Dark clouds filled the skies, blotting out the sun and stretching across the horizon further than the eye could see. The darkness was briefly interrupted by the occasional flicker of lightning, each flash accompanied by ominous thunder. Within the walls of Hyrule Castle, the Hylian princess grew uneasy. She felt an almost instinctual plunge of dread as she grew somehow certain, though she knew not how, that an ancient evil had been reborn. Indeed, across the land a harsh laugh could be heard as its owner plotted to reshape the kingdom according to its own demonic designs.

Ganon had returned.

Er... again.

the o'brien corporation shamelessly presents

ganondorf tries to decipher the zelda timeline

“Hahahahahahahahahaaaaahaha, haha, haha... ha, ha... haaaaaah...”

Ganondorf sighed contentedly. Nothing like a good evil laugh to get the ol’ sinister uprising started. He stretched his arms out and breathed in deeply. The Hyrulean air felt so much better than that of the realm that had been his prison for so many years. His gaze fell to his right hand as he felt a familiar tingle play across it. His Triforce piece was resonating. He smirked sinisterly for a moment, until the tingle became too much to bear and he began to scratch furiously upon the crest. Source of most of his godly power it may be, but the Triforce of Power itched like hell.

Finally surrendering to the infernal irritation, Ganondorf resumed his Evil Plotting™. His first act should be to avenge himself against the descendants of those that had imprisoned him in that horrible limbo for so long. Or maybe he should strip the Master Sword, that oh-so-sacred Blade of Evil’s Bane© of its magical properties? Where to begin, where to begin...

Ah. Ganondorf chuckled to himself, containing for the moment the full-blown evil laugh. Yes, before he did anything it was time to regroup his followers. Nothing like minions to take care of your dirty work. Admittedly, Ganondorf wasn’t all that selective about who he recruited into his evil army, and as a result he ended up with society’s rejects more often than not, but ah well. In any case, it was time to get the word out.

Using unclear methods, it wasn’t long before Ganondorf was surrounded by bumbling idiots, every one as loyal as he was stupid. Non-independent thinkers. Just the sort of men a good dictator wanted. They now stood within the halls of a sinister castle Ganondorf somehow owned, in spite of his hundreds-year absence from Hyrule and only recent return. The minions, representative of a variety of species within Hyrule, all gave the mandatory “welcome back” salute in perfect synchronisation, except in the odd case where a bit of bumbling served for some hilarious comic relief to lighten the mood (Moblins). Ganondorf strode back and forth, sizing the men up as he spoke.

“I look around and I see a lot of new faces.”

The monsters laughed sycophantically.

“Be silent!”

They stopped promptly.

“That means a lot of you have been breaking the first two rules of evil club.”

The beasts shifted their collective weight and looked at one another uncomfortably. Ganondorf paused as a slight smile played across his features. He had missed moments like this. He cleared his throat and he spoke in what he liked to call his Plannin’ Voice. “Well, having returned to Hyrule for what I believe to be the,” he paused to note the scratches on the castle walls, “twenty-third time, I believe it may be time to rethink our usual course of action. To begin with, let us evaluate ours and our enemies’ resources. You!” He pointed at a now-quivering Goriya. “How long has it been since I last stood upon Hyrulean soil?”

The Goriya squeaked and began to shake so much he almost blurred around the edges. “Er, sir, it has, um, I believe been exactly several generations. Sir.”

Ganondorf stood frozen with an expression bordering between puzzlement and deep thought. After a moment he slowly retracted his outstretched arm and index finger in the same deliberate motion. Another few seconds passed as he collected himself. “Right.” He nodded at what he assumed to be the same Goriya, but as their features differed only in minute ways it was difficult to be sure. “Er, very good.” He turned and muttered, “I forgot how imprecise Hylian timekeeping methods are...”

The monsters resumed their nervous weight shifting of earlier, until the lull passed and Ganondorf’s voice once more boldly declared his arrogance to the world. “To return to the point I was getting at, I am sure technology has improved immensely during my absence, has it not? I would hate to lose to the Hylians simply because we used such outdated weaponry as bows and blades!” he chuckled.

Their silence unnerved Ganondorf. Finally, a brave, young, and soon to be quite, quite dead, Armos spoke up. “Uhm, sir, there have indeed been considerable advances in the field of war technology, but, er... I am afraid we still rely upon the noble weaponry of old.”

Ganondorf inclined his head slightly, quizzically. “What manner of advances, that we still refuse to throw down our ancient arms and take up newer ones?”

The Armos shook slightly, afraid of this moment. “Er... we now have the ability to, er... swing a grappling device in the midst of battle to, um... steal our enemies Rupees.” He flinched, eyes shut, and braced himself for a violent response that never came. He opened one eye to see a still confused evil king, waiting for more. When it seemed clear that there was nothing to follow, the king slowly, flatly repeated, “A grappling hook. Hundreds of ye-” he corrected himself, “Several generations and this is all we have to show for it. A grappling hook.”

The Armos nodded shakily, and added, “That can steal money.”

“And our enemies’ honour!” defended one brazen Moblin. His brethren all shuffled away from him to indicate that he did not speak for them. They did this in as subtle a manner as they could, which of course involved a lot of clumsiness and falling over as Moblins are bumbling idiots.

Ganondorf breathed in deeply to calm himself down. It did not work. He angrily glared at the recoiling Armos as he raised his Triforce hand, the holy mark emitting a blinding glow as an almost insubstantial greenish orb began to appear above the king’s hand from nowhere. The raging king flung the magical projectile as the unfortunate Armos, whose last thoughts were a mishmash of self-pity and deep regrets for ever having mixed with this sinister group in the first place.

The other minions recovered easily from the killing of their comrade. In spite of the long absence of their evil master, they were all quite used to his extreme methods of punishment, and found it best not to allow thoughts to dwell on the fallen ones. The short attention spans helped too, admittedly.

His rage subsiding for the moment, Ganondorf’s thoughts decided a strategic withdrawal and regrouping was in order. Now, what he really needed was to get away from the general idiocy of his followers, while retaining a few to help with the plotting. Ganondorf snapped his fingers and an axe appeared in his hand. He gave it the merest of glances, cursed beneath his breath for having used the wrong spell, snapped the fingers of his other hand, and was suddenly surrounded by his most trusted minions, and by far the most intelligent of the lot. Admittedly, it was all relative. If you throw a complete idiot into a group of retarded five-year-olds, of course he’s going to look like Einstein.

“We’re going to make a little trip,” Ganondorf told his assembled generals.

“Where to, milord?” Agahnim asked.

“To the Kakariko library!” the King of Evil announced with a dramatic point skyward.

Onox’s gaze followed Ganondorf’s finger. Ganondorf sighed, and adjusted the direction he was pointing to align more with common architectural geography.

* * *

It took a while to find Kakariko. In all his vanity, Ganondorf refused to allow anyone other than himself to lead the party, but his too long absence from the land, coupled with Hyrule’s bizarre tendency to periodically shift both natural and manmade landmarks randomly around the country made this a less than wonderful plan in execution. Anyway, after days of hiking, several arguments, a brief experiment with cannibalism that cost Onox an arm and a leg before someone remembered that they could simply magic some food into existence, more arguing, a second attempt at cannibalism that arose more out of spite than hunger, and the discovery of a horrible secret that I cannot, in good conscience, disclose to you, the group finally reached the end of the sentence.

Then they proceeded to the library.

* * *

The library towered before them in all its majesty, like some majestic, towery thing. Ganondorf held out an arm at a horizontal angle to stop his henchmen. “Right,” he began, pausing to catch the breath that the last paragraph had exhausted from him, “now, I’ve never done this before. I’ll go negotiate a library card or something, you lot fan out and search for what look to be relevant books. Fan out inside the library,” he quickly added, before Onox wandered off too far. He pointed forward in what he hoped was suitably dramatic a motion. “March!”

Inside, the henchmen stared in awe and wonder. The library represented to them a repository of secret information, unattainable to all but the most literate of evil henchmen. As the group dispersed into the depths of the intimidating valleys that lay between the bookshelves, Ganondorf strode confidently up to a woman seated behind a counter. She slightly raised her gaze above the book she was reading, sighed distractedly, and carefully laid it aside, before fixing her face into an oft-practiced false smile. Ganondorf slammed his palms down forcefully on the woodwork as he leaned close and snarled his vile intent; “I, the Great King of Evil Ganondorf, require a library card!”

“Riiiight,” the woman said. She quickly regained her composure and searched for the relevant form, before throwing it down in front of the self-proclaimed king of evil. “Please fill out this form.”

“Uh... okay,” Ganondorf replied slowly. What had happened? In the old days, these mortals would quiver in fear at the mere mention of his name. As he filled in the first question he cleared his throat and began to recite it aloud. “Name?” He fixed his eyes on hers and concentrated. An evil glow began to emanate from them. The king smiled sinisterly. “Ganondorf,” he emphasised. The woman returned his stare blankly. Ganondorf began to panic. What had happened to his reputation? “Look, I’m a very important man,” he said quickly.

“He’s got a tower,” Agahnim added helpfully. Ganondorf glared at his robed supporter. “Sorry,” the priest said, “thought I’d stay with you to lend some support.”

“Just look for some books, please,” Ganondorf said, through gritted teeth. Agahnim gave a half-hearted salute and went to his work.

Ganondorf returned to his enemy. “Right, right... address. Uh... variable.” He looked back up at... Her. “See, I tend to visit dark abodes like the dark world and the evil realm and such. Of course, it’s all very routine for someone such as me.” He gave a slightly mad cackle for effect. She blinked slowly. “Just fill in the form, please.”

At this point Ganondorf surrendered and just got on with it. He mentally added her to his purge list. Her time would come. Oh, yes.

* * *

“Okay, what have we got?”

Ganondorf looked around the table they had secured. Large piles of books covered every inch, their finders standing sheepishly around. Ganondorf took this in, reflecting that he should have specified what they were actually looking for. Well, now was the time, he supposed. “Okay, what I’d like to do is search through the histories of the Hylia for any weaknesses we may exploit in our latest campaign.” He picked up a book at random and began to thumb through it as he continued. “It would be useful to find an up-to-date map of the land while we’re at it. That hike wasn’t very-” he stopped leafing through the book, as he suddenly became aware of something. “Who found this book?” he asked, holding up the cover. It read Hylian Myths and Legends. Shadow Link raised a hand. Ganondorf sighed. “Of what use are myths and legends to us?” he questioned the group as a whole. They looked around at one another worriedly, as Shadow Link shrugged. Koume spoke up.

“We did our best to find historical tomes,” she began, “but none could be found,” finished Kotake.

Ganondorf rubbed his temples. The first thing he was going to do when he got into power was introduce Hyrule to the concept of recording history. “Very well,” he said finally. “We’ll just, er... have to use these myths as a basis for establishing a workable timeline.”

“I don’t know, Lord Ganon,” risked Zant in quivering tones, ever afraid to question his god in anything. “It says here that Hylian legendarians have tries for generations to do such a thing.”

“Well,” Ganondorf said, rubbing his hands together enthusiastically. “They didn’t have someone who not only lived during, but was actively involved in all the most important events in Hyrulean history.”

The others exchanged bewildered looks. “Who would that be, then?” asked Agahnim.

“Me!” Ganondorf snapped, the dams of his patience bursting under the pressure of his followers’ collective idiocy, like some kind of bad simile.

“Huh, wasn’t around for all my conquests,” Vaati muttered.

“But, uh, milord... haven’t you spent most of your life in realms that exist outside of Hyrule?” braved Agahnim.

“Yes, what’s your point?”

“Anyway, all he ever did was sit in his castle all day long. Not much involvement, you as’ me...” Vaati continued.

Agahnim ignored him. “Well, uh... no matter how much of an impact your previous visits have had, you just can’t ignore hundreds of years-”

“Several generations,” corrected Veran.

“Right, several generations of history.”

Ganondorf held up the anthology of legends. “Look, this is all we have to work with, okay? Let’s just see where we get!”

They all muttered their agreement. Nobody dared brave Ganondorf when his nostrils were flaring like that, or his face was beginning to match the colour of his hair, or... well, you get the idea. Without exception, none would question Ganondorf when he was this enraged. Well, almost without exception.

“Calm down, son,” Koume said softly. Kotake hovered over to him. “Come on, Ganny, we’ll do our best. We just have to acknowledge the difficulty of the task.”

“I just want to steal the kingdom from its rightful rulers,” Ganondorf quietly said. “It that so bad?”

“Of course not... we’re behind you every step of the way, Ganny! Right?” Kotake glared at the rest, a blue manifestation of magic forming in her hand. “Yes, ma’am!” the craven cowards promptly replied.

“Thanks, mum... mums,” Ganondorf sobbed. “Um... could you call me Lord Ganon while we’re with the group?”

* * *

Zant and Agahnim pored through their respective tomes. “Hey!” Agahnim suddenly cried. “It says here I’m just an alter-ego of Ganon!”

“So?” Zant screeched, in that characteristic way of his. “I read in this a while ago that Lord Ganon snapped my neck with his last breath when that horrible boy killed him! Snapped my neck? Really? It was symbolism!”

“Alter-ego? Alter­-ego? What, like I don’t have a personality of my own? Oi! Ganon!”

“Lord Ganon!” the evil king barked.

“Whatever. Am I you, or am I me?”

“What?”

“This guy thinks I’m just a manifestation of your will!”

“Well? You are!”

“What?”

Zant spoke up. “It says here you snapped my neck that one time you died.”

Ganondorf’s brow furrowed, as he tried to recall. “Which time? That time I got four silver arrows in the heart? Or just the one? Or when I got stabbed in the foreh-”

“Stabbed in the chest.”

Ganondorf’s eyes momentarily flashed a fierce red. “That? It was symbolism!”

“That’s what I said!”

“So wait, if I’m not really me, then who’s doing the asking? And who’s thinking my thoughts? Or am I even thinking anything?”

“Clearly not,” Ganondorf muttered, returning to his own book. He almost immediately flung it down angrily. “Look, this isn’t working! Let’s use some primary sources!”

“Like what?” asked Agahnim, huffily.

“Games and manuals,” Ganondorf answered, snapping his fingers, causing said apparati to appear, along with another damn axe.

“So, will we continue looking through these, then?” asked Zant. Ganondorf shrugged. “Sure, why not?” He began to set up an SNES and play on a TV that was somehow there.

* * *

“Okay, I think I’ve cracked it,” Onox declared triumphantly, holding up his illiterate scribblings like a holy grail.

“Shoot,” Agahnim prompted, trying to ignore the annoying button mashing as Ganondorf tried to kill himself.

“Right, well, I think I should preface this by saying that I’ve excluded the Four Swords subseries, which obviously don’t count.”

“What?” cried Vaati, his entire body narrowed at Onox. [1]

“Well, I mean, come on. They’re so loosely connected to the rest of the timeline. They can’t be canon.”

“Excuse me? Excuse me? They can’t be canon? Hello! What am I doing here right now! Am I existing? Why yes, I am! I think the Four Swords games are fucking canon!”

Onox coughed nervously, and shuffled his papers. “Anyway, Ocarina of Time is first, obviously. Next is A Link to the Past, since Ganon was still in the dark world during.”

“I was in the whatnow?” Ganon asked distractedly, as his in-game representation dealt his onscreen avatar a devastating blow with some kind of spiralling trident manoeuvre. “Man, I’m really tough,” the king lamented, as he redoubled his efforts.

“Right. Anyway,” Onox scanned his childish scrawls for his place. “The Legend of Zelda is next, ’cause I feel like it. Then the Oracle games, followed by Link's Awakening.”

“Why Link's Awakening?” queried Veran.

“Oh, I’ve thought about it long and hard. Rest assured, it falls neatly into place.”

“Right. Because?”

“Well, there are many reasons.”

“Of which one is...” the shadow sorceress prompted.

“Oh, well, if you must know... Link's Awakening follows the Oracle games, because...” the dark knight breathed in deeply. “’coslinkhasaboat.” He flinched instinctively.

“What?” Agahnim asked.

“Because...” Onox repeated slowly. “Link has a boat. I hate when people don’t listen.”

“So you’re saying that you can pinpoint where something falls into place chronologically, based on the existence of a boat?”

“Well, yeah. Don’t you know how rare those things are?”

“This is completely stupid,” Veran said, shaking her head. “I mean, the boats don’t even look the same.”

“Yeah. That’s why it’s stupid,” Agahnim growled.

“Wait, what about Wind Waker?” asked Vaati. “Or Adventure of Link. Doesn’t he get boats in those games?”

“Keep out of this! You don’t even exist!” Onox roared.

“Will you guys keep it down?” Ganon shouted angrily. Suddenly, he swore loudly. “Look what you guys did! You got me killed! Now Link’ll never save Hyrule!” he lamented.

There was a long silence.

“Does this mean we can take over the world now?” braved Onox.

“What?” Ganondorf carefully considered this, and decided he did not care much for Onox’s opinions on the great tragedy that had just occurred.

The others exchanged worried looks, as they watched the anger rise. Onox, oblivious to the suffering he was about to endure, reported his progress. “I’ve figured out the timeline, by the way.”

Ganondorf paused to reflect on this one too. Timeline? Oh, yes… timelines… yes… He shook his head and instantly forgot about the game.

“What’ve you got?” he asked.

“A load of rubbish,” snorted Veran derisively.

Onox glared. “Look, what’ve you come up with that’s better?”

“I haven’t,” she shrugged. “It’s impossible. They don’t fit.”

“Defeatist,” muttered Onox, trying to ignore Ganondorf peering over his shoulder at his work.

“You left out the Four Swords games,” he observed. Vaati tried not to look smug, which wasn’t difficult given how hard it is for giant floating eyes to display emotion.

Ganondorf picked up Onox’s scrolls for a closer look, his lips moving as he attempted to digest the poorly-constructed writings, as his trusted servants tried to get back to their work. When they heard him place the papers back down, they all looked up expectantly, but they had to wait a little longer, as Ganondorf began pacing back and forth, muttering to himself. Finally, he stopped, aware of the staring.

“Right… I’ve decided to set aside the mystery of the timeline for now. Has anyone found an atlas? Let’s see if we can figure out what the current geographical state is.”

* * *

It was tough going. They had found several atlases, all with conflicting maps and none dated anything beyond “first publishing several years ago, this edition this year.” [2]

Ganondorf, peering peripherally at the dreaded librarian, slowly and carefully began to tear out the maps from their bindings, his back hiding his vandalisms from the girl, while he labouriously put all his effort into doing so noiselessly. She didn’t appear to notice, too engrossed was she her book. (As a matter of fact, she knew perfectly well what Ganondorf was doing. She just didn’t care to do anything about it right away.)

Finally, after a few slow minutes of painfully methodical work, Ganondorf lay out the various maps across the table, shoving aside several thick volumes by Vaati’s chair (“Hey!”) to make room. Ganon ignored Vaati, who was glaring at him, as he cleared his throat, though not so loudly as to get the attention of the librarian. (She simply sighed distractedly and read on.)

“Okay, it seems to me we have a slight problem here,” he said, in the manner of one presenting his comrades with shocking news. The others responded by looking at one another with falsely surprised expressions, (“No!” “Say it isn’t so!”) with the notable exceptions of Onox and Vaati, the former of whom was also wearing an expression of shock, but in his case it was difficult to be sure if he too was acting or if he was truly sincere. The latter had assumed his human form, and was presently ducked under the table gathering his scattered books, oblivious to all but his anger at their dark lord’s inconsiderate attitude.

Ganondorf motioned for silence, “I know, I know.” He paused, his head bowed and his left hand on his chin, thinking how best to tackle this issue. The others sat bored around him, as they waited patiently for another thought to strike their lord. Finally, as a distressed looking Vaati stood up carefully, attempting to keep balanced an unsteady stack of books, Ganondorf clapped his hands mightily (knocking Vaati over in the process), a slightly manic expression of glee on his face. “I’ve got it!” he yelled triumphantly over Vaati’s curses. The librarian caught Ganon’s eye, and, in compliance with an unspoken understanding that passed between them he lowered his voice. “I’ve got it,” he whispered hoarsely, hoping his followers would assume he’d adopted such a windpipe-damaging tone of his own volition for dramatic effect, and not because he so blatantly feared the perfectly ordinary woman sitting behind the counter. Not even Onox was fooled.

“What we must do,” the dark lord continued in his painful sounding whisper, “is look for the similarities between all the maps, and figure out where the land is most, ah... stable.” Ganon coughed, and when he spoke again his voice had returned to its normal volume, his throat obviously aching from the prolonged dramatic effect. “We will start with Death Mountain, which is usually to be found in the north,” he pointed to a map to demonstrate his point. The map was headed “Hyrule, chosen land of the gods: circa A Link to the Past.”

Agahnim and Veran exchanged glances, both thinking the same thing: it took him that long to decide on this course of action?

Koume and Kotake spoke up, “But son,” one began, “here Death Mountain lies to the south,” the other continued. “And the east according to this,” “and west on this,” they finished in irritating turn-based fashion. Ganon looked at this maps his mothers pointed out. “Ah, but see here,” he said, noticing something in one. “Death Mountain is the only familiar landmark here. Obviously, we’re looking at a map of Hyrule’s northerly region.” He nodded, satisfying himself with the explanation. When no-one else spoke up, Agahnim decided it was up to him to point out the folly in their lord’s reasoning. “This southern region here says ‘Death Mountain Area’,” he pointed out. “It appears to be only,” he squinted slightly, his lips moving in silent calculation, “two yards wide. It is surrounded on all sides by sea and mountain.”

Agahnim looked up at his master, feeling his point had been made, but he forgot it was Ganon he was talking to. He continued, “You are proposing that the entirety of this region,” and here he pointed to a map rich with a wide variety of terrains - desert, forest, plain - along with several towns and villages, “is two yards across.”

At this point, Vaati made a distraction by standing up and spilling his load of books across the table, obscuring the maps with such rivetting titles as The Triforce Delusion and The Donavitch Code. Glaring briefly at him, Ganon turned back to Agahnim. “Of course not. I’m merely claiming that the region is two yards across at that time.” He pushed a few of Vaati’s books aside to point once more at the map they were discussing.

Agahnim rolled his eyes. “And how did the area become so small?” he asked.

“Erosion,” Ganon responded without missing a beat. Agahnim rolled his eyes again and bowed theatrically. “I bow to your wisdom.”

Noting that he’d actually succeeded in flattering the king, the priest decided to be more obvious. He allowed his shoulders to sag in a highly exaggerated manner and spoke in a tone of mock dejection, “I only wish I were capable of such intellectual feats.”

Ganondorf clapped Agahnim on the back good-naturedly. “No need to be so despondent,” he said cheerily, completely misreading the now grimacing priest. “After all, the best way to strengthen a theory is to try to break it.”

“What about the east and west mountains?” Veran asked, the words belying the indifference she felt toward this whole endeavor.

Ganon’s smile faded at the reminder that he would have yet more struggle ahead to gain this victory. He dug through Vaati’s books until he procured the maps in question. He read the titles on each, with furrowed brow. “‘Hyrule, chosen land of the gods: circa Twilight Princess (Gamecube)’ and ‘circa Twilight Princess (Wii).’ What could it mean?” he asked, as Onox giggled. “Wee,” he laughed. “Wee on the TP.” He laughed again. Ganondorf shook his head. “Child,” he muttered, as he studied the two maps, suddenly noticing something odd about them. “These are mirrors of one another,” he commented confusedly, showing the maps to the others. And so they were.

“Maybe...” Onox began, promptly stopping as all heads turned to him. He inhaled and exhaled deeply, gathering himself again. “Maybe there’s another world, parallel to this one, in which this inverse geography exists. Some kind of mirror universe?”

“Don’t be preposterous,” Ganondorf spat. “And where did this other world originate, hm?”

Onox thought a moment, a challenging exercise for him. “Perhaps it siphoned off from this world when that green-clad boy travelled back to the past that one time?” he proposed, after some shallow thought.

“Interesting,” Ganon mused. “What you’re proposing is some kind of split timeline?”

“Uh...” Onox thought back over what he’d just said. He hadn’t really been paying attention. “Yeah,” he agreed lamely.

Agahnim decided not to bother rolling his eyes again. His eye sockets were feeling a little fatigued. A split in the timeline? Ridiculous.

Ganon didn’t think so. In fact, he was sounding more exciting than ever. “That’s it!” he cried triumphantly, slamming a fist down into his open palm dramatically and pretending not to notice the stinging pain that resulted. “If we can somehow open a gateway between the two times, we can meet up with the alternates uses, join our forces, and conquer this damned kingdom once and for all!” He burst out laughing, the cruel reverberations echoing off the walls of the library, magnifying his cold laugh to truly terrifying proportions. Outside, thunder rolled. The lightning that had preceded it, alas, could not be seen from within the library, and thus its dramatic effects were wasted. Ganondorf’s laugh continued nonetheless, only stopping when the librarian caught his eye again.

When the echoes died down Zant, shivering with suppressed joy that his god would at last take the rule of this wretched kingdom from those horrible light dwellers, asked Ganon, “And then, my hallowed lord? What shall we do when this land is ours?”

Ganondorf, in the midst of rubbing his hands together gleefully, stopped shortly. “Er...” The truth was, he hadn’t given it much thought... he just knew somehow that when he ruled the land, things would be... better. Someway. Somehow. After ten agonising seconds, he narrowed his eyes at Zant. “Not telling,” he told the young acolyte petulantly.

Agahnim spoke up again. “So, shall we get going? What’s our master plan? How exactly are we going to travel to this supposed mirror realm?”

Ganondorf smiled wryly, and breathed in deeply, as if ready to launch into an explanation, but luckily for him everyones’ attentions were diverted before he could reveal his incompetence. (Or rather, his incompetance in this particular area too.)

The doors of the library burst open, perfectly timed with a brilliant flash of lightning. Ganondorf shielded his eyes as he peered at the doorway, where a figure stood. A lone boy, no older than twelve, stood with an air of defiance, a faint blue glow from the sword held in his left hand illuminating his features. He wore a tunic of dull green, darker in patches where the rain outside had soaked it. The boy’s blond hair had mostly remained dry, kept so by a long pointed hat, the same shade of green as his tunic. The boy’s steely blue eyes were narrowed with a look of fierce determination.

“Oh, damn,” Ganon groaned. “Anyone here any good at tennis?” he asked his assembled generals. They all shook their heads, some (mercifully) confused.

Ganon sighed. The Triforce symbol on his hand glowed briefly, as he began to summon up dark energies for a purple ball of black magic to hurl at the boy. Veran shook her head, while Agahnim asked, “Er... how about instead of attacking with the usual black magic tennis ball you try out a new technique?”

“Tradition!” Ganon barked, and he flung the attack at the boy, only to have it bouce back in their direction when the boy swung his sword to deflect the ball.

Onox watched the ball’s progress with detached interest, as did Veran, though she more for reasons of apathy than stupidity. Zant bowed his head in prayer, deciding he’d rather not address his god directly, who was busy cursing as though this were not an entirely predictable development. Agahnim simply sighed for the last time, privately looking forward to their oncoming demise. He would welcome a few generations separated from this idiotic group.

As the last electric crackles of black magic ceased and the dark group lifelessly fell to the floor, the boy, giving a slight nod to indicate satisfaction at a job well done, left the library. The librarian licked her index finger and turned the page.

The End

[1] He's a big giant eye, damn it!

[2] There has been much debate amongst Hylian scholars as to why so many diverse maps of Hyrule have surfaced. The most popular conclusions are that either mapmaking was not an exact science, or that the gods tended to alter the geography of their world out of contempt for cartographers.

Afterword

This story began as a chapter for something I wrote on fanfiction.net a few years ago entitled Ganon and the Tribe of Evil, a series of stories based around the various misadventures of Ganon and his assorted cronies. Long after I abandoned the project I still retained the idea of Ganon and his followers trying to sort out the timeline. I figured it was a story that still had potential, and the concept amused me enough that I decided I had to actually write it sometime. Alas, procrastination and exams occurred, and I only got around to writing the thing a few months after the release of Twilight Princess (hence the introduction of Zant). Procrastination happened again (it's a frequent affliction for me), and for months the story lingered unfinished. I'd written as far as Onox's bastard attempt at a timeline and then just stopped.

Well, recently I picked it up again and wrote until I finally got to write those long sought words "The End". If the story comes across as first-draughty it's because it is. Aside from some very small changes here and there the story is largely unchanged from what I first wrote into MS Word on those two occasions. The long pause between writing is most apparent, I feel, in the characterisation of Ganondorf, who suddenly becomes much more of an idiot for the latter end of the tale.

This is not something I intend to fix, but I figure I should at least point it out. I was never too concerned with consistency in the writing of this little tale (though I do at least apologise if the half-baked characterisation makes for a slightly jarring reading experience.)

Anywho, reviews would be most welcome, particularly of the constructive variety, though flames are an endless source of amusement to me, so feel free to satisfy me thusly.

Fintin "Freeq Runner" O'Brien

both of which are pseudonyms (isn't the internet great?)

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