The Deku Tree's shade was welcomed comfort from this paticularly warm day in the Kokiri Forest. The trees and grass seemed to be growing healthier than ever. A handful of familar looking plants, no doubt planted by Link, dot the Deku Tree's meadow. Coming down the stream, a few Kokiri are swimming around. The scene is typical of the forest. One Kokiri, of course, is more mature and larger than the others. He is on his deck of his tree house, taking a nap in a large wooden chair. Snoring, his mouth is hanging wide open and his eyes seemingly
glued shut. Suddenly, his eyes dart open. He doesn't move, but scans his surroundings with his eyes.

"Hello?"

He begins to reach over for something, but stops when he sees Saria's head poking from the top of the ladder up to his roost. "Morning sunshine!"

"Hey." Link rubs his eyes a little bit and sits up. Saria jumps on him, giving Link no time to get his thoughts together. Sharing a big hug, Saria then jumps off. Link moves his legs and gets to his feet.

"Forget what today is?"

"Uh..." Link knew what tomorrow was: his eighteenth birthday. But he was trying to avoid the other memory he had: six months earlier to the day, he had killed his biological brother, Lych, who was attempting to overrun Hyrule with sheer numbers. He had almost succeeded, but thanks to Link and a few friends from over the border he met his end. After that, Link simply returned to the forest and stayed there. With the exception of his now steady girlfriend Malon, no outsider of the forest had spoken to Link since that incident - not even Zelda. But Saria quickly changed the topic for Link before any of this could even come up in conversation.

"Today you have to go into the woods and get those things we need."

"What things?" Link barely knew what Saria was talking about.

"We need two blue Hylian mushrooms, three or four leaves from a gold papao tree, and a handful of Deku berries. That's the recipe for the medicine Kiko needs, remember?" Saria pokes Link a little bit, jarring his memory.

"Oh yeah." Link gets up, and slides down the ladder to the ground below. Saria begins to do the same.

"Right, so get a move on before she gets even sicker." Saria was lying to Link. Kiko, a fellow Kokiri who was always sittin above the shop, wasn't sick at all. This was all a ruse for Link to be gone so Malon and Saria could plan Link a suprise party. Link didn't know it, but Malon had secretly arranged for a few secret guests to come down. Link and Malon would take a little walk to a newly built pair of little guest homes made from hollowed out trees. On the outskirts of the Lost Woods, it served as a small little rest stop for travelers and a park for locals to relax. But that night it would be where Darunia, Link, Ruto, Dux and Nabooru, and the leaders of Lachia and Hyrule - King Unco and Queen Impa, King Tryeon and Queen Zelda - among a few others, would be waiting. Waiting with a large amount of alcohol and weed, which would probably stink clear up to Death Mountain. But Saria couldn't let that slip to Link. So, she came up with a plan to throw Link off track - take advantage of his teenage boy mind.

"See that over there?"

"What?"

"That bird sitting at Mido's door." Saria pointed down the trail.

"Yeah?" A small bird was pecking at the ground beside Mido's house, looking for seeds and whatever it is birds eat.

"I bet you twenty rupees you can hit it." Saria pulled out Link's trusty little red boomerang.

"Where the hell did you find that?"

"Where I find everything else you lose, Link. The hidden storage room underneath your house."

"But that's MY secret enterance! You tresspasser!"

"You want the money or not, Link?" Saria handed Link the boomerang.

"Well...yeah, I can do it." Link squinted, aiming slowly with the edge of his throwing instrument of pain and occasional item retriever. Saria watched, continuing to be skeptical of Link's abilities.

"I don't think you can, Link."

"If I can smack a jellyfish on the ass from across the stomach of a giant whale, I'm pretty sure this'll be easy."

Saria turned away for a second. "Right..."

Link let go of the boomerang. Right as it left his fingertips, the bird flew away as Mido opened his door and started to step outside.

"Hey Li..AARGH!" The boomerang made hard contact with Mido's groin. Mido hit his knees immediately. "Fuck you...pph.." Mido coughed and gasped, clutching himself. Link chuckled a little bit, while Saria loked on with a mixture of shock and concern.

"Sorry, Mido...hey, that's good enough, right Saria?" Saria ignored Link and started waling briskly over to Mido. "You all right?'

Mido began to rise to his feet. "Think so...man...I'm really glad my nuts will never drop." Mido leaned over, with his hands on his knees. Saria sighed and walked back towards Link, who had slowly made his way over.

"Nice one, jerk."

"Come on. Like I meant to."

"Well, you could at least help him up or something..."

"Do I still get the twenty rupees?"

Saria walked away. Link turned back looking puzzled. "What?" Mido slowly waddled his way over to Link.

"It's cool, man."

"Yeah, you'll get me back eventually." Link pats Mido on the shoulder, then walks in the direction Saria went. Mido pauses to catch his breath and walks back into his house.

---

Link is climbing the ladder to his house. As he makes it to the top, he hears another noise - this time from inside of his house. "what the..."

Link pulls a small knife from his belt and peeks in one of the windows. His intuition pays off: there is definetely an intruder in his home. Gripping the knife, he watches the shadow travel from his main room into his bed chamber. (You see, in those days it was a bed chamber, not a bed room. Yeah, I know, I just broke character in the middle of a fanfic, but that's just how I roll.) Walking into his home, he is extremely careful not to make noise with his footsteps. Finally, flattened against a wall adjacent to the doorway, he takes a second to prepare himself before jumping out, knife ready, about to descend his wrath quickly onto whoever is invading his home.

The person barely has time to turn around and see Link lunging with incredible speed.

"Don't! Link, it's me!"

Link stops dead in his tracks, almost falling backwards. He drops the blade immediately, then clutches his forehead hard.

"SHIT! I'm so sorry!"

"It's okay..." Malon took Link's hands away from his head and held them. "Did you forget I was coming out today?" Link is still obviously edgy, so Malon assists him in calming down with a quick kiss to the cheek.

"I'm sorry. Whoa...I'm okay." Link and Malon embrace, as Malon's head finds Link's shoulder almost instinctively. "So, what's going on again?"

"Saria and I are going to check up on Kiko. Remember?" Malon and Saria were really good at getting their stories straight to fool Link. Malon's dog Duke had a habit of eating Link's pot stash, and Malon desperately tried to hide it from Link until one day when Duke took a massive dump in front of Link, with several marijuana stems and seeds protruding from the turd.

"Oh, right. I have to go find that stuff for her medicine..." Malon immediately hands Link a small slip of paper. "Saria sent me over with the recipe so you'd know what to get." Link looks down at the list and reads it for a second.

"I've got to go. See you in a little bit, fairy boy." Malon leaned up and kissed Link. As she walks away, Link stops for a second, then starts to collect his gear for a little jaunt through the woods.

---

Link drags his feet, a little bit worn out. Going from one corner of the woods to the other, he managed to collect all the necessary ingredients for Saria's recipe. He had to get the mushrooms by literally prying thm from the hands of a few Deku Scrubs who didn't want to let go without a fight. So Link took to it, and caught a Deku Nut with his bare hands, throwing it back in their faces. It scared them off for the time being. Link then had to climb a tree nearly seventy-five feet high just to reach the leaves he needed. Almost slipping and falling from the tree, he caught his ground only to slip again coming down from the last branch, falling on his back. Deku berries were the easiest to find, but the hardest to obtain. They lay under a thick layer of thorns that Link had to saw through with his knife for half an hour. Finally, everything was okay, and Link had what he needed. He stopped at a familar stone archway - it was the enterance to Gorom City. Link couldn't resist: he always loved the echo going down that cavern.

"HELLO?.ello.ello...heh, that is so cool!"

Link smiled a little bit and went to go on his way when a familar voice came echoing back.

"HELLO!.ello.ello...who the hell was that?"

Link started to look down the tunnel. "Hey...who is..."

"LINK!"

"LINK!" Link looked and finally saw who was on the other end of the tunnel: Link, Darunia's son. He began to roll up the tunnel, as seeing a Goron run is so hilarious that's why you'll never see it. Let's face it, the goddesses didn't mean for a Goron to run. Link uncioled and met up with Link, directly in the middle of the magic gateway between the two regions of Hyrule. Link was taken back by the young Goron's appearance: he was now fully-grown like the other Gorons. You see, Gorons age differently than the other races: becoming fully grown within one year but living for several hundred years. He had his little Goron goatee, but unline most Gorons his blondish fur was in dreadlocks.

"What's up, Link?" The Goron and the Hylian try to slap fists, but the outcome is obvious. Link holds his hand, wincing a little bit. "Shit. Not much, Link. What about you?"

"Just chilling, nothing out of the ordinary. Dad had to spend a week on bedrest. Get this: he was doing his daily roll through the tunnels, and rolled over the edge of the mountain going too fast1"

"HUH?"

"Yeah, he came down the mountain still curled in a ball. Went right into the Kakariko Windmill. Smacked it so hard he almost knocked it over. I didn't think you could ever crack a Goron's skull but he came damn close." Link gets himself a seat beside a crate, Link pops up onto the crate.

"Man, I'm glad he's okay."

"So where you been, man?"

"What?"

"You haven't been out of the forest since that whole Lych thing. What's the big deal?"

Link rubs his temples. "I don't know, man...I think it was just the whole brother thing...I don't know..."

Link reaches up and gives Link a gentle pat on the back, which still kinda hurts. "Hey, man...I don't know what to say, so I'll be honest. You want to smoke some weed, talk this out?"

Link pulls a small wooden pipe from his bag and grins. "I was waiting."

Link produces a pipe of his own, made from a rock. Using a new invention called a minitorch, Link lights the bowl. Link also has his own way of lighting a bowl: he merely sticks his whole hand in the torch lighting the stone hallway. Pulling away, his thick Goron skin is completely unaffected by the heat. His bowl is lit, and he takes a drag.

"So, talk to me."

"Well, you know the drill. My mother died because of my brother. And my brother died because of me. I spent my whole life not knowing who my family was. I never knew my bloodline, where I came from, what I stood for. I was never really a Kokiri. I was an outcast in Kokiri clothing. All because I didn't have a fairy. And the day i got one, my life turned upside-down. My life wasn't mine anymore. I was an instrument of fate." Link paused from his story to take a hit.

"What the hell do you mean? You didn't have to save the world. You didn't have to come up Death Mountain that day and become the great Dodongo buster. You didn't have to Dude, you have free will. A choice. You only think you didn't have a choice because in your heart, you knew you couldn't say no and live with yourself." Now it's Link's turn to pause and hit. The two then switch bowls.

"Well, yeah, but it was destiny...it was all freakin' planned out. Before I was even born I was going to be a fighter. I never got the chance to be anything else. And now, I don't have anyone to fight. So I'm just drifting."

"Wait, so explain something to me." Link turns a little bit to face his Hylian friend. "In the alternate future, about six months ago according to the seven year thing, you would have taken down Ganondorf. Right?"

"Yeah."

"And six months ago, Lych tried to storm hyrule."

"Yeah. I get your point. There's something there."

"Yeah. But what?"

"That's my point, Link." Link hops down from the crate and taps the ashes from his bowl. "Even when I was given back my childhood, I had to fight. When I came home, I met with Zelda. We talke. She told me there was something she had forgotten to tell me. She said, "Link, even though we defeated Ganondorf, and everything is restored, it is not over. Seven years from now, as a result of ripples and effects caused by your repeated time travel, a new evil will arise. You will have to become the Hero of Time once again." I didn't believe it. I didn't want to. And for the first two or three years I didn't."

"Why not? Dude, you've seen Zelda's powers. She doesn't play around."

"I wanted a chance to live my life. I don't know...but when I was thirteen I met this guy. He was a young Hylian soldier working the gate at Kakariko, but he wasn't from anywhere around Hyrule. After talking for only two minutes, he spoke quietly. He said, 'Son, listen to my words. I am I am here in secret. I know who you are. I know of the future that was. You were the Hero of Time then, and you are the Hero of Time now. And in four years you will have be the Hero of Time again. Evil will come again. It has destroyed my land, and it will destroy yours. I beg of you, please don't forget my words.' And he returned to his post, standing like a statue back on guard as to tell me to leave him alone. I obviously did. The next day he was gone. Nobody there knew who I was talking about, or who I was trying to describe to them. He vanished."

"Who was it?"

"I never found out. But I listened to him: I spent the next four years powering myself up. I eventually acquired all of the treasures of the Temples, only the temples weren't crawling with monsters. They were brilliant, beautiful monuments as they were supposed to be. I was welcomed by the spirits and given blessing: told nothing about what I would face; only that I would be ready. Zelda called for me in that council meeting the day the army breached Hyrule's borders. She knew from the beginning. She never expected me to be there. She didn't know about my visit from the other man; she only thought I still didn't believe her and I had went on to live my life, unable to be the Hero of Time. Imagine her suprise when I showed up ready to rumble."

The future Goron leader listened intently to every word. Finally, Link was silent and it was his turn to speak. "Wow, man. That's incredible. You see? It was destiny you go through hell, but was destiny that you survive it. Think about it like that: you've got a scar running down your chest, but at least there's still a heart in there still beating."

"You're right. I shouldn't think of it that way."

"Cheer up, man. Hey, you've got a birthday tomorrow. That's reason to celebrate, right?"

"Yeah...but...wait a second, how do you know that tomorrow is my birthday?"

"Man, one more question." Link tried to change the subject. "When did you find out about this stuff?"

"Huh?"

"Weed."

"Oh. Couple of years ago, ran into some nomads in the Gerudo desert. Told me all about it. I brought some seeds back to the Deku Tree. He told me it was a plant, a creation of the goddesses just like anything else in the forest. I asked him about its use. He told me that it takes an ingenious mind, or an extremely lucky one, to discover that trying to inhale the smoke from burning a flower could be a positive experience. It wouldn't be a problem, he would allow it to grow with the protection of the forest's magic. He only asked that it never be used for any malicious purposes. It should be respected and appreciated as a product of the earth. Tell you the truth, I don't really see the problem. How could anybody possibly use something that makes you feel this good for anything bad?"

"I hear ya, homie. I hear ya. I think that's the greatest thing you ever did for Hyrule, introducing this into our culture. Here in Goron City, proeduction has doubled on the rock mines, not to mention nobody ever really complains anymore about living in a giant cave with no windows and only one working door. I'm sure it's the same everywhere else."

"Not really, man. Saria and I are the only ones who smoke it in the forest."

"Really?"

"Yeah. We always ask, but they never want to. Their choice."

"Well, I guess that getting high just isn't for everybody."

"Maybe not."

"Well, I gotta get going back. We've got a big race tonight. There's a Goron racing track in the Crater now. Sometime you should bring Malon down for a few races."

"You can make her a custom Goron tunic then."

"Can't she wear a normal one like everybody else?"

"I'm sure she could, Link, but she might not want everybody to see her tits. Well, all right, I have to get this freakin' medicine back to the girls before it gets dark. Take it easy, Link."

"You too, Link." Link and Link shared a quick hug, which almost crushed Link's spine. As the two Links walk back their seperate ways, Link turns back before heading back into the forest.

"Hey Link. Isn't it funny seeing how many times we can say Link and confuse the reader?"

"Dude, it sure is. You made that joke last the whole chapter, too. Nice."

"Thanks. I'll be here all week."

"Just walk your ass back to the forest so we can get on to Chapter 3."

Link shakes his head and waves, laughing to himself as he walks back into the Lost Woods. Little did he know, though, that Chapter 2 is not quite over yet.

---

It is dark outside in the forest. The fairies and spirits light up the area with their dim glow, making a sort of twilight. Malon is mounting Snowstorm, who has an all-white saddle now to compliment her all-whote coat. Link helps her up, and once she is up she leans down a bit to Link.

"I'll see you tomorrow."

"All right."

"I'm bringing Epona. She is dying to see you."

"Thanks."

Malon and Link share a slow kiss. They finally pull away. "Good night." Malon gives Link a very cute smile as she pulls up and begins to ride gently out of the forest.

"Good night..." Link watches as Malon leaves out into Hyrule FIeld. Saria walks up behind Link.

"You're lucky the Deku Tree is letting her enter the forest for you."

"I'm lucky she'll come here to see me." Link and Saria begin to walk towards Saria's house. "I'm suprised she has time with the ranch." Lon Lon Ranch suffered some heavy damage from the siege, but was built right back up. Now bigger and better than before, the ranch was flourishing. New horses, cows, chickens, and other animals were born faster than new barns and stables could be put up. Talon was more sucessful than ever, and immediately began to hire more workers, mainly to get Malon out of the stables and into Link's waiting arms. However, Link had not even left the forest to visit the ranch. Epona hadn't seen a single rider since Link, no matter how many times she went out into the field. It seemed like this everywhere: Hyrule was prospering faster than ever. Yet Link had not seen a glimpse of it.

"It's late, Link. Go get some rest before tomorrow." Saria looked up at Link.

"Yeah, you're right. Whoever gets up first wakes up the other?"

"Just like every other day. Night." Saria jumped up and hugged Link.

"Night Saria." As Saria went into her home, Link turned to walk towards his own. As he began to reach the familar rope ladder, he began to feel slightly strange. He was still sort of high, yeah, but it didn't feel like a buzz. It felt different. Link began to ascend the ladder. The farther up the ladder he went, it felt like the longer the climb to the top. Link got to his feet and prepared to enter his home. As he did, the doorway seemingly followed him. Link was astounded, looking behind him quickly. The door was back in its normal place. Shaking his head, Link walks towards the enterance to his bed chamber. Entering through, he feels the strange sensations for one last time before collapsing onto his bed face-down, his eyes rolling into the back of his head. This was not a drug-induced smiley kind of passing out...some kind of dark force was putting Link to sleep. And it worked. Link lay on his bed, locked in slumber.

Link's eyes slowly opened. He stirred, trying to get a grip on his surroundings. Link remembered nothing: he told Malon good night and that was it. Something put him on his ass and it wasn't the bud. Not something...someone. He was intentionally drawn to wherever he was. How did he know this? Simple: he wasn't anywhere in Hyrule.

All Link saw was white. As far as the eye could see, nothing but white. However, as Link walked forward, he realized that there were solid walls and a floor. There were even doorways, as he walked right into an empty doorframe. Smacking his head and shoulder, he bounced back. The invisible wall only turned the faintest of green, just enough for Link to see an outline of where to walk. Into another room of pure white, only this time he saw a red glow from the walls. The faint random flashing of the red boundaries told him where to go. Into one more room, where Link saw him.

Ganondorf Dragmire.

A little more healthier than before, Ganondorf was still thin and paler. But obviously he was beginning to catch his strength again. He had a new look: the long ugly nose he once had was now normal sized. His fire orange hair was standing up in spikes, and his black cape was now dotted with small white and gold patterns.

"Hey kid."

Link immediately went on the defensive. "What the hell am I doing here?"

"Well, duh. I brought you here. Since you didn't use the Door of Time, you're not here physically. Only in spirit. You're still passed out in your bed. But you'll be there until I decide you can go." Ganondorf was standing. Everything around him was a normal color: the closer Link came to him, the more everything in the room began to take shape. Link was taken back by this. As Ganondorf moved around the room, the aura of colors followed him as the place he once stood returned to white.

"I'll be quick since we don't really like each other. Without the Triforce in its complete form, the Sacred Realm is a world of nothingness. I have only now learned to use my Triforce of Power to see my immediate surroundings. You being in contact with me enables you to do the same. Now, instead of a blank prison I have something resembling a home now. But that's not the point, Link."

As the power increased, eventually the entire room became visible. It had stone-built walls with a few torches. In the room were two chairs and a desk littered with papers. Ganondorf sat at the desk.

"Please, sit."

Link did so, not removing his eyes from Ganondorf.

"Look, man, ease up. I might want your blood, but not now. It's the opposite...we have to work together."

"What? No, fuck that." Link got up as quick as he had sat down. "You're evil, pure and simple."

"No, Ganon is pure evil. I'm Ganondorf, a human being just like you." Ganondorf stood up. "Fine, we'll do it like this. Even though everything was returned to the way it was, the Triforce went back with you and Zelda. I kept my piece, but was doomed to remain here, a place where time doesn't exist. You and Zelda, you've forgotten all about your pieces. I'll never know how: you've had these powers for all this time and never used them. Even when facing Lych, you did not use the Triforce. You defeated him by yourself. Kid, you've got the guts. I respect you for that. But you can't get that lucky again."

Ganondorf pointed directly into Link's face. "Something else is coming, and you'll need a lot more than a lucky shot with a bong to defeat this. You'll need the Triforce. All of it."

"So? All the more reason for me to take you down by force and do what I should have a long time ago."

"Idiot! I don't know if you figured this out or not yet...but the Triforce has a little side effect on its bearers. Watch this." Ganondorf then pulled a large sword from his belt.

"Link, you want to kill me and take the Triforce of Power? Go ahead." Handing the sword over, Link took it. He examined the weapon for a moment, making sure it was not fake or a trick.

"Stab me already, man." Ganondorf opened his outer tunic and exposed his chest. Link shrugged, and crammed the blade in as far as he could, stopping when the handle touched Ganondorf's chest.

"Now...pull...it out..." Ganondorf coughed up blood, and wheezed heavily. Link pulled the blade out...and slowly over the course of thirty seconds Ganondorf's wound sucked in all of the blood lost as it closed up, leaving nothing behind. Not even a scar.

"Yeah, dude." Link was beyond shocked: he almost fainted right then and there.

"We're virtually immortal. The only thing that can stop us is ourselves. So do I have your attention?"

Link nodded slowly.

"Good. Anyways...you're going to need the entire Triforce to defeat this enemy. And as you can tell, I'm not going to just give up my part. If I could, I wouldn't anyway, but if you surrender your piece willingly you die. And there's no way to extract a piece by force, take it from me. I tried, remember? So you're going to just have to take me with you. We'll meet up with Zelda. Only then will I give you any more details."

Link was as skeptic as could be, despite the miracle Ganondorf had just performed. "No way."

"Are you scared I'll be a bad guy again? I'll give you even more proof. I told you, I'm not the King of Evil. Ganon is here too. Come with me." Ganondorf motioned for Link to stand beside him. Link walked over. As he faced Ganondorf, Ganondorf encased the two in an amber crystal.

"And here we...go."

On the word go, everything became white. It flashed from black to white before becoming totally black. Finally, the two stood at the bottom of a giant rockface. It was pitch dark save a giant moon glowing an eerie blue. The bare rockface had a giant inscription in Hylian with each letter at least fifty feet high. A single enterance to a cave inside the cliff stood in the middle of the writing.

"Ganon, King of Evil, rests here."

Link walked forward, but Ganondorf stopped him.

"Don't. Ganon's grave is sealed. This is the true seal of the sages. I'm no threat. I can even leave this realm once I regain my full strength as a human. But the evil you faced...the real terror of Hyrule, is inside that cave."

Link saw the seal in the form of the six Medallions: three on each side of the doorway. Nobody could see the seal itself, but walking through the door would get you zapped instantly.

"I don't understand."

"Okay, kid, the Triforce changed me. It made me somebody I wasn't. Believe me, I was NOT planning on destroying the world like I had. My intentions with the Triforce were a little more homorable: I merely wanted a land for the Gerudo people to call their own. A place where my people could flourish and not be persecuted by the desert hell. But something took over. My simple wish for my people turned into a quest to destroy everything. Eventually Ganon, the evil side of me, adopted his physical form of that demon you fought. The best thing you could have ever done for me was end my human life in Hyrule. I returned here. And a few moments later, so had Ganon."

"Alive?"

"Barely. This is when I learned of the secret of the Triforce and its immortality. It's why I survived in this world. But it came at a cost: I had to finish Ganon off myself. You did a hell of a job, kid. Ganon was so weak would have never harmed another soul. Except for me. I was the only one he could still mess with. In his weakened state, Ganon attempted to fuse himself with me permanently. But he could not succeed, and I basically just cut off his air supply and left him for dead in that cave. Upon my exit, Rauru appeared to me. He let me know I had done the right thing, and I would be rewarded so long as I did not let evil reposess my soul. He and the other Sages then sealed the cave, acknowledging that Ganon was indeed dead. The price I paid was the loss of most of my powers. Even with the Triforce of Power, a part of me was dead."

Ganondorf reactivated the crystal, and the two again stood inside of a jewel.

"Link, we have to stick together. You, me, and Zelda. She is a part of this too."

"Nuh-uh."

Ganondorf grunted and smacked his forehead, then began to raise his voice with Link. "God damn it, Link. How do I convince you? Huh? What do I have to do?"

Link felt something. He looked down at his left hand. The faint glow of the Triforce of Courage stared back at him. As it pulsed, it relayed to Link the urgency of Ganondorf's plea for help. That connection could say more than any words ever could. Link understood now that Ganondorf's pleas were not merely tricks: whatever Ganondorf was talking about, he was genuinely concerned about.

"There. Now do you believe me?"

Link nodded. "Before we do this...what could possibly be so bad that you're willing to jump realms and align with me and Zelda?"

As Ganondorf began to spin the crystal, he only said two words.

"You'll see."

---

Link woke up. He was alone.

"Ganon..."

Sitting up, he checked outside his window. It was barely morning. Rubbing his eyes, he swung his feet out of the bed and got to his feet. "What the hell was that all about?"

Looking out his window again, he sees Saria walking out towards his house. Quickly looking for his trusty green tunic, he finds it and throws it on. Saria is now coming up the ladder. Link finds his hat on the floor. Yanking it up, he positions it on his head as Saria peeks into his house.

"Morning Link!"

Link came outside, squinting at the light. "Hey Saria."

"The Deku Tree...he summoned for you. That's highly unusual. I wonder what he could want...." Saria trailed off. "Probably just wants to say happy birthday."

"Yeah. Probably. I'll get down there now." Link goes for the ladder and slides down as usual. However, upon entering the Deku Tree meadow, he sees the Great Deku Tree...with Ganondorf seated at his trunk, looking back at a very puzzled Link.

"Oh...hey kid. There you are."

As Link and Ganondorf stared each other down, the Deku Tree spoke. "I believe you two know each other."

"You could say that."

"So that dream..."

"No dream." Ganondorf motioned for Link to come join him. "I seriously summoned you to the Sacred Realm and begged you to help me. You weren't high."

"I think I need to be..." Link took a seat a few feet away from Ganondorf. The Deku Tree began to speak.

"Listen to me...Link, the evil this man speaketh of...do not take it lightly. There is a very serious dark power at work. I do not know what it is or where it will strike. But it will strike. Today."

"Today? Thanks for the forewarning."

"Yeah, no shit."

"Link, if this force were to defeat you, nothing could stop it. Not even the goddesses. Hyrule would cease to be. Other countries would feel its effects. This could possibly destroy every known world."

"What do we know about this?"

"I am not priveledged enough to know who is behind it. I can only tell you to find the princess of destiny once again, and travel to the graveyard. I do not know what you will find, only that you will find it. This power...whatever it is...it is strong. Very strong. It seems to be tied into everything. Nothing would be safe from its wrath...not even this forest."

Link and Ganondorf have listened close to the words of this diety of the Kokiri.

"The princess will be here soon. Without knowing it, using the powers of the Triforce you have already summoned her. Go to the graveyard once you meet her. Find whatever is there to find. Defeat this final assault on the land of the goddesses." The Deku Tree became silent. Link and Ganondorf stood to their feet. As they turned, Princess Zelda was standing in the enterance to the meadow.

"This better be good, you two."

---

Somehow, Link managed to sneak the two into his house without anybody noticing. Suprisingly, the entire forest was empty. No Kokiri were in sight. Link did notice, and thought to himself how strange it was. However, that also made it easier to get these two into a place where they could figure everything out. Jolting up the ladder, he almost pushed Zelda up and in.

"Damn, Link. I can only climb so fast."

"Just go." Immediately Link closed the think curtain in front of his door. All three were inside.

"Okay, here's what's going on..." Link started to talk but Ganondorf stupped him.

"Let me explain this." Ganondorf turned to Zelda. "Forget that alternate future shit for a second. Listen to me. When the Triforce is seperated, its power is weakened. Eventually it must be reunited. After Ganon's death, I wanted to know more. How I could have ever became that monster. How anything could even come out of me at all, much less a demon like that. I started looking for something. I thought I had found it. If you remember, when you had destroyed me in my human form the Triforce of Power brought me back to life. I soon learned of the gift of immortality. It isn't flawless. I can be killed, but it would take a Triforce holder to do it."

"So how can you be sure Ganon is dead?"

"Wait a minute, you two. Explain this." Zelda was lost. Link brought her around quickly.

"Ganon was seperated from Ganondorf when they entered the Sacred Realm. Ganondorf killed Ganon and now he's a human."

Zelda turned to Ganondorf. "Ohhhh....okay. Go ahead. "

"Because when I left him for dead, his Triforce turned black. It glowed with a dull color, a dark blue of midnight or the thick grey fog. It came from his hand and evaporated. That's when I began to grow very weak, looking the way I did when you saw me. The time you grabbed the Master Sword. Now do you understand why I was not hostile towards you?"

"No. I really don't."

"Because I found out what Ganon really was. Ganon was all of my worst qualities; all of my greatest fears. My anger, my rage, the thirst for more power, more wealth. If that could have happened to me, it could happen to the two of you. Not could happen. Will happen."

Zelda and Link were cooperative up to this point. Not anymore.

"Wait a minute." Link was the first to talk. "You're saying we're going to turn evil too?"

"No. I'm saying we all have our dark side, and..." Ganondorf stopped. "Tell you what. I know where the tree wants us to go. I found some sort of aura of dark magic being cast from there during my time in the Realm. I couldn't pinpoint where exactly here it is, but Kakariko Graveyard sounds just about right."

Zelda immediately looks down. "That's going to take a while to get there..."

Ganondorf smirks. "Don't you kids know anything about magic?" Ganondorf began to summon up a crystal. Zelda jumped back.

"Oh, no. NO, no, no, fuck you, fuck YOU, I've seen this before! I am not getting in th-" Zelda was cut off when Link jumped in with her, and Ganondorf enclosed the three. Immediately they were shipped off.

---

At the foot of the monument to the fallen soldiers and citizens of Hyrule, three travelers land. Zelda almost falls down after escaping the crystal. Link tries to calm her down, but she runs off. leaning against a fence, she elbows Link hard in the stomach. Link groans and doubles over.

"What the hell was that, Link? Huh?"

Ganondorf stands still, watching from a distance. Zelda looks back at him.

"Just because I can feel you through the Triforce doesn't mean I trust you."

"You trust me because you can feel me."

Zelda stops, and checks on Link. "I'm sorry...it's just that I don't like being trapped in crystals."

"I under...stan..d." Link catches his balance and gets to his feet. Ganondorf walks up to the two. "So, here we are..wouldn't you think we'd know where to go next?"

"Yeah...you're the one who said it was here."

"It is..." Ganondorf looked over at a row of graves. There were several new tombs and graves, with a handful of older ones. Long rows, more rows, short rows...rows of graves littered the plce for what felt like miles. Link remembered a few: the one that led him into the xrypt of the Royal Family, the one where he chased down Dante for the Hookshot. But one caught him. One that he shouldn't have even recognized but he did anyway. The stone was old and weathered, it had to be at least three or four hundred years old. The name on the grave was in ancient Hylian, which Zelda just so happened to know.

"Lych."

Ganondorf and Lych turned over and looked at the grave.

"That's been here for a long time. Lych died six months ago. Not that we'd have given him a proper burial..."

"A different Lych?"

"What Hylian in their right fucking mind names their kid Lych? That's a Lachian name."

All three nodded. This was not the Lych that Link had defeated. Link goes behind the tombstone.

"Hey, there's something written back here..." Zelda crouches down beside of Link and looks. "That's ancient Hylian. I can't make it out...it's so old..." Zelda shrieks when she hears Link and Ganondorf yanking at the heavy stone.

"What are you doing?" This is someone's grave..." The stone is removed to reveal a small narrow set of steps leading underground.

"Well, if it's somebody's grave then they got a split level casket." Ganondorf leads the way down, with Zelda and Link in tow. The area where a casket should have been buried was instead a small vestibule. The walls were sandstone, but dull brown opposed to tan. Link found a torch on the wall and lights it. As Ganondorf finds another one, the room lights up.

"Whoa..."

Against a wall, about nine feet high and fifteen feet long, was an ancient mural. Blocks of ancient Hylian text littered various drawings. Link and Ganondorf could only understand the pictures, as Zelda worked on translating the text. The first image was of the complete Triforce. The second image was the Triforce splitting into three pieces.

"It is inevitable this secret shall come to pass. On this day, the sacred treasure must divide among three owners." Zelda worked quickly.

"Yeah, we know that part." Link and Ganondorf moved on. The third image showed the complete Triforce being sorrounded by a thick black outline, but the black outline is not complete. It shows the black outline fading away. The fourth image is the broken up Triforce. The three pieces individually are coated in the black outline: and are dulled.

"When divided, so is the power of the goddesses. Complete, the power is too great. When seperate, true evil begins to overtake the sacred triangles."

The fifth image is the largest. The divided Triforce is shown twice: once in its normal state and once an extremely dark blue and purple mix. A feint grey glow hazes around it. The two Triforces are shown again overlapping one another.

"The Triforce will become two as will its holders. Dark forces will have their own holders of the sacred triangles. If these dark impostors shadow over the light, all will be lost." Zelda stepped back. "What the hell?"

Ganondorf sat down on a large rock. "What it means, sister, is that I fucked up. By splitting up the Triforce, I allowed the Triforce to copy itself and turn evil. The three holders will morph into alternate beings, who have all the powers that we do."

Zelda looked up from the writings. "So Ganon was..."

"Ganon was my copy. I admit that I'm not the most righteous guy in the world. But I definetely didn't plan on overtaking the world just to destroy it. I wanted to make a world fair for Gerudos. Where Gerudos could socialize with any other race. I guess it was how I did it."

"Yeah, storming the castle and chasing me out just to sneak up on Link probably wasn't the best idea."

"What did you want me to do, have a fuckin' town meeting? Write you a letter of emplorement or some shit? You wouldn't just hand over the Triforce to me."

"Did it ever occour to you that maybe we would have listened to you if you had just been a little bit more diplomatic and a little less creepy?"

"Well, excuuuuuse me princess!"

Link jumped up. "That's my line. Don't you ever use my line again."

"Look, I'm trying to save our lives here. Listen, damnit!" Ganondorf began to shout. Zelda didn't change her mean scowl but was more apt to listen. Link shrugged and calmed down.

"Thank you. Now listen. The only reason I was able to kill Ganon was because you two did a number on him. Problem was, I shouldn't have been able to because you hurt me pretty bad too. Thankfully, you sent us both to the Sacred Realm still alive. I learned everything there. Rauru explained a lot to me when he saw me after I killed Ganon. He told me that there is darkness in all of us, some kind of negative energy. The Triforce feeds off of all energy in a person, both good and bad. This copy, it uses our negative energy and creates an alter-ego, a dark copy. I've faced mine. You two will have to face yours. The only comfort I can give you is that each Triforce has a built-in safeguard, a specific power that helps us battle the copy. Mine allowed me to deliver the death blow to Ganon at the cost of all the power I had gained. I have to relearn all of my powers as a Triforce holder now. Zelda, yours should be coming to you right about now. You will know yours immediately now that you are aware of its presence."

Zelda's eyes shot wide open. "Sheik."

"Yes. Yours is unique: it wasn't created with evil intent, merely posessed by evil. It is still you. So it's possible for you to posess it with the Triforce of Wisdom as long as evil has not infected one of the other two Triforce pieces. That leaves one copy left." Ganondorf turned to Link.

"Yeah?" Link looked up. "And what power do I have?"

"You're going to love this one Link. You can't kill it. But it can't kill you. You can't posess it, and it can't posess you. You can control it, but it can cantrol you. That is all Rauru told me. I'm sorry I can't be of more help, Link. I can only tell you that you must go to the Sacred Realm for your copy to materialize." Ganondorf scratches his temples for a second. "Okay, let's get out of here. I know it's not really a grave, but it still creeps me out."