-Link-

From the moment Ganondorf took on the leader of the Twilight, Link understood instinctively what Ganon wanted from him. Ganon had once taken on the minions of Zant to allow Link to get to Zelda. Now Ganon wanted the reversal, to take on the pale-skinned man and leave the minions to him. So as Ganon threw his full weight and fury into the pale-skinned one and left them behind, Link rushed in, grabbed the woman in the confusion, dragged her into the house, and dropped her in a sturdy corner.

She put up a very mild fight at first, but quickly stopped and huddled in the corner when the situation became clear. The Twilight bared their fangs and claws at the young man, and the young man held a glaive spear at the ready while keeping his back to her.

"Hey, how's it going?" Link wondered.

"I-who-wha?" The woman stumbled over herself. A huge crashing sound exploded nearby and the earth shook as a tree fell beside the house.

Link chuckled and glanced back at her with a reassuring smile. "I'm Link. The big guy back there you probably know." Link's head spun around looking around the building. "Is this where Grumpy-Dick's been? Huh. Not what I would have expected. A little trashed but-"

One of the Twilight entered the house and tried to pounce on them, but Link swiped his glaive'd spear across its body, cutting it deep and causing the area around the cut to burst into blueish flames. The creature survived, barely, and scurried away screaming in pain before being pounced on by its comrades and eaten alive.

An explosion of fire in the distance sharply drew their attention and the building shook beneath their feet. The woman stumbled. She gaped at the power thrown in the distant forest.

"Y-you know him?" She asked.

"Who? Ganon?" The woman nodded. Link nodded. "Yep!"

"How?"

"I-uh..." Link blanked. His mind rushed through memories and events and he wasn't sure how to explain it indepth. "You want the short of it? He tried to kill me. I threw a rock. He lost his shit. I broke him out of jail... k-kinda? Not sure if it counts. Turns out we are related. -um- When there are three sisters who have children, the children are cousins to each other, right?"

The woman stared at him, blankly. Slowly her face fell condescendingly.

"I'm not lying!" Link protested. "Its just... complicated."

Again the earth shook. The Twilight creatures stirred worringly around them, unsure what to do and tense. They bit at each other and glared hatefully at Link. "Din... he really isn't holding back." Link whispered.

The largest creature of the Twilight stepped into view. Link saw on its sides were many liquid sacs. He gripped his spear tighter and adjusted his stance. Would this larger beast come at them? It would be difficult to keep the woman safe if he had to deal with the smaller ones and the large one at the same time.

"There!" The woman suddenly pointed at the creature. "That thing has Malon! It has my daughter!"

"Malon?!" Link gasped. Now that she mentioned it, it did look like there was a human shape curled up inside one of the sacks.

The large one turned its beady eyes on them. Its eyes seemed to slit angrily on seeing Link. A moment later its neck swelled, then its chest, and along with the swelling was a building up glow. "Oh... shit." Link mumbled.

A large plume of liquid fire vomited out from its mouth over them. The woman screamed in agony and fell dieing a slow death. Link grit his teeth and fell to his knees. He had been burned before, but never with something akin to liquid fire. It was a searing, all encompossing, piercing and intense burn he had never felt before. The salt-water treatment he had been tortured with by the Zora was the closest comparison he could latch onto, but even that was a pale candle compared to whatever this was that covered his body. Before his very eyes, his flesh melted off and on looking at his left hand, bone revealed itself as muscle and flesh and blood hung off its frame. His every inch, his every nerve, screamed in his mind as an orchestra of agony and torment. His vision blurred with intoxicating smells and mind-numbing agony. His muscles lost strength as his mind lessened and the fibers fell from his bones. Link fell onto his side.

Link struggled to pull his rational mind together. A moment was all he needed. Slowly he clenched his right hand and called on Farore in his mind. His triangle lit up.

The flesh returned to him, the liquid fire flew off of him, it returned into the creature's gullet, its chest and neck flattened.

Link took a single breath. The creature narrowed its beady, monsterous eyes at him. "MOVE!" Link barked. He grabbed the woman and threw both of them to the side. Half-carrying, half-dragging her out, they ran out of the back hole left by Ganondorf. Just behind them a vat of liquid splattered across the house. The woman's eyes widened. Everything inside melted and sizzled. Its frames weakened and the whole building collapsed on itself. The large beast stepped forward, stomped down onto it, and turned its eyes on them.

A large pillar of fire exploded in the distance and the large beast turned its neck to gaze at it, as did most of the pack.

Link dragged the woman into the midst of the Twilight in his haste, and the creatures leaped at them. Link made short work of them. One knocked the woman down and bit down on her shoulder near the neck, but it didn't get to go further than draw blood before he cut a wide swath from its back shoulder to its waist and through its spine. He pushed the monster off and dragged the woman to her feet. Even with blood dripping down her torso and a hand on her shoulder trying to stave the bleeding, her eyes would not leave the larger monster of the pack.

Link pulled her away, but she wouldn't budge. "No, Malon!" She pointed back.

"I can't defend you and fight that thing at the same time! She is moving. She is alive."

Her face fell and Link's heart broke. He didn't know Malon, though they had met. But she was part of the life of people around him. She was Ganon's ward and to him, that made her family. But there was only so much he could do. He could use his Gift for brief spurts, barely seconds in his own perception. If he went after Malon, then this woman would be torn apart by the Twilight around them.

He hated having to choose. He wished Zelda was here... she would know the answer.

The Twilight's attention was distant. Link took this as an oppurtunity and hid them both behind a ridge nearby where he could watch over the place. If Ganon returned he could do more, but as it was...

Link tore off a sleeve and tightly wound it around the woman's shoulder. She didn't resist him anymore, but sat there looking distant... hopeless. Link sighed. "Look... I can try." He pulled a spare knife from his boot. "But you cannot move. If they catch you, they will likely kill you." The woman gripped the knife tightly with both hands, seemingly afraid of it as much as the things she would have to use it against. Link nodded and peered back over the ridge. Something loud cracked into the air and the earth shook. Something flew through the air. Link's eyes widened he stilled when he recognized it, or rather him.

Ganondorf Dragmire's bloody body skidded across the ground and splashed against the nearby creek. The albino stepped out of the woods, deformed and monsterous. One arm was normal, but the other looked like a mass of thousands of branches akin to spider legs. Before Link's eyes, the arm reformed itself into a semi-normal shape and turned white as snow as the rest of him.

Ganondorf was shrouded in fire and shadow, but as he laid there, it dissipated as dew in the wind.

"Come then, brother. Where is the power you showed before? Where is the rest of you? You have shown him twice now, so where is he?" The albino wondered. He approached closer to Ganon. Ganon awakened, gurgled and groaned, and struggled to his feet. One of his arms hung uselessly on his shoulder and one of his legs was limp. Yet still, he raised himself up on a single leg. He clenched his fist, fire encased it, and he punched the pale man. An explosion of fire ruptured around them.

In the smoke, Link's eyes widened further and Ganon's gasp was audible, as the albino had his fiery hand firmly in his palm. He caught it and was unaffected.

The albino narrowed his eyes. "Is this all? Okay, lets try this."

The hand to have caught Ganon's punch exploded into thousands of spider-leg like appendages, and all at once pierced Gano in a thousand places all over his body with a thousand needles. The heartbeat of Ganon fluttered briefly in Link's hand, but still he stayed as the heartbeat stayed strong. Ganon was powerful, he would get through this! Link needed to protect the woman.

Ganon fell, his entire body limp and useless. The albino kicked Ganon onto his back, stooped down over him, looked down at him. "Do you feel it, brother? The Triple Goddess' rejection? You feel how they reject you as they reject my and our kin? I see from these altars that you are a religious man, yet have they ever answered? What kind of master rejects a devoted servant? Can you see the injustice to you? Can you feel it, the anger, the fury, the wrath? Fight it. Fight them. Fight me. Fight all of it! Unleash fury! There is only one way you will recover from this! Your body is useless and at my mercy. I've pierced a thousand nerves. Now it takes but the slightest stroke and you die. Bring him out and you will live. Unleash the full fury and be reborn and both of our wishes shall be fulfilled! Your choice."

The albino stood, and to punctuate his words, turned one of his arms into a long blade and held it to Ganon's throat. Slight movements on Ganon's part showed he was awake and aware, but as his foe said, his body was useless.

"Come on, Ganon." Link whispered. He clenched his spear tightly, but his blood fell cold. Why wasn't Ganon winning? Why wasn't he fighting?

The albino blinked. "You... want to die?" The pale-skinned man asked, hesitantly. "After everything. Why?"

"I would rather die... than be enslaved... and caged within my body again." Ganon replied.

The albino stared down at Ganon for a long moment, surprised. At last, the man closed his eyes and chuckled lightly. "Amazing. So that very pride of yours, that led you to defy the gods in that war, has now led you to defy yourself!" The man lifted his bade from Ganon's throat and walked away, towards the pack of Twilight. "You truly are different. So how about this?"

The monster lifted the blade towards the sack in the side of the larger Twilight beast, in which was held Malon.

"Heal yourself. Fight me. Bring him out. Save her. Or watch your kin die." Hearing the man's words, Ganon thrashed around violently, but still his body rejected him. "I will hunt down your kin and make you watch as I execute them all one by one until you stop holding back! You are weak, much too weak as you are now. Acknowledge that and maybe, just maybe, there is hope for you." Hearing his words, Ganon continued to thrash more and more, yelling and roaring. Fire built up on his skin and both marks on both hands lit.

"And it starts with the one." The monstrous man plunged his blade-arm into the sack-

Link swiped up his back with his spear. Black blood exploded from the gash and the wound burnt with a white flame.