental age. "Don't you dare get clever with me, Shadow. I want those little bugs scared into holding still, and if you won't do it, I'll just have to do it myself! Won't that be a sight?" Wind flared around him, causing Shadow Harry to slide several centimeters across the floor.

"I'll be watching to make sure you stay on-task, so choose your targets with my will in mind. If that passenger train is full of Gerudo, even better. I might even reward you!" Vaati crossed his arms with an angry huff that set his robes fluttering. "What horrid, uncooperative humans they are! Do you know how hard it was to get those galumphing giants to scrounge up the materials for even this paltry throne without having their king on hand to keep them docile?" The deeper, more demonic tones of his voice surged to the fore. "DO YOU?!"

Shadow Harry huddled closer to the ground as the wind tore off wisps of his hazy form. "I can't imagine such hardship!" he squeaked. Gods, this had been such a bad idea. How could he have thought he could talk sense into this horrible, corrupted version of Vaati? He really would have preferred killing a trainload of people to being stuck in this room!

"THEN LEAVE, ALREADY! I'M BUSY!" Vaati roared in response to his thoughts. The wind thrashing angrily around him curled under his servant and launched Shadow Harry across the bounds of space.

Back through the Veil between worlds the spirit went, breaking and reforming and screaming until he broke again. By the time he felt his substance reconnect with the souls of Hyrule, the shadow didn't have it within him to feel glad he was home. He curled up where he'd landed and laid there for a long time, tears silently streaming from the one eye he'd been allowed to keep.

Notes:

-The Bokoblin forms of these Boko Wolfoses are distinguishable from silver Bokoblins by their darker gray skin, yellow eyes, and black ring-marks on their fingers. Un-transformed, they have the same level of fighting skill and HP as Black Bokoblins. (Also, I'm so thrilled I managed to draw one of these Wolfoses as I imagined them! It was a near thing because I have a super hard time with cartoony Zelda creature proportions.)

-Yes, Harry and Shadow have been having small-talk offscreen while Harry was training. It was basically the same kind of back-and-forth that they had on the Hero's Trail back on Death Mountain or at Christmas. Not super impactful stuff, which is why I didn't write out the scenes for it, but a conversation kept secret doesn't have to be important in order to cause hurt feelings.

-At the point it fell, Lorule was already going through a long, final decline. Its Golden Power had been waning and taking the kingdom's prosperity with it, the people had been losing faith in their gods, and there was a constant threat of war and invasion from the kingdoms around it. If the kingdom hadn't fallen due to the death of its last Hero, an invading Roman army might have finished it off instead.

Next month: The gang's back together again! Now it's time for teamwork (and bickering).